DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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
2. 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
3. Claims 17, 20-21, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Tsai et al (US 20220210798 A1, hereinafter referred to as Tsai).
Re claim 17, Tsai teaches a method performed by a terminal device (UE, Fig. 8-10), the method comprising:
(i) determining whether there is data for transmission for at least one radio bearer configured for small data transmission (SDT) (DRB/SRB/LCH having pending data), in response to no synchronization signal block (SSB) configured for configured grant (CG)-SDT with synchronization signal reference signal received power (SS-RSRP) above a threshold (None of the SSBs has RSRP above the RSRP threshold), when CG-SDT is triggered (DRB/SRB/LCH having pending data, receiving SDT configuration) (Fig. 8-10, Par 0210, Par 0218-0221, Par 0224-0225, Par 0229-0231, Par 0238, Par 0241, Par 0258-0265, Par 0414); and
(ii) initiating a random access procedure (initiating RA procedure for SDT) in response to determining that there is data for transmission for at least one radio bearer configured for SDT (DRB/SRB/LCH having pending data) (Fig. 8-10, Par 0210, Par 0225-0226, Par 0238, Par 0264, Par 0414, Par 0471).
Claim 21 recites a method performing the functions recited in claim 17 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 17.
Re claims 20, 24, Tsai teaches to consider configured grant for the CG-SDT as valid, in response to an SSB configured for CG- SDT with SS-RSRP above a threshold, when the CG-SDT is triggered (Fig. 8-10, Par 0210-0214, Par 0218-0225, Par 0258-0267, Par 0490-0493).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
5. Claims 18 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai as applied to claim 17 above and further in view of 3GPP (3GPP TS 38.323, hereinafter referred to as 3GPP).
Re claims 18, 22, Tsai discloses to suspend/discard CG resource/occasion in response to a radio resource control (RRC) reject message being received (RRC release/suspend config) and a resume procedure being initiated for SDT (RRC Resume Request message) (Par 0318-0323, Par 0409-0410, Par 0415-0416, Par 0465-0467, Par 0472-0473, Par 0513).
Tsai does not explicitly disclose to perform service data unit (SDU) discard for signalling radio bearer (SRB) configured with SDT by a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity.
3GPP teaches to perform service data unit (SDU) discard for signalling radio bearer (SRB) configured with SDT by a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity (Pg. 11, Section 4.4 Functions; Pg. 11, Section 5.1.2 PDCP entity re-establishment –" for SRBs, discard all stored PDCP SDUs and PDCP PDUs”; Pg. 12, Section 5.1.3 PDCP entity release; Pg. 12, Section 5.1.4 PDCP entity suspend).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to modify Tsai by including the step to perform service data unit (SDU) discard for signalling radio bearer (SRB) configured with SDT by a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity, as taught by 3GPP for the purpose of properly establishing the functionality of PDCP layer, as taught by 3GPP (Pg. 8, section 4.1).
6. Claims 19 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai as applied to claim 17 above and further in view of Tseng (US 20240040626 A1, hereinafter referred to as Tseng).
Re claims 19, 23, Tsai does not explicitly disclose to receive a RRC resume message or a RRC setup message; and instruct a media access control (MAC) entity of the terminal device to start a time alignment timer, in response to the time alignment timer being not running.
Tseng teaches to receive a RRC resume message or a RRC setup message RRC connection setup/re-establishment message); and instruct a media access control (MAC) entity of the terminal device to start a time alignment timer, in response to the time alignment timer being not running (restarting TA timer) (Par 0071-0072, Par 0078, Table 1, Table 4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to modify Tsai by including the step to receive a RRC resume message or a RRC setup message; and instruct a media access control (MAC) entity of the terminal device to start a time alignment timer, in response to the time alignment timer being not running, as taught by Tseng for the purpose of improving wireless communication for the next-generation wireless communication system, as taught by Tseng (Par 0005-0006).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARUN UR R CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)270-3895. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/HARUN CHOWDHURY/Examiner, Art Unit 2473
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