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 1-5 and 11-15 in the reply filed on 2/23/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 6-10 and 16-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 2/23/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1,3,4,11,13, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by 3GPP (CATT, “Clarification on Radio Link Failure Information Logging and RA Information Determination,” R2-2211351, 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #120, Toulouse, France, November 14-18, 2022).
Re claim 1:
3GPP discloses a method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: identifying whether a radio link failure (RLF) for a cell is detected (Page 5 1> else if the failure is detected due to radio link failure as described in 5.3.10.3, set the fields in VarRLF-report as follows);
in case that the RLF for the cell is detected, identifying whether a handover from a previous cell to the cell is successfully performed, and identifying whether the handover is associated with a conditional handover (CHO) recovery (Page 5 3> if the last successful executed RRCReconfiguration message including the reconfigurationWithSync concerned an intra NR handover and it was received while connected to the previous PCell to which the UE was connected before connecting to the PCell where radio link failure is detected; and 3>if the PCell in which the radio link failure was detected was not a CHO based recovery cell); and
in case that the handover is successfully performed and the handover is not associated with the CHO recovery, storing link failure information to a variable of a RLF report (Page 5 3>if the PCell in which the radio link failure was detected was not a CHO based recovery cell: 4> include the nrPreviousCell in previousPCellId and set it to the global cell identity and the tracking area code of the PCell where the last executed RRCReconfiguration message including reconfigurationWithSync was received and Page 1 If the RLF occurs in a reestablishment cell or in a CHO recovery cell, the UE will not record these information (i.e. previousPCellId, lastHO-Type, timeConnFailure) in RLF report).
Re claim 3:
3GPP discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the storing the link failure information comprises: including information on the previous cell in a field for the previous cell; and setting the information on the previous cell to a global cell identity and a tracking area code of the previous cell (Page 5 4> include the nrPreviousCell in previousPCellId and set it to the global cell identity and the tracking area code of the PCell where the last executed RRCReconfiguration message including reconfigurationWithSync was received).
Re claim 4:
3GPP discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the storing the link failure information comprises: identifying whether handover is a dual active protocol stack (DAPS) handover; and in case that the handover is the DAPS handover, setting a field for a last handover type to DAPS (Page 6 4> if the last executed RRCReconfiguration message including reconfigurationWithSync was concerning a DAPS handover: 5>set lastHO-Type to daps;);
identifying whether handover is a CHO handover; in case that the handover is the CHO handover, setting the field for the last handover type to CHO (Page 6 4> else if the last executed RRCReconfiguration message including reconfigurationWithSync was concerning a conditional handover: 5> set lastHO-Type to cho;); and
setting a field for a time to an elapsed time since the handover is successfully performed until the RLF for the cell is detected (Page 6 4>set the timeConnFailure to the elapsed time since the execution of the last RRCReconfiguration message including the reconfigurationWithSync;).
Re claim 11: Claim 11 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 1. A transceiver and at least one processor are inherent components in a UE.
Re claim 13: Claim 13 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 3.
Re claim 14: Claim 14 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 4.
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.
Claim(s) 2,5,12 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP (3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #120 R2-2211351 – as cited in the IDS filed 7/2/2024) in view of Stanczak (US 20250168738).
Re claim 2:
As discussed above, 3GPP meets all the limitations of the parent claim.
3GPP does not explicitly disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying whether the handover is associated with the CHO recovery comprises: identifying whether a timer is running before entering the cell; and in case that the time is not running before entering the cell, determining that the handover is not associated with the CHO recovery.
Stanczak discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying whether the handover is associated with the CHO recovery comprises: identifying whether a timer is running before entering the cell; and in case that the time is not running before entering the cell, determining that the handover is not associated with the CHO recovery (Fig. 4 ref. 425 Timer t2 not expired or distance to CHO candidate less than threshold? Ref. No and ref. 420 Perform re-establishment).
3GPP and Stanczak are analogous because they both pertain to data communications.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 3GPP to include determining CHO recovery based on a timer as taught by Stanczak in order to provide faster cell selection (Stanczak Para.[0077]).
Re claim 5:
As discussed above, 3GPP meets all the limitations of the parent claim.
3GPP does not explicitly disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising performing a radio resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment procedure.
Stanczak discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising performing a radio resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment procedure (Fig. 4 ref. 425 Timer t2 not expired or distance to CHO candidate less than threshold? Ref. No and ref. 420 Perform re-establishment).
Stanczak does not explicitly state the re-establishment is a RRC re-establishment; however, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the system of Stanczak uses RRC (as evident by the RRC signaling mentioned in Para.[0020,0021]) and thus the re-establishment procedure would be RRC.
3GPP and Stanczak are analogous because they both pertain to data communications.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 3GPP to include determining CHO recovery based on a timer as taught by Stanczak in order to provide faster cell selection (Stanczak Para.[0077]).
Re claim 12: Claim 12 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 2.
Re claim 15: Claim 15 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 5.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Parichehrehteroujeni (US 20230397080) shows RLF report with CHO recovery and RRC re-establishment.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD SAJID ADHAMI whose telephone number is (571)272-8615. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30-5:00 PM.
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/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471