Detailed Action
1. The Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 09/28/2023. In virtue of this communication, claims 16-35 are currently pending in this Office Action.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
3. Applicant’s claim for benefit of entering national stage application which claims a foreign priority as ADS filed on 09/28/2023 under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.78 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Claims 16-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim Pub. No.: US 2020/0053566 A1 in view of Nair et al. Pub. No.: US 2018/0270668 A1.
Claim 1
Kim discloses a method (fig. 5-14 depict UE for establishing RRC connection with NR base station and LTE base station) performed by a user equipment (UE) (UE in fig. 15) in a wireless communication system (fig. 1-16 depict a wireless communication system), the method comprising:
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receiving, from a base station (gNB in fig. 5 or eNB in fig. 6), a radio resource control (RRC) message (RRC connection setup in 1e-10 or 1e-01 or 1e-30 or 1e-45 in fig. 5 and see par. 0144) including bearer configuration information (par. 0136, RRC Connection Setup message includes configuration for releasing NR PDCP device for the first bearer identifier), wherein the bearer configuration information includes new radio (NR) packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) configuration information about a data radio bearer (DRB) (par. 0134, RRCConnectionSetup message includes DRB identifier) and information about an integrity protection algorithm (a security algorithm in step 1e-25 in fig. 5 and par. 0138);
establishing an NR PDCP entity based on the NR PDCP configuration information (par. 0140 for establishing to NR PDCP-layer device and see par. 0145); and
wherein the base station is a long-term evolution (LTE) base station different from an NR base station (see fig. 5-9, LTE eNB is different from NR gNB).
Although Kim does not explicitly show: “configuring an integrity protection function based on the information about the integrity protection algorithm in the NR PDCP entity”, the claim limitation is considered obvious by the following rationales.
In fact, Kim discloses applying or performing an integrity protection procedure (fig. 10 and par. 0168) and context setup for a security key or a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB (par. 0138). This teaching could have rendered the addressing claim limitations obvious. The evidence could be found in Nair. In particular, Nair teaches UE for receiving RRC connection reconfiguration and performing PDCP Integrity checking and packet filtering on DL DRB (826 in fig. 8) and UL DRB (924 in fig. 9).
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify PDCP in Next-Generation NR mobile communication system of Kim by providing dynamic activation and deactivation of user plane integrity in wireless networks as taught in Nair. Such a modification would have included a user equipment to configure integrity protection for a DRB so that the integrity protection of user plane could be activated or deactivated dynamically on per DRB basis for extending battery life and enhancing latency as suggested in par. 0004- 0006 of Nair.
Claim 17
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 16, wherein the information about the integrity protection algorithm indicates that the integrity protection function is configured for the DRB (Kim, a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB in par. 0138; Nair, monitoring PDU for DRB in fig. 5-6 and see fig. 8-9 for activating DRB monitoring; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 18
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 17, wherein the information about the integrity protection algorithm is set to the same value for all DRBs having the same protocol data unit (PDU) session ID (Kim, mapping QoS flow and DRB for both DL and UL in par. 0088 and marking QoS flow ID in both DL and UL packets in par. 0089, and a security key or a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB in par. 0138, and par. 0168 for an integrity protection to PDCP header using a security key; Nair, fig. 3 for PDCP PDU with DRB and see protection per DRB basis in fig. 5-9 and see par. 0075, integrity verification for PDCP PDC; accordingly, the combined prior art would have been expected by one of ordinary skill in the art to perform equally well to the claim).
Claim 19
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 16, wherein the UE supports a user plane integrity protection (UPIP) function (Kim, user plane in fig. 4 & 10; Nair, see 412 in fig. 4, an integrity algorithm for the user plane may be used for integrity protection when enabled for DRB in par. 0059 in view of fig. 5-6 & 7-8; accordingly, the combined prior art reads on the claim; see further evidence for UP IP in Prabhakar et al. Pub. No.: US 2012/0105847 A1).
Claim 20
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 16, wherein configuring the integrity protection function comprises determining a security key based on the information about the integrity protection algorithm (Kim, security key to be applied to DRB in par. 0138 and in fig. 10, PDCP header using a security key for integrity protection in par. 0168 and a new security key in par. 0217; Nair, see fig. 4-10; for these reasons, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 21
Kim discloses a method (fig. 4-14 depict NR base station or LTE base station for establishing RRC connection setup and RRC connection reconfiguration with UE) performed by a base station (eNB and gNR in fig. 1-16) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
generating a radio resource control (RRC) message (RRC connection setup in 1e-10 or 1e-01 or 1e-30 or 1e-45 in fig. 5 and see par. 0144) including bearer configuration information (par. 0136, RRC Connection Setup message includes configuration for releasing NR PDCP device for the first bearer identifier); and
transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), the RRC message (RRC connection setup in 1e-10 or 1e-01 or 1e-30 or 1e-45 in fig. 5 and see par. 0144),
wherein the bearer configuration information includes new radio (NR) packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) configuration information about a data radio bearer (DRB) (par. 0134, RRCConnectionSetup message includes DRB identifier) and information about an integrity protection algorithm (a security algorithm in step 1e-25 in fig. 5 and par. 0138),
wherein the NR PDCP configuration information is used to establish an NR PDCP entity (par. 0140 for establishing to NR PDCP-layer device and see par. 0145), and
wherein the base station is a long-term evolution (LTE) base station different from an NR base station (see fig. 5-14, LTE eNB is different from NR gNB).
