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 § 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 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) 1,4-6,8,12-15,28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stauffer et al (US 11388763 B2) hereinafter as Stauffer in view of Blankenship et al (US 20110080962 A1) hereinafter as Blankenship, further in view of Cai et al (US 20130130684 A1) hereinafter as Cai.
Regarding claim(s) 1,28, Stauffer discloses a method for triggering mobility measurements, the method being performed by a network node (See ¶ 22, 33, claim 5), the method comprising:
obtaining information about backhaul link quality of a wireless backhaul link of the network node (See Fig(s). 4, steps 410, 412, See ¶ 33 The monitoring data may include one or more of radio measurements of the backhaul link quality, radio measurements of the environment around the base station 104); and as a result thereof:
Stauffer further discloses wherein the network node is an integrated access and backhaul, IAB, node (See ¶ abstract, monitoring and managing wireless backhaul integrated with mobile access in fifth generation new radio (5G NR) wireless networks. The techniques described employ an Integrated Backhaul-Access and Mobility Function (IB-AMF) to enable authorization of a base station to access a 5G network).
Stauffer fails to disclose sending, to at least a subset of all user equipment, UEs served by the network node in a cell, an indication for the subset of UEs to perform mobility measurements; receiving mobility measurement reports from the subset of UEs.
Blankenship discloses sending, to at least a subset of all user equipment, UEs served by the network node in a cell, an indication for the subset of UEs to perform mobility measurements (See Fig(s). 1, See ¶ 31, 79, 103, UEs in the subset of UEs may include UEs that may need to make measurements of spectrum, e.g., to identify and measure inter-frequency and/or inter-RAT cells, or so on); receiving mobility measurement reports from the subset of UEs (See ¶ 29, When the UE has information to transmit, the UE must request a wireless resource and can transmit after receiving a UL scheduling grant of the wireless resource from eNB.);
Blankenship further discloses determining a handover action for the subset of UEs based at least on the backhaul link quality and on the mobility measurement reports, (See Fig(s). 1, See ¶ 30, UE 121 may measure spectrum during a measurement gap to identify the presence of eNB 106 or an inter-RAT communications network. UE 121 may later make use of information derived from the measurements made during the measurement gaps, as an example, in a handoff or a handover.)
Mobility measurements by subset of UEs allows for optimum bandwidth requirements prior to handoff or handover from source to target eNB.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Blankenship within Stauffer, so as to ensure optimum bandwidth requirements prior to handoff or handover from source to target eNB.
Stauffer and Blankenship further fails to disclose obtaining backhaul link quality information of another wireless backhaul link of another network node in the cell or in another cell than the cell of the network node.
Cai discloses obtaining backhaul link quality information of another wireless backhaul link of another network node in the cell or in another cell than the cell of the network node (See Fig(s). 1-2, See ¶ 57, 92, One of the embodiments described herein relates to handling a UE IDLE mode mobility procedure in a Type 1 relay network while considering the backhaul link quality between a donor eNB and the Type 1 RN. Note: the relay node is interpreted as another network node in the cell)
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Cai within Stauffer, so as to provide a seamless handover within a cell while maintaining signal quality and data rate.
Regarding claim(s) 4, Stauffer discloses wherein the wireless backhaul link is towards a donor node of the network node or a parent network node of the network node, and wherein the information about the backhaul link quality pertains to that backhaul link quality of the wireless backhaul link towards the donor node (400a) is deteriorating (See Fig(s). 1 Base stations 104, 108 act as donor nodes to each other as they manage backhaul links and handover, See ¶ abstract).
Regarding claim(s) 5, Stauffer discloses wherein the information that the backhaul link quality is deteriorating pertains to at least one of: the backhaul link quality of the wireless backhaul link is below threshold link quality value, bitrate of the wireless backhaul link is below a threshold bitrate value, transmission delay of the wireless backhaul link is above a threshold transmission delay value (See ¶ 13, 33, claim 5).
