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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-8 are pending.
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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 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.
Claim 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han (US 2023/0254933) in view of Lee et al. (US 2022/0022282).
For claim 1, Han teaches: A communication method performed by a user equipment in a mobile communication system for providing a multicast/broadcast service (MBS) (see at least 0097-0098, UE and base station may comprise processor and memory for communication. See at least 0005, MBS may be implemented), the communication method comprising:
receiving, from a network node, configuration information by which a multicast traffic channel (MTCH) associated with an MBS radio bearer (MRB) is configured (see at least 0021, UE may be configured with a data inactivity timer; 0006-0007, UE may receive data on an MTCH to start/restart the data inactivity timer, and may switch from RRC connected to RRC idle if the timer expires. See at least 0022, “A logical channel bearing MBS traffic data for multicast or broadcast in a cell may be defined as an MTCH”); and
determining that a data inactivity monitoring is applied to the configured MTCH (see at least 0006-0007, UE may receive data on an MTCH to start/restart the data inactivity timer, and may switch from RRC connected to RRC idle if the timer expires, comprising determining to monitor MTCH data activity/inactivity),
wherein the data inactivity monitoring is processing by which an RRC connection of the user equipment is released depending on a certain period of inactivity in which communication with the network node is not performed (see at least 0006-0007, UE may receive data on an MTCH to start/restart the data inactivity timer, and may switch from RRC connected to RRC idle if the timer expires, comprising releasing RRC).
Han does not explicitly teach: …in response to the configuration information being transmitted via a radio resource control (RRC) Reconfiguration message. However Lee from an analogous art teaches (see at least 0072, data inactivity timer may be configured in an RRC reconfiguration message). Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Lee to the system of Han, so the configuration e.g. data inactivity timer is configured via RRC reconfiguration message, as suggested by Lee. The motivation would have been to enhance configuration by adapting a well known messaging type to carry configuration information (Lee 0072).
Claim 3 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 1 and is rejected under similar reasoning.
Claim 5 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 1 and is rejected under similar reasoning.
Claim 7 recites a non-transitory computer readable medium substantially similar to the method of claim 1 and is rejected under similar reasoning.
Claim 8 recites a system substantially similar to the apparatus of claim 3 and is rejected under similar reasoning.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2, 4, 6 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.
For claim 2, 4, 6, the prior art fails to teach/suggest: further comprising: determining that the data inactivity monitoring is not applied to the configured MTCH, in response to the configuration information being transmitted via a multicast control channel (MCCH). The closest prior art Han (US 2023/0254933) discloses timer configuration for MTCH (0021, 0006-0007) but not the limitations of the claim(s).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Li et al. (US 2023/0403759) discloses Multicast/broadcast service for radio resource control idle/inactive user equipment on new radio UU interface.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SIREN WEI whose telephone number is (571)272-0687. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday 7-4. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan Phillips can be reached on 571-272-3940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Siren Wei/
Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2467
Prosecution Insights