DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to applicant's communication filed on 01/19/2026, wherein:
Claim 1-20 are pending.
Claim 1-17 are elected.
Claim 18-20 are withdrawn.
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.
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.
Claim 1 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sha et al. (WO 2022077315 A1) in view of Li (US 20240057210 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Sha discloses a paging monitoring method, applied to a terminal (Fig. 5 – UE), comprising:
determining a first extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) cycle configured by radio access network (RAN) in response to the terminal being in a radio resource control (RRC) inactive state (Fig. 5 step 501, page 19 – ln 17-24, page 20 ln 25 – page 21 ln 7 – “On the UE side, the UE needs to determine the paging DRX Cycle (T) . If the UE specific paging resource configuration of step 502 includes the paging eDRX information, but not Paging Time Window (PTW) , then the DRX Cycle (T) of the UE in the RRC_INACTIVE state is determined by the shortest of the paging eDRX cycle (from the paging eDRX information) and the RAN paging cycle broadcast to the UE via SIB in step 501”; Fig. 5 step 501 discloses eDRX configuration by RAN network).
However, the reference does not explicitly disclose wherein the first eDRX cycle is configured to monitor RAN paging and/or core network (CN) paging; monitoring paging based on the first eDRX cycle.
Li discloses wherein the first eDRX cycle is configured to monitor RAN paging and/or core network (CN) paging (Fig. 3 discloses UE receiving eDRX configuration from eNB and MME – i.e. RAN and core network respectively); monitoring paging based on the first eDRX cycle (Fig. 6A step 311 and ¶0147 – “the S311 may include: monitoring both a core network CN paging message and an RAN paging message within a PTW determined according to the first eDRX parameter and/or the second eDRX parameter”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before effective filing date of the claimed the invention, to modify the invention of Sha to incorporate paging monitoring based on received configuration from Li because doing so would make use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way (MPEP §2141 -III) to reduce power consumption using eDRX.
Regarding claim 13, the scope and content of the claim recite a terminal for performing the method of claim 1, therefore, being addressed as in claim 1. The recited component of the terminal comprising a processor, a memory, and a transceiver are known component for UE.
Claim 2 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sha et al. (WO 2022077315 A1) in view of Li (US 20240057210 A1) and Wu et al. (US 20180279256 A1).
Regarding claim 2, the combined teaching of Sha and Li discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, however, silent on further details of claim 2.
Wu discloses wherein the monitoring the paging based on the first eDRX cycle comprises: determining a first hyper system frame number (H-SFN) based on the first eDRX cycle (Fig. 4 step 410-420-430 and ¶0069-0071); monitoring the paging based on the first H-SFN (Fig. 4 step 440 and ¶0071-0072).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before effective filing date of the claimed the invention, to modify the invention of Sha and Li to incorporate ability to utilize specific hyper frame for paging information from Wu because doing so would make use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way (MPEP §2141 -III) to define mechanism for receiving paging using hyper frame.
Regarding claim 14, the scope and content of the claim recite a terminal for performing the method of claim 2, therefore, being addressed as in claim 2.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3-12 and 15-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUNG HONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7928. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, JINSONG HU, can be reached on (571) 272-3965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DUNG HONG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643