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 .
The following is a non-final office action in response to the RCE filed 01/07/2025. Amendments received on 01/07/2025 have been entered. As per applicant claims 2, 9-11, 15-42, 45-46 were previously canceled. Accordingly claims 1, 3-8, 12-14, 43-44 and 47-54 are pending.
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.
Claims 1, 3-8, 12-14, 43-44 and 47-54 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vutukuri et al. (US Pub 2022/0038984) in view of Cheng et al. (US Pub 2023/0269809) and further in view of Zhang et al. (US Pub 2014/0146739).
As of claims 1, 43 and 44, Vutukuri discloses a method for wireless communication, performed by a terminal and comprising:
when a radio link failure is detected by the terminal, performing a relay discovery procedure to determine an available relay or performing the relay discovery procedure to determine the available relay and performing a cell selection procedure to determine a suitable cell (see paragraph [0050], “the UE 104 shall initiate and complete the UNR (relay) discovery before the UE 104 is abruptly disconnected from the network (e.g., by experiencing a Radio Link Failure); see paragraph [0054] “The RLF procedure is used to trigger procedures that the UE 104 shall initiate upon detecting deterioration of the radio link between the eNB 108 and the UE 104…During phase two, the UE 104 initiates a reestablishment procedure and attempts to reconnect to an eNB 108”); and
performing a radio resource control (RRC) reestablishment through the available relay (see paragraph [0064], “in BBM (break-before-make), the MCPTT service is re-established through the UNR 102 over the PC5 interface after the RRC connection has been released and accesses the MCPTT services through the eNB 108 over the Uu interface is interrupted. Using MBB, the MCPTT service is handed over from the eNB/Uu path to the relay/PC5 path before the RRC connection is released and related access to MCPTT services is uninterrupted”; see paragraph [0066]-[0067], the UE 104 detects that a condition to initiate UNR discover exists and the UE 104 selects an appropriate relay; also see paragraph [0107]).
However, Vutukuri does not explicitly disclose that when the available relay has been found by the terminal, stopping the cell selection procedure.
Cheng discloses techniques for RRC connection reestablishment by a remote UE (see abstract). Cheng discloses that when an RLF is declared, the remote UE may start a timer (e.g., a T311 associated with a cell selection procedure), and may perform both cell selection and relay selection simultaneously. If the T311 expires, the remote UE may enter RRC IDLE. Cheng discloses that if a suitable relay is selected first (before a suitable cell is found and before the T311 timer expires), the remote UE may stop the T311 timer and initiate RRC re-establishment procedure by sending an RRC Reestablishment Request message to a gNB via forwarding through the selected relay, hence disclosing the limitation of when the available relay has been found, stopping the cell selection procedure (see paragraph [0094]- [0095]).
From the teaching of Cheng, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the inventio was filed to modify the system of Vutukuri to include the function of stopping cell selection when a suitable relay is found as taught by Cheng since a viable alternative path has been secured to attempt recovery of the connection.
With regard to the newly added limitation when the available relay and the suitable cell have been found by the terminal, performing the RRC reestablishment through the available relay or the suitable cell, Examiner would like to point out that claim language does not state that the relay discovery procedure and cell selection procedure are performed simultaneously or when the available relay and the suitable cell have been found simultaneously reestablish through the available relay or the suitable cell.
Cheng discloses that the remote UE simultaneously search for both a suitable cell and suitable relay (see paragraph [0085]) and logical conclusion would be that if remote UE finds both it could select one of its choice. In order to further support the Examiner’s assertion Zhang discloses a wireless communication system wherien once a device (base station 104) determines that wireless communication with a target device (base station 108) is available, either directly, indirectly through a relay device 102 or both, the device (base station 104) performs wireless communication through the available relay or directly with the second device (see paragraph [0014]).
From the teaching of Zhang, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the combination of Vutukuri and Cheng to include the function of selecting one communication path if two communication paths are available as taught by Zhang in order to perform wireless communication.
