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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/29/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
The following is a final office action in response to applicant’s amendment filed on 11/21/2025 for response of the office action mailed on 08/04/2025. Claims 1, 3, 5-6, and 15-20 have been amended. Claim 9 has been cancelled. Claims 1-8 and 10-20 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/21/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Argument: Particularly, according to the claimed invention, it is clear that: (1) the elevation angle is determined by the UE, and (2) the elevation angle corresponding to a cell associated with one of the respective satellites is not limited to a serving cell. In other words, in the claimed invention, the elevation angle is not a parameter determined from the network, and the elevation angle corresponds to any kind of cell … Maattanen provides no disclosure or suggestion that Tservice could be derived from or converted to an elevation angle by the UE for other locations within the serving cell or for neighboring cells … Accordingly, the claimed invention, which utilizes a UE-determined elevation angle to exclude or deprioritize a cell, cannot be anticipated or suggested by Maattanen.
Response: Examiner has considered the Applicant’s arguments and respectfully disagrees.
Gao’s invention teaches methods, systems and apparatuses for performing ephemeris assisted cell selection and reselection using a wireless device operating in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) (¶0001, Gao) that obtains configuration information associated with a plurality of candidate cells, candidate satellites and adjusts rankings of the cells for cell selection or reselection (Abstract, Gao).
Mattanen’s invention also teaches a method performed by a wireless device for cell selection or reselection in a NTN that determines whether to perform cell selection or reselection based on cell selection or reselection criteria (Abstract, Maattanen). Maattanen establishes a relationship between a wireless device (UE) and a satellite using a remaining service time (Tservice) associated with the satellite. When Tservice is below a threshold, the wireless device determines that the cell selection/reselection criteria is satisfied, and will determine whether to perform cell selection/reselection based on the measurements it performs (¶0075). Since Tservice is explicitly defined in Maattanen using the elevation angle in ¶0069, this suggests that a device or system that can use Tservice must be able to determine the elevation angle or evaluate when the elevation angle crosses a specific threshold. For further context, Maattanen describes a cell ranking procedure which involves selecting serving cells and neighbor cells that may be candidates for cell reselection. The UE first identifies the cells that satisfy the cell selection criterion, and the UE checks whether the selected cells fulfill the Tservice conditions. If a cell does not fulfill the condition, it is excluded (¶0279-¶0282). Maattanen shows that the UE checks whether the cells fulfill Tservice conditions, and excludes cells if they don’t fulfill the condition. The UE can also trigger selection/reselection when Tservice drops below a value (¶0073). If Tservice is defined by elevation angle, and the UE evaluates Tservice conditions and thresholds, the UE must be capable of determining the elevation angle. The UE would not be able to compute that the Tservice corresponding to the elevation angle is going below a threshold without being able to determine/know the elevation angle of the satellite relative to the UE. In addition, in ¶0069, comparing the elevation angle to the “suitability of a cell” is generic, not particular to the serving cell itself. The cell ranking procedure including determining if serving cells and neighbor cells satisfy the Tservice condition, and excluding cells that do not fulfill the condition only further suggests that each cell has its own Tservice value, and therefore its own elevation angle corresponding to the Tservice value. Because Tservice conditions are applied to multiple serving/neighbor cells, and the cell ranking procedure uses Tservice across multiple candidate cells, where cells are excluded individually based on the Tservice condition, the elevation angle corresponding to a cell associated with a satellite is applicable to multiple cells, the elevation angle metric is not limited to the serving cell alone. Lastly, ¶0077 also determines whether cell selection/reselection is satisfied based on various locations of the UE, not limited to the serving cell.
In conclusion, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., the elevation angle corresponding to a cell associated with one of the respective satellites is not limited to a serving cell) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
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.
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 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 non-obviousness.
Claims 1-4, 10-13, 15-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (US 2023/0388875), Gao hereinafter, and further in view of Maattanen et al. (US 2024/0049092), Mattenen hereinafter.
