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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/15/2024 was filed in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 16-18 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2021/0105856 A1 by RICO ALVARINO et al. (hereafter referred to as RICO ALVARINO), in view of Lenovo, “Alignment to Cell DTX,” (provided by applicant, hereafter referred to as Lenovo).
Regarding claim 1, RICO ALVARINO teaches A method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a communication system (see at least Fig. 3), the method comprising:
receiving a first configuration of a discontinuous reception (DRX) (see at least Fig. 3 (310, 320)), the first configuration including at least one of a first starting position, a first cycle length and a first onDuration length (see at least ¶ [0057]; “For example, the UE-specific DRX cycle parameter set may identify a DRX cycle length (e.g., a value of T) to be used by the UE 120.”);
performing the DRX based on the first configuration (see at least Fig. 3 (330, 340)).
RICO ALVARINO does not appear to specifically teach determining a second configuration of the DRX after a cell discontinuous transmission (DTX) and/or cell DRX is enabled, the second configuration including at least one of a second starting position, a second cycle length and a second onDuration length; and
performing the DRX based on the second configuration.
In the same field of endeavor, Lenovo teaches determining a second configuration of the DRX after a cell discontinuous transmission (DTX) and/or cell DRX is enabled, the second configuration including at least one of a second starting position, a second cycle length and a second onDuration length; and
performing the DRX based on the second configuration (see at least section 2 and figures 1-2; “UE DRX can be aligned to the cell DTX by UE itself. To this end, as one option, UE DRX configuration needs to be masked (= AND operation) with the Cell DTX configuration,” and “During the NW ON periods UE follows the legacy DRX procedure/behavior according to its DRX configuration”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Regarding claim 2, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo teaches the method according to claim 1. In the obvious combination, Lenovo further teaches wherein the first starting position and the second starting position are different, and/or, the first cycle length and the second cycle length are different, and/or, the first onDuration length and the second onDuration length are different (see at least section 2 and figures 1-2; “UE DRX can be aligned to the cell DTX by UE itself. To this end, as one option, UE DRX configuration needs to be masked (= AND operation) with the Cell DTX configuration,” and “During the NW ON periods UE follows the legacy DRX procedure/behavior according to its DRX configuration”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Regarding claim 3, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo teaches the method according to claim 2. In the obvious combination, Lenovo further teaches wherein determining the second starting position of the DRX comprises at least one of the following: determining the starting position of the cell DTX and/or cell DTX as the second starting position of the DRX; and determining one of a plurality of preset positions within a onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX as the second starting position of the DRX, wherein neighboring preset positions within the onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX have an identical interval (see at least section 2 and figures 1-2; “UE DRX can be aligned to the cell DTX by UE itself. To this end, as one option, UE DRX configuration needs to be masked (= AND operation) with the Cell DTX configuration,” and “During the NW ON periods UE follows the legacy DRX procedure/behavior according to its DRX configuration”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Regarding claim 16, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo teaches the method according to claim 2. In the obvious combination, Lenovo further teaches wherein the second configuration of the DRX is determined in at least one of the following cases: during at least one cycle of the DRX, a first starting position of the DRX is outside the onDuration length of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX; during at least one cycle of the DRX, a length of overlap of the first onDuration of the DRX with the onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX is less than a preset time length; or during at least one cycle of the DRX, the first onDuration of the DRX does not overlap with the onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX (see at least section 2; “the Reference point for the UE DRX (DRX offset) is aligned with the “on-duration” of the cell DTX” ).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Regarding claim 17, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo teaches the method according to claim 16. In addition, RICO ALVARINO teaches wherein the second cycle length of the DRX is an integer multiple of the cycle length of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX, wherein the second starting position of the DRX is within the onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX, or wherein the second onDuration of the DRX is within the onDuration of the cell DTX and/or cell DRX (see at least ¶ [0054], [0055], [0103], and [0104]; “the second DRX cycle parameter set comprises a cell-specific DRX cycle length”).
Regarding claim 18, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo and Ang teaches the method according to claim 17. In the obvious combination, Lenovo further teaches wherein in case the UE has a plurality of serving cells, the cell DTX and/or cell DRX associates with at least one of: a primary cell among the plurality of serving cells, a primary secondary cell among the plurality of serving cells, a cell corresponding to a preset index among the plurality of serving cells, or a cell pre-configured by high-layer signaling among the plurality of serving cells (see at least section 2; common L1/L2 signalling can be considered for activating/deactivating the cell DTX/DRX mode”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Regarding claim 20, RICO ALVARINO teaches the A user equipment (see at least Figs. 1 and 2; UE), comprising:
a transceiver, and a processor, which is coupled to the transceiver (see at least Figs. 1 and 2; UE) and configured to perform a method of:
receiving a first configuration of a discontinuous reception (DRX) (see at least Fig. 3 (310, 320)), the first configuration including at least one of a first starting position, a first cycle length and a first onDuration length (see at least ¶ [0057]; “For example, the UE-specific DRX cycle parameter set may identify a DRX cycle length (e.g., a value of T) to be used by the UE 120.”);
performing the DRX based on the first configuration (see at least Fig. 3 (330, 340)).
RICO ALVARINO does not appear to specifically teach determining a second configuration of the DRX after a cell discontinuous transmission (DTX) and/or cell DRX is enabled, the second configuration including at least one of a second starting position, a second cycle length and a second onDuration length; and
performing the DRX based on the second configuration.
In the same field of endeavor, Lenovo teaches determining a second configuration of the DRX after a cell discontinuous transmission (DTX) and/or cell DRX is enabled, the second configuration including at least one of a second starting position, a second cycle length and a second onDuration length; and
performing the DRX based on the second configuration (see at least section 2 and figures 1-2; “UE DRX can be aligned to the cell DTX by UE itself. To this end, as one option, UE DRX configuration needs to be masked (= AND operation) with the Cell DTX configuration,” and “During the NW ON periods UE follows the legacy DRX procedure/behavior according to its DRX configuration”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo in order to improve network energy savings.
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over RICO ALVARINO, in view of Lenovo as applied to claim 18 above, further in view of US 2018/0027424 A1 by Chen et al. (hereafter referred to as Chen).
Regarding claim 19, RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo teaches the method according to claim 18.
RICO ALVARINO in view of Lenovo does not appear to specifically teach wherein the plurality of serving cells associates with a same DRX configuration.
In the same field of endeavor, Chen teaches wherein the plurality of serving cells associates with a same DRX configuration (see at least ¶ [0150]; “In one example the same information about the DRX configuration status may also be applied by the UE for monitoring control channels from plurality of serving cells of the UE e.g. same DRX configuration is used on all serving cells or on subset of serving cells”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to modify RICO ALVARINO with Lenovo and Chen in order to mitigate inter-cell interference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-15 are 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 NATASHA W COSME whose telephone number is (571)270-7225. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30-4.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ayman Abaza can be reached at 571-270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NATASHA W COSME/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465