DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 3/25/26 has been entered. Claims 12-18, 25-32, and 35 were canceled. Claims 1-11, 19-24, 33-34, and 36 are pending for examination, of which claims 1, 19, and 33-34 were amended, and claim 36 was newly added.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 3/25/26, have been fully considered and entered. The rejections of claims 1-11, 19-24, 33-34, and 36 are supported in view of Chang, Kim, and Babaei. Applicant's arguments filed 3/25/26, have been fully considered and entered but they are moot because the arguments do not apply to the new grounds of rejection.
Claim Objections
Claim 21 is objected due to following error:
In claim 21 (line 4), the term “a first timer” should be changed to – the first timer.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claim at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or non-obviousness.
Claims 1, 19, 33-34, and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chang et al. (US 20230022967 A1), hereinafter referred to as Chang, in view of Kim et al. (US 20230262540 A1), hereinafter referred to as Kim, and further in view of Babaei (US 10,980,059 B1), hereinafter referred to as Babaei.
Regarding claim 1:
Chang discloses a user equipment (UE) for wireless communication (UE in Fig.1) comprising:
at least one memory (memory [0014]); and
at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory (processor coupled with memory [0014]) and configured to cause the UE to:
receive master cell group (MCG) link recovery configuration information; (receive an RRC connection reconfiguration message to recover an MCG link [0046, lines 1-30]);
start, in response to the radio link failure {RLF} in the MCG, the first timer (start, in response to MCG radio link failure, a first timer T316 used to detect MCG failure information procedure, which is associated with RRC connection re-establishment procedure to recover an MCG link, e.g., link recovery procedure [0046, lines 1-30]); and
transmit MCG failure information including an indication of the RLF in the MCG (transmitting MCG failure information RRC message including MCG link failure information [0046, lines 1-30]).
Chang does not further disclose the link recovery configuration information includes a value of a first timer associated with an MCG link recovery procedure and transmitting, based at least in part on the MCG link recovery configuration information including the value of the first timer, MCG failure information including an indication of the RLF in the MCG.
Kim, from the same field of endeavor, teaches the link recovery configuration information includes a value of a first timer associated with an MCG link recovery procedure (information for a timer related to a fast MCG recovery, e.g., timer T316 [0276] or Fig.11 – S1103), and transmitting, based at least in part on the MCG link recovery configuration information including the value of the first timer, MCG failure information including an indication of the RLF in the MCG (reporting MCG radio link failure when initiating MCG failure information procedure, if fast MCG link recovery is configured, i.e., T316 is configured, [0219, 0222] or Fig.11 – S1103).
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to transmit, based at least in part on the MCG link recovery configuration information including the value of the first timer, MCG failure information including an indication of MCG RLF; thus quickly reporting MCG failure during the fast MCG recovery procedure, or initiating a fast MCG recovery procedure, and starting timer T316 upon detecting the MCG failure – Kim [0255 or 0259].
Chang in view of Kim does not further state the RLF is due to detecting consistent uplink listen before talk (LBT) failures on the MCG and indicating RLF in the MCG is due to detecting the consistent uplink LBT failures on the MCG.
Babaei, from the same field of endeavor, teaches detecting a RLF in an MCG in response to detecting consistent uplink listen before talk (LBT) failures on the MCG (indicating a failure to a master base station after detecting consistent uplink LBT failure of PSCell [col.34, lines 14-35] wherein master base station provides master cell group (MCG) [col.8, line 62 to col.9, line 4]); and indicating RLF in the MCG is due to detecting the consistent uplink LBT failures on the MCG (and reporting consistent uplink LBT failures causing RLF on cells on {LBT failure indication medium access control – control elements -- {MAC CE}, e.g.., failure information,[col.34, lines 36-55 and col.35, lines 20-29]).
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to transmit MCG failure information including an indication that the RLF is due to detecting the consistent uplink LBT failure on the MCG -- to a transmitting device, so as for the transmitting device to respond with a MCG link recovery configuration; thus enhancing the existing uplink LBT recovery mechanism to improve the speed of recovery from consistent LBT failures (Babaei [col.41, lines 3-19]).
Regarding claim 36:
Chang in view of Kim and Babaei discloses all features of claim 1.
Chang does not, while Kim further teaches enabling the MCG link recovery procedure based at least in part on the MCG link recovery configuration information including the value of the first timer (considering that fast MCG recovery is available, if UE is configured with a timer T316 [0212]), wherein transmission of the MCG failure information is based at least in part on enablement of the MCG link recovery procedure (wherein reporting MCG RLF if fast MCG recovery or T316 is configured [0219, 0222]).
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to transmit MCG failure information is based at least in part on enablement of MCG link recovery procedure; thus allowing to perform fast MCG failure recovery – Kim [0251].
Regarding claim 19:
Claim 19 is rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claim 1 above, except that claim 19 is recited from the base station perspective, where Chang [in claim 19] also discloses the base station/ cell (“Source Cell” in Fig.2) comprising: a receive circuitry (element inherent in a communications device); a transmit circuitry (element inherent in a communications device); and a processor (processor [0108]) coupled to the a receive circuitry, the transmit circuitry -- used to perform claimed functionalities.
Regarding claim 33:
Claim 33 is rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claim 1 above, except that claim 33 is in method claim format.
Regarding claim 34:
Claim 34 is rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claim 19 above, except that claim 34 is in a method claim format.
Allowable Subject Matter
Dependent claims 2-11 and 20-24 are objected to as being dependent upon their rejected base claims 1 and 19, respectively, but would be allowable if re-written in independent form, including features recited in claims from which they depend.
Reason for the indication for allowable subject matters:
Claims 2-11 and 20-24 are considered allowable as they define a method for performing a MCG link recovery procedure by considering conditional handover {CHO} configurations sets, execution conditions sets for sets of cells, and listen before talk {LBT}; in response to detecting a radio link failure {RLF} in MCG, wherein MCG link recovery procedure is associated with a timer, which is not stopped/ continued/ restarted in accordance with received information, that indicates removing/ suspending configurations and execution conditions. These features are not altogether disclosed in the cited prior arts; however, they provide a significant improvement in meeting requirements for a fast MCG link recovery -- compared to known methods.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/C.Q.T./
Patent Examiner, AU 2465
/John Pezzlo/
Primary Examiner, AU 2465B
17 June 2026
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