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) 1, 7-8, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NTT DOCOMO, INC R3-196974 (Applicant Admitted Prior Art) (hereinafter NTT) in view of Teyeb et al. US 2020/0128454 A1 and further in view of Cai US 2016/0088127 A1.
Claims 1 and 8:
NTT discloses a data transmission method, comprising: configuring, by a master node (MN), a conditional candidate primary secondary cell group cell (PSCell) addition or change for a terminal device (See fig. 10.2.1-1, step 1, SgNB Addition request); and before the terminal device accesses a candidate PSCell, performing, by the MN, early data transmission to send one or more data packets to a network device to which the candidate PSCell belongs (See figs. 10.2.1-1 and 10.2.1-X, steps 8 & 6 respectively, early forwarding of data at step 6), and wherein the one or more data packets comprise at least one of the following: at least one data packet on a MN terminated secondary cell group (SCG) bearer configured for the terminal device, or at least one data packet on an MN terminated split bearer configured for the terminal device (See Notes 1-5, MN terminated SCG bearer and MN terminated split bearer); and receiving, by the network device, the one or more data packets (See figs. 10.2.1-1 and 10.2.1-X, steps 8 & 6 respectively, early forwarding of data at step 6).
NTT doesn’t explicitly disclose that the one or more data packets are one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) protocol data units (PDUs); sending, by the MN, second indication information to the network device, wherein the second information indicates to discard or ignore a part or all of the one or more data packets.
Teyeb discloses that the one or more data packets are one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) protocol data units (PDUs) (See paras 186 and 200, PDCP data).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT with the teachings of Teyeb to improve the method disclosed by NTT by including the feature of PDCP PDUs. The motivation to combine would have been to enable reordering and duplicate removal or data packets.
Cai discloses sending, by the MN, second indication information to the network device, wherein the second information indicates to discard or ignore a part or all of the one or more data packets (See paras 37 and 100, “To remove the corresponding PDCP PDU from the PDCP PDU buffer 512 in the small cell eNB, the macro eNB 104 sends a discard indication to the PDCP PDU buffer manager 524 in the small cell eNB to clear the corresponding PDCP PDU …”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT with the teachings of Cai to improve the method disclosed by NTT by including the feature of discarding packets. The motivation for doing so would have been to save network resources and increase efficiency.
Claim 7:
NTT discloses that the terminal device accesses the candidate PSCell (See page 8, step 6, UE synchronizes with PSCell and sends the RRC connection Reconfiguration Complete message).
NTT in view of Cai doesn’t disclose after the terminal device accesses the candidate PSCell, sending, by the network device, a part or all of the one or more data packets to the terminal device.
Teyeb discloses after the terminal device accesses the candidate PSCell, sending, by the network device, a part or all of the one or more data packets to the terminal device (See para 192-193, data delivered to the UE by SN. Also see paras 46-47, “a communication interface configured to forward the user data to a cellular network for transmission to a user equipment (UE), wherein the cellular network comprises a base station”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT in view Cai with the teachings of Teyeb to improve the method disclosed by NTT in view Cai by including the feature of sending data to the terminal. The motivation would have been to deliver the data to its destination.
Claim 14:
NTT discloses a data transmission apparatus, comprising at least one processor configured to performing operations comprising: before access of a terminal device to the data transmission apparatus, receiving one or more data packets from a master node (MN) (See figs. 10.2.1-1 and 10.2.1-X, steps 8 & 6 respectively, early forwarding of data at step 6), and wherein the one or more data packets comprise at least one of the following: at least one data packet on a MN terminated secondary cell group (SCG) bearer configured for the terminal device, or at least one data packet on an MN terminated split bearer configured for the terminal device (See Notes 1-5, MN terminated SCG bearer and MN terminated split bearer); and a conditional candidate primary secondary cell group cell (PSCell) addition or change is configured for the terminal device (See fig. 10.2.1-1, step 1, SgNB Addition request).
NTT discloses that the terminal device accesses the candidate PSCell (See page 8, step 6, UE synchronizes with PSCell and sends the RRC connection Reconfiguration Complete message).
NTT doesn’t disclose that the one or more data packets are one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) protocol data units (PDUs), after the access of the terminal device to the data transmission apparatus, sending a part or all of the one or more data packets to the terminal device; receiving second indication information from the MN, wherein the second information indicates to discard or ignore a part or all of the one or more data packets.
Teyeb discloses that the one or more data packets are one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) protocol data units (PDUs) (See paras 186 and 200, PDCP data), after the access of the terminal device to the data transmission apparatus, sending a part or all of the one or more data packets to the terminal device (See para 192-193, data delivered to the UE by SN. Also see paras 46-47, “a communication interface configured to forward the user data to a cellular network for transmission to a user equipment (UE), wherein the cellular network comprises a base station”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT with the teachings of Teyeb to improve the method disclosed by NTT by including the feature of PDCP PDUs. The motivation to combine would have been to enable reordering and duplicate removal or data packets.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT with the teachings of Teyeb to improve the method disclosed by NTT by including the feature of sending data to the terminal. The motivation would have been to deliver the data to its destination.
Cai discloses receiving second indication information from the MN, wherein the second information indicates to discard or ignore a part or all of the one or more data packets (See paras 37 and 100, “To remove the corresponding PDCP PDU from the PDCP PDU buffer 512 in the small cell eNB, the macro eNB 104 sends a discard indication to the PDCP PDU buffer manager 524 in the small cell eNB to clear the corresponding PDCP PDU …”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of NTT with the teachings of Cai to improve the method disclosed by NTT by including the feature of discarding packets. The motivation for doing so would have been to save network resources and increase efficiency.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4-6, 9, 11-13 & 15-19 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 05/01/2026 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20220116840 A1 discloses a master node (MN) or a secondary node (SN) may initiate a conditional addition of a primary secondary cell (PSCell) or a conditional change from one PSCell to another PSCell. Each candidate target PSCell may provide information to be used by the MN to generate a conditional PSCell addition (CPA) configuration or a conditional PSCell change (CPC) configuration that is sent to a user equipment (UE). This information may indicate an execution condition for each candidate target PSCell and/or radio bearers that each candidate target PSCell supports or does not support. An MN may modify a master cell group (MCG) configuration for a PSCell based on information received from a target SN with an secondary cell group (SCG) configuration for the PSCell. The MN may transmit a CPA or CPC configuration including the modified MCG configuration and the SCG configuration to the UE.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HASHIM S BHATTI whose telephone number is (571)270-7748. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
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HASHIM S. BHATTI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2472
/HASHIM S BHATTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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