DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Status
This office action is in response to the communication(s) filed on 08/21/2026.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-12, and 15-16 is/are currently presenting for examination.
Claim(s) 1, 8, and 15-16 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-12, and 15-16 is/are rejected.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/21/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 08/21/2026 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-12, and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US_20200106573_A1_Cirik in view of US_20210410180_A1_Tsai.
Regarding claim 1, Cirik teaches a method comprising: transmitting a first random access preamble on a first bandwidth part (BWP) among a plurality of BWPs configured for data transmission in a radio resource control (RRC) inactive state (RRC_INACTIVE) (Cirik figure 26B, preamble transmission on second UL-BWP at time T2; paragraph 301, “…if a wireless device in an RRC inactive state has one or more packets, in a buffer, to transmit to a network, the wireless device may initiate a random access procedure to transmit one or more packets to a base station of a cell that the wireless device selects…”, paragraph 584, plurality of downlink and uplink BWPs), wherein, based on the first random access preamble being transmitted, a monitoring timer is started (Cirik figure 26B, preamble transmission on second UL-BWP at time T2; paragraphs 596-597, “…transmitting, in a first slot, at least one preamble via at least one PRACH resource of the second uplink BWP for the random-access procedure (at time T2 in FIG. 26B)… in response to transmitting the at least one preamble in the first slot, the wireless device may start, from a second slot, a configured response window (e.g., ra-responseWindow)”. That means, a timer for monitoring the response is started); switching from the first BWP to a second BWP among the plurality of BWPs, based on expiry of the monitoring timer (Cirik figure 26B, preamble retransmission on third UL-BWP at time T5; paragraph 599, “…configured response window may expire…In response to the configured response window expiring and the wireless device not receiving the DCI ( e.g., scrambled by C-RNTI) or a random-access response comprising the random-access preamble identifier being associated with (or corresponding to) the at least one preamble, the wireless device may consider a reception of the random-access response unsuccessful and may increment a preamble transmission counter variable (e.g., PREAMBLE_TRANSMISSION_COUNTER) by one”, paragraph 602, switching from the second UL-BWP to the third UL-BWP); and transmitting a second random access preamble on the second BWP (Cirik figure 26B, preamble retransmission on third UL-BWP at time T5; paragraph 602), but does not explicitly teach transmitting random access preamble with data, and monitoring a positive response message of the data based on the monitoring timer being running.
Tsai from the same or similar fields of endeavor teaches: transmitting random access preamble with data (Tsai paragraph 215, “The SDT configuration may include a BWP indicator: A specific BWP (ID) may be configured for the UE to use in RRC_INACTIVE (e.g., for small data transmission). For example, the UE may switch its active BWP to the specific BWP when entering RRC_INACTIVE or when initiating SDT (e.g., with CG). The UE may perform small transmission (e.g., via CG for SDT) on the specific BWP. The specific BWP may be an initial BWP, a default BWP, a BWP for SDT, and/or a specific BWP which was used as an active BWP when the UE was in RRC_CONNECTED before entering RRC_INACTIVE. The BWP indicator may be included in the CG configuration for SDT”), and monitoring a positive response message of the data based on the monitoring timer being running (Tsai paragraph 220, “…The UE may (re)start a response timer 110 after initiating the initial/new transmission 103. The response timer may be (re)started after an offset 109 after initiating the initial/new transmission 103. The UE may monitor the PDCCH 140 while the response timer 110 is running”).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Tsai into Cirik, since Cirik suggests a technique for preamble transmission, and Tsai suggests the beneficial way of perform small data transmission with preamble in the RRC_INACTIVE state so that/thus allows UE to send or receive small amounts of data without performing a full state transition to RRC_CONNECTED in the analogous art of communication.