Although Kim does not explicitly show: “wherein the information about the integrity protection algorithm is used to configure an integrity protection function in the NR PDCP entity”, the claim limitation is considered obvious by the following rationales.
In fact, Kim discloses applying or performing an integrity protection procedure (fig. 10 and par. 0168) and context setup for a security key or a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB (par. 0138). This teaching could have rendered the addressing claim limitations obvious. The evidence could be found in Nair. In particular, Nair teaches UE for receiving RRC connection reconfiguration and performing PDCP Integrity checking and packet filtering on DL DRB (826 in fig. 8) and UL DRB (924 in fig. 9).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify PDCP in Next-Generation NR mobile communication system of Kim by providing dynamic activation and deactivation of user plane integrity in wireless networks as taught in Nair. Such a modification would have included a user equipment to configure integrity protection for a DRB so that the integrity protection of user plane could be activated or deactivated dynamically on per DRB basis for extending battery life and enhancing latency as suggested in par. 0004- 0006 of Nair.
Claim 22
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 21, wherein the information about the integrity protection algorithm indicates that the integrity protection function is configured for the DRB (Kim, a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB in par. 0138; Nair, monitoring PDU for DRB in fig. 5-6 and see fig. 8-9 for activating DRB monitoring; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 23
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the information about the integrity protection is set to the same value for all DRBs having the same protocol data unit (PDU) session ID (Kim, mapping QoS flow and DRB for both DL and UL in par. 0088 and marking QoS flow ID in both DL and UL packets in par. 0089, and a security key or a security algorithm to be applied to the DRB in par. 0138, and par. 0168 for an integrity protection to PDCP header using a security key; Nair, fig. 3 for PDCP PDU with DRB and see protection per DRB basis in fig. 5-9 and see par. 0075, integrity verification for PDCP PDC; accordingly, the combined prior art would have been expected by one of ordinary skill in the art to perform equally well to the claim; see MPEP 2143, KSR Exemplary Rationale F).
Claim 24
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 21, wherein the UE supports a user plane integrity protection (UPIP) function.
Claim 25
Kim, in view of Nair, discloses the method of claim 21, wherein the information about the integrity protection algorithm is used to determine a security key for the integrity protection function (Kim, user plane in fig. 4 & 10; Nair, see 412 in fig. 4, an integrity algorithm for the user plane may be used for integrity protection when enabled for DRB in par. 0059 in view of fig. 5-6 & 7-8; accordingly, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 26
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Claim 26 is a UE claim corresponding to method claim 16. All of the limitations of claim 26 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claim 16. Accordingly, claim 26 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection to claim 16 set forth above. Additionally, Kim discloses a user equipment (UE) (UE in fig. 15) in a wireless system (wireless system in fig. 1-14), comprising: a transceiver (RF processor 1510 in fig. 15); and at least one processor (controller 1540 with multi-connection processor 1542 in fig. 15) coupled with the transceiver (see fig. 15 for coupling between RF processor to controller).
Claim 27
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Claim 27 is a base station claim corresponding to method claim 21. All of the limitations of claim 27 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claim 21. Accordingly, claim 27 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection to claim 21 set forth above. Additionally, Kim discloses a base station (base station in fig. 16) in a wireless system (wireless system in fig. 1-14), the base station comprising: a transceiver (communication unit 1630, baseband processor 1620 and RF processor 1610 in fig. 16); and at least one processor (controller 1650 with multi-connection processor 1652 in fig. 16) coupled with the transceiver (see fig. 16 for coupling between RF processor to controller).
Claim 28-31
Claims 28-31 are user equipment claims corresponding to method claims 17-20. All of the limitations in 28-31 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 17-20. Accordingly, claims 28-31 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejections to claims 17-20 respectively set forth above.
Claim 32-35
Claims 32-35 are bases station claims corresponding to method claims 22-25. All of the limitations in claims 32-35 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 22-25. Accordingly, claims 32-35 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejections to claims 22-25 respectively set forth above.
Contact Information
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAN HTUN whose telephone number is (571)270-3190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7 AM - 5 PM.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643