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 .
1. Claims 1-7 and 25-32 are pending. Claims 8-11 are withdrawn. Claims 12-24 are cancelled.
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The Information Disclosure Statement dated 06/28/2023 is acknowledged by the Examiner.
Election/Restrictions
3. Claims 8-11 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention Group II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 09/18/2025.
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.
4. Claim(s) 1 and 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwok et al, US 2021/0400627 in view of Fan, US 2023/0171811 hereafter Fan.
As for claim 1, Kwok discloses:
A cell selection method, wherein the method is applied to a base station, and comprises:
acquiring target capability information corresponding to at least one neighbor base station (Kwok, Fig. 3, 310, [0030], Obtaining data or E-Utran New Radio-Dual Connectivity (ENDC) capabilities 310 useable to generate a neighbor list 312 corresponding to the neighbor base stations 308);
wherein the target capability information indicates a capability of solving a problem of a terminal (Kwok, [0016], [0018], [0027], [0053], [0055], [0057]-[0059], [0068]-[0069], The capability information indicates a capability of solving the terminal problem (e.g. displaying the accurate/inaccurate network indicators, determining support, capability matching, establishing/maintain connections to neighboring base stations, and/or determining the frequency for neighboring base stations); and
sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station (Kwok, Fig. 3, 312, 314, [0014], [0020], [0030]-[0031], [0040], Sending the neighbor list including capability information corresponding to the neighbor stations).
Kwok does not explicitly disclose a multi-card problem of a multi-card terminal.
However, Fan discloses a multi-card problem of a multi-card terminal (Fan, [0027], [0048]-[0054], the second network-side device cannot perform configuration according to normal configuration for accessing the terminal or according to obtained terminal-wireless-capacity information, but needs to perform configuration according to the limited terminal wireless capacity reported in the field. The second network-side device generates network configuration information corresponding to the access request information and transmits the network configuration information to the multi-card mobile terminal. The network configuration information includes any one or more of: number of connections, number of carriers, number of MIMO layers, a bandwidth class, frequency-domain configuration information, or time-domain frequency configuration information that are configured for accessing the multi-card mobile terminal).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kwok with Fan to improve network configuration efficiency (Fan, [0027]).
As for claim 25, Kwok discloses:
A cell selection apparatus (Kwok, Fig. 8, [0070]-[0071], The base station 800 may include a communication interface 802, a processor 804, and memory 806. The memory 806 may comprise device connection instructions 808, neighbor capabilities determining instructions 810, as well as other instructions 812. The memory 806 may also store data, such as network data 814 and neighbor capability data 816) comprising: a processor; a memory for storing processor-executable instructions; wherein, the instructions are executed by the processor, so that the processor performs the following steps:
acquiring target capability information corresponding to at least one neighbor base station (Kwok, Fig. 3, 310, [0030], Obtaining data or E-Utran New Radio-Dual Connectivity (ENDC) capabilities 310 useable to generate a neighbor list 312 corresponding to the neighbor base stations 308);
wherein the target capability information indicates a capability of solving a problem of a terminal (Kwok, [0016], [0018], [0027], [0053], [0055], [0057]-[0059], [0068]-[0069], The capability information indicates a capability of solving the terminal problem (e.g. displaying the accurate/inaccurate network indicators, determining support, capability matching, establishing/maintain connections to neighboring base stations, and/or determining the frequency for neighboring base stations); and
sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station (Kwok, Fig. 3, 312, 314, [0014], [0020], [0030]-[0031], [0040], Sending the neighbor list including capability information corresponding to the neighbor stations).
Kwok does not explicitly disclose a multi-card problem of a multi-card terminal.
However, Fan discloses a multi-card problem of a multi-card terminal (Fan, [0027], [0048]-[0054], the second network-side device cannot perform configuration according to normal configuration for accessing the terminal or according to obtained terminal-wireless-capacity information, but needs to perform configuration according to the limited terminal wireless capacity reported in the field. The second network-side device generates network configuration information corresponding to the access request information and transmits the network configuration information to the multi-card mobile terminal. The network configuration information includes any one or more of: number of connections, number of carriers, number of MIMO layers, a bandwidth class, frequency-domain configuration information, or time-domain frequency configuration information that are configured for accessing the multi-card mobile terminal).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kwok with Fan to improve network configuration efficiency (Fan, [0027]).
5. Claim(s) 2-3 and 27-28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwok et al, US 2021/0400627 in view of Fan, US 2023/0171811 as applied to claims 1 and 25 above, and further in view of Yang, US 2020/0359279 hereafter Yang.
As for claims 2 and 27, Kwok discloses broadcast signaling (Kwok, [0001]) and the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station (Kwok, Fig. 3, 310, [0030], capability information including a neighbor list 312 corresponding to the neighbor base stations 308);.
The combination of Kwok and Fan does not explicitly disclose sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station comprises: broadcasting the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station through a broadcast signaling.
However, Yang discloses sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station comprises: broadcasting the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station through a broadcast signaling (Yang, [0078] Broadcasting the capability information of at least one neighboring network device and/or the cell.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kwok and Fan with Yang to provide improved utilization efficiency of system radio resources (Yang, [0004]).
As for claims 3 and 28, Yang discloses the broadcast signaling is configured to broadcast a target system message carrying the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station (Yang, [0049], the network device may further broadcast the capability information of the network device and/or the cell).
6. Claim(s) 4 and 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwok et al, US 2021/0400627 in view of Fan, US 2023/0171811 in view of Yang, US 2020/0359279 as applied to claims 3 and 28 above, and further in view of Jose et al, US 2023/0300723 hereafter Jose.
As for claims 4 and 29, Kwok discloses the target system message comprises at least one of: system information block SIB (Kwok, [0040] [0055], [0075], SIB).
The combination of Kwok, Fan, and Yang does not explicitly disclose the target system message comprises at least one of: system information blocks SIB3, SIB4, SIB5, and SIB11.
However, Jose discloses the target system message comprises at least one of: system information blocks SIB3, SIB4, SIB5, and SIB11 (Jose, [0021]-[0023], A network node transmits system information using SIB/SIB4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the combination of the teachings of Kwok, Fan, and Yang with Jose to provide improved capability reporting (Jose, [0004], [0008]).
7. Claim(s) 5 and 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwok et al, US 2021/0400627 in view of Fan, US 2023/0171811 as applied to claims 1 and 25 above, and further in view of Fong et al, US 8,811,339 hereafter Fong.
As for claims 5 and 30, Kwok does not explicitly disclose sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station comprises: in response to determining that the multi-card terminal is in a connected state, sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station to the multi-card terminal through a unicast signaling.
However, Fong discloses sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station comprises: in response to determining that the multi-card terminal is in a connected state, sending the target capability information corresponding to the at least one neighbor base station to the multi-card terminal through a unicast signaling (Fong, column 8, lines 37-40, While the MS is in connected state, the BS can unicast or multicast a neighbor BS system configuration information to the MS when the neighbor BS is in the active set of a MS.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention combine the combination of the teachings of Kwok and Fan with Fong to provide improved reliability and latency.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 6-7 and 31-32 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
9. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Shaheen et al, US 6,128,490 discloses the broadcast messages may include information describing the capacity and capabilities of neighboring base stations, traffic on the broadcasting base station, traffic on neighboring base stations and various other types of information that may be employed to indicate in which bands, upon what channels and according to which protocols operation within the service area should be had.
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JENEE HOLLAND whose telephone number is (571)270-7196. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, IAN MOORE can be reached at (571)272-3085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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JENEE HOLLAND
Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/JENEE HOLLAND/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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