Detailed Action
1. This Action is in response to Applicant's Patent Application filed on August 3, 2023. Claims 14-22, 26, 29-35, 37 and 39-54 have been canceled via preliminary amendment, therefore, claims 1-13, 23-25, 27, 28, 36 and 38 are currently pending in the present application. This Action is made Non-Final.
America Invents Act (AIA ) Information
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement(s) submitted within this application (has/have) been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. 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.
5. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
6. Claims 23-25, 27, 28 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by KAHN; Colin et al. (US 20220303070 A1), hereafter “KAHN,”
Consider claim 23. KAHN discloses a method of forwarding data packets at an access node serving in a source cell (fig. 1C #170) a radio device (fig. 1C #164) during a handover of the radio device from the source cell to a target cell (fig. 1C #1700) of a radio network serving as a time-sensitive networking (TSN) bridge (fig. 1C #169), the method comprising (see par. 0039: “Referring to FIG. 1C, the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700. For example, the paths 1900B may carry some, if not all, of the data carried on path 1900A to provide redundancy” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discuses that paths 1900B and 1900A carry data (e.g. transmits/receives data to and from the UE. Applicant’s specifications in page 4 lines 4-6 describe: “The forwarding (e.g., according to the first method aspect) of the first TSN data packets may comprise an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session” therefore, transmitting and forwarding are interexchange):
forwarding first TSN data packets in a first PDU session between the radio device and a user plane (UP) of a core network (CN) of the radio network (par. 0038: “The translators provide interoperability between wired, IEEE TSN network bridges (which operate primarily in accordance with the IEEE suite of TSN protocols) and the 5G core, RAN, and UE (which operate in accordance with 3GPP protocols),” par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820.);
determining the handover based on a measurement report received from the radio device (see par. 0041: “handovers occur when a radio resource management (RRM) function in a source base station, such as a 5G gNB type base station, determines, based on for example measurement reports received from the UE and other factors, that the UE may be better served by a neighbor cell and the neighbor RRM admission control accepts the handover”); and
transmitting a control message to the radio device, the control message being configured to trigger the radio device to establish a second PDU session in the target cell (see par. 0041: “However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base
station”).
Consider claim 24 in view of claim 23 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the access node continues forwarding the first TSN data packets in a first PDU session between the radio device and the UP of the CN after the establishing of the second PDU session between the radio device and the UP of the CN in the target cell (see par. 0041: “During handovers, in-flight packets are forwarded over the Xn/X2 interface from source gNB base station to the target gNB base station, so typically there is no data loss”).
Consider claim 25 in view of claim 24 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the control message is indicative of at least one of the handover, the serving as a TSN bridge, a reduction of an interruption time during the handover, and separately using the first active protocol stack for the source cell and the second active protocol stack for the target cell (see pars. 0030 and 0031: “The establishment of end-to-end (E2E) communications between TSN systems 188A-B may include phases, such as a pre-configuration and authentication phase, a network discovery phase, a stream requirements and schedule computation phase, and a configuration of the bridges and the end stations phase”).
Consider claim 27, KAHN discloses a method of forwarding data packets at a user plane (UP) of a core network (CN) of a radio network during a handover of a radio device (fig, 1C #164) from a source cell (fig, 1C #170) to a target cell (fig, 1C #1700) of the radio network serving as a time-sensitive networking (TSN) bridge (fig, 1C #169), the method comprising: (see fig. 1C, par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820”):
forwarding first TSN data packets through the source cell using a first PDU session between the radio device and the UP of the CN (see par. 0026: “For example, each of the end stations may include circuitry to transmit (e.g., in the case of a “talker”) and/or receive (e.g., in the case of a “listener”) using for example, Time Sensitive Network (TSN) circuitry that enables communications over a TSN network in accordance with the IEEE suite of 802.1 series of standards,” par. 0038: “The translators provide interoperability between wired, IEEE TSN network bridges (which operate primarily in accordance with the IEEE suite of TSN protocols) and the 5G core, RAN, and UE (which operate in accordance with 3GPP protocols),” par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses end stations (e.g., UE) with circuitry to transmit/receive TSN PDUs over a core network. Applicant’s specifications in page 4 lines 4-6 describe: “The forwarding (e.g., according to the first method aspect) of the first TSN data packets may comprise an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session” and since KAHN discloses that the end stations include circuitry to transmit, it reads on forwarding);
prior to releasing the first PDU session, establishing a second PDU session between the radio device and the UP of the CN in the target cell (see par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700” and par. 0044: “When a single UE 164 is at an endpoint 169 (e.g., with dual connectivity to a master node 170 and at least one secondary node 1700 as shown in FIG. 1C) is configured, coordination may be needed so that an action, such as a handover which may interrupt service, does not occur simultaneously on each leg of the dual connectivity.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses the UE with dual connectivity and at paragraph 44 KAHN further discloses that coordination is deeded to prevent interruption during handover, in other words, there are two connections active before releasing any of them to prevent interruption); and
forwarding second TSN data packets through the target cell using the second PDU session (see pars. 0026 and 0039 and the explanation above regarding these paragraphs).
