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
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 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 US 20260067861 A1 (Lu et al.) (hereinafter Lu) in view of US 20260052512 A1 (AGIWAL).
In re claims 1 and 11, Lu discloses an apparatus (Fig. 7) to be implemented in a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 7: 102), the apparatus comprising: memory circuitry (Fig. 7: 702) to store a received paging message (Fig. 7: 718, [0097], “The transmission interfaces 706 can be used by the UE 102 to receive the paging message 110 that includes the MT-SDT paging cause 112”); and a processor circuitry (Fig. 7: 704) connected to the memory circuitry, a non-transitory computer readable media (NTCRM) ([0094], “The memory 702 can further include non-transitory computer-readable media… which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the UE 102. Any such non-transitory computer-readable media may be part of the UE 102”) comprising instructions for operating a radio resource control (RRC) layer ([0015], “For example, the UE can establish a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection with the base station. The UE can use one or more bearers, such as data radio bearers (DRBs), associated with the established RRC connection to send and/or receive data while the UE is in an RRC Connected state. In some situations, the RRC connection can be released when the RRC connection is no longer being used, and the UE can enter an RRC Idle state” (operating a RRC layer to send and receive data while in RRC Connected or Inactive state), wherein execution of the instructions by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) is to cause the UE to: initiate a radio resource control (RRC) resume procedure with a resume cause value of "mt-SDT" in an RRC resume request (Fig. 8:806, [0111], “The UE 102 can accordingly determine to use SDT procedures to obtain the small data payload in response to the paging message that includes the MT-SDT paging cause 112. The UE 102 can therefore respond to the paging message by sending an RRC resume request that includes the MT-SDT indicator 116 to the base station”. [0047], “By determining that the portion of the paging message 110 associated with the UE 102 includes the MT-SDT paging cause 112, the UE 102 can determine that the UE 102 should respond to the paging message 110 using SDT procedures and while remaining in the RRC Inactive state”. [0048], “For example, to use SDT procedures to respond to the paging message 110 that includes the MT-SDT paging cause, the UE 102 can send an RRC resume request 114 to the base station 104. The UE 102 can send the RRC resume request 114 to the base station 104 while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state”. [0049], “The RRC resume request 114 can include an MT-SDT indicator 116. The MT-SDT indicator 116 can indicate to the base station 104 that the UE 102 is requesting to use SDT procedures to resume a previously-established RRC connection to receive the small data payload 108 while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state”) when: a mobile terminated small data transmission (MT-SDT) indication for the UE is included in the received paging message (Fig. 8:804, [0042], “The portion of the paging message 110 associated with the UE 102 can include an MT-SDT paging cause 112. The MT-SDT paging cause 112 can notify the UE 102 that there is a pending small data payload available for the UE 102, which the UE 102 can obtain via SDT procedures”. [0044], “the MT-SDT paging cause 112 in the paging message 110 can be a particular value for the “PagingCause” field, such as “mt-SDT,” that signifies to the UE 102 that there is a small data payload available for the UE 102. Accordingly, based on the MT-SDT paging cause 112 in the paging message 110, the UE 102 can determine to use SDT procedures to receive the small data payload while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state, instead of responding to the paging message 110 by moving to the RRC Connected state”), and a set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have been fulfilled.
Lu does not explicitly disclose a set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have been fulfilled.
AGIWAL discloses a set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have been fulfilled ([0235], “UE shall consider the CG-SDT resource to be valid when the following conditions are fulfilled”. [0236], “compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value at the UE's last uplink transmission (or first uplink transmission), the RSRP has not increased/decreased by more than cg-SDT-RSRP-ChangeThreshold, if configured”. [0237], “(Alternate) compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value when the cg-SDT-TimeAlignmentTimer was last (re-) started, the RSRP has not increased/decreased by more than cg-SDT-RSRP-Change Threshold, if configured”. [0238], “(Alternate) compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value when the TA was last received (or when the TA values received from gNB in RAR/MsgB/MAC CE was applied), the RSRP has not increased/decreased by more than cg-SDT-RSRP-ChangeThreshold, if configured”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Lu with AGIWAL to provide a system and method to support small amount of data transmission (MT-SDT) initiated from the network and terminated at the mobile device. The advantage of doing so is to reduce UE power consumption and latency when responding to paging, and reduce the amount of signaling required to perform data exchange since the UE remains in an RRC_INACTIVE state.
In re claims 2 and 12, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein AGIWAL discloses wherein the processor circuitry is to: obtain, from a lower layer entity, an indication that the set of conditions for initiating MT- SDT have been fulfilled ([0235], “UE shall consider the CG-SDT resource to be valid when the following conditions are fulfilled…”. [0238], “(Alternate) compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value when the TA was last received (or when the TA values received from gNB in RAR/MsgB/MAC CE was applied) …” (obtaining from lower layer an indication that the set of conditions are fulfilled)).
In re claims 3 and 13, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 2 and the NTCRM of claim 12, wherein AGIWAL discloses wherein the lower layer entity is a medium access control (MAC) entity ([0235], “UE shall consider the CG-SDT resource to be valid when the following conditions are fulfilled…”. [0238], “(Alternate) compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value when the TA was last received (or when the TA values received from gNB in RAR/MsgB/MAC CE was applied) …” (obtaining from MAC layer an indication that the set of conditions are fulfilled)).
