DETAILED ACTION
Examiner acknowledges receipt of Applicant’s amendment filed 3/2/2026.
In the amendment, Applicant:
amended claims 1, 2, 5, 9, and 13,
cancelled claims 4 and 14-20, and
added new claims 21-23.
Claims 1-3, 5-13, and 21-23 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Examiner has fully considered Applicant’s arguments, see section II on pages 8-9, filed 3/2/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 4 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and they are persuasive. Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 4 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
Examiner has fully considered Applicant's arguments, see section III on pages 9-11, filed 3/2/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 but they are moot because the new ground of rejection relies on the previously-cited Khirallah reference for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 9-11, 13, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Babaei et al (US 2018/0184475) in view of Khirallah et al (US 2023/0345532).
Regarding claim 1: Babaei discloses a communication apparatus, which is a first network device or a chip for the first network device (disclosed throughout; see eNB1 in Figure 21, for example), the communication apparatus comprising at least one processor (disclosed throughout; see processor 403 of Figure 4, for example) and a communication circuit (disclosed throughout; see communication interface 402 of Figure 4, for example); wherein the at least one processor is at least configured to:
receive resource status information from a second network device, wherein the resource status information comprises listen before talk (LBT)-related resource information (disclosed throughout; see [0144], [0146], and [0148], for example, which disclose that a first eNB may receive “radio resource status information, wherein the radio resource status information may comprise the LBT Failure information, the LBT Success information…”), wherein the LBT-related resource information comprises LBT failure information of the second network device (disclosed throughout; see [0128], for example, which discloses that the LBT information may include “LBT Failure information”) and the LBT failure information indicates an LBT failure status (disclosed throughout; see [0130], for example, which discloses various statistics that indicate the LBT failure status); and
determine a resource usage status of the second network device based on the resource status information (disclosed throughout; as indicated in [0144], for example, the first eNB may perform operations such as initiating a handover, modifying dual connectivity, updating mobility parameters and/or initiating a mobility setting change procedure based on this resource status information; see also [0127], for example, which indicates that this resource status information reflects resource usage; the first eNB clearly determined the resource usage status to inform the operations performed in response).
Babaei does not explicitly disclose the limitation wherein the LBT failure information comprises: a quantity of times that an LBT failure occurs under the second network device. However, Khirallah discloses a similar system that reports LBT information from one network element to another network element. For example, consider [0133]-[0134], which indicates “the gNB-CU may configure the gNB-DU to perform measurements on LBT failures and to report the results of such measurements… the gNB-DU reports, for example, the number of LBT failures detected, using an appropriately formatted Resource Status Update message”. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Babaei to include a quantity of times an LBT failure occurs under the second network device in the resource status information. The rationale for doing so would have been to provide LBT information that is useful for SON optimization as suggested by Khirallah in at least [0013] and [0132].
Regarding claim 13: Babaei discloses a communication apparatus, which is a second network device or a chip for the first network device, the communication apparatus comprising at least one processor and a communication circuit; wherein the at least one processor is at least configured to:
perform resource measurement (disclosed throughout; see [0128], for example, which discloses that an eNB may collect radio resource status information to be transmitted to its neighbor eNBs); and
send resource status information to a first network device, wherein the resource status information comprises listen before talk (LBT)-related resource information (disclosed throughout; see [0144], [0146], and [0148], for example, which disclose that a first eNB may receive “radio resource status information, wherein the radio resource status information may comprise the LBT Failure information, the LBT Success information…”), wherein the LBT-related resource information comprises LBT failure information of the second network device (disclosed throughout; see [0128], for example, which discloses that the LBT information may include “LBT Failure information”) and the LBT failure information indicates an LBT failure status (disclosed throughout; see [0130], for example, which discloses various statistics that indicate the LBT failure status).
Babaei does not explicitly disclose the limitation wherein the LBT failure information comprises: a quantity of times that an LBT failure occurs under the second network device. However, Khirallah discloses a similar system that reports LBT information from one network element to another network element. For example, consider [0133]-[0134], which indicates “the gNB-CU may configure the gNB-DU to perform measurements on LBT failures and to report the results of such measurements… the gNB-DU reports, for example, the number of LBT failures detected, using an appropriately formatted Resource Status Update message”. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Babaei to include a quantity of times an LBT failure occurs under the second network device in the resource status information. The rationale for doing so would have been to provide LBT information that is useful for SON optimization as suggested by Khirallah in at least [0013] and [0132].
Regarding claims 2 and 21: Babaei, modified, discloses the limitations of parent claims 1 and 13 as indicated above. Babaei further discloses the limitations that the LBT-related resource information further comprises: LBT limitation information of the second network device, and the LBT limitation information indicates an LBT impact on an available resource of the second network device (see at least the contention level in [0128]-[0129], for example, which discloses the level of contention experienced in the second network device; the level of contention impacts the LBT for the available resources on the second network device in that the higher the contention level, the higher the likelihood of collision and subsequent delay prior to channel access).
Regarding claim 6 : Babaei discloses the limitation that before the receiving of the resource status information from the second network device, the at least one processor is further configured to: send a request message to the second network device, wherein the request message is used to request the second network device to measure the resource usage status, the request message carries first information, and the first information indicates to measure an LBT-related resource of the second network device (disclosed throughout; see the Resource Status Request message of Figure 21, for example, which clearly indicates to measure an LBT-related resource of the eNB2 as the eNB2 responds with LBT-related resource information as indicated in [0144]).