Consider claim 28 in view of claim 27 above. KAHN further discloses comprising
or initiating the step of: transferring all TSN configuration information from the first PDU session to the second PDU session, optionally wherein the TSN configuration information comprises at least one of a forwarding configuration of the TSN bridge; a gate open time interval for the TSN bridge; and a TSN assistance information, TSCAI, for the TSN bridge (see par. 0034 and 0035: “During the bridge and end station configuration phase, the CUC 102 may trigger the CNC 104 to configure the TSN bridges with the parameters for establishment of the end-to-end connection (which may include the schedules for the connections) for the TSN stream between end stations (via the TSN bridges).”).
Consider claim 38. KAHN discloses an access node (fig. 1C #170) for forwarding data packets at the access node serving in a source cell (fig. 1C #170) a radio device (fig. 1C #164) during a handover of the radio device from the source cell to a target cell (fig. 1C #1700) of a radio network serving as a time-sensitive networking (TSN) bridge (fig. 1C #169), the access node comprising memory (fig. 6 #604) operable to store instructions and processing circuitry (fig. 6 #620) operable to execute the instructions (see par. 0100: “the base stations and user equipment (or one or more components therein) and/or the processes described herein can be implemented using one or more of the following: a processor executing program code, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a digital signal processor (DSP), an embedded processor, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), and/or combinations thereof”), such that the network access node is operable
to:
forward first TSN data packets in a first PDU session between the radio device and a user plane (UP) of a core network (CN) of the radio network (par. 0038: “The translators provide interoperability between wired, IEEE TSN network bridges (which operate primarily in accordance with the IEEE suite of TSN protocols) and the 5G core, RAN, and UE (which operate in accordance with 3GPP protocols),” and par. 0039: “Referring to FIG. 1C, the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700. For example, the paths 1900B may carry some, if not all, of the data carried on path 1900A to provide redundancy” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discuses that paths 1900B and 1900A carry data (e.g. transmits/receives data to and from the UE. Applicant’s specifications in page 4 lines 4-6 describe: “The forwarding (e.g., according to the first method aspect) of the first TSN data packets may comprise an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session” therefore, transmitting and forwarding are interexchange);
determine the handover based on a measurement report received from the radio
device (see par. 0041: “handovers occur when a radio resource management (RRM) function in a source base station, such as a 5G gNB type base station, determines, based on for example measurement reports received from the UE and other factors, that the UE may be better served by a neighbor cell and the neighbor RRM admission control accepts the handover”); and
transmit a control message to the radio device, the control message being configured to trigger the radio device to establish a second PDU session in the target cell (see par. 0041: “However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base station”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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.
8. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
9. 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 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.
10. 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.
11. Claims 1-13 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KAHN in view of ZHANG Y (WO 2020088592 A1), hereafter “ZHANG.”
