DETAILED ACTION
Response filed on 1/19/2026 has been entered and made of record.
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 status
Claims 1 and 13 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are pending for examination
Response to arguments
Re: Double patenting
Applicant’s arguments based on amended claims are persuasive. Double patenting rejection is withdrawn.
Re: U.S.C. 103 rejection.
Applicant’s arguments received on 1/19/2026 have been fully considered but are moot in view claim amendments and introduction of new prior art. The details of the rejection are provided in the following section.
35 U.S.C. 103 rejection is not withdrawn.
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FUJISHIRO et al. (US 2023/0262423 A1), hereinafter “Fujishiro”, in view of ZHANG et al. (US 2025/0151164 A1), hereinafter “Zhang” .
Claims 1 and 13:
Regarding claim 1, Fujishiro teaches, a method for a user equipment (UE) ([Abstract] “Provided is a communication control method used in a mobile communication system providing a multicast and broadcast service (MBS) from a base station to a user equipment”), comprising: joining a multicast session in a wireless network (implied by disclosure in [0246] “two types of methods for collecting a UE reception/interest service are specified, i.e., MBMS interest indication (MII) and MBMS counting. MII triggered by the UE includes information related to an MBMS frequency of interest, an MBMS service of interest, an MBMS priority, and MBMS ROM (reception-dedicated mode).”);
receiving an initial multicast configuration from a serving cell in the wireless network ([Abstract] “receiving, by the user equipment in an RRC connected state and from the base station, unicast signalling including an MBS configuration used for MBS reception”), wherein the initial multicast configuration is for a multicast configuration of the UE to receive the multicast session in a RRC INACTIVE state ([Abstract] “performing, by the user equipment having transitioned from the RRC connected state to an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state, the MBS reception by using the MBS configuration received in the RRC connected state”);
monitoring a common multicast signaling for the multicast session from the wireless network in the RRC INACTIVE state ([0118] “the UE 100 that performs MBS reception after transitioning to the RRC idle state or the RRC inactive state receives a notification indicating update of the MBS configuration from the gNB 200; [0125], “the UE 100 may monitor regular paging occasions”; step S310 of Fig.10, where the UE receives the notification from the base station. UE is already in RRC_INACTIVE state) wherein the common multicast signaling includes updated multicast configuration information for the multicast session (updated multicast configuration information is implied by disclosure in [0125] “The notification of Step S310 may be a paging message including an identifier of the MBS session whose MBS configuration is to be changed.” ).
Fujishiro however fails to teach but in the same field of endeavor Zhang teaches, updating the multicast configuration in the inactive state based on the common multicast signaling (Wang: [0043] “In some embodiments, when the UE enters the inactive mode, the multicast configuration is transmitted via an radio resource control (RRC) release message… In some embodiments, the RRC release message carries the scheduling information of the multicast configuration, after the UE enters the inactive state, the UE receives the multicast configuration according to the scheduling information.”)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to come up with the claimed invention by combining disclosure by Zhang regarding scheduling information of the multicast configuration with that of the teachings by Fujishiro, motivated by power saving as a result of monitoring for the configuration only during the time provided in scheduling information received from the base station, while remaining in the inactive state.
Claim 13 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 1. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 1. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 1. Presence of a transceiver is implied. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 1.
Claims 2 and 14:
Regarding claim 2, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the common multicast signaling is indicated by the wireless network periodically with updated periodical information ([0238] “the network includes another option for providing the SC-MCCH for delay sensitive services, periodically,”; the another option above is in addition to on-demand SC_MCCH, as disclosed in the said paragraph above).
Claim 14 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 2. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 2. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 2. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 2.
Claims 3 and 15:
Regarding claim 3, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the common multicast signaling is from the serving cell and includes information for neighboring cell multicast configuration (implied based on Fig.15, step S803; and disclosures in [0190] “[0190] In Step S803, the UE 100 may receive, from the gNB 200A, neighboring cell information including MBS session identifiers of MBS sessions provided by cell #2 being a neighboring cell.”, and [0228] In the LTE SC-PTM, configurations are provided by two messages, i.e., SIB 20 and SC-MCCH. The SIB 20 provides SC-MCCH scheduling information, and the SCMCCH provides SC-MTCH scheduling information including the G-RNTI and the TMGI, and neighbor cell information.”).
Claim 15 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 3. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 3. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 3. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 3.
Claims 4 and 16:
Regarding claim 4, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the updating the multicast configuration is performed by the UE without notification to the wireless network (Fig.10, steps S310. S311, S312, and S313; No notification to the network is involved).
Claim 16 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 4. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 4. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 4. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 4.
Regarding claim 5, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the one or more predefined triggering conditions include a UE-triggered handover to a target cell (Fujishiro: Fig.15 step S804 disclosure radio link failure and at step S808, UE performs handover to cell $2; RLF detection is S804 may be considered as the triggering condition of the claim).
Regarding claim 6, Fujishiro teaches the method of claim 5 (discussed above).
Regarding claim, wherein the UE performs the UE- triggered handover upon detecting one or more channel quality measurements of the serving cell is below corresponding predefined threshold’, though Fujishiro does not expressly teach it, disclosure by Fujishiro as discussed above in claim 5 and related to user equipment handover to a different cell after radio link failure, the claim would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art who would have come up with the claim based on the detection of RLF (Fig. 15, step S804), which implies measurements of channel quality and failing it based on some predefined threshold of some kind.
Claim 17 elements are discussed above in claims 5 and 6. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claims 5 and 6.
Regarding claim 7, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 5 (discussed above), wherein the UE continues receiving common multicast signaling from the multicast session in the target cell based on the updated multicast configuration (implied by disclosure [0196] In Step S809, the UE 100 accesses selected cell #2 and performs RRC reestablishment, and thereby continues reception of the MBS session that the UE 100 has been receiving (is interested in).
Claim 18 is for a user equipment of claim 13. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 5-7. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 5-7.
Regarding claim 8, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the initial multicast configuration is received by a radio resource control (RRC) message ([Abstract] “receiving, by the user equipment in an RRC connected state and from the base station, unicast signalling including an MBS configuration used for MBS reception”).
Regarding claim 9, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 8 (discussed above), wherein the UE performs the multicast configuration based on the RRC message before switching to the RRC INACTIVE state ([Abstract] as well as [0005] “a communication control method is a communication control method used in a mobile communication system providing a multicast and broadcast service (MBS) from a base station to a user equipment and includes receiving, by the user equipment in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connected state and from the base station, unicast signaling including an MBS configuration used for MBS reception, and performing, by the user equipment having transitioned from the RRC connected state to an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state, the MBS reception by using the MBS configuration received in the RRC connected state..
Regarding claim 10, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 8 (discussed above), wherein the UE performs the multicast configuration based on the RRC message after switching to the RRC INACTIVE state (UE receives the configuration message through RRC and uses the configuration while in RRC_INACTIVE as discussed earlier).
Claims 11 and 19:
Regarding claim 11, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 8 (discussed above), wherein the RRC message is an RRC Reconfiguration or an RRC Release message (see figs. 10, 11 e.g.).
Claim 19 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 11. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 11. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 11. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 11.
Claims 12 and 20:
Regarding claim 12, combination of Fujishiro and Zhang teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the common multicast signaling is delivered to the UE by an RRC message ([0115] “In the present variation, the validity period of the MBS configuration may be different for each MBS session (TMGI), or may be common ( only one) for all of the MBS sessions.”).
Claim 20 is for a user equipment implementing method of claim 12. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 12. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 12. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 12.
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.
/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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