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 .
Election/Restrictions
The applicant’s reply on 05/26/2026 indicates the election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of Group I, claims 1-13 and 24-26. Claims 14-23 and 27-30 withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
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, 12, 13, 24, 39, 40, 41 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021) in view of SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021).
Regarding claims 1, 24, 41, LIN (US 20250287385) teaches a method for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
transmitting, to a gNB, a small data transfer (SDT) indication message including a first indication that the UE has user data to transmit in an SDT while the UE is in an idle or inactive mode (par. 92, 93, the UE 110 may stay in the RRC_INACTIVE state when the procedure is begun…The UE 310 then attempt random access procedure by transmitting an RACH preamble over a physical random access channel (PRACH or Msg1) on the configured RACH resource at step 310…an indication for SDT may also be signaled by the UE 110 to the gNB 120 explicitly or implicitly, for example, by any explicit bit indication transmitted together with the preamble or by the selection of the preamble);
receiving, from the gNB in response to the SDT indication message, a resource indication message including an indication of a set of resources for transmitting the user data while the UE is in the idle or inactive mode (par. 92, 93, When the gNB 120 receives the PRACH transmission, it may determine, from the received SDT indication, that an SDT is requested by the UE 110, and therefore it may assign UL resources to the UE for SDT and then a Random Access Response (RAR) message is generated accordingly by the gNB 120. At step 320, the gNB 120 may respond with an RAR (“RA Response”) message (Msg2) which comprises an uplink grant for the UE 110's SDT and a temporary C-RNTI (TC-RNTI) for the UE 110); and
transmitting the user data in the SDT to the gNB while the UE is in the idle or inactive mode via the set of resources indicated in the resource indication message (par. 92, 95, 96, Upon successful decoding of the RAR data, the UE 110 may determine its UL radio resources for SDT, and transmit Msg3 (e.g., an RRCResumeRequest message) comprising the SDT…the Msg4 may be an RRC Release message with a suspendConfig to keep the UE 110 in the RRC_INACTIVE state).
However, LIN does not teach gNB is a non-terrestrial base station (NTBS) in a non-terrestrial network (NTN).
But, SHAH et al. (US 2024019644) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches gNB (par. 130, 289, applied to any of a terrestrial network or a network other than a terrestrial network (NTN: Non-Terrestrial Network) using a satellite or a High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by SHAH in the system of LIN to implement SDT in large cell size.
The motivation would have been to extend coverage area to larger coverage area and user access.
Regarding claim 12, 39, LIN does not teach the method of claim 1, wherein resources for performing a random access channel (RACH) procedure for initiating the SDT are distinct from resources for performing a RACH procedure for non-SDT communication.
But, SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 supported by 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein resources for performing a random access channel (RACH) procedure for initiating the SDT are distinct from resources for performing a RACH procedure for non-SDT communication (par. 311, if the non-SDT traffic arrives…initiate a new RACH procedure for entering the connected state (RRC resume procedure) if a dedicated UL resource(s) is not received or is not expected to be received).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by SHAH in the system of LIN to differentiate SDT and non-SDT resources.
The motivation would have been to prevent collision and complexity of implementation.
Regarding claim 13, 40, LIN does not teach the method of claim 12, wherein the resources for performing the RACH procedure for initiating the SDT include at least one of:
random access occasions (ROs) that are distinct from ROs for non-SDT communication; or
RACH preambles, including the dedicated RACH preamble, that are distinct from RACH preambles for non-SDT communication.
But, SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 supported by 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches random access occasions (ROs) that are distinct from ROs for non-SDT communication; or
RACH preambles, including the dedicated RACH preamble, that are distinct from RACH preambles for non-SDT communication (par. 311, 314, 329, if the non-SDT traffic arrives…initiate a new RACH procedure for entering the connected state (RRC resume procedure) if a dedicated UL resource(s) is not received or is not expected to be received…the UE may use RACH resources (e.g., resources of a RACH occasion) to transmit the SDT DRB data (or part thereof) and the traffic indication).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by SHAH in the system of LIN to differentiate SDT and non-SDT resources.
The motivation would have been to prevent collision and complexity of implementation.
Claim(s) 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, 42 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021) and SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021) as applied to claim 1, 24, 41 above, and further in view of CHEN (US 20240023042 as supported by provisional app. 63130067 filed on 12/23/2020).