Consider claim 1, KAHN discloses a method of forwarding data packets at a radio device (fig, 1C #164) during a handover of the radio device from a source cell (fig, 1C #170) to a target cell (fig, 1C #1700) of a radio network serving as a time-sensitive networking (TSN) bridge (fig, 1C #169), the method comprising (see fig. 1C, par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820”):
forwarding first TSN data packets in the source cell using a first PDU session between the radio device and a user plane (UP) of a core network (CN) of the radio network (see par. 0026: “For example, each of the end stations may include circuitry to transmit (e.g., in the case of a “talker”) and/or receive (e.g., in the case of a “listener”) using for example, Time Sensitive Network (TSN) circuitry that enables communications over a TSN network in accordance with the IEEE suite of 802.1 series of standards,” par. 0038: “The translators provide interoperability between wired, IEEE TSN network bridges (which operate primarily in accordance with the IEEE suite of TSN protocols) and the 5G core, RAN, and UE (which operate in accordance with 3GPP protocols),” par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses end stations (e.g., UE) with circuitry to transmit/receive TSN PDUs over a core network. Applicant’s specifications in page 4 lines 4-6 describe: “The forwarding (e.g., according to the first method aspect) of the first TSN data packets may comprise an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session” and since KAHN discloses that the end stations include circuitry to transmit, it reads on forwarding);
prior to releasing the first PDU session, establishing a second PDU session
between the radio device and the UP of the CN in the target cell (see par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700” and par. 0044: “When a single UE 164 is at an endpoint 169 (e.g., with dual connectivity to a master node 170 and at least one secondary node 1700 as shown in FIG. 1C) is configured, coordination may be needed so that an action, such as a handover which may interrupt service, does not occur simultaneously on each leg of the dual connectivity.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses the UE with dual connectivity and at paragraph 44 KAHN further discloses that coordination is needed to prevent interruption during handover, in other words, there are two connections active before releasing any of them to prevent interruption); and
forwarding second TSN data packets in the target cell using the second PDU session (see pars. 0026, 0039 and 0044 and explanation above regarding these paragraphs).
KAHN, however, does not particular refer to the following limitation taught by ZHANG, in analogous art; wherein the first PDU session uses a first active protocol stack at the radio device and the second PDU session uses a second active protocol stack at the radio device (see fig. 5, and par. 0035: “The PDCP and RLC entity are established for each DRB requiring DAPS. Consequently, there are two protocols for each DRB. Meanwhile, the PDCP reordering function is enabled. The source gNB reserves a range of SN e.g. 0-499 for PDCP SDU transmission through the source gNB and forwards the remaining PDCP SDUs to the target gNB. Furthermore, it sends the SN status transfer to the target gNB and give a range of SN for target gNB to use, e.g. >500 or 500-1000. Then UE receives PDCP PDUs from both of the PDCP entities corresponding to the source gNB and target gNB. For example, PDCP PDU O and 1 are received from the source gNB, while PDCP PDUs 500 and 501 re received from the target gNB”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of KAHN and have it include the teachings of ZHANG. The motivation would have been in order to minimize handover interruption (see pars. 0006 and 0035).
Consider claim 2 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the radio device switches from using the first PDU session to using the second PDU at a point in time that is determined by or consistent with the radio network serving as the TSN bridge and/or the point in time is determined by and/or consistent with a gate open time interval for the TSN bridge and/or a TSN assistance information, TSCAI, for the TSN bridge and/or a forwarding configuration of the TSN bridge (see par. 0041: “handovers occur when a radio resource management (RRM) function in a source base station, such as a 5G gNB type base station, determines, based on for example measurement reports received from the UE and other factors, that the UE may be better served by a neighbor cell and the neighbor RRM admission control accepts the handover. These handovers may occur at any time. During handovers, in-flight packets are forwarded over the Xn/X2 interface from source gNB base station to the target gNB base station, so typically there is no data loss. However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base station”).
Consider claim 3 in view of claim 1 above. KANH further discloses wherein the forwarding of the first TSN data packets comprises an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session, and wherein the forwarding of the second TSN data packets comprises an uplink transmission of the second TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the second PDU session, and wherein switching from the transmission using the first PDU session to the transmission using the second PDU session is synchronized with at least one of the serving as the TSN bridge, the gate open time interval for the TSN bridge, and the TSCAI for the TSN bridge (see par. 0026 and par. 0041: “However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base station” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses the end stations including circuitry for transmitting (e.g., uplink)).
Consider claim 4 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the radio device is allocated a downlink radio resource for a first QoS flow in the first PDU session and an uplink radio resource for a second QoS flow in the first PDU session (see pars. 0026 and 0039).
Consider claim 5 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the radio device is allocated a downlink radio resource for a first QoS flow in the first PDU session and an uplink radio resource for a second QoS flow in the first PDU session (see pars. 0026 and 0039: “an example architecture in which there is provided redundancy over two paths 1900A-B to provide the QoS needed for TSN and/or URLLC with respect to latency and reliability (see, e.g., 3GPP TR 23.725, and 3GPP TS 23.501, SA2 #133)”).
Consider claim 6 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the second PDU session is established responsive to receiving a control message in the source cell, optionally a radio resource control, RRC, message (see pars. 0030 and 0031: “The establishment of end-to-end (E2E) communications between TSN systems 188A-B may include phases, such as a pre-configuration and authentication phase, a network discovery phase, a stream requirements and schedule computation phase, and a configuration of the bridges and the end stations phase”).