As of claims 3, 47 and 51, Vutukuri discloses that the relay discovery procedure comprises: receiving, by the terminal, first information, wherein the first information indicates at least one relay providing a relay service; or the relay discovery procedure comprises: sending, by the terminal, a relay request message, and receiving, by the terminal, second information in response to the relay request message, wherein the second information indicates at least one relay providing the relay service (via performing UNR (relay) discover procedure; see paragraphs [0042], [0067] and [0070]. Vutukuri further discloses that the UE 104 receives UNR 102 identifiers for the UE 104 to discover (see paragraph [0078]).
As of claim 4, Vutukuri discloses performing a relay detection procedure to determine the available relay, wherein the relay detection procedure comprises: obtaining a signal sent by at least one relay, and determining whether the signal sent by the at least one relay satisfies a first preset condition (see paragraph [0067], “The UE 104, at step S402, performs the ProSe Direct Discovery of multiple UNRs 102 in communication range able to provide connectivity for the service the UE 104 is interested in and selects an appropriate relay 102. ProSe Direct Discovery consists of a set of procedures used by ProSe enabled UEs or ProSe relays supporting Direct Discovery to detect and identify other ProSe-enabled UE(s) or ProSe relay(s) in their proximity).
As of claim 5, Vutukuri disclose that the signal sent by the at least one relay comprises at least one of: a synchronization signal or a demodulation reference signal (via performing the ProSe Direct discover of the UNRs 102 and receiving signals from the UNRs; see paragraphs [0067]- [0069]). Further it is known method that when a UE connects to a Relay, it needs to synchronize with the Relay's timing and frequency. The Relay, in turn, needs to be synchronized with the base station it is connected to. The SS allows for this synchronization, ensuring that the UE and the Relay operate in sync with the overall network (see Ji et al. (US Pub 2011/0194407) where an access terminal receives primary synchronization signal and second synchronization signals; see paragraph [0098]).
As of claim 6, Vutukuri discloses that the first preset condition comprises: a quality of the signal sent by the at least one relay exceeding a preset threshold, when the terminal detects the quality of the signal sent by the at least one relay (via UE 104 measuring the received signal power and performing quality measurements; see paragraph [0120]).
As of claims 7, 48 and 52, Vutukuri discloses that performing the relay discovery procedure to determine the available relay comprises: performing the relay discovery procedure to determine at least one relay; and performing a relay detection procedure, and determining a relay satisfying a first preset condition among the at least one relay as the available relay (via performing UNR discovery process and measuring the received signal power and performing quality measurements on available UNRs and selecting a suitable UNR that satisfies the received signal power and performing quality measurements based on the measurement report; see paragraph [0120]-[0121]) .
As of claims 8, 49 and 53, Vutukuri discloses that when the number of relays satisfying the first preset condition among the at least one relay is greater than or equal to 2, the available relay satisfies one of: the available relay being a random relay among the relays satisfying the first preset condition or the available relay being a relay with the strongest reference signal received power (RSRP) among the relays satisfying the first preset condition (via performing UNR discovery process and measuring the received signal power and performing quality measurements on multiple available UNRs and selecting a suitable UNR that satisfies the received signal power and quality measurements based on the measurement report; see paragraph [0120]-[0121]).
As of claims 12, 50 and 54, Vutukuri discloses that the cell selection procedure is performed by the terminal if no available relay is found when the relay discovery procedure is performed by the terminal (via switching back to the network mode operation, where the UE receives signal from a node of a cell; see paragraph [0003] and [0042]).
As of claim 13, Vutukuri discloses that the at least one of the relay discovery procedure or the relay detection procedure is performed by the terminal in parallel or simultaneously with the cell selection procedure (via disclosing that “If whilst discovering a UNR, the quality of the service received via the network improves or if a suitable target neighbor cell is found” which indicates that the UE is performing relay discover in parallel with the cell selection procedure; see paragraph [0042]).
As of claim 14, Vutukuri discloses that the at least one of the relay discovery procedure or the relay detection procedure is preferentially performed by the terminal; (via preferentially performing a cell selection or relay node selection; see paragraph [0027]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any combination of the references applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NABIL H SYED whose telephone number is (571)270-3028. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-5:00 M-F.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Zimmerman can be reached at 571-272-3059. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/NABIL H SYED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2686