Regarding claim 2, 31, 42, LIN does not explicitly teach the method of claim 1, wherein the SDT indication message further includes:
a second indication of whether there will be additional user data for communication subsequent to the transmission of the user data in the SDT,
a third indication of a traffic profile associated with the SDT, indicating whether the SDT comprises one-shot traffic or multiple-shot traffic, and
a traffic periodicity and amount of user data associated with each shot of the one-shot traffic or multiple-shot traffic.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the SDT indication message further includes:
a second indication of whether there will be additional user data for communication subsequent to the transmission of the user data in the SDT (fig. 5A, 5B, 5D, par. 87, 89, 90, 96, subsequent SDT indication),
a third indication of a traffic profile associated with the SDT, indicating whether the SDT comprises one-shot traffic or multiple-shot traffic (fig. 5A, 5B, 5D, par. 89, 94, the field may indicate which SDT type (e.g., RACH-based, periodic CG-based, one-shot CG-based) is willing to use for the subsequent SDT), and
a traffic periodicity and amount of user data associated with each shot of the one-shot traffic or multiple-shot traffic (fig. 5A, 5B, 5D, par. 89, 94, the field may indicate how much amount of data to be transmitted so that the network can determine to allocated/activate multiple SDT resources for the UE(s)…the total amount of data to be transmitted is not indicated in the field, the field may indicate which SDT type (e.g., RACH-based, periodic CG-based, one-shot CG-based) is willing to use for the subsequent SDT so that the network can determine the potential size/traffic type of subsequent SDT).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by CHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
Regarding claim 3, 32, LIN does not teach the method of claim 1, wherein the resource indication message further includes:
an indication of a common or UE-specific search space associated with the UE, a UE-specific radio temporary identifier (RNTI) associated with the UE, and information for configuring a timer associated with a time advance (TA) for communicating with the NTBS,
wherein expiration of the timer indicates that the TA and the set of resources for transmitting the user data in the SDT are invalid.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches
wherein the resource indication message further includes:
an indication of a common or UE-specific search space associated with the UE (par. 68, 103, the common/UE-specific SDT configuration), a UE-specific radio temporary identifier (RNTI) associated with the UE (par. 87, 88, SDT-RNTI: the SDT-RNTI field indicates a unique identification used to identify the particular UE(s) during SDT in RRC_INACTIVE), and information for configuring a timer associated with a time advance (TA) for communicating with the NTBS (par. 96, The network may reply the SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE for the UE and may activate the subsequent CG-based SDT resource as well),
wherein expiration of the timer indicates that the TA and the set of resources for transmitting the user data in the SDT are invalid (par. 103, The MAC entity is reset and accordingly Timing Alignment Timer associated with the TAG(s) is stopped or to be expired).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by CHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT in NTN.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
Regarding claim 4, 33, LIN (US 20250287385) teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message (par. 7, 14, 184, 192, 4-step random-access-channel (RACH)-based SDT…a MsgB in a 2-step RACH-based SDT; monitoring, in the indicated DL radio resource, a PDCCH with a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled by a cell-radio n).
However, LIN does not explicitly teach selecting either the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message based on at least one criterion.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches selecting either the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message based on at least one criterion (par. 70, 72, 105, the network can configure the support of SDT types such as 2-step RACH based SDT, 4-step RACH based SDT, and CG based SDT).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by CHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
Regarding claim 6, 25, LIN does not explicitly teach the method of claim 4, further comprising:
selecting the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message;
transmitting, to the NTBS, a RACH preamble in a first message of the four-step RACH procedure;
receiving, from the NTBS in response to the RACH preamble, a second message of the four-step RACH procedure indicating the TA for the UE to use for communicating with the NTBS;
transmitting, to the NTBS in response to receiving the second message of the four-step RACH procedure, a third message of the four-step RACH procedure, wherein transmitting the SDT indication message comprises transmitting the SDT indication message in the in the third message of the four-step RACH procedure; and
receiving, in response to the SDT indication in the third message of the four- step RACH procedure, a fourth message of the four-step RACH procedure, wherein receiving the resource indication message comprises receiving the resource indication message in the fourth message of the four-step RACH procedure.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches selecting the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message (par. 70, 72, 105, the network can configure the support of SDT types such as 2-step RACH based SDT, 4-step RACH based SDT, and CG based SDT);
