DETAILED ACTION
This communication is responsive to applicant’s response filed under 37 C.F.R §1.111 in response to a non-final office action. Claim(s) 1-8, 10-17, and 42 have been amended; Claims 9, 18-41, and 43-51 have been canceled; Claim(s) 52-54 have been added. Claim(s) 1-8, 10-17, 42, and 52-54 are subject to examination.
Acknowledgement is made to the applicant’s amendment to claims 2-16 to obviate the previous 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection to claims 2-16. The previous 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection to claims 2-16 is/are hereby withdrawn.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-17 and 42 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 15, 17, and 43-51 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK et al. (US 20230379880 A1), hereby referred to as PARK, in view of KIM et al. (US 20200092939 A1), hereby referred to as KIM, and NIU et al. (US 20240023011 A1), hereby referred to as NIU.
Claim 1:
PARK teaches a method comprising: operating a communications device for transmitting signals to and/or receiving signals from a wireless communications network (PARK: FIG. 24 and para 254 (“…in an SDT procedure, the wireless device may communicate a small amount of data without transitioning to an RRC connected state…without transitioning from an RRC idle and/or RRC inactive state…”) wherein UE/wireless device transmits & receives signals), the method further including determining that the communications device has uplink data to transmit to the wireless communications network, transmitting to a first cell of the wireless communications network, while the communications device is located within a coverage region of the first cell, one or more of a plurality of portions of the uplink data while operating in an inactive state and without transitioning into a connected state with the wireless communications network (PARK: FIG. 24 and para 254 (“…in an SDT procedure, the wireless device may communicate a small amount of data without transitioning to an RRC connected state…without transitioning from an RRC idle and/or RRC inactive state…”) wherein UE/wireless device sends SDT while in an inactive state to a base station it is connected to/covered by), determining, that the communications device should select a different cell to continue the transmission of the uplink data, selecting a second cell of the wireless communications network (PARK: para 108 (“In…RRC inactive…mobility managed by the UE through cell reselection…to modify the UE of an event via a paging message….”) and para 109 (“…may provide the UE with a list of TAIs associated with a UE registration area. If the UE moves, through cell reselection, to a cell associated with…”) wherein a different cell is determined to be selected via cell reselection), and receiving, from the second cell, a reconfiguration message while remaining in the inactive state (PARK: para 271 (“…the second base station may determine to transmit an RRC…reconfiguration message….to the wireless device that may be in an RRC inactive state…”) and para 110 (“For a UE in RRC inactive…the UE may be assigned a RAN notification area…one or more cell identities, a list of RAIs…TAIs…”))).
However, PARK does not explicitly disclose as a result of a change in a relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell, wherein the reconfiguration message comprises a status report message for use by the communications device in determining which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data are to be transmitted to the second cell.
KIM, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the reconfiguration message comprises a status report message for use by the communications device (KIM: para 415 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message includes information that defines an indicator indicating whether configuration information (pdcp-config)…is to perform PDCP status report-based retransmission…”) and para 423-424 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message may include…the indicator indicating transmission of the PDCP status report…configuration about a PDCP status report prohibit timer…”) wherein reconfiguration message comprises a status report message/configuration) in determining which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data are to be transmitted to the second cell (KIM: para 289 (“…for retransmitting lost data, based on PDCP status reports…”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK with KIM, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM, for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
However, PARK-KIM does not explicitly disclose as a result of a change in a relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell.
NIU, in the same field of endeavor, teaches as a result of a change in a relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell (NIU: para 83 (“…the base station may predict that the UE may lose cell coverage due to a coverage hole…the UE detects that the signal quality deteriorates, which in turn triggers a radio link failure…start the timer T311 and perform cell search procedure…”) wherein cell reselection is performed based on change in relative position with respect to coverage).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU for the benefit of mitigating service interruption (NIU: para 23) and quickly restore connection (NIU: para 59).
Claim 2:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message is a packet data convergence protocol, PDCP, status report message (KIM: para 415 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message includes information that defines an indicator indicating whether configuration information (pdcp-config)…is to perform PDCP status report-based retransmission…”) and para 423-424 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message may include…the indicator indicating transmission of the PDCP status report…configuration about a PDCP status report prohibit timer…”) wherein reconfiguration message comprises a status report message/configuration).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 3:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report is a radio link control, RLC, status report message (KIM: para 403 (“RLF may include in indication in an…RRCReconfiguration message…triggering the retransmission function…acknowledged in…a RLC layer status report…”) wherein the status report message can be RLC).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 4:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the wireless communications network is a non-terrestrial network, NTN, and wherein the first cell and the second cell are each formed by non-terrestrial infrastructure equipment forming part of the NTN (NIU: FIG. 3 wherein the cells are non-terrestrial).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU for the benefit of serving sparsely populated areas (NIU: para 18).
Claim 5:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 4, wherein: the change in the relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell is due to movement with respect to the ground of the non- terrestrial infrastructure equipment which forms the first cell (NIU: FIG. 3 wherein the communication device moves near/into a coverage hole of the non-terrestrial infrastructure equipment).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU for the benefit of serving sparsely populated areas (NIU: para 18).