Consider claim 7 in view of claim 6 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the control message is indicative of at least one of the handover, the serving as a TSN bridge, a reduction of an interruption time during the handover, and separately using a first active protocol stack for the source cell and a second active protocol stack for the target cell (see pars. 0030 and 0031: “The establishment of end-to-end (E2E) communications between TSN systems 188A-B may include phases, such as a pre-configuration and authentication phase, a network discovery phase, a stream requirements and schedule computation phase, and a configuration of the bridges and the end stations phase”).
Consider claim 8 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the first TSN data packets in the first PDU session and the second TSN data packets in the second PDU session are forwarded from a device-side TSN translator (DS-TT) at the radio device for uplink transmission to the UP of the CN, and/or the first TSN data packets in the first PDU session and the second TSN data packets in the second PDU session are forwarded (402, 406) to the DS-TT at the radio device after downlink reception from the UP of the CN (see pars. 0026 and 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700. For example, the paths 1900B may carry some, if not all, of the data carried on path 1900A to provide redundancy” ).
Consider claim 9 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the forwarding (402, 406) of the first TSN data packets in the first PDU session and/or the second TSN data packets in the second PDU session comprises temporarily gating the respective TSN data packets according to the gate open time interval for the TSN bridge and/or the TSCAI for the TSN bridge and/or the forwarding configuration of the TSN bridge (see par. 0034: “During the stream requirements phase and schedule computation phase, the CUC 102 may read the TSN flow requirements from the end stations using an application-specific protocol. The CUC may translate these requirements into corresponding TSN stream requests that are understandable by the CNC 104. The CNC (which has the knowledge of the complete network) may compute the schedules including computing the paths for each end-to-end communication flow between end stations (via the TSN bridges 105A-D), priorities for the TSN streams, the time window a talker is expected to transmit and a listener is expected to receive frames, and the configuration of the TSN bridges including port forwarding and gating control”).
Consider claim 10 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the same gate open time interval for the TSN bridge and/or the same TSCAI for the TSN bridge and/or the same forwarding configuration of the TSN bridge is applied to both the first TSN data packets in the first PDU session and the second TSN data packets in the second PDU session (see par. 0034: “During the stream requirements phase and schedule computation phase, the CUC 102 may read the TSN flow requirements from the end stations using an application-specific protocol. The CUC may translate these requirements into corresponding TSN stream requests that are understandable by the CNC 104. The CNC (which has the knowledge of the complete network) may compute the schedules including computing the paths for each end-to-end communication flow between end stations (via the TSN bridges 105A-D), priorities for the TSN streams, the time window a talker is expected to transmit and a listener is expected to receive frames, and the configuration of the TSN bridges including port forwarding and gating control”).
Consider claim 11 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the forwarding of the first TSN data packets comprises transmitting the first TSN data packets in the first PDU session until the switching to the second PDU session at a point in time after completion of the second PDU session in the target cell (see pars. 0026 and 0041: “During handovers, in-flight packets are forwarded over the Xn/X2 interface from source gNB base station to the target gNB base station, so typically there is no data loss. However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base station”).
Consider claim 12 in view of claim 1 above. KAHN further discloses wherein the radio device is configured to continue at last one of downlink reception and uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets in the source cell using the first PDU session while establishing the second PDU session in the target cell (see pars. 0026 and 0041: “During handovers, in-flight packets are forwarded over the Xn/X2 interface from source gNB base station to the target gNB base station, so typically there is no data loss. However, a delay may be introduced during handover as the UE receives an RRC reconfiguration message, detaches from the source cell (e.g., the source gNB base station), retunes, synchronizes to the new, target cell (e.g., the target gNB), establishes user plane connectivity, and sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target gNB base station”).
Consider claim 13 in view of claim 1 above. ZHANG further discloses wherein the first active protocol stack and the second active protocol stack are simultaneously active at the radio device during the handover (see fig. 5, and par. 0035: “The PDCP and RLC entity are established for each DRB requiring DAPS. Consequently, there are two protocols for each DRB. Meanwhile, the PDCP reordering function is enabled. The source gNB reserves a range of SN e.g. 0-499 for PDCP SDU transmission through the source gNB and forwards the remaining PDCP SDUs to the target gNB. Furthermore, it sends the SN status transfer to the target gNB and give a range of SN for target gNB to use, e.g. >500 or 500-1000. Then UE receives PDCP PDUs from both of the PDCP entities corresponding to the source gNB and target gNB. For example, PDCP PDU O and 1 are received from the source gNB, while PDCP PDUs 500 and 501 re received from the target gNB”). The motivation would have been in order to minimize handover interruption (see pars. 0006 and 0035).