Re. Claim 1, Gao teaches a method, comprising: (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0078 - a method 400 implemented between a UE 402 and a network node 404 (e.g., a satellite) for performing a cell reselection procedure 406);
receiving, by a user equipment (UE), cell information of cells that are each associated with a cell identifier and formed by a beam transmitted from a respective satellite; (¶0078 - UE 402, can receive ephemeris information (i.e., orbital baseline parameters and adjustments) via SIBX 408. …SIBX 408 can contain one or more of the following: …(ii) beam information (e.g. number of beams for each satellite, boresight and/or 3 dB bandwidth of each beam) can also be broadcast to UE 402; and/or (iii) cell information associated with each satellite or beam can also be broadcast to UE 402 to derive the coverage of a cell and the location of the cell center. Please also see ¶0049/¶0052);
determining, by the UE, cell-selection related information based on part of the received cell information; (¶0080 - Next, at operation 2, based on the association between satellite/beam and the cell information, UE 402 can identify coverage and cell center of each cell. UE 402 can then estimate the distance between itself and the cell center. Please also see ¶0071);
and performing, by the UE, cell selection or reselection based on the cell information and the cell-selection related information, (¶0079 - After receiving SIBX 408, the UE 402 can perform the cell reselection procedure 406);
wherein a subset of the cells are deprioritized or excluded for the cell selection or reselection, (¶0056 - In some embodiments, configuration information can include a range to best cell for NTN (e.g., rangeToBestCellNTN), which can be used by a UE to identify candidate cells as possible reselection targets… ¶0075 - Based on the ranking, candidate cells can be determined. For example, if the rank of a best cell is 10 and the RangeToBestCellNTN value received by the UE 202 is 2, the UE will select all neighbor cells with a ranking of 8 or higher as candidate cells for possible reselection);
Yet, Gao does not explicitly teach wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the UE, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection.
However, in the analogous art, Maattanen explicitly teaches wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the UE, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection (¶0069 - Also relevant in this context is the concept of a remaining time Tservice until the service link is switched to a different satellite, or a different spot beam. … Tservice corresponds to the time until the elevation angle to the serving satellite goes below a threshold defining the suitability of a cell. ¶0073 - … if the UE determines Tservice to be less than a given value, the UE scales down the serving cell signal power value such that it triggers intra-frequency NTN cell reselection and/or respective measurements. ¶0075 - Determining that the cell selection or reselection criteria for performing measurements is satisfied may comprise determining that Tservice is below a threshold remaining service time value ... Please also see ¶0077, ¶0279-¶0282).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Maattanen to the teaching of Gao. The motivation would be because the invention provides efficient ways to use Tservice and/or location for cell reselection. For example, defining a near-end-of-service state and conditioning cell reselection rules on that improves cell reselection efficiency (¶0086, Maattanen).
Re. Claims 2 and 16, Gao and Maattanen teach Claims 1 and 15.
Gao further teaches the cell information is received from one of: a system information of serving cell, information stored in the UE/apparatus, system information of a neighboring cell, and a radio resource control (RRC) release message (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0052 - The cell information associated with each satellite ID can be provided via system information or dedicated RRC signaling).
Re. Claims 3 and 17, Gao and Maattanen teach Claims 1 and 15.
Gao further teaches the cell information includes one of: a reference location of one of the cells, an ephemeris of one of the respective satellites, one or more measurement quantities, a threshold of a distance between a location of the UE/apparatus and a reference location of one of the cells, and a threshold of the elevation angle of the one/one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE/apparatus (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0073 - In some embodiments, the orbital baseline parameters can contain one or more of the Keplerian Orbit Elements (a, e, ω, Ω, i, M0), including Semi-major axis a [m], Eccentricity e. ¶0074 - Argument of periapsis ω [rad] , Longitude of ascending node Ω [rad], Inclination i [rad], Mean anomaly M0=M(t0) [rad] at epoch t0 [JD], along with the adjustments of these parameters when the satellite deviates from the planned orbits, which can be used by UE to derive the real-time location of a satellite. The cell information associated with each satellite can also be provided. ¶0076 - based on an association between satellite (e.g., ephemeris information) and the cell information… the UE 202 can identify the satellite covering each candidate cell and the location of these satellites, i.e., the location of satellite 106 and satellite 110 of FIG. 1. The UE 202 can then estimate the distance between itself and the satellite 106 and satellite 110 covering each candidate cell... Please also see ¶0050. Examiner interprets that only one of the claimed features to be mapped because of the presence of “one of”).