Claim 6:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the communications device operates in accordance with a Narrowband Internet of Things, NB-IoT, standard (PARK: para 222 (“…narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) UEs…”)).
Claim 7:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to Claim 1, wherein: the step of determining that the communications device should select a different cell to continue the transmission of the uplink data (NIU: para 25-26 (“…lossless handover…the UE retransmits the UL PDCP SDUs that are stored in the PDCP retransmission buffer…upon reception of the handover command…”) wherein the device is handed over to another cell to continue uplink data transmission) comprises detecting that a radio link failure, RLF, has occurred as a result of the change in the relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell, and declaring the RLF (NIU: para 83 (“…the base station may predict that the UE may lose cell coverage due to a coverage hole…the UE detects that the signal quality deteriorates, which in turn triggers a radio link failure…start the timer T311 and perform cell search procedure…”) wherein RLF is declared/triggered based on signal quality deterioration due to coverage).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU for the benefit of mitigating service interruption (NIU: para 23) and quickly restore connection (NIU: para 59).
Claim 8:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 7, wherein: the steps of selecting the second cell and receiving the reconfiguration message both form part of a Radio Resource Control, RRC, re-establishment procedure performed by the communications device with the wireless communications network (KIM: para 508 (“The…new parent radio node that re-establishes connection after the RLF may include an indicator in an…RRC Reconfiguration message…”) wherein selecting a new parent cell and receiving a reconfiguration message is part of the re-establishment procedure).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 10:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the step of determining that the communications device should select a different cell to continue the transmission of the uplink data comprises detecting that a timer has expired (NIU: para 88 (“…if the UE determines that it enters or is about to enter a coverage hole, the UE starts timer 1…Once the timer 1 expires, the UE triggers the cell reselection procedure…”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU for the benefit of mitigating service interruption (NIU: para 23) and quickly restore connection (NIU: para 59).
Claim 11:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message indicates which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data have been successfully received by the wireless communications network via the first cell (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) wherein successfully received data is indicated with an ACK).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 12:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message indicates which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data have not been successfully received by the wireless communications network via the first cell (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) wherein unsuccessfully received data is indicated with an NACK).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 13:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message indicates which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data should be the first portion of the uplink data to be transmitted to the second cell (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) wherein NACK data is uplink data for the second cell).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 14:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message indicates which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data was most recently successfully received by the first cell (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) and para 395 (“…indicate a COUNT value that is first lost, as in the PDCP status report…may indicate a highest COUNT value with respect to a plurality of items of data that are sequentially and successfully received…”) wherein all the recently received or unreceived data are indicated by the status report).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 15:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein: the status report message indicates which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data was the first of the plurality of portions of the uplink data to not be successfully received by the first cell (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) and para 395 (“…indicate a COUNT value that is first lost, as in the PDCP status report…may indicate a highest COUNT value with respect to a plurality of items of data that are sequentially and successfully received…”) wherein all the recently received or unreceived data are indicated by the status report).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 17:
PARK teaches a communication device comprising: transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and/or to receive signals from a wireless communications network (PARK: FIG. 15 item 1518), and controller circuitry configured in combination with the transceiver circuitry (PARK: FIG. 15 item 1518).
For further limitations, see rejection for claim 1 above.
Claim 52:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising: maintaining the plurality of portions of the uplink data in a buffer of the communications device after determining that the communications device should select the different cell, and wherein the status report message indicates to the communications device not to flush the buffer (KIM: para 393 (“…may check data corresponding to NACK information of the PDCP status report and may discard only data corresponding to ACK information…”) wherein data corresponding to NACK is not flushed for retransmissions).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK and NIU with KIM for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
Claim 53:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the step of determining that the communications device should select a different cell comprises detecting that a timer has expired, the change in the relative position of the communications device with respect to the coverage region of the first cell is due to movement with respect to the ground of non-terrestrial infrastructure equipment which forms the first cell (NIU: para 83 (“…the base station may predict that the UE may lose cell coverage due to a coverage hole…the UE detects that the signal quality deteriorates, which in turn triggers a radio link failure…start the timer T311 and perform cell search procedure…”) and para 88 (“…if the UE determines that it enters or is about to enter a coverage hole, the UE starts timer 1…Once the timer 1 expires, the UE triggers the cell reselection procedure…”) wherein the cell reslection is based on a timer expiring and the change in position), and a duration of the timer is based on a predictable orbit of the non-terrestrial infrastructure equipment (NIU: para 47 (“Through the ephemeris information, the UE may derive the time when the serving cell…stops providing coverage to the UE…derive the start time, the end time, the duration, and the periodicity…”) and para 61 (“…the duration of timer 1 may be set to the coverage hole duration…”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU for the benefit of mitigating service interruption (NIU: para 23) and quickly restore connection (NIU: para 59).
