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 .
Response to Amendment
Amendments filed on 05/08/2026 are entered. The amendments overcome the previously presented claim objections. Previously presented claim objections of claims 1-8, 13-15 and 17-19 are withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant’s remarks, filed 05/08/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. 102/103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Ishii (US 2022/0110047) and Wu (US 2022/0312535).
Regarding the claimed feature of the relay terminal of claim 1 that receives “first information…wherein the first information is used for barring access of a terminal…”, the Applicant argues that the relay IAB node 24 in Fig. 8 of Ishii receives cell barring information for the relay IAB node itself while the claim requires the relay terminal to receive the barring information for “the first terminal”. However, as clearly shown in the cited paragraph and TABLE 7 of Ishii (as reproduced on page 8 of the instant response filed by the Applicant), the relay IAB node receives the cell barring/access information for both a UE 30 and the relay IAB node 24. TABLE 5 in paragraph [0089] of Ishii also shows that the cell barring information include cell barring information for UEs other than the recipient, such that the relay IAB node 24 receiving the cell barring information also receives the cell barring information for another UE, such as the claimed first terminal.
The Applicant further argues that Ishii fails to disclose the feature of “broadcasting second information to a remote terminal, wherein the second information is determined according to the first information”. Upon further review of Ishii and the applicant’s response, this argument is found to be persuasive as the previously cited portion of Ishii is directed to a broadcasting of information that corresponds to the claimed “first information” as opposed to the claimed “second information”. The previously presented rejections are withdrawn and new grounds of rejections are provided below.
Applicant's arguments filed 05/08/2026 regarding the 35 U.S.C. 112(d) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Claim 10 has been recited to recite “wherein the first terminal is a reduced capability (RedCap) terminal or a non-RedCap terminal”. Since a terminal can only be a RedCap terminal or a non-RedCap terminal, this claim is essential the same as “the first terminal is any terminal” without providing any further limitation of the subject matter claimed. The 35 U.S.C. 112(d) rejection is therefore maintained on the amended claim 10.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Claim 10 currently recites “wherein the first terminal is a reduced capability (RedCap) terminal or a non-RedCap terminal” Since a terminal can only be either a RedCap terminal or a non-RedCap terminal, claim 10 fails to further limit the subject matter of claim 1. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 10-11 and 13-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishii (US 2022/0110047) in view of Wu (US 2022/0312535).
Ishii discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 1, a method for access control, applied to a relay terminal (see relay node 24 in Fig. 8), comprising: receiving first information sent by a network device (see cell barring information 52 sent by the wireless access node 22 in Fig. 8), wherein the first information is used for barring access of a first terminal (see user equipment 30 recited in paragraph [0090]; TABLE 5 in paragraph [0089] shows the receiving of the cell status/reservation indicated in the received MIB/SIB1 messages include cell barring information for different UEs, such as the claimed first terminal, in the cell), or the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “the cell barring information message 52 indicates that the respective IAB-relay node 24 or user equipment 30 is barred for the cell in which the cell barring information message 52 is transmitted by parent node 22” recited in paragraph [0090]; Table 1 in paragraph [0088] and Table 8 in paragraph [0098] also shows that the cellBarred information may indicate “barred, notBarred”).
Regarding claim 2, wherein the first information comprises at least one cell barred indication (see cell barring information message 52 in Fig. 8), the at least one cell barred indication in the first information is used for barring the access of the first terminal, or the at least one cell barred indication in the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “determine based on the cell barring information whether or not the wireless terminal treats a cell served by the wireless access node as a candidate during cell selection and cell reselection procedure” recited in paragraph [0175]).
Regarding claim 3, wherein the at least one cell barred indication in the first information corresponds to at least one cell (see “If the barring status indicates that the cell is restricted, e.g., barred, the wireless terminal may consider that this cell is not suitable for camping and look for other cells. Otherwise, the terminal may camp on the cell” recited in paragraph [0087]).