Re. Claims 4 and 18, Gao and Maattanen teach Claims 3 and 17.
Gao further teaches the determining cell-selection information includes:/the circuitry is further configured to: determining/determine a distance between the UE/apparatus and the reference location of one of the cells (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0076 - The UE 202 can then estimate the distance between itself and the satellite 106 and satellite 110 covering each candidate cell (i.e., cell #2 108 and cell #3 112). Finally, the UE 202 performs cell reselection to another cell (i.e., cell #2 108) with the shortest distance between the UE and the satellite).
Re. Claim 10, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Gao further teaches the performing includes: performing the cell selection or reselection based on priorities associated with ones of the cells that are each associated with the cell identifier and formed by the beam transmitted from the respective satellite (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0040 - Cell reselection to a higher priority RAT/frequency can take precedence over a lower priority RAT/frequency if multiple cells of different priorities fulfil the cell reselection criteria. Please also see ¶0061).
Re. Claim 11, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Gao further teaches the performing includes: in response to one of the cells providing a service or a slice the UE prefers, prioritizing the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0059 - In some embodiments, upon receiving a range to best cell for NTN (RangeToBestCellNTN) value, a UE can rank the neighbor cells based on the R-criterion, while the cells whose R value is within range to best cell in NTN of the R value of the highest ranked cell can be considered as candidate cells. The UE can then perform cell reselection to one or more criteria including: (i) a cell with shortest distance between the cell center and the UE; (ii) a cell with the shortest distance between the satellite and the UE; and/or (iii) a cell with longest valid/serving time or remaining valid/serving time. Please also see ¶0060-¶0061).
Re. Claim 12, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Gao further teaches the performing includes: in response to detecting an available time of one of the cells being enough for the UE to complete a transmission, prioritizing the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0058 - In some embodiments, a threshold of the serving time of a cell (e.g., Thresh.sub.ST), with or without a specific offset for a cell with valid time larger or smaller than the threshold can be deployed. As used herein, serving time of a cell refers to an amount of time a cell can provide service to the UE. ¶0059 - The UE can then perform cell reselection to one or more criteria including: (iii) a cell with longest valid/serving time or remaining valid/serving time. Please also see ¶0063-¶0064).
Re. Claim 13, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Gao further teaches the performing includes: performing the cell selection or reselection based on a list of visited cells each associated with visited-cell information that includes one of:
available time indicating when the respective cell is available, (Fig. 2-4 &¶0064 - the UE can perform ranking of all cells that fulfil a predetermined cell selection criterion S and the time criterion T. In some embodiments, upon receiving a threshold of the serving time Thresh.sub.ServingT of a cell, a UE can evaluate whether the serving time of the serving cell or a certain neighbor cell is longer than the Thresh.sub.ServingT or not to decide whether to adjust the ranking or priority levels of cells in accordance with various embodiments. Examiner interprets that only one of the claimed features to be mapped because of the presence of “one of”);
a reference point of the respective cell,
and a size of the respective cell.