Regarding claim 2, Cirik and Tsai teach the method of claim 1, and Cirik further teaches wherein transmitting the first random access preamble on the first BWP comprises transmitting the first random access preamble on random access resources configured for the first BWP (Cirik figure 26B, preamble transmission on second UL-BWP at time T2; paragraph 588, “… the configuration parameters may comprise one or more first PRACH resources ( or occasions) on the second uplink BWP and one or more second PRACH resources (or occasions) on the third uplink BWP”, paragraph 596, “…transmitting, in a first slot, at least one preamble via at least one PRACH resource of the second uplink BWP for the random-access procedure (at time T2 in FIG. 26B)”), and Tsai further teaches transmitting random access preamble with data (Tsai paragraph 215, “The SDT configuration may include a BWP indicator: A specific BWP (ID) may be configured for the UE to use in RRC_INACTIVE (e.g., for small data transmission). For example, the UE may switch its active BWP to the specific BWP when entering RRC_INACTIVE or when initiating SDT (e.g., with CG). The UE may perform small transmission (e.g., via CG for SDT) on the specific BWP. The specific BWP may be an initial BWP, a default BWP, a BWP for SDT, and/or a specific BWP which was used as an active BWP when the UE was in RRC_CONNECTED before entering RRC_INACTIVE. The BWP indicator may be included in the CG configuration for SDT”).
Regarding claim 3, Cirik and Tsai teach the method of claim 1, and Cirik further teaches wherein transmitting the second random access preamble on the second BWP comprises transmitting the second random access preamble on random access resources configured for the second BWP (Cirik figure 26B, preamble transmission on third UL-BWP at time T5; paragraph 588, “… the configuration parameters may comprise one or more first PRACH resources ( or occasions) on the second uplink BWP and one or more second PRACH resources (or occasions) on the third uplink BWP”, paragraph 602, “…transmitting, in a third slot, at least one second preamble via at least one second PRACH resource of the third uplink BWP for the random-access procedure (at time TS in FIG. 26B)”), and Tsai further teaches transmitting random access preamble with data (Tsai paragraph 215, “The SDT configuration may include a BWP indicator: A specific BWP (ID) may be configured for the UE to use in RRC_INACTIVE (e.g., for small data transmission). For example, the UE may switch its active BWP to the specific BWP when entering RRC_INACTIVE or when initiating SDT (e.g., with CG). The UE may perform small transmission (e.g., via CG for SDT) on the specific BWP. The specific BWP may be an initial BWP, a default BWP, a BWP for SDT, and/or a specific BWP which was used as an active BWP when the UE was in RRC_CONNECTED before entering RRC_INACTIVE. The BWP indicator may be included in the CG configuration for SDT”).
Regarding claim 4, Cirik and Tsai teach the method of claim 1, further comprising configuring an initial BWP for connecting the network and the plurality of BWPs for data transmissions in RRC_INACTIVE (Cirik figures 22-23, 24B, 26B, and paragraph 263-265, 528-535, default BWP 0, initial BWP 1, and BWP 2, BWP 3, wherein default BWP 0 as a fallback, the initial BWP 1 is for connecting the network, and BWP 2 and BWP 3 can be used for data communication).
Regarding claim 5, Cirik and Tsai teach the method of claim 1, and Cirik further teaches wherein transmitting the first random access preamble with the data on a first BWP comprises: transmitting the first random access preamble with the data on the first BWP repeatedly based on the monitoring timer is running (Cirik paragraph 599, “…In response to the configured response window expiring and the wireless device not receiving the DCI ( e.g., scrambled by C-RNTI) or a random-access response comprising the random-access preamble identifier being associated with (or corresponding to) the at least one preamble, the wireless device may consider a reception of the random-access response unsuccessful and may increment a preamble transmission counter variable (e.g., PREAMBLE_TRANSMIS SION_COUNTER) by one”).
Regarding claim 8, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Cirik further teaches an user equipment (UE) comprising: at least one processor; and at least one computer memory storing instructions (Cirik figure 3).
Regarding claim 9, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 2.
Regarding claim 10, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 11, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claim 12, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 5.
Regarding claim 15, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Cirik further teaches an apparatus for a user equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: at least one processor, and at least one computer memory operably connectable to the at least one processor and storing instructions (Cirik figure 3).
Regarding claim 16, Cirik and Tsai teach the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Cirik further teaches A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program instructions that, when executed by at least one processor (Cirik figure 3).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WEIBIN HUANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3695. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:30AM - 6:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached at (571)272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/W.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
Prosecution Insights