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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-3, 5, 9-11, 13 and 17-20 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.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “the condition” in line 9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the purposes of examination, the examiner interprets “the condition” as “a condition.”
Claims 2, 3, 5 and 18 are likewise rejected for indefiniteness based on their dependency from claim 1.
Claim 9 recites the limitation “the condition” in line 14. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the purposes of examination, the examiner interprets “the condition” as “a condition.”
Claims 10, 11, 13 and 20 are likewise rejected for indefiniteness based on their dependency from claim 9.
Claim 17 recites the limitation “the condition” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the purposes of examination, the examiner interprets “the condition” as “a condition.”
Claim 19 recites the limitation “the condition” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For the purposes of examination, the examiner interprets “the condition” as “a condition.”
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 5-6, 8-10, 13-14, 16-17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Interdigital (“Time domain NES techniques; 3GPP RAN WG2 Meeting #119-e; R2-2207246”, hereinafter Interdigital).
Regarding claims 1 and 9 Interdigital discloses:
receiving, from a serving cell, a radio resource control (RRC) message including configuration information for a conditional handover (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” In NR it is known that configuration information for CHO can only be transmitted through an RRC message.)
receiving, from the serving cell, downlink control information (DCI) including a turnoff indication of the serving cell (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “a possible enhancement is to e.g. include reception of L1 signaling that the serving cell will be turned off as CHO trigger.” L1 signaling for downlink is sent using DCI.)
and performing evaluation of the condition for a conditional handover based on the turn off indication. (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 1, “The UE may need to know whether it needs to perform cell (re)selection when the serving cell's PA is turned off or power reduced or the serving cell's resources are no longer available, and how to avoid premature mobility.” Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” These two paragraph discloses that based on the turn off indication from the BS/Serving cell the UE performs evaluations such as RSRP for CHO.)
Specifically regarding claim 9 Interdigital discloses:
Transceiver and controller (It is inherent and known in the art that a UE must include a transceiver and controller in order to perform the disclosed functions.)
Regarding claims 2 and 10 Interdigital discloses:
Performing measurement regarding a target cell, based on information related to the target cell (Page 3 section 2.2 paragraph 1, “The network can rely on macro-cells or neighboring cells for coverage to compensate for the sleeping/turned off cells. gNBs can combine info including UE measurements, UE assistance info, interference status, load information, proprietary info to make this decision.” The network falls back on neighboring cells (target cells) for coverage but to make that decision the base station looks at the UE measurements of those cells.)
And determining whether the target cell is valid, based on valid condition information of the target cell, (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” If CHO is triggered the target cell is valid based on condition information. )
Wherein the RRC message includes: the information related to the target cell for a handover, the valid condition information of the target cell, and information indicating a handover type. (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” RSRP is a valid condition information of a target cell where CHO is the handover type.)
Regarding claims 5, 8, 13 and 16 Interdigital discloses:
RRC message includes: information related to a target cell for a handover, valid condition information of the target cell, and information indicating a handover type, and wherein the valid condition information of the target cell includes a condition regarding the strength of a signal received from the target cell. (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” RSRP is a valid condition information of a target cell where CHO is the handover type.)
Regarding claims 6 and 14 Interdigital discloses:
transmit, to a user equipment (UE),a radio resource control (RRC) message including configuration information for a conditional handover (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” In NR it is known that configuration information for CHO can only be transmitted through an RRC message.)
transmit, to the UE, downlink control information (DCI) including a turn off indication of a serving cell to the UE; (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow” If CHO is triggered the target cell is valid based on condition information. )
Turning off the serving cell (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “a possible enhancement is to e.g. include reception of L1 signaling that the serving cell will be turned off as CHO trigger.” Observation 4, “Turning off a cell or PA power reduction can result in a large number of UEs handing over to another cell simultaneously” The base station indicates that the serving cell will be turned off and turns it off after all the UE completes the CHO.)
Specifically regarding claim 14 Interdigital discloses:
Transceiver and controller (It is inherent and known in the art that a base station must include a transceiver and controller in order to perform the disclosed functions.)
Regarding claims 17 and 19 Interdigital discloses:
Performing handover in case that the condition for the conditional handover is satisfied. (Page 5 section 2.5 paragraph 2, “The gNB can use conditional handover to reduce HO signaling load and have the UE trigger the mobility, i.e., by configuring some candidate cells to handover to once CHO conditions are met. However, relying on existing conditional handover conditions such as RSRP can be slow”)
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.
Claims 3, 7, 11, 15, 18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Interdigital in view of Wang et al. (US 20210377832 A1, hereinafter Wang).
Regarding claims 3, 7, 11 and 15 Interdigital does not disclose:
Transmitting a turnoff withdrawal request or an indication or performing an RRC reestablishment operation, in case that the condition for the conditional handover is not satisfied
Wang discloses:
Transmitting a turnoff withdrawal request or an indication or performing an RRC reestablishment operation, in case that the condition for the conditional handover is not satisfied. (paragraph [0096], “If handover to target fails, the UE may select another candidate cell which fulfills the corresponding CHO condition to perform handover. If handover to target fails, the UE may select one of the candidate cells to perform RRC Reestablishment.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the conditional handover procedure of Interdigital in view of Wang to incorporate failure handling in RRC Reestablishment. One would have been motivated to do this “to improve the robustness of the handover” (Wang, Paragraph [0096]).
Regarding claims 18 and 20 Interdigital does not fully disclose:
(Interdigital discloses NES techniques such as cell switch off but does not disclose the information being in SIBs)
receiving, a system information block including information related with network energy saving.
Wang discloses:
receiving, a system information block including information related with network energy saving. (Paragraph [0028], “network provides the CHO information to UEs via the broadcast of a SIB” As disclosed in Interdigital, When the NES technique of cell shut down/turn off happens it triggers CHO for the UEs. The CHO information provided by SIBs is related to this NES process. This information could be used to help the UE make a decision for example in RRC reestablishment.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Interdigital in view of Wang to have the CHO information be delivered via SIBs. One would have been motivated to do this “to improve the robustness of the handover” (Wang, Paragraph [0096]).
Conclusion
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/NAM P. CAO/ Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479