Re. Claim 15, Gao teaches an apparatus comprising circuitry configured to: (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0026 - “wireless communication device” can include… a mobile terminal, a mobile station, a work station and a user equipment device (UE)… Please also see ¶0103);
receive cell information of cells that are each associated with a cell identifier and formed by a beam transmitted from a respective satellite; (¶0078 - UE 402, can receive ephemeris information (i.e., orbital baseline parameters and adjustments) via SIBX 408. …SIBX 408 can contain one or more of the following: …(ii) beam information (e.g. number of beams for each satellite, boresight and/or 3 dB bandwidth of each beam) can also be broadcast to UE 402; and/or (iii) cell information associated with each satellite or beam can also be broadcast to UE 402 to derive the coverage of a cell and the location of the cell center. Please also see ¶0049/¶0052);
determine cell-selection related information based on part of the received cell information; (¶0080 - Next, at operation 2, based on the association between satellite/beam and the cell information, UE 402 can identify coverage and cell center of each cell. UE 402 can then estimate the distance between itself and the cell center. Please also see ¶0071);
and perform cell selection or reselection based on the cell information and the cell-selection related information, (¶0079 - After receiving SIBX 408, the UE 402 can perform the cell reselection procedure 406);
wherein a subset of the cells are deprioritized or excluded for the cell selection or reselection, (¶0056 - In some embodiments, configuration information can include a range to best cell for NTN (e.g., rangeToBestCellNTN), which can be used by a UE to identify candidate cells as possible reselection targets… ¶0075 - Based on the ranking, candidate cells can be determined. For example, if the rank of a best cell is 10 and the RangeToBestCellNTN value received by the UE 202 is 2, the UE will select all neighbor cells with a ranking of 8 or higher as candidate cells for possible reselection).
Yet, Gao does not explicitly teach wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the apparatus, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the apparatus is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection.
However, in the analogous art, Maattenen explicitly teaches wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the apparatus, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the apparatus is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection (¶0069 - Also relevant in this context is the concept of a remaining time Tservice until the service link is switched to a different satellite, or a different spot beam. … Tservice corresponds to the time until the elevation angle to the serving satellite goes below a threshold defining the suitability of a cell. ¶0073 - … if the UE determines Tservice to be less than a given value, the UE scales down the serving cell signal power value such that it triggers intra-frequency NTN cell reselection and/or respective measurements. ¶0075 - Determining that the cell selection or reselection criteria for performing measurements is satisfied may comprise determining that Tservice is below a threshold remaining service time value ... Please also see ¶0077, ¶0279-¶0282).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Maattanen to the teaching of Gao. The motivation would be because the invention provides efficient ways to use Tservice and/or location for cell reselection. For example, defining a near-end-of-service state and conditioning cell reselection rules on that improves cell reselection efficiency (¶0086, Maattanen).
Re. Claim 20, Gao teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, the method comprising: (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0105-¶0106);
receiving at a user equipment (UE) cell information of cells that are each associated with a cell identifier and formed by a beam transmitted from a respective satellite; (¶0078 - UE 402, can receive ephemeris information (i.e., orbital baseline parameters and adjustments) via SIBX 408. …SIBX 408 can contain one or more of the following: …(ii) beam information (e.g. number of beams for each satellite, boresight and/or 3 dB bandwidth of each beam) can also be broadcast to UE 402; and/or (iii) cell information associated with each satellite or beam can also be broadcast to UE 402 to derive the coverage of a cell and the location of the cell center. Please also see ¶0049/¶0052);
determining cell-selection related information based on part of the received cell information; (¶0080 - Next, at operation 2, based on the association between satellite/beam and the cell information, UE 402 can identify coverage and cell center of each cell. UE 402 can then estimate the distance between itself and the cell center. Please also see ¶0071);
and performing cell selection or reselection based on the cell information and the cell-selection related information, (¶0079 - After receiving SIBX 408, the UE 402 can perform the cell reselection procedure 406);
wherein a subset of the cells are deprioritized or excluded for the cell selection or reselection, (¶0056 - In some embodiments, configuration information can include a range to best cell for NTN (e.g., rangeToBestCellNTN), which can be used by a UE to identify candidate cells as possible reselection targets… ¶0075 - Based on the ranking, candidate cells can be determined. For example, if the rank of a best cell is 10 and the RangeToBestCellNTN value received by the UE 202 is 2, the UE will select all neighbor cells with a ranking of 8 or higher as candidate cells for possible reselection).
