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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 7/29/26 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/29/26 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claim(s) 7, 10 and 16, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai et al. (US 2021/0337625 A1) in view of Jeon et al. (US 2021/0410181 A1).
Consider claim 7, Tsai teaches a method, performed by a first radio access network (RAN) node, of managing configuration information for small data transmission (SDT) operation (abstract), the method comprising:
communicating with a user equipment (UE) operating in a radio resource control (RRC) inactive state using an SDT configuration (paragraph 17, transmit while in the RRC_inactive state);
transitioning the UE from the RRC inactive state to an RRC connected state (paragraph 92, 103, 111 and 113-114, the UE may initiate an RRC connection resume procedure).
Tsai does not teach communicating with the UE operating in the RRC connected state using a non-SDT configuration; determining to hand over the UE to a second RAN node; and in response to the determining, transmitting handover preparation information to the second RAN node, the handover preparation information excluding the SDT configuration.
Jeon further teaches communicating with the UE operating in the RRC connected state using a non-SDT configuration (paragraph 204-205, communicating control signal in RRC_connected state, Jeon does not disclose it is using SDT configuration, therefore, using a non-SDT configuration is possible);
determining to hand over the UE to a second RAN node; and in response to the determining, transmitting handover preparation information to the second RAN node, the handover preparation information excluding the SDT configuration (paragraph 91 and 119, handover is determined and performed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify and utilize the teachings above for the purposes of continuing communication using non-SDT configuration.
Consider claim 16, claim 16 having similar limitations as claim 7, therefore, claim 16 is rejected for the same reasons claim 17 is rejected.
Consider claims 10 and 19, Tsai also teaches wherein transitioning the UE to the RRC connected state includes transmitting an RRC resume message to the UE (paragraph 92, 103, 111 and 113-114).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-9, 11-15, 17-18 and 20-24 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 JUSTIN YE LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-5258. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30-8:00.
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/JUSTIN Y LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644 8/13/26
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