In re claims 4 and 14, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein AGIWAL discloses wherein the set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have been fulfilled includes a reference signal received power (RSRP) of a downlink pathloss reference being higher than a configured RSRP threshold ([0093], “SDT is enabled on a radio bearer basis and is initiated by the UE only if less than a configured amount of UL data awaits transmission across all radio bearers for which SDT is enabled, the DL RSRP is above a configured threshold, and a valid SDT resource is available”. [0213], “If SUL is configured in the Serving cell for SDT and if the RSRP of the downlink pathloss reference is greater than or equal to sdt-RSRP-ThresholdSSB-SUL, UE selects NUL carrier”. [0222], “If RSRP of the downlink pathloss reference is above msgA-RSRP-Threshold, UE select 2 step RA-SDT procedure for MT-SDT”).
In re claims 5 and 15, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein AGIWAL discloses wherein the set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have been fulfilled includes an RSRP threshold not being configured ([0324], “In an embodiment, upon receiving the paging message including its I-RNTI and MT-SDT (or SDT) indication, UE operation is as follows…”. [0325], “if the RSRP of the downlink pathloss reference is higher than sdt-RSRP-Threshold, if configured; or if sdt-RSRP-Threshold is not configured”. [0235], “UE shall consider the CG-SDT resource to be valid when the following conditions are fulfilled: [0236], “compared to the stored downlink pathloss reference RSRP value at the UE's last uplink transmission (or first uplink transmission), the RSRP has not increased/decreased by more than cg-SDT-RSRP-ChangeThreshold, if configured” (discloses the RSRP threshold not configured is included in the set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT)).
In re claims 6 and 16, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein Lu discloses wherein the processor circuitry is to: initiate the RRC resume procedure with a resume cause value of "mt-Access" in the RRC resume request message when the set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have not been fulfilled ([0050], “For instance, a possible value of the “ResumeCause” field may be “mt-Access,” but the “mt-Access” value of the “ResumeCause” field may be associated with an answer to a paging message for general types of data and/or communications sessions, and therefore may not indicate that the UE 102 is an MT device that is requesting to use SDT procedures to receive a small data payload while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state” (discloses a resume cause value of "mt-Access" when the set of conditions for initiating MT-SDT have not been fulfilled)).
In re claims 7 and 17, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein the paging message includes a paging record information element (IE), and the processor circuitry is to: determine whether the MT-SDT indication is included in the paging message when a UE identity included in the paging record IE matches a full inactive radio network temporary identifier (I-RNTI) stored in the memory circuitry ([0041], “For example, the identifier of the UE 102 in the paging message 110 may be an Inactive Radio Network Temporary Identifier (I-RNTI) associated with the UE 102” (implicitly disclosed)).
In re claims 8 and 18, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein Lu discloses wherein the UE is in an RRC_INACTTVE state when the paging message is received (Fig. 9:902, [0022], “The systems and methods described herein allow a base station to directly indicate, within a paging message sent to an MT UE that is in the RRC Inactive state, that a small data payload is available for the MT UE (UE receiving paging message when in Inactive state). [0044], “However, the MT-SDT paging cause 112 in the paging message 110 can be a particular value for the “PagingCause” field, such as “mt-SDT,” that signifies to the UE 102 that there is a small data payload available for the UE 102. Accordingly, based on the MT-SDT paging cause 112 in the paging message 110, the UE 102 can determine to use SDT procedures to receive the small data payload while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state, instead of responding to the paging message 110 by moving to the RRC Connected state” (receiving paging cause while UE is in Inactive state)).
In re claims 9 and 19, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein Lu discloses wherein the processor circuitry is to: determine one or more radio bearers (RBs) configured for SDT over which to transmit the RRC resume request ([0031], “The base station 104 can also configure the RRC connection, for instance by setting up radio bearers, such as default and/or dedicated bearers. Bearers associated with the RRC connection can include one or more signaling radio bearers (SRBs) used to transmit RRC messages and/or other signaling messages, and/or one or more data radio bearers (DRBs) used to transmit data”. [0037], “the UE 102 can use SDT procedures to send the small data payload to a base station via one or more DRBs associated with an RRC connection while the UE 102 remains in the RRC Inactive state”).
In re claims 10 and 20, the combination discloses the apparatus of claim 1 and the NTCRM of claim 11, wherein Lu discloses the method further comprising: radiofrequency (RF) circuitry connected to the processor circuitry, wherein the RF circuitry is to: receive the paging message from a radio access network (RAN) node; and transmit the RRC resume request message to the RAN node ([0092], “The transmission interfaces 606 can include one or more modems, receivers, transmitters, antennas, error correction units, symbol coders and decoders, processors, chips, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), programmable circuit (e.g., field programmable gate arrays), firmware components, and/or other components that can establish connections with the UE 102, other base stations or RAN elements, elements of the core network 106, and/or other network elements, and can transmit data over such connections. For example, the transmission interfaces 606 can establish a connection with the UE 102 over an air interface. The transmission interfaces 606 can also support transmissions using one or more radio access technologies, such as 5G NR. The transmission interfaces 606 can also be used by the base station 104 to establish and/or suspend an RRC connection with the UE 102, send the paging message 110 that includes the MT-SDT paging cause 112, receive the RRC resume request 114 that includes the MT-SDT indicator”).
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/SWATI JAIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2649 /YUWEN PAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2649