Yet, Gao does not explicitly teach wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the UE, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection.
However, in the analogous art, Maattenen explicitly teaches wherein the performing includes: in response to an elevation angle, determined by the UE, of one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE is less than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize one of the cells corresponding to the one of the respective satellites for the cell selection or reselection (¶0069 - Also relevant in this context is the concept of a remaining time Tservice until the service link is switched to a different satellite, or a different spot beam. … Tservice corresponds to the time until the elevation angle to the serving satellite goes below a threshold defining the suitability of a cell. ¶0073 - … if the UE determines Tservice to be less than a given value, the UE scales down the serving cell signal power value such that it triggers intra-frequency NTN cell reselection and/or respective measurements. ¶0075 - Determining that the cell selection or reselection criteria for performing measurements is satisfied may comprise determining that Tservice is below a threshold remaining service time value ... Please also see ¶0077, ¶0279-¶0282).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Maattanen to the teaching of Gao. The motivation would be because the invention provides efficient ways to use Tservice and/or location for cell reselection. For example, defining a near-end-of-service state and conditioning cell reselection rules on that improves cell reselection efficiency (¶0086, Maattanen).
Claims 5, 7 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao and Maattanen, and further in view of Leng et al. (US 2023/0354138), Leng hereinafter.
Re. Claims 5 and 19, Gao and Maattanen teach Claims 3 and 17.
Yet, Gao and Maattanen do not explicitly teach the determining cell-selection information includes:/the apparatus is further configured to: determining/determine the elevation angle of the one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE based on a UE location and the ephemeris of the one of the respective satellites.
However, in the analogous art, Leng explicitly teaches the determining cell-selection information includes:/the apparatus is further configured to: determining/determine the elevation angle of the one of the respective satellites with respect to the UE/apparatus based on a UE/apparatus location and the ephemeris of the one of the respective satellites (Fig. 7 & ¶0096 - UE reads the serving and/or neighbor cell(s) system information for satellite ephemeris and/or cell moving information and/or configuration parameters of the serving cell and/or neighbor cells for cell reselection … where the cell moving information can include reference location coordinates, … and/or elevation angle parameters… ¶0097 - the UE… estimates the trajectory of any moving cell, and/or calculate the distance(s) to the reference location(s), and/or calculate the elevation angle(s) to the satellite(s)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Leng to the teachings of Gao and Maattanen. The motivation would be because the invention relates to mobility in non-terrestrial networks (NTN) with earth moving cells in a wireless communication system (¶0006, Leng).
Re. Claim 7, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Yet, Gao and Maattanen do not explicitly teach in response to a distance between a location of the UE and a reference point of one of the cells being greater than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection.
However, in the analogous art, Leng explicitly teaches in response to a distance between a location of the UE and a reference point of one of the cells being greater than a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection (Fig. 7 & ¶0117 - For another example, if the distance between the UE location and a neighbor cell reference location is larger than a threshold, the UE may not perform measurement to the cell or may not select the cell).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Leng to the teachings of Gao and Maattanen. The motivation would be because the invention relates to mobility in non-terrestrial networks (NTN) with earth moving cells in a wireless communication system (¶0006, Leng).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao and Maattanen, and further in view of Kumar et al. (US 2020/0145977), Kumar hereinafter.
Re. Claim 6, Gao and Maattanen teaches Claim 3.
Yet, Gao and Maattanen do not explicitly teach the determining cell-selection information includes: determining the elevation angle of the one of the respective satellites based on a phase of each antenna element of an antenna array that corresponds to a largest reference signal received power (RSRP) measured at the UE.
