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 final rejection. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 1/10/2026 has been entered.
Claim Objections
Claim 18 is objected to because of the following informalities: claim 18 recites the limitation “.…the relay UE offers……. “ From the claim language, it is not clear if the relay UE is the relay UE as recited at line 1 in claim 18 or the relay UE as recited at line 3 in claim 18 Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Claims 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No, US 2018/0279188 to Tenny et al. (hereinafter Tenny) in view of U.S. Publication No, US 2020/0015192 to Chun et al. (hereinafter Chun)
As to claims 15 and 18, Tenny discloses a method comprising:
receiving a first handover command from a source base station by a relay user equipment (UE), wherein the relay UE offers relaying service to a remote UE (Tenny; Fig.2:S226; Fig.4: 414; [0038] shows and discloses a relay UE receives handover command from a source base station. [0034] discloses the relay UE 206 receives information from the base station and sends it to the remote UE means the relay UE offers relaying service to a remote UE);
performing a handover to a target base station by the relay UE and sending a first handover complete message of the relay UE to the target base station upon completing the handover (Tenny; Fig.2: step 7; [0034]; [0039]-[0040] shows and discloses the relay UE 206 perform hand over and sends handover complete message to the target base station at step 2: S236. Here the handover complete message at step S236 corresponding to a first handover complete message);
Tenny at Fig.2 and Fig.4 shows and discloses of receiving group HO command for the two remote UEs. Tenny fails to explicitly disclose receiving, by the relay UE, a second handover complete message sent from the remote UE, and wherein the relay UE does not forward the second handover complete message. However, Park discloses
receiving a second handover command from the source base station, and in response forwarding the second handover command to the remote UE (Chun; [0253]; Fig.15 shows and discloses of receiving group handover command by the relay UE and sending the group handover command to the plurality of remote UEs. [0266]-[0267] discloses a relay UE receives handover (HO) command from a source base station that indicates a remote UE to which HO should be granted and upon receiving a HO command from the network, the relay UE informs remote UE(s) connected thereto of the HO command)
receiving, by the relay UE, a second handover complete message sent from the remote UE, and wherein the relay UE does not forward the second handover complete message (Chun; [0258] discloses “For the remote UEs, the group handover response may represent a change to a reconfiguration procedure, so that the remote UEs respond either to the relay UE or to the serving eNB, rather than sending responses thereof to the target eNB” means the relay UE does not need to forward the handover response message. [0266]-[0267] discloses Each remote UE informs the relay UE of information as to whether the remote UE has completed HO preparation. If a remote UE connected to the relay UE informs the relay UE that HO preparation has been completed, the relay UE attempts to actually perform access to the target gNB means the relay UE does not need to send the handover complete message to the target base station).
It is obvious for a person of ordinary skilled in the art to combine the teachings before the effective filing date of the invention. One would be motivated to combine the teaching in order to provide service for the reconfiguration procedure.
As to claims 16 and 19, the rejection of claim 1 as listed above is incorporated herein. In addition, Tenny- Chun discloses wherein the first handover command and the second handover command are contained in a container message for group handover (Tenny; Fig.2:S226; [0034] shows and discloses group handover that includes the handover command for the two remote devices).
As to claims 17 and 20 the rejection of claim 15 as listed above is incorporated herein. In addition, Tenny- Chun discloses wherein the performing the handover by the relay UE occurs after receiving the second handover complete message from the remote UE (Tenny; Fig.2: S232; S234; shows and discloses a remote UE sends reconfiguration complete message (=second handover complete message) to the relay UE 206 and after receiving the reconfiguration complete message, the relay UE 206 sends handover complete message to the target base station)
Conclusion
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/FAISAL CHOUDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478