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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on May 26, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed May 26, 2026 with respect to claim(s) 1-3 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. The new ground of rejection is found in Zhou et al. (US 2024/0032070), which was previously cited on the USPTO-892 dated November March 24, 2026 but not relied upon in rejection.
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(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ericsson (“Open Issues for UEs in Idle or Inactive Mode”, IDS Reference) in view of Guo et al. (US 2018/0192255) in view of Zhou et al. (US 2024/0032070).
Regarding claim 1, Ericsson discloses a communication control method performed by a user equipment (Section 2.2, UE) in a mobile communication system configured to provide broadcast/multicast services (MBS) from a network to the user equipment (Section 2.2, multicast session for the UE to receive MBS data), the communication control method comprising:
monitoring, in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) idle state or an RRC inactive state, a group notification indicating that an MBS multicast session that the user equipment has joined is activated (Section 2.2, group 5G S-TMSI is assigned to the UE when…when the UE joins the multicast group…when the UE is in idle of inactive mode, the UE will monitor this group 5G S-TMSI for session activation) the group notification being transmitted from the network to a group where the user equipment belongs (Section 2.2, when the UE receives a paging message including this group 5G S-TMSI the UE knows that the multicast session is about to start);
in response to receiving the group notification, transitioning to an RRC connected state for reception of the MBS multicast session (Section 2.2, after reception of the group 5G S-TMSI the UE transitions to connected mode to receive the multicast session).
Ericsson further discloses that the UE triggers MBMSInterestIndication message when its interest has changed and uses this message to indicate its interest to receive or no longer receive the multicast session from the gNB (Section 5.1). Ericsson does not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Guo et al.: in response to the user equipment leaving (i.e., no longer interested [Ericsson]) the MBS multicast session, controlling to not perform the monitoring of the group notification (Guo et al., Paragraphs 145 and 156, The UE stops monitoring broadcast or multicast when the UE is no longer interested in any broadcast or multicast service or session of all interested broadcast).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Ericsson with the cited disclosure from Guo et al. in order for NR to support different broadcast or multicast services using different numerologies to achieve successful transmission of broadcast or multicast service (Guo et al. Paragraph 157).
Ericsson in view of Guo et al. do not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Zhou et al.: controlling to not perform the monitoring of an RNTI (Radio Network Temporary Identifier) dedicated to the group notification (Zhou et al., Paragraph 267, group of wireless devices allocated with a group dedicated RNTI (e.g., G-RNTI or SC-RNTI, or MBS-RNTI) to monitor PDCCH for receiving a DCI with CRC scrambled by the group dedicated RNTI, the DCI scheduling the multicast TBs; Paragraph 294, the wireless device may stop monitoring PDCCH for the MBS in the BWP in response to receiving a command indicating that the MBS is disabled (or deactivated, cleared, released, or stopped) on the BWP; Paragraph 310, The MBS deactivation command may be a response to a message transmitted from a wireless device…that the wireless device is not interested in the MBS session; Paragraph 319, the MBS activation/deactivation command may be an MBS starting/stopping indication to a group of wireless devices configured with an MBS-RNTI, e.g., when the base station determines to start or stop the MBS session in the cell. In an embodiment, the MBS activation/deactivation command may be a response to a message transmitted from a wireless device…that the wireless device is interested (or not interested) in the MBS), while continuing to monitor a paging for a unicast communication (Zhou et al., Paragraph 294, The wireless device may increase the PDCCH monitoring for the unicast/broadcast PDSCH reception…in response to receiving the command indicating that the MBS is disabled (or deactivated, cleared, released, or stopped) on the BWP; Paragraph 310, The MBS deactivation command may be a response to a message transmitted from a wireless device…that the wireless device is not interested in the MBS session; Paragraph 319, the MBS activation/deactivation command may be an MBS starting/stopping indication to a group of wireless devices configured with an MBS-RNTI, e.g., when the base station determines to start or stop the MBS session in the cell. In an embodiment, the MBS activation/deactivation command may be a response to a message transmitted from a wireless device…that the wireless device is interested (or not interested) in the MBS)).
Therefore, 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 Ericsson and Guo et al. with the cited disclosure from Zhou et al. in order to improve signaling efficiency for a base station (Zhou et al., Paragraph 268), improve alignment between the base station and the wireless device regarding the PDCCH monitoring (Zhou et al., Paragraph 275), to improve power consumption of the wireless device (Zhou et al., Paragraph 275), and to improve PDCCH monitoring capability utilization efficiency of the wireless device when both MBS transmission and unicast transmission are configured on a BWP (Zhou et al., Paragraph 290).
Regarding claim 2, the functional limitations are rejected for similar reasons set forth in rejecting claim 1 above. The prior art additionally discloses a user equipment (Ericsson, Section 2.2 UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, 300)…comprising: a controller configured to monitor and control (Ericsson, controller is inherent in the UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, CPU 308), and a receiver configured to receive (Ericsson, receiver is inherent in the UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, transceiver 314).
Regarding claim 3, the functional limitations are rejected for similar reasons set forth in rejecting claim 1 above. The prior art additionally discloses an apparatus configured to control a user equipment (Ericsson, Section 2.2 UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, 300)…the apparatus comprising: a processor (Ericsson, controller is inherent in the UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, CPU 308), and a memory (Ericsson, memory is inherent in the UE; Guo et al., Figure 3, memory 310) configured to perform the function limitations.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OTIS L THOMPSON, JR whose telephone number is (571)270-1953. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 6:30am - 7:00pm.
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/OTIS L THOMPSON, JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477
June 11, 2026
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