Regarding claim 4, wherein for each of the at least one cell, different cell barred indications in at least one cell barred indication corresponding to the cell corresponds to first terminals of different terminal types (see “wherein the cell barring information indicates first cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a UE and second cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a relay node, each of the first cell status and the second cell status being used to determine whether or not camping on a cell served by the wireless access node is allowed (not barred) or not (barred)” recited in paragraph [0175]).
Regarding claim 10, wherein the first terminal is at least one of a RedCap terminal or a non-RedCap terminal (this claim does not provide any patentable limitation as a terminal can only be a RedCap or a non-RedCap terminal).
Regarding claim 11, wherein the terminal types are distinguished by at least one of a transmission rate, a number of receiving antennas, a number of transmitting antennas, a maximum bandwidth, a supported frequency range, or a terminal scenario (see “wherein the cell barring information indicates first cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a UE and second cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a relay node, each of the first cell status and the second cell status being used to determine whether or not camping on a cell served by the wireless access node is allowed (not barred) or not (barred)” recited in paragraph [0175]; wherein whether terminal type being a terminal or a relay node is considered as the claimed “terminal scenario”).
Regarding claim 13, a relay terminal (see relay node 24 in Fig. 8), comprising: a receiver (see receiver circuitry 68 in Fig. 8) configured to receive first information sent by a network device (see cell barring information 52 sent by the wireless access node 22 in Fig. 8), wherein the first information is used for barring access of a first terminal (see user equipment 30 recited in paragraph [0090]; TABLE 5 in paragraph [0089] shows the receiving of the cell status/reservation indicated in the received MIB/SIB1 messages include cell barring information for different UEs, such as the claimed first terminal, in the cell), or the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “the cell barring information message 52 indicates that the respective IAB-relay node 24 or user equipment 30 is barred for the cell in which the cell barring information message 52 is transmitted by parent node 22” recited in paragraph [0090]; Table 1 in paragraph [0088] and Table 8 in paragraph [0098] also shows that the cellBarred information may indicate “barred, notBarred”).
Regarding claim 14, a network device (see wireless access node 22 in Fig. 8), comprising: a transmitter (see transmitter circuitry 42 in Fig. 8) configured to send first information to a relay terminal (see relay node 24 in Fig. 8), wherein the first information is used for barring access of a first terminal, or the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “the cell barring information message 52 indicates that the respective IAB-relay node 24 or user equipment 30 is barred for the cell in which the cell barring information message 52 is transmitted by parent node 22” recited in paragraph [0090]; Table 1 in paragraph [0088] and Table 8 in paragraph [0098] also shows that the cellBarred information may indicate “barred, notBarred”)
Regarding claim 15, wherein the first information comprises at least one cell barred indication (see cell barring information message 52 in Fig. 8), the at least one cell barred indication in the first information is used for barring the access of the first terminal, or the at least one cell barred indication in the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “determine based on the cell barring information whether or not the wireless terminal treats a cell served by the wireless access node as a candidate during cell selection and cell reselection procedure” recited in paragraph [0175]).
Regarding claim 16, wherein the at least one cell barred indication in the first information corresponds to at least one cell (see “If the barring status indicates that the cell is restricted, e.g., barred, the wireless terminal may consider that this cell is not suitable for camping and look for other cells. Otherwise, the terminal may camp on the cell” recited in paragraph [0087]).
Regarding claim 17, wherein for each of the at least one cell, different cell barred indications in at least one cell barred indication corresponding to the cell corresponds to first terminals of different terminal types (see “wherein the cell barring information indicates first cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a UE and second cell status dedicated for the wireless terminal of the terminal type being a relay node, each of the first cell status and the second cell status being used to determine whether or not camping on a cell served by the wireless access node is allowed (not barred) or not (barred)” recited in paragraph [0175]).
Ishii does not disclose the following features: regarding claims 1 and 13, broadcasting second information to a remote terminal, wherein the second information is determined according to the first information.
Wu discloses the following features.