Claim 54:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method of claim 53, wherein: the duration of the timer is based on the predictable orbit of the non-terrestrial infrastructure equipment such that the timer expires at a time when the first cell is determined to disappear (NIU: para 47 (“Through the ephemeris information, the UE may derive the time when the serving cell…stops providing coverage to the UE…derive the start time, the end time, the duration, and the periodicity…”) and para 61 (“…the duration of timer 1 may be set to the coverage hole duration…”) wherein UE can configure a timer based on predication of coverage hole).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU for the benefit of mitigating service interruption (NIU: para 23) and quickly restore connection (NIU: para 59).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK in view of KIM and NIU, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM-NIU, and in further view of TRIPATHI et al. (US 20220046490 A1), hereby referred to as TRIPATHI.
Claim 16:
PARK-KIM-NIU teaches the method according to claim 1, further comprising that the communications device is capable of receiving and decoding the status report message (KIM: para 415 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message includes information that defines an indicator indicating whether configuration information (pdcp-config)…is to perform PDCP status report-based retransmission…”) wherein the network and UE are aware of status report capabilities in order to perform the method) but does not explicitly disclose: transmitting, before receiving the reconfiguration message, an indication to the wireless communications network
TRIPATHI, in the same field of endeavor, teaches transmitting, before receiving the reconfiguration message, an indication to the wireless communications network that the communications device is capable of receiving and decoding the status report message (TRIPATHI: para 43 (“…capability information including information indicating support of enhanced signaling mechanisms…”) and para 218 (“…after the UE capability exchange…gNB configures the UE using an RRC Reconfiguraiton message…”) wherein UE sends capability for receiving signaling before RRC reconfiguration).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM-NIU with TRIPATHI for the benefit of reducing the overall handover signaling load (TRIPATHI: para 85).
Claim(s) 42 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK in view of KIM, NIU, and TRIPATHI.
Claim 42:
PARK teaches An infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network, comprising transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and/or to receive signals from a communications device, and controller circuitry configured in combination with the transceiver circuitry (PARK: FIG. 15 item 1508) to determine that the communications device has selected a cell of the wireless communications network formed by the infrastructure equipment to continue transmission of uplink data network (PARK: para 108 (“In…RRC inactive…mobility managed by the UE through cell reselection…to modify the UE of an event via a paging message….”) and para 109 (“…may provide the UE with a list of TAIs associated with a UE registration area. If the UE moves, through cell reselection, to a cell associated with…”) wherein a different cell is determined to be selected via cell reselection), one or more of a plurality of portions of the uplink data having previously been transmitted by the communications device to another cell of the wireless communications network formed by another infrastructure equipment while the communications device was operating in an inactive state and without transitioning into a connected state (PARK: FIG. 24 and para 254 (“…in an SDT procedure, the wireless device may communicate a small amount of data without transitioning to an RRC connected state…without transitioning from an RRC idle and/or RRC inactive state…”) wherein UE/wireless device sends SDT while in an inactive state to a base station it is connected to/covered by), and to transmit, to the communications device, a reconfiguration message while the communications device remains in the inactive state (PARK: para 271 (“…the second base station may determine to transmit an RRC…reconfiguration message….to the wireless device that may be in an RRC inactive state…”) and para 110 (“For a UE in RRC inactive…the UE may be assigned a RAN notification area…one or more cell identities, a list of RAIs…TAIs…”))).
However, PARK does not explicitly disclose to receive, from the other cell, an indication of the one or more of the plurality of portions of uplink data received by the other cell from the communications device, and wherein the reconfiguration message comprises a status report message for use by the communications device in determining which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data are to be transmitted to the infrastructure equipment.
KIM, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the reconfiguration message comprises a status report message for use by the communications device in determining which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data are to be transmitted to the infrastructure equipment.
KIM, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the reconfiguration message comprises a status report message for use by the communications device (KIM: para 415 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message includes information that defines an indicator indicating whether configuration information (pdcp-config)…is to perform PDCP status report-based retransmission…”) and para 423-424 (“The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message may include…the indicator indicating transmission of the PDCP status report…configuration about a PDCP status report prohibit timer…”) wherein reconfiguration message comprises a status report message/configuration) in determining which of the plurality of portions of the uplink data are to be transmitted to the second cell (KIM: para 289 (“…for retransmitting lost data, based on PDCP status reports…”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK with KIM, the combination hereby referred to as PARK-KIM, for the benefit of efficient provision of service (KIM: para 7).
However, PARK-KIM does not explicitly disclose to receive, from the other cell, an indication of the one or more of the plurality of portions of uplink data received by the other cell from the communications device,
TRIPATHI, in the same field of endeavor, teaches to receive, from the other cell, an indication of the one or more of the plurality of portions of uplink data received by the other cell from the communications device (TRIPATHI: FIG. 218 (“…the S-gNB sends an XnAP SN Status Transfer message to the T-gNB to specify the status of the uplink receiver and the downlink transmitter…”) wherein the SN Status transfer is an indication of the uplink data received by the other cell).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to have modified PARK-KIM with TRIPATHI for the benefit of reducing the overall handover signaling load (TRIPATHI: para 85).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELIE T NGO whose telephone number is (571)272-0180. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Thur: 8am - 5pm; 2nd Fri: 8am - 3pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Noel Beharry can be reached at (571) 270-5630. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/A.T.N./Examiner, Art Unit 2416
/NOEL R BEHARRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2416
Prosecution Insights