transmitting, to the NTBS, a RACH preamble in a first message of the four-step RACH procedure (par. 6, 71, 74, preamble);
receiving, from the NTBS in response to the RACH preamble, a second message of the four-step RACH procedure indicating the TA for the UE to use for communicating with the NTBS (par. 6, 76, the TA command is included in random access response (RAR) message from the network);
transmitting, to the NTBS in response to receiving the second message of the four-step RACH procedure, a third message of the four-step RACH procedure, wherein transmitting the SDT indication message comprises transmitting the SDT indication message in the in the third message of the four-step RACH procedure (par. 6, 56, 74, When 4-step RACH based SDT is applied according to SDT threshold, RRC SDT request (e.g., RRCResumeRequest) and UL small data packet are multiplexing in MSG3. RRC SDT response (e.g., RRCRelease, SDT Paging) and optional DL small data packet may be multiplexing in MSG4); and
receiving, in response to the SDT indication in the third message of the four- step RACH procedure, a fourth message of the four-step RACH procedure, wherein receiving the resource indication message comprises receiving the resource indication message in the fourth message of the four-step RACH procedure (par. 6, 56, 74, 86, 105, When 4-step RACH based SDT is applied according to SDT threshold, RRC SDT request (e.g., RRCResumeRequest) and UL small data packet are multiplexing in MSG3. RRC SDT response (e.g., RRCRelease, SDT Paging) and optional DL small data packet may be multiplexing in MSG4).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by CHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT in NTN.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
Regarding claim 7, 26, LIN does not explicitly teach the method of claim 4, further comprising:
selecting the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message;
transmitting, to the NTBS, a first message of the two-step RACH procedure, wherein the first message of the two-step RACH procedure includes a RACH preamble portion and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) payload portion, and wherein transmitting the SDT indication message comprises transmitting the SDT indication message in the PUSCH payload portion of the first message of the two-step RACH procedure; and
receiving, from the NTBS in response to the first message of the two-step RACH procedure, a second message of the two-step RACH procedure, wherein receiving the resource indication message comprises receiving the resource indication message in the second message of the two-step RACH procedure.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches selecting the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message (par. 70, 72, 105, the network can configure the support of SDT types such as 2-step RACH based SDT, 4-step RACH based SDT, and CG based SDT);
transmitting, to the NTBS, a first message of the two-step RACH procedure (par. 7, 74, 86, 105, If the UE determine to initiate the 2-step RACH-based SDT, the UL and optional DL small data is transmitted on the MSGA and MSGB respectively. Furthermore, the MSGA may contain RRCResumeRequest multiplexed with subsequent SDT indication, and MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE), wherein the first message of the two-step RACH procedure includes a RACH preamble portion (par. 6, 71, 74, preamble) and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) payload portion (par. 7, 74, 86, 105, If the UE determine to initiate the 2-step RACH-based SDT, the UL and optional DL small data is transmitted on the MSGA and MSGB respectively. Furthermore, the MSGA may contain RRCResumeRequest multiplexed with subsequent SDT indication, and MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE), and wherein transmitting the SDT indication message comprises transmitting the SDT indication message in the PUSCH payload portion of the first message of the two-step RACH procedure (par. 7, 74, 86, 105, If the UE determine to initiate the 2-step RACH-based SDT, the UL and optional DL small data is transmitted on the MSGA and MSGB respectively. Furthermore, the MSGA may contain RRCResumeRequest multiplexed with subsequent SDT indication, and MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE); and
receiving, from the NTBS in response to the first message of the two-step RACH procedure, a second message of the two-step RACH procedure (par. 7, 74, 86, 105, If the UE determine to initiate the 2-step RACH-based SDT, the UL and optional DL small data is transmitted on the MSGA and MSGB respectively…MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE), wherein receiving the resource indication message comprises receiving the resource indication message in the second message of the two-step RACH procedure (par. 7, 74, 76, 86, 105, the MSGA may contain RRCResumeRequest multiplexed with subsequent SDT indication, and MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE. The SDT Timing Alignment Timer is started or restarted upon the reception of SDT Timing Advance Command included in the MSGB.).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by SHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT in NTN.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
Claim(s) 5, 34, 43 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021), SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021), and CHEN (US 20240023042 as supported by provisional app. 63130067 filed on 12/23/2020) as applied to claim 4, 33, 41 above, and further in view of AHMADZADEH et al. (US 20240107480 with foreign app. EP 21166692.0 filed on 04/01/2021).
