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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 13 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Jha et al. (US 2022/0141720 A1).
Jha teaches the MAC control element request to change the UL carrier to a secondary carrier in paragraph 0012 and Step 5 in Figure 6B.
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claims
13. An apparatus for wireless communication at a network entity (Jha et al., US 2022/0141720) , comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and, based at least in part on information stored in the at least one memory, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to:
receive, from a user equipment (UE), a medium access control (MAC) – control element (MAC-CE) comprising a request for a change of an uplink carrier for an uplink transmission from an original carrier to a secondary component carrier (SCC) (MAC control element request to change UL MCG bearer carrier to UL SCG bearer carrier in paragraph 0012 and Step 5 in Figure 6B) ; and
communicate with the UE based on the request in the MAC-CE (Step 12 in Figure 6B) .
14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor, wherein to receive the MAC-CE, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to receive the MAC-CE via the transceiver, wherein the original carrier has a tune away gap overlapping with the uplink transmission, and wherein the SCC lacks the tune away gap overlapping with the uplink transmission (Steps 7-11, in particular Step 10 where LTE Tx not needed as bearer converted to SCG only) .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-12 and 20 are allowed.
Claims 15-19 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art of record fails to anticipate or make obvious the feature of “select, based on a tune away gap of an original carrier overlapping with an uplink transmission of the UE, one secondary component carrier (SCC) from one or more candidate SCCs of the UE; and transmit, to a network entity, a medium access control (MAC) – control element (MAC-CE) comprising a request for a change of an uplink carrier of the uplink transmission from the original carrier to the one SCC.” The dependent claims features limitations that further distinguishes from Jha et al. With respect to the cited prior art, Srivasta et al. (US 2023/0345413 A1) teach changing the downlink carrier to the SCC for the paging rather than the uplink carrier of the original carrier (paragraph 0022). Kanneath Abraham (US 2023/0075568 A1) and Vadapalli et al. (US 2023/0112465 A1) teach selecting SCCs for the downlink occasions to avoid the overlapping of tune away gap with an original carrier.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELVIN C MARCELO whose telephone number is (571)272-3125. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Asad Nawaz can be reached at 571-272-3988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
MELVIN C. MARCELO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MELVIN C MARCELO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463 June 26, 2026
Prosecution Insights