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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-9 in the reply filed on 08/18/2025 is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/17/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
In the specification, the Brief Description of the Drawings Section (paragraph [0005]), it is improper to describe all 31 figures in a single paragraph without further details explaining differences among the drawing figures.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 2-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claim 2, lines 4-5, it is unclear as to when and how that the NCR is considered as “entering a radio resource control (RRC) connected state”. Lines 6-7, “the RRC setup complete message” lacks antecedent basis. Same lines, it is also unclear as to where the RRC setup complete message is coming from. Lines 7-8, it is unclear as to what it means by reciting “cause the RAN node to establish a user equipment (UE) context for the NCR”. That is, it is unclear as to what purpose it serves to establish the UE context.
Claims 3-5 are rejected for depending on claim 2.
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.
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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Palanigounder et al. in U.S. Patent No. 8,839,373 B2, hereinafter referred to as Palanigounder, in view of Tietz et al. in U.S. Patent No. 9,788,262 B2, hereinafter referred to as Tietz.
Regarding claim 1, Palanigounder discloses a network-controlled repeater (NCR) (102), comprising: radiofrequency (RF) circuitry (604) to receive a configuration from an operations, administration, and maintenance (OAM) element (112); and processor circuitry (602) connected to the RF circuitry, wherein the processor circuitry is to establish a network connection with a RAN node (106) (col. 2, lines 7-23, col. 6, line 52 to col. 7, line 8).
Palanigounder differ from the claim, it does not disclose that the configuration includes an NCR identity (NCR-id) and a list of radio access network (RAN) nodes and the RAN node is in the list of RAN nodes and the network connection is established using the NCR-id, all of which are well known in the art and commonly adopted in wireless communications field for providing RAN node selection for conventional network connection establishment. Tietz, for example, from the similar field of endeavor, disclose these well known features (col. 10, lines 23-30, col. 10, line 65 to col. 11, line 5, col. 11, line 47-54).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the instant application, to adopt these well known features of Tietz in the device of Palanigounder, to provide the RAN node selection for conventional network connection establishment to further enhance the system flexibility and performance.
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Palanigounder in view of Tietz, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Jung et al. in Pub. No. US 2023/0284170 A1, hereinafter referred to as Jung.
Regarding claim 6, Palanigounder in view of Tietz disclose the NCR as claim 1, but fail to disclose that to establish the network connection with the RAN node, the processor circuitry is to: generate an RRC setup request message to include the NCR-id; and cause the RF circuitry to send the RRC setup request message to the RAN node, which is also well known in the art and commonly applied in wireless communications field for providing conventional network connection establishment utilizing RRC signaling messages transmission. Jung, for example, also from the similar field of endeavor, disclose such well known feature (paragraphs [0176], [0235] and [0249]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the instant application, to adopt these well known features of Jung in the device of Palanigounder in view of Tietz, to provide conventional network connection establishment utilizing RRC signaling messages transmission, to further enhance the system capability and performance.
Regarding claim 7, Palanigounder in view of Tietz and Jung disclose that the RF circuitry is to receive an RRC setup message from the RAN node based on the RRC setup request message, wherein the RRC setup message includes additional identification information for the NCR (paragraphs [0176], [0235] and [0249] in Jung).
Claims 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Palanigounder in view of Tietz, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Choi et al. in Pub. No. US 2024/0137294 A1, hereinafter referred to as Choi.
Regarding claim 8, Palanigounder in view of Tietz disclose the NCR as claim 1, but fail to disclose that the processor circuitry operates a medium access control layer entity (MAC) and a physical layer entity (PHY) of a cellular communication protocol stack, which are also well known in the art for providing conventional communication protocol under OSI layered protocol environment. Choi, for example, also from the similar field of endeavor, teaches such well known features (paragraphs [0072]-[0074] and [0077]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the instant application, to adopt these well known features of Choi in the device of Palanigounder in view of Tietz, to provide conventional communication protocol under OSI layered protocol environment, to further enhance the system compatibility and performance.
Regarding claim 9, Palanigounder in view of Tietz and Choi disclose that the RF circuitry is to receive side control information from the RAN node; and the processor circuitry is to control a radio unit layer (RU) of the NCR of the cellular communication protocol stack based on the side control information (paragraphs [0072]-[0073] in Choi).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Note: No reason for allowance can be applied/indicated at this time due to the rejection under 112(b) as indicated above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Gunnarsson et al., Naslund et al., Jamadagni et al., Sanneck et al., Aminaka et al., and Tamaki et al. are all cited to show the common feature of network-control repeater/relay receiving configuration information from OAM element entity for establishing network connection between the repeater/relay and network similar to the claimed invention.
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AH /ALPUS HSU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465