Regarding claims 1 and 13, broadcasting second information to a remote terminal (see “see “The relay UE 1104 then sends the requested SI x or a subset of the requested SI x in a PC5-RRC message comprising a relay SI response 1122. In addition, or in other embodiments, the requested SI x or a subset of the requested SI x may be delivered via SL broadcast 1124 so that other remote UEs can also get the SI information (e.g., without necessarily being connected to the relay UE 1104 through the PC5 link)” recited in paragraph [0066], and see “relay UE only includes the following parameters from SIB1 in the subset of MSI broadcast to remote UEs: cell access related information (cellAccessRelatedInfo)” recited in paragraph [0059] wherein a relay UE broadcast system information including cell access information to remote UEs), wherein the second information is determined according to the first information (see step 1120 in Fig. 11, wherein the Relay UE 1104 obtains system information from the gNB 1106 in order to provide the system information to be delivered to the remote UE 1102 in step 1124; Ishii also shows that the cell access/barring information being obtained in system information as shown in paragraph [0088] of Ishii, which may be used to derive information for the SL broadcast as taught in Wu).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current Application to modify the system of Ishii using features, as taught by Wu, in order to efficiently provide system information to a remote UE (see paragraph [0049] of Wu).
Claim(s) 5-9 and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishii and Wu as applied to claims 1 and 14 above, and further in view of Liu (US 2023/0199622).
Ishii and Wu disclose the features as shown above.
Ishii does not disclose the following features: regarding claims 5 and 18, wherein in response to the first information comprising at least one resource pool indication for the first terminal, the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal; and in response to the first information comprising no at least one resource pool indication for the first terminal, the first information is used for barring the access of the first terminal; regarding claims 6 and 19, wherein the at least one resource pool indication information corresponds to at least one cell; regarding claims 7 and 20, wherein for each of the at least one cell, different resource pool indications in at least one resource pool indication corresponding to the cell correspond to first terminals of different terminal types; regarding claim 8, wherein resource pools corresponding to different terminal types do not overlap with each other in at least one of time domain or frequency domain; Regarding claim 9, wherein the first terminal comprises a RedCap terminal and a non-RedCap terminal, a resource pool for the RedCap terminal does not overlap with a resource pool for the non-RedCap terminal in at least one of the time domain or the frequency domain;
Liu discloses the following features.
Regarding claims 5 and 18, wherein in response to the first information comprising at least one resource pool indication for the first terminal, the first information is used for allowing the access of the first terminal (see “A second bit state of the two bits indicates that access of the first terminal device is allowed, and the first terminal device receives information based on the first resource. A third bit state of the two bits indicates that access of the first terminal device is allowed, and the first terminal device receives information based on the second resource. A fourth bit state of the two bits indicates that access of the first terminal device is allowed, and the first terminal device receives information based on the third resource” recited in paragraph [0019]); and in response to the first information comprising no at least one resource pool indication for the first terminal, the first information is used for barring the access of the first terminal (see “A first bit state of the two bits indicates that access of the first terminal device is not allowed” recited in paragraph [0019]; wherein the first bit state does not indicate a resource pool for the terminal and bars the access of the terminal; the second, third and fourth bit state each indicates a different resource pool to the terminal and allows access of the terminal).
Regarding claims 6 and 19, wherein the at least one resource pool indication information corresponds to at least one cell (see cell in Fig. 1 or see “the network device may indicate, based on the MIB information, that the terminal device is barred from accessing the cell” recited in paragraph [0112], “resource allocation for the terminal devices in the cell” in paragraph [0134] and other similar recitation throughout the document indicating that the access barring information being information for accessing a cell).
Regarding claim 7, wherein for each of the at least one cell, different resource pool indications in at least one resource pool indication corresponding to the cell correspond to first terminals of different terminal types (see “the network device may indicate, by using the at least one piece of first information, whether access of a first-type terminal device is allowed and/or whether access of a second-type terminal device is allowed” recited in paragraph [0077]).
Regarding claim 8, wherein resource pools corresponding to different terminal types do not overlap with each other in at least one of time domain or frequency domain (see “…time division multiplexing, frequency division multiplexing, or code division multiplexing. Alternatively, the first resource is different from the second resource, and a resource element in the first resource is completely independent of a resource element in the second resource” recited in paragraph [0143]).