Regarding claim 7: Babaei discloses the limitation that the LBT-related resource information comprises: LBT-related resource information of N types of resources, wherein N is an integer greater than 0 (disclosed throughout; see [0128], for example, which discloses that the LBT-related information may be information for an unlicensed/LAA type cell; this is at least one (N>0) type of resource), and
the LBT-related resource information of a first-type resource in the N types of resources comprises at least one of the following information: LBT limitation information of the first-type resource or LBT failure information of the first-type resource (disclosed throughout; see [0128], for example, which discloses that the LBT information may include “LBT Failure information”),
wherein the LBT limitation information of the first-type resource indicates a degree of an LBT impact on the first-type resource of the second network device, and the LBT failure information indicates an LBT failure status of the first-type resource of the second network device (disclosed throughout; see [0130], for example, which discloses various statistics that indicate the LBT failure status).
Regarding claim 9: Babaei discloses the limitations that the LBT-related resource information of the first-type resource in the N types of resources comprises at least the LBT failure information of the first-type resource (disclosed throughout; see [0128] and [0130], for example); the LBT failure information of the first-type resource indicates a level of failure at which LBT failures occur on the first-type resource of the second network device; or the LBT failure information indicates a quantity or a proportion of first-type resources on which LBT failures occur under the second network device; or the LBT failure information indicates a level of failure at which an LBT failure occurs on the first-type resource of the second network device; or the LBT failure information indicates a quantity or a proportion of first-type resources on which an LBT failure occurs under the second network device (see [0130], for example, which discloses that “the LBT Failure information may comprise a ratio of the number of PRBs/subframes that the unlicensed/LAA cell tried to use for packet transmission but failed because of other networks' transmissions to the number of PRBs/subframes that the unlicensed/LAA cell used for packet transmission or tried to use but failed because of other networks' transmissions during a measurement period during which resource status measurements are performed”; this is reasonably interpreted as at least a level of failure at which an LBT failure occurs).
Regarding claim 10: Babaei discloses the limitations that before the receiving of the resource status information from the second network device, the at least one processor is further configured to: send a request message to the second network device, wherein the request message is used to request the second network device to measure the resource usage status, the request message carries second information, and the second information indicates the second network device to measure LBT-related resources of the N types of resources (disclosed throughout; see the Resource Status Request message of Figure 21, for example, which clearly indicates to measure an LBT-related resource of the eNB2 as the eNB2 responds with LBT-related resource information as indicated in [0144]).
Regarding claim 11: Babaei discloses the limitations that the N types of resources comprise at least one of the following resources: an air interface resource, a transport layer resource, a hardware resource, an available capacity of a slice, a quantity of activated terminal devices, a quantity of radio resource control (RRC) connections, or an overall available resource (disclosed throughout; see [0128] and Figure 19, for example, which discloses that the type of resource for LBT is an unlicensed/LAA cell, which is an air interface resource).
Claims 5 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Babaei et al (US 2018/0184475) in view of Khirallah et al (US 2023/0345532) in view of Deogun et al (US 2020/0351940).
Regarding claim 5: Babaei, modified, discloses the limitations of parent claims 1 and 13 as indicated above. Babaei does not explicitly disclose the limitations of claims 5 and 22 that the LBT failure information further comprises at least one of the following information: a received signal strength indicator measured by the second network device, a received signal strength indicator measured by a terminal device that accesses the second network device, a channel occupation average value, or, a probability that channel occupation is higher than the channel occupation average value. However, Deogun discloses a system that reports LBT failure information (see the abstract, for example). Further, Deogun discloses sending a message indicating LBT failure that also includes RSSI for the cell (see [0077], for example, which indicates that in same message that “indicate[s] that an LBT failure has occurred” may also include a received signal strength indicator (RSSI). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Babaei to include an RSSI as part of the LBT failure information as suggested by Deogun. The rationale for doing so would have been to enable the network to identify the network conditions that caused the LBT failures to enable better decision making regarding the mobility load balancing performed in response.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Babaei et al (US 2018/0184475) in view of Khirallah et al (US 2023/0345532) in view of Lunardi et al (US 2023/0422076).
Regarding claim 12: Babaei, modified, discloses the limitations of parent claim 1 as indicated above. Babaei does not explicitly disclose the limitations of claim 12 that a granularity of the resource status information is a cell granularity, a network device granularity, a beam granularity, or a slice granularity. However, Lunardi discloses a similar system that performs mobility load balancing (MLB) as indicated throughout (see [0022], for example). Further, Lunardi also discloses that “the NG-RAN MLB functionality for has been enhanced by means of new types of load metrics and with finer load granularity compared to LTE, where load information is expressed on a per-cell basis only”. Lunardi discloses that in addition to the cell granularity in LTE-based MLB functionality, NR-based MLB includes SSB coverage area granularity (beam granularity) and network slice granularity. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Babaei to report the resource status information at a cell granularity or a slice. The rationale for doing so would have been to provide more detailed information for adjusting the load between cells in an MLB implementation as suggested by Lunardi.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 23 is allowed.
Claims 3 and 8 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
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Robert C Scheibel whose telephone number is (571)272-3169. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan A Phillips can be reached at 571-272-3940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Robert C. Scheibel
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2467
/Robert C Scheibel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467 March 25, 2026