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
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.
Claims 6, 10,12-13, 19 and 22-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over of either one of U.S. Patent Pubs. 2021/0127325 to Shih or 2021/0289404 to Tseng in view of 2015/0327141 to Jung.
Regarding claims 6 and 19, Shih teaches a method of wireless communication by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
decoding a system information block, type one (SIB1) message received from a base station shared among a plurality of network operators, the SIB1 message listing: a first public land mobile network identifier (PLMN ID) associated with a first of the plurality of network operators, and a second PLMN ID associated with a second of the plurality of network operators and having no corresponding tracking area code (TAC) (see sections [0037] and [0044], which teach the cells may be shared, see section [0179] which teaches that a PLMN may not have a TAC).
Also, regarding the first step of claim 6 Tseng teaches:
decoding a system information block, type one (SIB1) message received from a base station shared among a plurality of network operators, the SIB1 message listing: a first public land mobile network identifier (PLMN ID) associated with a first of the plurality of network operators, and a second PLMN ID associated with a second of the plurality of network operators and having no corresponding tracking area code (TAC) (see sections [0184], which teaches the cells may be shared, see section [0242] which teaches that a PLMN may not have a TAC).
Regarding the steps of:
“attempting to select or reselect to a shared cell of the base station with the second PLMN ID;
barring the shared cell as a candidate for cell selection or cell reselection, in response to failing to camp on the shared cell due to a missing TAC”;
the step of “attempting” may be interpreted to mean that a UE reads the stored list of PLMN networks received in the SIB and “attempts to determine if the PLMN should be used to access the shared cell”. The step of “barring the cell due to a missing TAC” may be interpreted to mean that after “attempting to determine if the cell can be accessed with a PLMN”, once it is determined that the TAC is missing, the cell is then “determined as being barred based on the missing TAC”.
Therefore, using the above interpretation of these steps, both Shih and Tseng may be interpreted to teach these two steps. For example, section [0179] of Shih teaches that the cell is considered as barred when the TAC is missing from the PLMN.
Similarly, sections [0191] to [0193] and [0242] of Tseng teach that the cell is barred (for 300 seconds) when the SIB did not include the TAC with the PLMN.
In other words, when the UEs of Shih and Tseng read the list of PLMNs received in the SIB1 and read information for a PLMN that does not include a TAC, this “attempts to select the cell…” and then subsequently “bars the cell due to lack of TAC”, as recited.
Regarding the last two steps of claim 6 which recite:
“attempting to select or reselect to the shared cell with the first PLMN ID; and
reevaluating the barring due to selection of the first PLMN ID”, although sections [0070] of Shih teach ignoring barring and/or switching access modes to a cell and sections [0074] to [0080], [0091] and [0246] to [0252] of Tseng teach selecting/switching the type of access mode from PLMN to SNPN selection, Jung is added.
In an analogous art, Jung teaches a UE which receives a list of PLMNs which share an eNB. Section [0064] teaches receiving an SIB1 which includes TACs and barring information. As shown in Figs. 4 and 7-10, and as described in sections [0170], [0180] and [0206] to [0207], Jung teaches that a shared cell may be accessed by either the primary PLMN or a secondary PLMN (where each PLMN has different cell criteria, such as signal strength etc., which was included in the SIB).
Therefore, as both Shih and Tseng teach accessing shared cells with different PLMNs (those barred without TAC), and switching types of access modes and PLMNs, and as Jung teaches that shared cells provide multiple PLMN IDs (accessed first by the primary PLMN and then by the secondary PLMN), it would have been obvious to modify either Shih or Tseng with the primary/secondary PLMNs of Jung, as when a primary cell/PLMN is not available, the secondary PLMN is attempted (and camped on).
