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 .
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Applicant’s arguments, see 112 Rejection, filed 04/29/2026, with respect to claims 1 and 6 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 112 Rejection of claims 1 and 6 has been withdrawn based on claim amendments.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 9 were previously objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form is withdrawn based on the amendments to the claims and the newly cited prior art.
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.
The factual inquiries 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 claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 6-8, 10, 21 and 24, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu (US 2023/0284314 A1), in view of, Vivo “Remaining Issues on MCG Fast Recovery”, R2-1914945, dated November 18th – 22nd, 2019, in view of Chang et al. (US 2023/0164866 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 6, Wu discloses:
a user equipment (UE) (fig.1a depicts a wireless communications network, wherein the wireless communications network comprises a User Equipment (UE) element 102) for managing a link (par.[0001] managing connections for MCG failure) in a wireless communication system (fig.1a which describes a wireless communications system), the UE comprising:
a communication circuit (fig.1a implicit as the UE communicates wirelessly with the base station); and
a controller (fig.1a depicts the processing hardware of the UE) operably coupled to the communciation circuit (fig.1a implicit as the processor and transceiver would communicate over the bus), the controller configured to:
perform a method by the user equipment (UE) (fig.1a the user equipment)
receiving, from a master node (par.[0001] describes a master node) related to a dual connectivity operation (par.[0001] describes a dual connectivity (DC) Master Node (MN) which is in a DC with a Secondary Node (SN) in the wireless communications network), a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message (par.[0007] describes the MN sending an RRC_RECONFIGURATION_MESSAGE), wherein the RRC reconfiguration message includes a value of a timer (par.[0195] which describes the timer included in the RRC_RECONFIGURATION_MESSAGE, the timer being a T316) based on the UE being configured with a split signaling radio bearer (SRB) or SRB3 (par.[0005] which recites, in part, “SRB3 resources allow the UE and the SN to exchange RRC messages related to the SN, and can be referred to as an SCG SRB. Split SRBs allow the UE to exchange RRC messages directly with the MN by using radio resources of the MN, the SN, or both of the MN and SN.”);
detecting a radio link failure (par.[0006] describes a radio link failure, and the UE in DC detects a radio link failure);
based on the detection of the RLF, transmitting a master cell group (MCG) failure information message (par.[0006] which recites, in part, “The UE reports the MCG failure by transmitting an MCGFailureInformation message to the SN”) via the split SRB to a second node base station (BS) in a dual connectivity operation (par.[0006] which recites, in part, “an MCGFailureInformation message to the SN via the SCG using an SCG leg of a split SRB1 or an SRB3”. As discussed above, the SN is a secondary node in the Dual Connectivity);
in response to receiving the RRC reconfiguration message including the value of the timer (as discussed above, the UE receives an RRC_RECONFIGURATION message with a timer indicated therein), upon transmitting the MCG failure information message (par.[0006] describes the UE transmitting the MCGFailureInformation on the uplink to the SN), starting the timer to support a RLF report for a fast MCG recovery procedure (par.[0195 – 0196] describes starting the timer T316 for MCG fast recovery procedure);
based on the expiry of the timer, performing a RRC connection re-establishment procedure with the secondary node (par.[0196] which recites, in part, “In response to expiry of the recovery timer, the UE 102 can perform 860B an RRC re-establishment procedure and 870B an RRC reconfiguration procedure with the MN 104, the SN 106A or base station 106B.”)
While the disclosure of Wu substantially discloses the claimed invention, it may not explicitly disclose:
Based on the expiry of the timer, setting an indication related to a cause of a failure of a MCG recovery to indicate the timer expired.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Vivo teaches:
based on the time expired (2.2.1 Procedure when fast recovery fails when timer expires) setting indication related to a cause of a failure of a MCG recovery to indicate the time expired (2.2.2 describes the recovery failure message comprises the MCG failure information SCG failure information, etc. which each includes a cause, and the cause could be the timer expired as discussed in 2.2.1);
based on the timer expired, performing a radio resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment procedure with the secondary node BS (2.2.1 Proposal 3: If Fast recovery failure occurred, UE would trigger re-establishment procedure based on reasons causes as discussed in 2.2.1 such as expiry timer expired, 2.2.2 describes the re-establishment the same MCG or SCG, or new MCG and/or SCG).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the disclosure of Wu for fast MCG recovery with the disclosure of Vivo for fast MCG recovery with pertinent failure information. The motivation/suggestion would have been to provide a report of why the MCG fast recovery failed in order to provide enhanced diagnostic support for the wireless communications network.
While the disclosures of Wu and Vivo substantially discloses the claimed invention, they may not disclose:
receiving, from the secondary node BS, a UE information request message after the connection is established; and
in response to the UE information request message, transmitting, to the secondary node BS, a UE information message including an RLF report including the indication.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Chang teaches:
receiving, from the secondary node BS, a UE information request message after the connection is established (par.[0038] describes an RRCConnectionRe-establishment procedure with a network side (e.g. a second network node) and the UE is can send in a complete message an indication of stored RLF reports. In response to the indication the UE can receive a message for reporting the RLF report, fig.3 and par.[0056- 0058]); and
in response to the UE information request message, transmitting, to the secondary node BS, a UE information message including an RLF report including the indication (fig.3 and par.[0056 – 0058] which describes the UE transmitting the RLF report information, in view of par.[0038] which recites, in part, “After receiving the indication, the network side may request, by using an RRC message (an rlf-ReportReq information element in a UEInformationRequest message to indicate the request), the UE to report the radio link failure report stored thereby. The UE will report the stored radio link failure report (an rlf-Report information element in a UEInformationResponse message) to the network side in a response RRC message.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Wu and Vivo for MCG fast recovery with the disclosure of Chang which teaches that the UE in after an RRC_Reestablishment procedure may deliver stored RLF reports. The motivation/suggestion would have been to provide a means for network optimization.
