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 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.
Claim(s) 11, 22-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deenoo US 20220394583 in view of Ericsson (Handling of a HO command while UE is monitoring CHО)
11. A method implemented in a radio access network (RAN), communicating with a user equipment (UE) in dual connectivity (DC), for managing a conditional configuration during deactivation of a secondary cell group (SCG) (Deenoo: fig. 6 [0069]), the method comprising:
providing, from the RAN and to the UE, the conditional configuration related to a DC procedure and a condition to be satisfied before the UE applies the conditional configuration (Deenoo: fig. 6 [0073-0076] WTRU may be configured to perform mobility related operations in a multi-connectivity scenario. The description provided herein relating to a conditional handover (CHO) may be at least partially applicable to a conditional reconfiguration, and vice versa. Similarly, the description relating to a conditional PSCell addition and/or change (CPAC) may be at least partially applicable to a conditional PS cell change (CPC), and vice versa. CPAC may include performing a reconfiguration associated with a secondary cell group if a preconfigured execution condition or trigger is satisfied);
in response to the determining to deactivate the SCG at the UE ((Deenoo: [0106, 01032, 0137]): transmitting, to the UE, an indication to release the conditional configuration (Deenoo: [0175-0176, 0179-0180, 0192-0198] fig. 6 - The WTRU may be configured to receive and process a radio resource control (RRC) message such as an RRC reconfiguration message via the MCG. The RRC message (e.g., the RRC reconfiguration message) may be associated with (e.g., include information for) SCG addition, SCG change or modification, and/or SCG release), and
[[subsequently to the transmitting of the indication, transmitting, to the UE, a command to deactivate the SCG]](Deenoo: fig. 6 [0074]).
Deenoo merely discloses subsequently to the transmitting of the indication, transmitting, to the UE, a command to deactivate the SCG
Ericsson further teaches transmitting, to the UE, an indication to release the conditional configuration (Ericsson: Proposal 3 - the network first sends a message to the UE indicating that the UE shall release the CHO configurations to only), and
subsequently to the transmitting of the indication, transmitting, to the UE, a command to deactivate the SCG (Ericsson: Proposal 3 – then (i.e., subsequently) send to the UE an RRCReconfiguration with reconfigurationWithSync (legacy HO command)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Deenoo’s invention in order to instruct the UE to release and handover efficiently, as taught by Ericsson.
22. The method of claim 11, further comprising: in response to the determining to deactivate the SCG at the UE, deactivating the SCG at the secondary node (SN) of the RAN (Deenoo: [0171]).
23. The method of claim 11, wherein: the DC procedure is a conditional SN addition or change, CSAC, procedure or a conditional PSCell change, CPC, procedure (Deenoo: fig. 6 [0073, 0171]).
24. The method of claim 11, wherein: the indication to release the conditional configuration is included in a Radio Resource Configuration (RRC) reconfiguration command (Deenoo: fig. 3-6 RRCReconfig).
25. The method of claim 11, further comprising: prior to the determining to deactivate the SCG at the UE, communicating with the UE via a master cell group (MCG) (Deenoo: fig. 3-6 “connected”).
Claim(s) 26-27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deenoo US 20220394583 in view of Ericsson (Handling of a HO command while UE is monitoring CHО) further in view of Xu US 20230099609
26. The method of claim 11, wherein: the determining to deactivate the SCG at the UE includes determining data inactivity on the SCG (Xu: fig. 18 unit 1813 [0319] - activity notification).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Deenoo’s invention in order to after a period of inactivity, the SN may transmit an activity notification indicating user data activity for SN terminated bearers to the MN, as taught by Xu.
27. The method of claim 26 implemented in a master node (MN), wherein: the determining of the data inactivity includes receiving, from a secondary node (SN), an activity notification message with an inactive indication (Xu: fig. 18 unit 1813 [0319] - activity notification).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Deenoo’s invention in order to after a period of inactivity, the SN may transmit an activity notification indicating user data activity for SN terminated bearers to the MN, as taught by Xu.
Claim(s) 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deenoo US 20220394583 in view of Ericsson (Handling of a HO command while UE is monitoring CHО) further in view of Mattam US 20220132333
28. The method of claim 1, wherein: the determining to deactivate the SCG at the UE includes receiving UE assistance information from the UE (Mattam: [321-322] UE assistance message).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Deenoo’s invention in order to initiate SCG deactivation to the network, as taught by Mattam.
Regarding claims 29-36, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 11, 22-28, where the difference used is “RAN” with a processing hardware (Deenoo: Referring to FIG. 1B, device includes a processor 118, a memory 130) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims arid interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Response to Amendment
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 11, 22-36 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Remark:
The examiner stresses that the claims are too broad and require detail or specialization of the steps as recited in the claims. Alone and as claimed, the limitations are too open.
Examiner has cited particular portions of the references as applied to each claim limitation for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
In addition, an interview could expedite the prosecution.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sulaiman Nooristany whose telephone number is (571) 270-1929. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9 to 5. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski, can be reached on (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/SULAIMAN NOORISTANY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415