DETAILED ACTION
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
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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP TS 38.331 ETSI TS 38.331 v17.4.0. (2022-12), “NR Radio Resource control (RRC); Protocol specification, (ETSI TS 38.331 v17.4.0. , hereinafter 3GPP331 in view of 3GPP (TS 38.213 V17.5.0 (2023-03), “NR; Physical layer procedures for control” (ETSI TSI 138-21 V17.5.0), hereinafter 3GPP2).
Regarding claim 1, 3GPP331 discloses a method, comprising:
transmitting, by a processor of an apparatus, UE capability information to a wireless node of a wireless network (section 5.6, see the UE capability transfer procedure), wherein the UE capability information indicates that the apparatus supports using a bandwidth part, BWP (section 6.2.2.5, wherein the capability elements include the bandwidth combinations and BWP, section 6.3.4 ,wherein the RedCap includes bandwidth3 restrictions and supported BWP parameters).;
receiving by the processor , a configuration associated with the BWPfor SDT from the wireless node, wherein the configuration is configured based on the UE capability information (section 6.3.2, wherein the UE receives the BWP configuration from the gNB) and,
initiating by the processor an SDT procedure on the BWP according to the configuration section 5.3.12 ).
3GPP331 does not explicitly disclose “with a condition of synchronization signal block, SSB, association for small data transmission,SDT .”
3GPP2 discloses SDT configuration is governed through the RRC signaling defined by configuring uplink transmissions including BWPs (section 8.3.1.). 3GPP2 defines BWP in association wit
3GPP331 does not explicitly disclose “with a condition of synchronization signal block, SSB, association for small data transmission,SDT .”
3GPP2 discloses SDT configuration is governed through the RRC signaling defined by configuring uplink transmissions including BWPs (section 8.3.1.). 3GPP2 defines BWP in association with SSB (section 5.1.1.), 3GPP331 defines SDT using configured BWPs. Therefore the SDT on a BWP occurs under the SSB association framework d3Fef ed in section 5.1.1. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to apply the physical layer SSB association procedures of 3GPP along with the system of 3GPP331 through software to provide predictable results for standard compliant UE behavior.
Regarding claim 8, 3GPP331 discloses an apparatus comprising (section 4.2 ,wherein the UE includes the apparatus) a transceiver which , during operation wirelessly communicates with a network node of a wireless network (section 4.2, section 5.3, wherein the UE is in communication with a gNB (network node) , the UE includes transceiver ) a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver such that, during operation the processor performs operations comprising: (section 4.2.2, UE RRC entitiy includes the protocol procedures, the RRC entity runs on the UE processor and controls the transceiver) transmitting via the transceiver , UE capability information to the wireless node (section 6.2.2., wherein the UE capability information message , section 5.6, the UE capability transfer procedure), the UE transmits UE capability information to the gNB) wherein the UE capability information indicates that the apparatus supports using a bandwidth part (BWP) ( section 6.2.2, wherein the UE NR capability structure includes BWP support capability signaling ) with a condition of synchronization signal block (SSB) association for small data transmission (SDT) ( section 5.312, wherein the small data transmission is RRC_INACTIVE , section 6.3.2, wherein the RRC Reconfiguration SSB-toMeasure, SSB association fields,
receiving via the transceiver a configuration associated with the BWP for SDT from the wireless node (section 6.3.2, wherein the UE receives the BWP configuration from the gNB)
wherein the configuration is configured based on the UE capability information (section 6.3.2 wherien the configuration is based on supported features, standard 3GPP behavior, the gNB configures based on UE capabilities) initiating an SDT procedure on the BWP according to the configuration (section 5.3.12 ).
3GPP331 does not explicitly disclose “with a condition of synchronization signal block, SSB, association for small data transmission,SDT .”
3GPP2 discloses SDT configuration is governed through the RRC signaling defined by configuring uplink transmissions including BWPs (section 8.3.1.). 3GPP2 defines BWP in association with SSB (section 5.1.1.), 3GPP331 defines SDT using configured BWPs. Therefore, the SDT on a BWP occurs under the SSB association framework d3Fef ed in section 5.1.1. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to apply the physical layer SSB association procedures of 3GPP along with the system of 3GPP331 through software to provide predictable results for standard compliant UE behavior.