Regarding claim(s) 6, Stauffer discloses wherein the backhaul link quality is determined to be deteriorating by being worse than a threshold value, by being worse than the backhaul link quality of another wireless backhaul link towards the donor node , or by being worse than the backhaul link quality of another wireless backhaul link towards another donor node (See ¶ 13, 33, 35, claim 5, The IB-AMF can trigger a handoff of the backhaul link from one relay base station to another relay base station based on the monitored parameters, such as poor link quality, link congestion, and the like. Alternatively or additionally, the IB-AMF can reduce the transmit power of a backhaul link or reduce the resources allocated for the backhaul link when utilization of the backhaul link decreases.).
Regarding claim(s) 8, Blankenship discloses wherein the indication is sent in any of: a reference signal, a system information block, SIB, a master information block, MIB, radio resource control, RRC, signaling, downlink control information, DCI, a medium access control, MAC, control element, a paging-message (See ¶ 36-37). Reasons for combining same as claim 1.
Regarding claim(s) 12, Stauffer discloses wherein the handover action involves the subset of UEs (300a) to be handed over to any cell as indicated in the mobility measurement reports providing higher access link quality than a threshold access link quality value (See ¶ 13, The IB-AMF can determine an alternative relay base station for the wireless backhaul link based on the monitored parameters. The IB-AMF can trigger a handoff of the backhaul link from one relay base station to another relay base station based on the monitored parameters, such as poor link quality).
Regarding claim(s) 13, Stauffer discloses wherein the handover action involves the subset of UEs (300a) to be handed over to any cell as indicated in the mobility measurement reports providing combined higher access link quality and higher backhaul link quality than the cell of the JAB node (See ¶ 13, The IB-AMF can determine an alternative relay base station for the wireless backhaul link based on the monitored parameters. The IB-AMF can trigger a handoff of the backhaul link from one relay base station to another relay base station based on the monitored parameters, such as poor link quality).
Regarding claim(s) 14, Stauffer discloses wherein the handover action involves the subset of UEs to be handed over to any cell as indicated in the mobility measurement reports where minimum of access link quality and backhaul link quality is higher than in the cell of the IAB node (See ¶ 13, The IB-AMF can determine an alternative relay base station for the wireless backhaul link based on the monitored parameters. The IB-AMF can trigger a handoff of the backhaul link from one relay base station to another relay base station based on the monitored parameters, such as poor link quality, See Fig(s). 4, See ¶ 33, The monitoring data may include one or more of radio measurements of the backhaul link quality, radio measurements of the environment around the base station 104 or relay base station 202a, a traffic load on the backhaul link, data throughput on the backhaul link, data retransmission rates, the number of user devices 102 connected through the base station 104 or the relay base station 202a, or the like.).
Regarding claim(s) 15, Stauffer discloses wherein the handover action involves the subset of UEs to be handed over to any cell as indicated in the mobility measurement reports providing combined higher access link quality, higher backhaul link quality, higher bitrate than the cell (500a) of the network node See Fig(s). 4, See ¶ 33, The monitoring data may include one or more of radio measurements of the backhaul link quality, radio measurements of the environment around the base station 104 or relay base station 202a, a traffic load on the backhaul link, data throughput on the backhaul link, data retransmission rates, the number of user devices 102 connected through the base station 104 or the relay base station 202a, or the like….. The IB-AMF 216 sends reconfiguration messages to the base station 104 and the relay base station 212a, as shown at 416 and 418, respectively. The reconfiguration messages may increase or decrease resources allocated for the backhaul link, increase or decrease the transmit power used for the backhaul link, discontinue the wireless backhaul link, and so forth, based on increased or decreased utilization of the backhaul link.).
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Claim(s) 20 and 31 and their respective dependents is/are allowed.
The prior art fails to disclose performing mobility measurements on reference signals received from at least one other network node; and sending a mobility report of the mobility measurements to the network node serving the UE: and receiving, from a network node of another cell, information of deteriorating backhaul link quality of a wireless backhaul link in said another cell, wherein the UE refrains from performing mobility measurements on reference signals received from any network nodes of the another cell.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 10 is/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 Raj Jain whose telephone number is (571) 272-3145. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th ~8 ~6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Derrick Ferris can be reached on 571-272-3123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RAJ JAIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411