Regarding the amendments which now recite:
determining whether the first PLMN ID has a corresponding TAC;
unbarring the shared cell only when the first PLMN ID is determined to have the corresponding TAC; and
camping on the shared cell with the first PLMN ID,
see for example, step 104 in Tseng which teaches the UE switching the access mode from PLMN to SNPN access, and see dependent claims 9 and 19, which teach that upon switching the type of network access, a cell previously considered as barred is “reconsidered as not barred” for the other type of network access (and see section [0242] of Tseng which teaches that if either an SNPN or PLMN has no TAC the cell is barred). Therefore, the difference between the newly recited features and Tseng is that Tseng teaches unbarring when switching from PLMN to SNPN, where the claim amendments teach switching from PLMN1 to PLMN2. Therefore, as Jung teaches camping on a cell with either a primary PLMN1 or a secondary PLMN2, the newly recited features would be rejected as being obvious over the combination of references.
Regarding claims 10 and 23, which recite “further comprising: determining whether a condition causing the shared cell to be barred still exists; and unbarring the shared cell when the condition no longer exists”, see section [0192] of Tseng which teaches starting a 300 second timer upon barring the cell, which would then “unbar the cell” after the “time condition” has expired.
Regarding claims 12 and 25, which recite “further comprising unconditionally unbarring the shared cell”, as Shih and Tseng have PLMNs with TACs, the shared cell may be considered as “unconditionally unbarred” with respect to those PLMNs, as recited.
Regarding claims 13 and 26, which recite “further comprising unbarring the shared cell based on a cell history”, as the PLMNs with TACs in Shih and Tseng may be considered as unbarred after successful access (and/or after successfully reading the PLMN and TAC information stored from the SIB1), they may be “unbarred based on the history”, as recited.
Claims 7 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the references as applied to claims 6 and 19 above, and further in view of the Nokia articles cited in the written opinion (as included in the IDSs of the instant application).
Regarding claims 7 and 20, which recite “in which the first PLMN ID corresponds to a standalone (SA) deployment and the second PLMN ID corresponds to a non-standalone (NSA) deployment”, although Shih and Tseng teach standalone networks, see for example, the abstract, sections [0007], [0015], and [0037] and claim 1 of Shih, and see the abstract, sections [0003], [0006] to [0007], and claim 1 of Tseng, which teach “standalone” (SNPN) networks, as they do not explicitly teach an associated PLMN, the Nokia 3GPP workgroup meeting document is added.
In an analogous art, the Nokia 3GPP workgroup meeting article considers the SA/NSA TAC concerns where (SA stands for “standalone” and NSA stands for “non stand alone”). Observation 1 on the first page of the document teaches “Lack of TAC within SIB1 for a certain PLMN can be used by the UE to indicate barring”.
Therefore, as both Shih and Tseng teach accessing shared cells with different PLMNs (those barred without TAC), and switching types of access modes and PLMNs, and as Jung teaches that shared cells provide multiple PLMN IDs (accessed first by the primary PLMN and then by the secondary PLMN), it would have been obvious to modify either Shih or Tseng with the primary/secondary PLMNs of Jung, as when a primary cell/PLMN is not available, the secondary PLMN is attempted (and camped on).
Claims 8 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the references as applied to claims 6 and 19 above, and further in view of either one of U.S. Patent Pubs. 2019/0110244 to Shih or 2019/0268840 to Chen.
Regarding claims 8 and 21, which recite “in which attempting is performed by an access stratum (AS) layer of the UE”, as Shih and Tseng teach the non-access stratum layer (NAS), either Shih or Chen is added.
In an analogous art, Shih and Chen teach using the access stratum layer for network selection. See for example, section [0109] of Shih and section [0207] of Chen.
Therefore, as Shih/Tseng teach the NAS layer being involved with PLMN selection and as either Shih/Chen teach the AS layer performing the selection using information from the NAS, it would have been obvious to modify either Shih or Tseng with the AS layer performing the “selection and/or attempting”, as these layers are conventionally used by the UE in PLMN selection.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are not persuasive and/or moot in view of the new grounds of rejection. As described above, Tseng unbars a previously barred cell, the difference being the type of network unbarred (PLMN or SNPN types of networks/cells, whereas the claims relate to PLMN networks/cells). Therefore, as Jung teaches camping on a cell with either a primary PLMN1 or a secondary PLMN2, the new features are rejected as being obvious over the combination of the teachings of the references.
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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/STEVEN S KELLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646