Regarding claim 5, 34, CHEN teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of SDT threshold between the UE and the NTBS (par. 63, 105, The SDT threshold may be a data volume threshold, which is a threshold for the data volume that is to be transmitted in RRC_INACTIVE state… the UE may initiate the 2-step or 4-step RACH-based SDT based on SDT threshold).
However, LIN, SHAH, and CHEN do not teach wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of a location of the UE or a round trip time (RTT).
But, AHMADZADEH et al. (US 20240107480) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of a location of the UE or a round trip time (RTT) (par. 258, 259, implemented or used for procedures affected by UE-gNB RTT, such as one or more of the following: [0259] RAN2: 4-step RACH, 2-step RACH procedures).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by AHMADZADEH in the system of LIN and SHAH and CHEN to select 2-step RACH or 4-step RACH.
The motivation would have been to control delay and optimized transmission.
Regarding claim 43, LIN teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 41, wherein the operations further comprise:
the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message (par. 7, 14, 184, 192, 4-step random-access-channel (RACH)-based SDT…a MsgB in a 2-step RACH-based SDT; monitoring, in the indicated DL radio resource, a PDCCH with a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled by a cell-radio n).
However, LIN does not explicitly teach selecting either the two-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or the four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message based on at least one criterion.
But, CHEN (US 20240023042) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches selecting either a two-step random access channel (RACH) procedure to transmit the SDT indication message or a four-step RACH procedure to transmit the SDT indication message based on at least one criterion (par. 70, 72, 105, the network can configure the support of SDT types such as 2-step RACH based SDT, 4-step RACH based SDT, and CG based SDT); wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of SDT threshold between the UE and the NTBS (par. 63, 105, The SDT threshold may be a data volume threshold, which is a threshold for the data volume that is to be transmitted in RRC_INACTIVE state… the UE may initiate the 2-step or 4-step RACH-based SDT based on SDT threshold).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by CHEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement SDT.
The motivation would have been to manage the UL time alignment and a timing misalignment should be recovered in RRC_INACTIVE for small data transmission without transiting to RRC_CONNECTED state.
However, LIN, SHAH, and CHEN do not teach wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of a location of the apparatus or a round trip time (RTT).
But, AHMADZADEH et al. (US 20240107480) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the at least one criterion comprises at least one of a location of the apparatus or a round trip time (RTT) (par. 258, 259, implemented or used for procedures affected by UE-gNB RTT, such as one or more of the following: [0259] RAN2: 4-step RACH, 2-step RACH procedures).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by AHMADZADEH in the system of LIN and SHAH and CHEN to select 2-step RACH or 4-step RACH.
The motivation would have been to control delay and optimized transmission.
Claim(s) 8, 35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021), SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021), CHEN (US 20240023042 as supported by provisional app. 63130067 filed on 12/23/2020), and AHMADZADEH et al. (US 20240107480 with foreign app. EP 21166692.0 filed on 04/01/2021) as applied to claim 5, 26 above, and further in view of WU et al. (US 20220124795 with foreign app. CN 202110523269.8 filed on 05/13/2021).
Regarding claim 8, 35, CHEN teaches the method of claim 7, wherein:
the PUSCH portion of the first message of the two-step RACH procedure provides an indication for communicating with the NTBS (par. 7, 74, 86, 105, This is achieved by combining the preamble (MSG1) and the scheduled PUSCH transmission (MSG3) into a single message (MSGA) from the UE to the gNB… The SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE as specified in FIG. 4), and
the second message of the two-step RACH procedure further includes an indication TA for communicating with the NTBS (par. 7, 74, 76, 86, 105, the MSGA may contain RRCResumeRequest multiplexed with subsequent SDT indication, and MSGB contains RRCRelease multiplexed SDT Timing Advance Command MAC CE. The SDT Timing Alignment Timer is started or restarted upon the reception of SDT Timing Advance Command included in the MSGB.).
However, LIN does not teach the first message of the two-step RACH procedure provides an indication of an estimated TA for communicating; the second message of the two-step RACH procedure further includes an indication of an offset to apply to the estimated TA;
But, WU et al. (US 20220124795) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches the first message of the two-step RACH procedure provides an indication of an estimated TA for communicating (par. 385, 386, the UE reports an estimated TA in PUSCH of MsgA, so a timing offset of PUSCH carrying ACK feedback corresponding to MsgB may be calculated from the TA reported by the UE ); the second message of the two-step RACH procedure further includes an indication of an offset to apply to the estimated TA (par. 385, 386, the UE reports an estimated TA in PUSCH of MsgA, so a timing offset of PUSCH carrying ACK feedback corresponding to MsgB may be calculated from the TA reported by the UE );
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by WU in the system of LIN, SHAH, CHEN, and AHMADZADEH to adjust timing advance.