Regarding claims 2 and 7, Chang discloses:
based on detecting the RLF, storing the RLF report content for the RLF report; and
deleting the stored RLF report content, based on the UE information response message related to the MCG failure being received within a specific time after the transmission of the MCG failure information message (par.[0060] which recites, in part, “Alternatively, when the UE receives a response RRC message from the network side during the fast MCG link recovery procedure, the stored RLF report corresponding to this RLF is deleted from the UE.” That is, the fast recovery procedure is successful, and the UE MN has received the MCGFailureInformation thus, the UE may delete the stored RLF information).
Regarding claims 3 and 8, Chang discloses:
wherein the UE information response message includes an indicator instructing the UE to delete the stored RLF report content, based on at least one predetermined condition being satisfied (par.[0060] which recites, in part, “Alternatively, when the UE receives a response RRC message from the network side during the fast MCG link recovery procedure, the stored RLF report corresponding to this RLF is deleted from the UE.”. That is, the UE receives the RRC response message based on success of the fast recovery).
Regarding claims 5 and 10, Vivo discloses:
wherein the at least one predetermined condition includes at least one of:
stopping a timer indicating a time between a reception time of the UE information response message and a transmission time of the MCG failure information message (1: Introduction – Upon Sending a MCG Failure Indication, UE starts a timer, and upon resumption of MCG, UE stops the timer.);
receiving the UE information response message after transmitting the MCG failure information message (1: Introduction – Upon Resumption of MCG, UE stops the timer with Upon receiving the MCG failure indication, the MN sends reconfiguration with Sync or RRC Release); or
receiving an acknowledgement (ACK) in response to transmitting the MCG failure information message (1: Introduction _the MN sends reconfiguration with Sync or RRC Release, which is an Ack to the MCG Failure Information message sent by the UE).
Regarding claim 21 and 24, Vivo discloses:
wherein the RLF includes a MCG radio link failure of a MCG including a master node BS related to the dual connectivity (1: Introduction - describes failure on the MCG, 2: discussion depicts a dual connectivity scenario); and
wherein the MCG failure information message is transmitted via a split signaling radio bearer, SRB, to the secondary node BS (1: Introduction – UE triggers an MCG failure procedure in which a failure information message is transmitted to the network via SCG. For MCG failure indication, new RRC message is introduced, e.g. MCG failureInformation SCG leg of the split SRB1 can be used for MCG fast recovery).
Regarding claims 23 and 26, Vivo in view of Chang discloses:
Wherein the indication is set to indicate the timer expired, based on the timer has expired without receiving a message related to the failure of the MCG recovery (Vivo: 2.2.2 describes the recovery failure message comprises the MCG failure information SCG failure information, etc. which each includes a cause, and the cause could be the timer expired as discussed in 2.2.12.2.2 describes the recovery failure message comprises the MCG failure information SCG failure information, etc. which each includes a cause, and the cause could be the timer expired as discussed in 2.2.1 in view of Chang: fig.3 and par.[0056 – 0058] which describes the UE transmitting the RLF report information, in view of par.[0038] which recites, in part, “After receiving the indication, the network side may request, by using an RRC message (an rlf-ReportReq information element in a UEInformationRequest message to indicate the request), the UE to report the radio link failure report stored thereby. The UE will report the stored radio link failure report (an rlf-Report information element in a UEInformationResponse message) to the network side in a response RRC message.”).
Wu (US 2023/0284314 A1), in view of, Vivo “Remaining Issues on MCG Fast Recovery”, R2-1914945, dated November 18th – 22nd, 2019, in view of Chang et al. (US 2023/0164866 A1), and further in view of Teyeb et al. (US 2023/0217291 A1).
Regarding claim(s) 4 and 9, the disclosures of Wu, Vivo, and Chang, substantially disclose the independent claims, but fail to disclose:
wherein the configuration information includes an indicator instructing the UE to delete the stored RLF report content based on at least on predetermined condition.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Teyeb teaches:
wherein the configuration information includes an indicator instructing the UE to delete the stored RLF report content based on at least on predetermined condition (par.[0050] describes the deletion of stored RLF information based on a condition being satisfied. Indicator in the configuration message is included in table-8, table-9, etc.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the disclosure of Wu, Vivo, and Chang, for the reasons discussed above, in view of Teyeb, for deleting stored RLF reports. The motivation/suggestion would have been to free up storage space when the RLF report is no longer pertinent, and preventing waste of memory.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Jung et al. (US 12, 069, 759 B2) “Recovery From Deadlock After MCG Failure Report” fig.17
Koskinen (US 2021/0203543 A1) “Failure Indication of Master Cell Group With Fall-Back to Radio Resource Control Re-Establishment”
Chen (US 2020/0059395 A1) “Reporting Master Node Radio Link Failure”
Teyeb et al. (US 2023/0086398 A1) “Master Cell Group (MCG) Failure and Radio Link Failure Reporting”
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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JAMAAL HENSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2411
/JAMAAL HENSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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