Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a Non-final action for application number 18/617,515 in response to an original application filed on 03/24/2024.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claims 1, 18 and 20 are independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 09/16/2024, is 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
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, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2020/0244406 A1) in view of Christoffersson et al. (WO 2022/238838 A1).
Regarding claims 1, a user equipment (UE), [Figure 5, Communication apparatus], comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code, [Figure 5, Ref # 130], and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories, [Figure 5, Ref # 110], and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
receive control signaling configuring the UE to skip uplink transmission when the UE does not have data to transmit, [the UE receives a radio resource control (RRC) signaling configuring that the UE skips an UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission (S901), According to the RRC signaling, for a certain time period, the UE may skip UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission, (Lee et al., Paragraph 105)],
receive a grant for uplink resources, [The UE receives an UL grant for retransmission for a hybrid automatic repeat and request (HARQ) process when a HARQ buffer of the HARQ process is empty (S903), (Lee et al., Paragraph 106)],
Lee et al. fails to explicitly teach transmit, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data,
Christoffersson et al. teaches that the UE transmits the end marker to the network node, he end markers includes additional information, which is information in addition to information indicating the user equipment has no data for transmission. In one embodiment, the additional information indicates current LCH that are configured for CG-SDT that have no more data with additional indication for data available on other LCHs configured or not configured for SDT, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Lee et al. by transmitting, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133), in order to enable small data transmission in RRC_IN ACTIVE state, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraph 3).
Regarding claim 2, the UE of claim 1, wherein the application operating at the UE discards one or more packets based at least in part on a latency requirement of the application, [even if new data becomes available for transmission, the UE discards the UL grant for adaptive retransmission, (Lee et al., Paragraph 110)].
Regarding claim 4, the UE of claim 1, wherein, to transmit the uplink message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit the uplink message based at least in part on a traffic type of traffic associated with a flow of the UE, wherein the traffic characteristics comprise the traffic type, [adaptive retransmission is not working well in case the UE skips UL transmission. Intention of adaptive retransmission is to adapt the transmission characteristics and resources depending on the channel status and scheduling situation, (Lee et al., Paragraph 97)].
Regarding claim 5, the UE of claim 4, wherein the traffic type is based at least in part on header information of the traffic, [the end marker is encoded with an otherwise unused eLCID in a R/LCID or R/L/LCID MAC Sub-header, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraph 58)].
Regarding claim 8, the UE of claim 1, wherein, transmit the uplink message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit the uplink message based at least in part on a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) recovery procedure at the UE, [The UE performs PDCP re-establishment implicitly, i.e., without explicit indication for PDCP re-establishment, when the UE initiates SDT procedure, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraph 12)].
Regarding claim 18, a method for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
receiving control signaling configuring the UE to skip uplink transmission when the UE does not have data to transmit, [the UE receives a radio resource control (RRC) signaling configuring that the UE skips an UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission (S901), According to the RRC signaling, for a certain time period, the UE may skip UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission, (Lee et al., Paragraph 105)],
receiving a grant for uplink resources, [The UE receives an UL grant for retransmission for a hybrid automatic repeat and request (HARQ) process when a HARQ buffer of the HARQ process is empty (S903), (Lee et al., Paragraph 106)],
Lee et al. fails to explicitly teach transmitting, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data,
Christoffersson et al. teaches that the UE transmits the end marker to the network node, the end markers includes additional information, which is information in addition to information indicating the user equipment has no data for transmission. In one embodiment, the additional information indicates current LCH that are configured for CG-SDT that have no more data with additional indication for data available on other LCHs configured or not configured for SDT, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Lee et al. by transmitting, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133), in order to enable small data transmission in RRC_IN ACTIVE state, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraph 3).
Regarding claim 19, the method of claim 18, wherein transmitting the uplink message comprises:
transmitting the uplink message based at least in part on a traffic type of traffic associated with a flow of the UE, wherein the traffic characteristics comprise the traffic type, [adaptive retransmission is not working well in case the UE skips UL transmission. Intention of adaptive retransmission is to adapt the transmission characteristics and resources depending on the channel status and scheduling situation, (Lee et al., Paragraph 97)].
Regarding claim 20, an apparatus for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
means for receiving control signaling configuring the UE to skip uplink transmission when the UE does not have data to transmit, [the UE receives a radio resource control (RRC) signaling configuring that the UE skips an UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission (S901), According to the RRC signaling, for a certain time period, the UE may skip UL transmission if there is no data available for transmission, (Lee et al., Paragraph 105)],
means for receiving a grant for uplink resources, [The UE receives an UL grant for retransmission for a hybrid automatic repeat and request (HARQ) process when a HARQ buffer of the HARQ process is empty (S903), (Lee et al., Paragraph 106)],
Lee et al. fails to explicitly teach means for transmitting, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data,
Christoffersson et al. teaches that the UE transmits the end marker to the network node, he end markers includes additional information, which is information in addition to information indicating the user equipment has no data for transmission. In one embodiment, the additional information indicates current LCH that are configured for CG-SDT that have no more data with additional indication for data available on other LCHs configured or not configured for SDT, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Lee et al. by transmitting, when the UE does not have data to transmit, an uplink message via the uplink resources based at least in part on traffic characteristics of the UE or a type of an application operating at the UE, the uplink message comprising null data, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraphs 116-133), in order to enable small data transmission in RRC_IN ACTIVE state, (Christoffersson et al., Paragraph 3).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 6, 7, 9-17 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 Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri.
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/SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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