The motivation would have been to control delay and synchronization.
Claim(s) 9, 10, 36, 37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021) and SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021) as applied to claim 1, 24 above, and further in view of TSAI et al. (US 20220304100 as supported by provisional app. 63162475 filed on 03/17/2021).
Regarding claim 9, 36, LIN teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
transmitting, when the UE is operating in the inactive mode, a radio resource control (RRC) message to the NTBS, wherein the RRC message includes a resume identifier (ID) associated with the UE (par. 83, 95, 96, RRC message); and
receiving, after transmitting the RRC message and the user data in the SDT, an RRC release message terminating the SDT (par. 49, 83, an RRC release message without a suspendConfig or an abnormal failure will put the UE in the RRC_IDLE state).
However, LIN does not teach an authentication token associated with the UE.
But, TSAI et al. (US 20220304100) in similar or same field of endeavor teaches an authentication token associated with the UE (par. 88, The CCCH message may contain a parameter ResumeMAC-I generated using one stored security key for RRC integrity protection. [0089] New keys may be generated using the stored security context and the Next hop Chaining Counter (NCC) value received in the previous RRCRelease message, and these new keys may be used for generating the data of DRBs that are configured for the SDT).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by TSAI in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement the security in the message.
The motivation would have been to improve security in the SDT message transmission.
Regarding claim 10, 37, LIN (US 20250287385) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the user data in the SDT comprises transmitting the user data in the SDT together with an identifier of the UE (par. 95, the UE 110 may determine its UL radio resources for SDT, and transmit Msg3 (e.g., an RRCResumeRequest message) comprising the SDT and any other necessary data over the assigned radio resources together with the assigned TC-RNTI… allowing the PUSCH to be received at the gNB 120 with a timing accuracy within the cyclic prefix… a very large CP would be needed in order to be able to demodulate and detect PUSCH).
However, LIN does not teach security information associated with the UE.
But, TSAI et al. (US 20220304100) in similar or same field of endeavor teaches security information associated with the UE (par. 88, The CCCH message may contain a parameter ResumeMAC-I generated using one stored security key for RRC integrity protection. [0089] New keys may be generated using the stored security context and the Next hop Chaining Counter (NCC) value received in the previous RRCRelease message, and these new keys may be used for generating the data of DRBs that are configured for the SDT).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by TSAI in the system of LIN and SHAH to implement the security in the message.
The motivation would have been to improve security in the SDT message transmission.
Claim(s) 11, 38 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIN (US 20250287385 with foreign app. PCT/CN2021/071441 filed on 01/13/2021) and SHAH et al. (US 20240196444 with foreign app. EP 21166342.2 filed on 03/31/2021) as applied to claim 1, 24 above, and further in view of TURTINEN et al. (US 12484084).
Regarding claim 11, 38, LIN does not teach the method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting, to the NTBS while the UE is in the idle or inactive mode, at least one of:
a buffer status report (BSR), indicating a buffer status of the UE associated with newly-arrived user data for transmission via a data radio bearer (DRB) associated with the SDT or other DRBs; or
a power headroom report (PHR), indicating a remaining power level of the UE for uplink transmissions.
But, TURTINEN et al. (US 12484084) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches a buffer status report (BSR), indicating a buffer status of the UE associated with newly-arrived user data for transmission via a data radio bearer (DRB) associated with the SDT or other DRBs; or a power headroom report (PHR), indicating a remaining power level of the UE for uplink transmissions (col. 10 lines 59-67, the first device 110 transmits a part of the first data via one of the CG-based SDT or RA-based SDT procedure, the first device 110 may transmit, to the second device 120, a buffer status report (BSR) that indicate an amount of the first data…some of DRBs may be configured for the SDT to access only the resources for the CG-based SDT, some of the DRBs are configured to access only the resources for RA-based SDT);
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by TURTINEN in the system of LIN and SHAH to provide signaling for BSR.
The motivation would have been to optimize the resource allocation.
Conclusion
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/THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 08/08/2026
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