DETAILED ACTION
Response filed on 9/18/2025 has been entered and made of record.
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
Claims 18, 22, and 26 are amended.
Claims 1-17, 20, 24, and 28 are canceled.
Claims 18-19, 21- 23, 25-27, and 29 are pending for examination.
Response to arguments
Re: 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection.
Applicant’s response has been fully considered but is moot in view of claim amendments are new grounds of rejection.
35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection is not withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 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.
Claims 18, 22, and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over R2-2007033, “ Overview of NR MBS”, 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #111-e Electronic meeting, 17th – 28th August 2020, hereinafter “vivo” in view of Ronneke Has Bertil et al. (WO-2021229346-A1), hereinafter “Hans”.
Claims 18, 22, and 26:
Regarding claim 18, Vivo teaches, a method for processing multicast and broadcast services (MBS) data by a user equipment (UE) (see [Introduction]), the method comprising: switching a radio resource control (RRC) state to an RRC inactive state (implied by the disclosure by vivo: § 2.2, “To support the IDLE/INACTIVE UE reception of the MBS service, we could have the following options:
Option 1: The MBS configuration is sent via the RRC release message.”; a release message would switch a radio resource control state to an RRC inactive state);
receiving a paging message transmitted from a base station according to MBS session activation or MBS data reception of the base station (vivo: § 2.2 if the network wants to update the MBS configuration, the network would also need to page the UE in order to provide the updated MBS configuration to the UE.”).
Regarding claim element, initiating an RRC connection resume procedure for an RRC state change based on the paging message, though vivo does not expressly teach it, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to come up with this claim element based on vivo disclosure, “The drawbacks of Option 1 is that it requires the UE to enter the CONNECTED” (vivo: §2.2). RRC connection establishment is necessary so that MBS service configuration could be sent to the UE via dedicated message. Vivo discloses, “the dedicated signalling would be faster than the broadcast signalling for the CONNECTED UE” (§ 2.2).
Vivo does not expressly teach, ‘wherein initiating the RRC connection resume procedure is triggering the RRC connection resume procedure when the UE joins an MBS session included in the paging message’, but in the same field of endeavor Hans teaches the claim, implied by the following:
Fig.5, steps 7-9 “ UEs respond to the Group paging e.g. by sending UL NAS MB Session Join Request (TMGI) to AMF (see clause 6.2.2.1 step 6 to 8);
Fig.5, steps 11 “If there are UEs in CM-Connected with RRC_INACTIVE state with the TMGI in their UE Contexts, NG-RAN performs the Network triggered transition from RRC_INACTIVE to RRC_CONNECTED procedure for those UEs (see TS 38.300 [x])”;
[0086] (in reference to Fig.7) “This is probably the most common sequence for mission critical group calls. FIG. 8 shows the sequence for the first UE in a cell, i.e. when the MB Session resources has to be established in the cell before reception can commence.”; and
[0087] (in reference to Fig.7 step 1) “The new UE indicates its interest to join the MB Session by sending an UL NAS MB Session Join Request (TMGI) message.”.
The disclosures above by Hans shows that joining the MBS session happens after triggering from network and that the transition to RRC_CONNECTED state, implying connection resume procedure.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Hans with that of Huawei to come up with the claimed invention motivated by joining an MBS session when triggered by network.
Claims 22 is for method by a base station, the method being complimentary to the method by user equipment of claim 18. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 18.
Claim 26 is for user equipment performing method of claim 18. The claim is change in category with respect to claim 18. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 18.
Claims 19, 23, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over combination of vivo and Hans as applied to claim 18 above, and further in view of R2-2007029, “IDLE/INACTIVE UE support for NR MBS”, 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #111-e, Electronic meeting, 17th – 28th August 2020, hereinafter “Huawei”.
Claims 19, 23, and 27:
Regarding claim 19, vivo teaches the method of claim 18 (discussed above).
Vivo however fails to expressly teach but in the same field of endeavor Huawei teaches, wherein the paging message includes one or more pieces of MBS session identification information, and wherein the MBS session identification information includes at least one of temporary mobile group identity (TMGI), MBS session identifier (ID), and internet protocol (IP) multicast address information (Huawei: 2.3.2 “to avoid bringing the UEs that are not interested in this service to RRC_CONNECTED state, assistant information, i.e. the service ID or TMGI of this service, might be included to the paging message.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Huawei with that of combination of vivo and Hans and come up with the claimed invention to avoid bringing the UEs that are not interested in this service to RRC_CONNECTED state, as disclosed by Huawei.
As per discussion above in claim 18, claims 23 and 27 are also rejected based on rejection of claim 19.
Claims 21, 25, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over vivo as applied to claim 18 above, and further in view of Fujishiro et al. (US 20190182632 A1), hereinafter “Fujishiro”.
Claims 21, 25, and 29:
Regarding claim 21, vivo teaches the method of claim 18 (discussed above).
Vivo however fails to expressly teach but in the same field of endeavor Fujishiro teaches, wherein the switching further includes suspending an MBS radio bearer for the MBS session (Fujishiro: [0089] The UE 100 may receive the MBMS service in the RRC connected mode. The UE 100 may receive the MBMS service in the RRC idle mode. In the following, the case where the UE 100 receives the MBMS service in the RRC idle mode is mainly assumed. It is noted that the RRC idle mode includes a suspend state. In the suspend state, since the context information of the UE 100 is maintained in the eNB 200, the RRC connection can be promptly restored.”.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Fujishiro with that of vivo so as to maintain the context information in the suspend state and promptly restore RRC connection as described above.
As per discussion above in claim 18, claims 25 and 29 are also rejected based on rejection of claim 20.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462