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 .
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.
FINAL ACTION
This action is in response to applicant’s claim amendment(s) filed on 10/15/2025. Claims 1, 5 and 8 - 10 are amended. Claims 3 and 7 are cancelled. Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8-10 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Examiner’s Remarks – Claim Objections
The examiner withdraws the objection in view of applicant’s claim amendment.
Examiner’s Remarks – 35 USC § 103
The examiner has amended each independent claim to recite, “based on a data volume of the PDCP data unit being smaller than or equal to a data volume threshold, applying the integrity protection to the PDCP data unit and based on the data volume of the PDCP data unit being greater than the data volume threshold, the PDCP data unit includes an indicator indicating that applying the integrity protection to the PDCP data unit is skipped”. In view of the claim amendment(s) the examiner introduces the teachings of prior art reference Shrestha et al. (US Patent No. 11,678,191) to the record. The examiner notes that Shrestha discloses an indicator for applying integrity protection. See rejection below.
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, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kanamarlapudi et al. (US Patent Publication No. 2020/0351040 hereinafter Kanamarlapudi) in view of Shrestha et al. (US Patent No. 11,678,191 and Shrestha hereinafter).
As to claims 1, 5, 9 and 10, Kanamarlapudi teaches a method for performing operations of a transmission device in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
activating an integrity protection for a radio bearer (RB) (i.e., …teaches in par. 0064 the following: “The PDCP sublayer 214 provides transfer of user plane or control plane data, maintenance of PDCP sequence numbers, header compression for upper layer data packets to reduce radio transmission overhead, security by ciphering the data packets, and handover support for UEs between base stations. PDCP sublayer 214 may also implement an integrity protection function for packets. If configured, packets of a logical channel may be integrity protected before ciphering. In one aspect, the UE computes a Message Authentication Code for Integrity (MAC-I) for a packet and includes it with the packet at transmission. The receiver separately calculates the MAC-I value and compares it to the received value. If the calculated MAC-I matches the received MAC-I, then the integrity of the packet is successfully verified.”);
receiving a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) data unit related to the RB from an upper layer (i.e., …teaches in par. 0012 the following: “a segmentation of the identified RLC PDUs, an uplink transmission timing requirement associated with the first MAC TB, a number of MAC TBs to be processed concurrently, a service type for the uplink transmission, a resource allocation for the uplink transmission, or any combination thereof. In some examples, the integrity protection code is at a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) level.”.);
and transmitting the PDCP data unit via the RB to a receiving device (i.e., …teaches par. 0055 the following: “…UEs 115 may be configured for operation using a narrowband protocol type that is associated with a predefined portion or range (e.g., set of subcarriers or RBs) within a carrier (e.g., “in-band” deployment of a narrowband protocol type).”).
Kanamarlapudi does not expressly teach:
based on a data volume of the PDCP data unit being smaller than or equal to a data volume threshold, applying the integrity protection to the PDCP data unit,
based on the data volume of the PDCP data unit being greater than the data volume
threshold, the PDCP data unit includes an indicator indicating that applying the integrity protection
to the PDCP data unit is skipped.
In this instance the examiner notes the teachings of prior art reference Shrestha.
With regards to applicant’s claim limitation element of, “based on a data volume of the PDCP data unit being smaller than or equal to a data volume threshold, applying the integrity protection to the PDCP data unit”, Shrestha teaches in col. 8 lines 1-20 the following: “The HM field may be an indication of whether or not integrity protection is enabled for the PDU. A value ‘1’ may indicate that the integrity protection (HASH MARKER) is to be checked for the PDU. The receiver may thus wait for the complete PDU of a group for integrity protection check before forwarding the PDU to the upper layers.”.
With regards to applicant’s claim limitation element of, “based on the data volume of the PDCP data unit being greater than the data volume threshold, the PDCP data unit includes an indicator indicating that applying the integrity protection to the PDCP data unit is skipped”, teaches in col. 8 lines 1-20 the following: “0 No integrity protection 1 Integrity protection enabled”.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the of the claimed invention was made to implement the teachings of Kanamarlapudi with the teachings of Shrestha by having their system comprise an enhanced packet protection scheme. One would have been motivated to do so to provide a simple and effective means to secure communication, wherein the enhanced packet protection scheme helps facilitate data integrity and makes it easier to configure data security.
As to claims 2 and 6, the system of Kanamarlapudi and Shrestha as applied to claim 1 above teaches integrity protection, specifically Kanamarlapudi teaches a method of claim 1, wherein, based on the integrity protection being applied to the PDCP data unit, a Message Authentication Code-Integrity (MAC-I) field is included at an end of the PDCP data unit (i.e., …teaches par. 0064 the following: “The PDCP sublayer 214 provides transfer of user plane or control plane data, maintenance of PDCP sequence numbers, header compression for upper layer data packets to reduce radio transmission overhead, security by ciphering the data packets, and handover support for UEs between base stations. PDCP sublayer 214 may also implement an integrity protection function for packets. If configured, packets of a logical channel may be integrity protected before ciphering. In one aspect, the UE computes a Message Authentication Code for Integrity (MAC-I) for a packet and includes it with the packet at transmission. The receiver separately calculates the MAC-I value and compares it to the received value. If the calculated MAC-I matches the received MAC-I, then the integrity of the packet is successfully verified.”).
As to claims 3 and 7, (Canceled).
Claim(s) 4 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kanamarlapudi in view of Shrestha as applied to claims 1 and 5 above and further in view of BERGQUIST (WO-2019233740-A1)
As to claims 4 and 8, the system of Kanamarlapudi and Shrestha as applied to claim 1 above teaches integrity protection, specifically near reference expressly teaches a method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving an integrity protection activation command with the data volume threshold, wherein the integrity protection for the RB is activated based on the integrity protection activation command.
In this instance the examiner notes the teachings of prior art reference BERGQUIST.
BERGQUIST teaches in fig. 3 figure element 306 the following: “the first node selectively activates integrity protection for onward transmission of the data packet or message to the second node based on the determined characteristic.”. Teaches in on page. 8 lines 20-30 the following: “the network plays it safe by starting with integrity protection. When the data traffic starts, the network determines or estimates the nature of the data traffic. If the network decides that underlying data traffic benefits from integrity protection over-the-air, the network may keep the current state. Otherwise, if the network determines that the underlying data traffic does not benefit from integrity protection over-the-air, the network may not utilize integrity protection. For example, a new flow/bearer without integrity protection may be established and utilized, or the current flow/bearer may be reconfigured to turn OFF the integrity protection.”.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the of the claimed invention was made to implement the teachings of Kanamarlapudi and Shrestha with the teachings of BERGQUIST by having their system comprise an enhanced data protection scheme. One would have been motivated to do so to provide a simple and effective means to secure data communication, wherein the enhanced data protection scheme helps facilitate security and makes it easier to configure network security.
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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN F WRIGHT whose telephone number is (571)270-3826.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Eleni Shiferaw can be reached on (571)272-3867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRYAN F WRIGHT/Examiner, Art Unit 2497