Regarding claim 9, wherein the first terminal comprises a RedCap terminal and a non-RedCap terminal (see “the first terminal device belongs to a first-type terminal device whose capability is reduced. The second terminal device is a conventional terminal device” recited in paragraph [0220]; and see “REDCAP terminal device” recited in paragraph [0123]), a resource pool for the RedCap terminal does not overlap with a resource pool for the non-RedCap terminal in at least one of the time domain or the frequency domain (see “…time division multiplexing, frequency division multiplexing, or code division multiplexing. Alternatively, the first resource is different from the second resource, and a resource element in the first resource is completely independent of a resource element in the second resource” recited in paragraph [0143]; and see “the network device may indicate, by using the at least one piece of first information, whether access of a first-type terminal device is allowed and/or whether access of a second-type terminal device is allowed” recited in paragraph [0077]; wherein different types of terminals are separately access restricted (paragraph [0077]) and assigned different resources (paragraph [0019] and [0077]) that may be non-overlapping (paragraph [0143])).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Ishii and Wu using features, as taught by Liu, in order to resolve a problem in the conventional technology that a network device cannot flexibly indicate one or more types of terminal devices to access a cell or be barred from accessing the cell (see paragraph [0004] of Liu).
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishii and Wu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kimba Dit Adamou (US 2023/0217464).
Ishii and Wu disclose the features as shown above.
Ishii does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 12, wherein the first information is used for controlling the first terminal to perform at least one of processing to a network through an Uu interface, or accessing to the relay terminal through a proximity communication (PC5) interface (paragraph [0175] of Ishii as shown above shows that the wireless terminal may be a relay node that must communicates with the wireless access node via a network access interface and communicates with a terminal via a D2D interface but not indicate that these interfaces are the claimed Uu interface and PC5 interface).
Kimba Dit Adamou discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 12, wherein the first information is used for controlling the first terminal to perform at least one of processing to a network (paragraph [0175] of Ishii as shown above shows that the wireless terminal may be a relay node that must communicates with the wireless access node via a network access interface and communicates with a terminal via a D2D interface) through an Uu interface, or accessing to the relay terminal through a proximity communication (PC5) interface (see Fig. 7, wherein the interface between the gNB and the relay terminal being an Uu interface and the interface between the relay terminal and the remote terminal being a PC5 interface).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Ishii and Wu using features, as taught by Kimba Dit Adamou, to support interface according to 5G NR (see paragraph [0003] and [0037] of Kimba Dit Adamou).
Claim(s) 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishii and Wu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Huang (US 2018/0295534).
Ishii and Wu disclose the features as shown above.
Ishii does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 21, before the broadcasting second information to a remote terminal, determining, by the relay device, second information based on first information and a load condition or a power consumption of the relay device.
Huang discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 21, before the broadcasting second information to a remote terminal, determining, by the relay device, second information based on first information and a load condition (see “The relay UE may learn of a load situation of the serving cell and/or the neighbor cell according to an Access Class Barring (ACB) parameter value broadcast in a System Information Block (SIB) of the serving cell and/or the neighbor cell. In addition, in view of load balancing, the relay UE may only broadcast information of a light-load cell/neighbor cell to the remote UE. For example, if the load of a cell where the relay UE is located is heavy (the relay UE may perform judgment according to an AC parameter), access barring of the cell where the relay UE is located may be indicated or an access probability parameter is broadcast, or frequency point/Physical Cell Identifier (PCI) information of the cell where the relay UE is located is not broadcast, so as to avoid from UE detection and attempting to be accessed to the cell where the relay UE is located” recited in paragraph [0108], wherein the load is considered prior to the relay UE broadcasting cell information to the remote UE) or a power consumption of the relay device.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Ishii and Wu using features, as taught by Huang, in order to provide load balancing of the cells (see paragraph [0108] of Huang).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUTAI KAO whose telephone number is (571)272-9719. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00-17:00 EST.
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/JUTAI KAO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2473
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