However, in the analogous art, Kumar explicitly teaches the determining cell-selection information includes: determining the elevation angle of the one of the respective satellites based on a phase of each antenna element of an antenna array that corresponds to a largest reference signal received power (RSRP) measured at the UE (Fig. 4A, 5, 8 & ¶0089 - The UE may further indicate the granularity of the elevation beams possible, e.g., based on the present antenna array on the UE. ¶0124 - the measurements of the PRS transmission at the different elevation angles and the different azimuth angles are performed using an antenna array such as depicted in FIG. 5 to beamform along the elevation angle and the azimuth angle at each PRS occasion. ¶0128 - the measurements of the PRS transmissions may be one or more of… a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP)… Please also see Fig. 12 and ¶0141).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Kumar to the teachings of Gao and Maattanen. The motivation would be because the invention relates to methods and systems for PRS transmissions along specific azimuth and elevation angles across multiple PRS occasions in co-ordination with UE measurements for respective PRS occasions (¶0050, Kumar).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao and Maattanen, and further in view of Henttonen et al. (WO 2014/024123 A1), Henttonen hereinafter.
Re. Claim 8, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Yet, Gao and Maattanen do not explicitly teach the performing includes: in response to a variation of signal strength of one of the cells being above a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection.
However, in the analogous art, Henttonen explicitly teaches the performing includes: in response to a variation of signal strength of one of the cells being above a threshold, determining to exclude or deprioritize the one of the cells for the cell selection or reselection (Page 6, Line 15 - The cell selection enables the UE 20 to immediately measure and rank the available frequencies, excluding the frequency/frequencies and/or RAT which was deprioritised. Page 7, Line 3 - The UE 20 can then coarsely rank the cells by measuring received signal strength of the PSS or of the SSS, or the UE 20 can more comprehensively measure the cell for ranking by measuring the reference signals which each cell transmits (for example, by measuring reference signal received power RSRP and/or reference signal received quality RSRQ of the common reference signals CRSs). Please also see Claim 6 - setting a value of a threshold parameter to exceed received signal power measured from a serving frequency layer of the serving cell, where the serving frequency layer is the de-prioritized layer or one of the de-prioritized layers).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Henttonen to the teachings of Gao and Maattanen. The motivation would be because congestion in cellular radio networks is a continuing concern as both the number of users and especially the volume of data being handled continues to increase (Page 1, Line 15, Henttonen).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao and Maattanen, and further in view of Liberg et al. (US 2022/0110035), Liberg hereinafter.
Re. Claim 14, Gao and Maattanen teach Claim 1.
Gao further teaches the performing includes: performing the cell selection or reselection based on a ranking of the cells, (Fig. 2-4 & ¶0041 - Cell reselection to a cell on an equal priority NR frequency can be based on ranking for intra-frequency cell reselection and R-criterion parameters);
Yet, Gao and Maattanen do not explicitly teach wherein the cells are ranked based on reference points of the cells, satellite elevation angles of the cells, and detectable beams of the cells.
However, in the analogous art, Liberg explicitly teaches wherein the cells are ranked based on reference points of the cells (¶0037 - the wireless device may use to determine a cell reselection ranking for a plurality of cells. The geographic location information comprises any one or more of the following: a distance between the wireless device and a reference point associated with a cell of the plurality of neighbor cells…), satellite elevation angles of the cells (¶0037 - …and an angle of elevation between the wireless device and a satellite serving a cell of the plurality of cells), and detectable beams of the cells (¶0037 - a distance between the wireless device and a reference point associated with a synchronization signal beam (SSB) of a cell of the plurality of cells. ¶0021 - the UE performs cell reselection to the cell that has the highest number of beams above the threshold absThreshSS-Blocks Consolidation. If multiple cells tie, the UE performs cell reselection to the highest ranked cell among the multiple cells).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Liberg to the teachings of Gao and Maattanen. The motivation would be because the invention relates to wireless communication, and more specifically to enhanced cell ranking based on a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning information (¶0001, Liberg).
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 ALYSSA WILLIAMS whose telephone number is (571)270-7673. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8-5pm. 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, Ayman Abaza can be reached on (571) 270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALYSSA WILLIAMS/Examiner, Art Unit 2465B
/AYMAN A ABAZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465