Consider claim 36, KAHN discloses user equipment, (UE) (fig, 1C #164) configured to communicate with an access node or with a radio device functioning as a gateway (fig, 1C #170), the UE comprising a radio interface (fig. 7 #14, #16) and processing circuitry (fig. 7 #20) configured to:
forward first TSN data packets in the source cell (fig, 1C #170) using a first PDU session between the radio device and a user plane (UP) of a core network (CN) of the radio network (see par. 0026: “For example, each of the end stations may include circuitry to transmit (e.g., in the case of a “talker”) and/or receive (e.g., in the case of a “listener”) using for example, Time Sensitive Network (TSN) circuitry that enables communications over a TSN network in accordance with the IEEE suite of 802.1 series of standards,” par. 0038: “The translators provide interoperability between wired, IEEE TSN network bridges (which operate primarily in accordance with the IEEE suite of TSN protocols) and the 5G core, RAN, and UE (which operate in accordance with 3GPP protocols),” par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses end stations (e.g., UE) with circuitry to transmit/receive TSN PDUs over a core network. Applicant’s specifications in page 4 lines 4-6 describe: “The forwarding (e.g., according to the first method aspect) of the first TSN data packets may comprise an uplink transmission of the first TSN data packets to the UP of the CN using the first PDU session” and since KAHN discloses that the end stations include circuitry to transmit, it reads on forwarding);
prior to releasing the first PDU session, establish a second PDU session between the radio device and the UP of the CN in the target cell (fig, 1C #1700) (see par. 0039: “the UE 164 (which is part of the device side of the bridge 169 and which may include DS-TT 162) may use dual connectivity to establish protocol data unit (PDU) sessions to separate UPFs 182 and 1820. To improve reliability, these redundant paths 1900A-B for the PDU sessions are setup through different access nodes, such as a master RAN 170 and at least one secondary RAN 1700” and par. 0044: “When a single UE 164 is at an endpoint 169 (e.g., with dual connectivity to a master node 170 and at least one secondary node 1700 as shown in FIG. 1C) is configured, coordination may be needed so that an action, such as a handover which may interrupt service, does not occur simultaneously on each leg of the dual connectivity.” Examiner’s Analysis: KAHN discloses the UE with dual connectivity and at paragraph 44 KAHN further discloses that coordination is deeded to prevent interruption during handover, in other words, there are two connections active before releasing any of them to prevent interruption); and
forward second TSN data packets in the target cell using the second PDU session (see pars. 0026, 0039 and 0044 and explanation above regarding these paragraphs).
KAHN, however, does not particular refer to the following limitation taught by ZHANG, in analogous art; wherein the first PDU session uses a first active protocol stack at the radio device and the second PDU session uses a second active protocol stack at the radio device (see fig. 5, and par. 0035: “The PDCP and RLC entity are established for each DRB requiring DAPS. Consequently, there are two protocols for each DRB. Meanwhile, the PDCP reordering function is enabled. The source gNB reserves a range of SN e.g. 0-499 for PDCP SDU transmission through the source gNB and forwards the remaining PDCP SDUs to the target gNB. Furthermore, it sends the SN status transfer to the target gNB and give a range of SN for target gNB to use, e.g. >500 or 500-1000. Then UE receives PDCP PDUs from both of the PDCP entities corresponding to the source gNB and target gNB. For example, PDCP PDU O and 1 are received from the source gNB, while PDCP PDUs 500 and 501 re received from the target gNB”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of KAHN and have it include the teachings of ZHANG. The motivation would have been in order to minimize handover interruption (see pars. 0006 and 0035).
Conclusion
12. The following prior arts are made of record and not relied upon, but is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20230379081 A1: discloses wireless communication system operable as a TSN bridge, such as e.g. FRER support of a 5GS TSN bridge.
US 11838151 B1: discloses mesh network architecture additional advantages can be obtained by splitting the RLC layer in the serving RF node into two sublayers, an upper RLC sublayer (RLC-U) and a lower RLC sublayer (RLC-L), where RLC-L handles the time-sensitive transmit side (DL).
13. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Marcos Batista, whose telephone number is (571) 270-5209. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:00am to 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Rafael Pérez-Gutiérrez can be reached at (571) 272-7915. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MARCOS BATISTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2642
Mar 3, 2026