Regarding claim 15, 3GPP331 discloses a method, comprising:
receiving, by a processor of a wireless node, UE capability information from an apparatus (section 5.6, see the UE capability transfer procedure), wherein the UE capability information indicates that the apparatus supports using a bandwidth part, BWP (section 6.2.2.5, wherein the capability elements include the bandwidth comb0inations and BWP, section 6.3.4, wherein the RedCap includes bandwidth3 restrictions and supported BWP parameters).;
transmitting by the processor , a configuration associated with the BWP for SDT to the apparatus wherein the configuration is configured based on the UE capability information and performing by the processor an SDT procedure with the apparatus on the BWP wherein the SDT procedure is initiated according to the configuration (section 5.3.12)
3GPP331 does not explicitly disclose “SSB, association for small data transmission,SDT .”
3GPP2 discloses SDT configuration is governed through the RRC signaling defined by configuring uplink transmissions including BWPs (section 8.3.1.). 3GPP2 defines BWP in association with SSB (section 5.1.1.), 3GPP331 defines SDT using configured BWPs. Therefore the SDT on a BWP occurs under the SSB association framework d3Fef ed in section 5.1.1. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to apply the physical layer SSB association procedures of 3GPP along with the system of 3GPP331 through software to provide predictable results for standard compliant UE behavior.
Regarding claims 2,9, and 16, 3GPP331 discloses wherein the condition of SSB association indicates that the BWP is associated with no-cell defining SSB (CD-SSB) or is associated with NCD-SSB (section 5.2, wherein the beam and SSB association rules are outlined )or wherein the configuration includes one or more non-cell defining SSBs (NCD-SSBs) associated with the BWP for SDT ( section 5.2.3, wherein the SSB association is not limited to serving cell defining beam). The NR supports operation using different SSB beams associated with configured resources.
Regarding claims 3,10, and 17, 3GPP331 discloses wherein the receiving of the configuration is performed in an event that the BWP comprises no CD-SSB or wherein the BWP is a Red-Cap specific BWP (section 6.3.3, reduced capability UE , section 5.3.5, bandwidth part selection is based on the UE capability). The network configures a reduced bandwidth BWP for RedCap UEs based on capability signaling.
Regarding claims 4,11,and 18, 3GPP331 discloses wherein the initiating of the SDT procedure is performed in an event that the apparatus is operating in a radio resource control (RRC) inactive state, an RRC idle state of an RRC connected state (section 5.3.4, wherein the SDT is in an RRC inactive , section 5.3) The NR SDT procedures occur depending on the UE state including inactive and connected operation.
Regarding claims 5,12,and 19, 3GPP331 discloses wherein the SDT procedure comprises a random access (RA)-SDT procedure (section 5.3.4, wherein the small data transmission via access procedures) . 3GPP331 does not disclose a configured grant (CG)-SDT procedure .3GPP2 discloses a configured grant (CG)-SDT procedure (section 9). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to make the proposed modification of the CG-SDT along with the system of 3GPP331 to support both transmissions using RA and configured grant uplink resources.
Regarding claims 6,13, and 20, 3GPP331 discloses wherein the configuration is received via an RRC Release message (section 5.3.8, see RRCRelease message, section 5.3.4, wherin the SDT configuration is retained after release). The UE receives configuration in release signaling for later small data transmission .
Regarding claims 7 and 14, 3GPP331 discloses further comprising at least one of the following:
maintaining, by the processor, timing advance (TA) alignment and TA timer validation for the SDT procedure based on the NCD-SSBs; performing, by the processor, a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement based on the NCD-SSBs to determine whether to perform the SDT procedure (section 5.2, measurements including RSRP); and performing, by the processor, an RSRP measurement based on the NCD-SSBs to determine which SSB to select for RA-SDT and CG-SDT.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGEL T BROCKMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5664. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00 AM-4:30 PM.
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/ANGEL T BROCKMAN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2412