DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claims 1-4, 9, 15 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elazzouni (US Pub. 2024/0373502) in view of Pal (CN 116195305 A).
Regarding claims 1 and 15, Elazzouni discloses a method, comprising:
based on at least one signal strength corresponding to at least one downlink signal received via at least one downlink beam from a radio network node, determining, by at least one user equipment comprising at least one processor (par.005 “a user equipment…..at least one processor…..to receive first configuration information…..DRX”), an optimal downlink beam of the at least one downlink beam to result in a determined optimal downlink beam (par.083 “Beam……..In some implementations…..selected or deselected for directional transmission of signal”, par.087 “Further efficiencies…signal strength…..may be achieved through beam refinement….using beams of various beam widths….a wider beam….a narrower beam to communicate with the UE”);
receiving, by the at least one user equipment, a reduced-capability connection establishment configuration comprising reduced-capability connection establishment information usable (par.049 “a UE…may support longer battery life…….a RedCap UE’, par.060 “the UE….DRX operation……to reduce power consumption”), by the at least one user equipment, to facilitate transmission of uplink traffic with respect to the determined optimal downlink beam (fig. 5 element 510, 508).
Pal discloses the uplink traffic corresponding to at least one configured reduced-capability priority level, to the radio network node during active discontinuous receive off operation of the radio network node (page 14 “During the DRX OFF duration……emergency data……..which needs to be transmitted to the base station before the next DRX ON duration 604”). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the system of Elazzouni with the above teaching of Pal in order provide the UE to wake up durring DRXOFF to transmitting emergency uplink data.
The modified Elazzouni discloses determining, by the at least one user equipment, to transmit uplink traffic corresponding to the at least one configured reduced-capability priority level during an active discontinuous receive off period facilitated by the radio network node to result in determined uplink traffic (Pal, page 14 “During the DRX OFF duration……emergency data……..which needs to be transmitted to the base station before the next DRX ON duration 604”); and
transmitting, by the at least one user equipment to the radio network node during the active discontinuous receive off period based on the reduced-capability connection establishment information, the determined uplink traffic (Elazzouni fig. 5 element 510, 508; Pal, page 14 “During the DRX OFF duration……emergency data……..which needs to be transmitted to the base station before the next DRX ON duration 604”).
Regarding claim 2, the modified Elazzouni discloses at least one of: discontinuous receive off timing information defining at least one active discontinuous receive off period with respect to the radio network node Pal, page 14 “During the DRX OFF duration……emergency data……..which needs to be transmitted to the base station before the next DRX ON duration 604”, the at least one configured reduced-capability priority level, at least one reduced-capability random access preamble, at least one reduced-capability time uplink resource indication or at least one reduced-capability frequency uplink resource indication indicative of at least one reduced-capability time uplink resource or at least one reduced-capability frequency uplink resource, or at least one downlink beam group indication (consideration is optional).
Regarding claim 3, the modified Elazzouni discloses the at least one configured reduced-capability priority level is associated with at least one traffic type, service type, or quality-of-service type with respect to which the radio network node is configured to receive, from the at least one user equipment, uplink traffic during an active discontinuous receive off period (page 14 “During DRX OFF…..emergency data…..QoS”).
Regarding claim 4, the modified Elazzouni discloses at least one configured reduced-capability priority level is associated with an emergency traffic type, an emergency service type, or an emergency quality-of-service type (page 14 “During DRX OFF…..emergency data…..QoS”).
Regarding claim 9, the modified Elazzouni discloses wherein the determined uplink traffic comprises a reduced-capability random access preamble indicative to the radio network node that the determined uplink traffic further comprises priority traffic that corresponds to the at least one configured reduced-capability priority level (Pal, page 19 “the coarse wake-up…..during the sleep period include sending a RACH message…..to the base station”).
Regarding claim 19, the modified Elazzouni discloses everything as claim 1 above. More specifically, the modified Elazzouni discloses non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a user equipment, facilitate performance of operations (Elazzouni, par.009).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8, 10-14, 16-18 and 20 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Tu Nguyen whose telephone number is (571)272-7883. The examiner can normally be reached on 8AM-5PM Eastern Time.
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/TU X NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2642
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