DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Remarks
Examiner re-evaluated the particular deemed allowable subject matter appended to each of the independent claims and realized, after updated search, that each independent claim may be read with a secondary prior art given below.
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 16-18, 23-28 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahluwalia (WO 2024/031376) in view of Islam (US 2024/0244510).
Regarding claims 16 and 30, Ahluwalia describes a method/user equipment (fig. 11, UE), comprising:
[at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (Ahluwalia, p. 21, para. 5, UE have processor, & memory to store code for processor to execute), cause the apparatus at least to: ]
determine that the user equipment expects to experience an in-device coexistence problem in a Small Data Transmission, SDT, procedure; and perform, based on said determination, an action related to the SDT procedure (Ahluwalia, p. 3 last para., user device (UE) determine its IDC problem/issue of interference from IDC & further communicate with the gNB (action), including reporting, during its small data transmission (SDT) communication session (procedure)).
Ahluwalia fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the action comprises deciding, based on said determination, to refrain from initiating the SDT procedure.
Islam also describe UE performing SDT (title & abstract), further describing:wherein the action comprises deciding, based on said determination, to refrain from initiating the SDT procedure (para. 4 or abstract, when triggered, the UE (in-device) will pause [refrain from initiating] the SDT procedure so that it may perform CD-SSB measurements, para. 68).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the SD of Ahluwalia be refrained from initiating the SDT procedure as in Islam.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this enables UE to monitor for a first set of reference signals in a default BWP at a certain time (Islam para. 4).
Regarding claim 17, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the user equipment is in an inactive state or in an idle state (Ahluwalia, p. 2 last para. - p. 3 para. 1, operation when in RRC_INACTIVE state. See also abstract).
Regarding claim 18, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the action comprises initiating, based on said determination, a non-SDT resume procedure (Ahluwalia, fig. 12 step 1205, UE’s detection (determination) of IDC issues lead
Regarding claim 23, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the stored instructions further cause, when executed by the at least one processor, the user equipment at least to: determine that the user equipment expects to experience the in-device coexistence problem on a frequency of an initial bandwidth part (Ahluwalia, p. 4 para. 2, for the IDC issue, UE monitors the affected frequency range of a bandwidth part)
Regarding claim 24, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the SDT procedure is a mobile originated (MO) or a mobile terminated (MT) SDT procedure (Ahluwalia, p. 40 para. 3, SDT procedures can be either MO or MT).
Regarding claim 25, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the SDT procedure is a random access or a configured grant SDT procedure (Ahluwalia, p. 40 para. 3, SDT procedures can be either RACH (random access)-based or Configured Gran (CG)-based).
Regarding claim 26, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the in-device coexistence (IDC) problem comprises interference between a first radio access technology (RAT) and a second radio access technology (RAT) (Ahluwalia, p. 4 last para. to p. 5 para. 1, the reporting of IDC issue is regarding UE’s multi-RAT scheme).
Regarding claim 27, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the first radio access technology is a cellular radio access technology and the second radio access technology is another cellular radio access technology (Ahluwalia, p. 21 para. 4 in view of p. 5 para. 1, of the multi-RAT, where 1 may be LTE (cellular) and the other may be NR (cellular)).
Regarding claim 28, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe:
wherein the first radio access technology is a cellular radio access technology and the second radio access technology is a non-cellular radio access technology (Ahluwalia, p. 21 para. 4 in view of p. 5 para. 1, of the multi-RAT, where 1 may be LTE (cellular) and the other may be WiFi (no-cellular)).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahluwalia in view of Islam as applied to claim 18 above, and further in view of Nakamori (US 2017/0003917).
Regarding claim 19, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe UE applying the stored (reverted) configuration (fig. 12 step 1212), but fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the action further comprises transmitting, to a wireless network node, an in-device coexistence indication after the non-SDT resume procedure is completed.
Nakamori also describes communication between a client/user and a network (server) with use of restored configuration (abstract), further describing:
wherein the action further comprises transmitting, to a wireless network node, an in-device coexistence indication after the non-SDT resume procedure is completed (para. 170 or 190, client notifies server of current configuration after restoring to a previous configuration).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the UE which updated to its reverted IDC configuration in Ahluwalia and Islam to notify gNB of such restored configuration as in Nakamori.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this resolves the inconsistency of the configuration information held between the server and the client if server lost the client’s configuration (Nakamori para. 170).
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahluwalia in view of Islam as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Parichechrehteroujeni (US 2026/0040388).
Regarding claim 21, Ahluwalia and Islam combined describe terminating the SDT when IDC issue is encountered (fig. 12 #1405 in view of #1416), but fails to further explicitly describe:
the action comprises postponing, based on said determination, the SDT procedure until the user equipment expects not to experience problems in the SDT procedure.
Parichechrehteroujeni also describes small data transmissions between UE & wireless network (title), further describing:
action comprises postponing, based on said determination, the SDT procedure until the user equipment expects not to experience problems in the SDT procedure (para. 128, when SDT transmissions overlaps/clashes with paging reception (problem), it will postpone its SDT transmission (procedure)).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that upon encountering IDS issue, the SDT procedure of Ahluwalia and Islam to be postponed as in Parichechrehteroujeni.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this allows lower priority SDT to be postponed in favor of [higher priority] paging reception (Parichechrehteroujeni para. 128).
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahluwalia in view of Islam as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Comsa (US 2012/0207040).
Regarding claim 22, Ahluwalia and Islam combined fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein the action comprises initiating, after determining that the in-device coexistence problem lasts longer than a threshold, a non-SDT resume procedure.
Comsa also describe handling of in-device interference (title) comprising RLF, further describing:
action comprises initiating, after determining that the in-device coexistence problem lasts longer than a threshold, a non-SDT resume procedure (para. 327, upon detecting an interference situation, RLF timer is used (when longer than a time threshold) to activate the RLF (non-SDT) procedure, fig. 3 #306).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the in-device coexistence problem in Ahluwalia and Islam to invoke a non-SDT procedure when problem lasts longer than a threshold as in Comsa.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this mitigates mutual interference caused by different radio technologies and applications supported by the wireless device (Comsa, para. 4).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Lei (US 2025/0048485) describing multiplexing SDT where in some aspects (fig. 15 step 1516), UE may skip or prioritize. For example, the UE may skip a transmission of UL control channel, UL data channel or UL RS associated with HARQ feedback to MBS, a HARQ feedback to MT-SDT, MO-SDT transmission (para. 153), and Wu (US 2023/0328835) describing UE performing radio access network based notification area update (RNAU) procedure will stop the small data transmission procedure (para. 174).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WARNER WONG whose telephone number is (571)272-8197. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am - 3:30pm. 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.
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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