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 .
This action is in response to the application filed on 10/19/2023.
Claims 1-19 have been examined and rejected.
The IDS filed on 5/20/204 and on 2/25/2025 has been considered.
Claim Objections
Claim 2-12, 14-15, and 17-19 are objected to because of the following informalities: these dependent claims start with “A …”, this needs to be replaced with these dependent claims starting with “The …” Appropriate correction is required.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 11-12 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.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 5-10, 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zhang (US 20240334263 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Zhang discloses a centralized unit of a radio access network, the centralized unit (see FIG. 5, CU) comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer code configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the centralized unit at least to:
signal, to a distributed unit of the radio access network, a layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to be executed by a user equipment as part of a lower layer mobility procedure (see para 13, sending a request message that includes a plurality of candidate cells from a centralized unit (“CU”) to a distributed unit (“DU”), to request the DU to configure at least one of the candidate cells for a Layer 1 or Layer 2 (“L1/L2”) signaling based mobility (“L1/L2 mobility”)) and at least one activation condition for autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment; also see para 150, If the UE fails to access the candidate cell, and detects at least one of other candidate cells satisfies the corresponding triggering condition or a separate condition/threshold set by the NW (e.g. a condition/threshold only used for cell selection during failure recovery), the UE can automatically trigger the second L1/L2 mobility to the selected candidate cell/i.e., representing the autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration).au
Regarding claim 5, Zhang discloses the centralized unit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration comprises an instruction for the distributed unit to trigger execution of the layer 1 measurement reporting configuration at the user equipment after receipt at the distributed unit of the indication fulfilling at least one of the at least one activation conditions is received from the user equipment (see paras 158-159, the CU sends an accepted or failed/rejected candidate cell list to the DU via F1 message (e.g. UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION CONFIRM message)… the CU may also send the triggering events to DU (e.g. for DU triggered mobility). The triggering events may include events based on L1 measurements. For example, when the L1 measurements of neighbor cells becomes better than threshold value (e.g. RSRP, RSRQ or/and SINR value for an A4-like event)).
Regarding claim 6, Zhang discloses the centralized unit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration comprises an instruction for the user equipment to autonomously execute the layer 1 measurement reporting configuration when at least one of the at least one activation conditions is fulfilled (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment; also see para 150, If the UE fails to access the candidate cell, and detects at least one of other candidate cells satisfies the corresponding triggering condition or a separate condition/threshold set by the NW (e.g. a condition/threshold only used for cell selection during failure recovery), the UE can automatically trigger the second L1/L2 mobility to the selected candidate cell/i.e., representing the autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang discloses the centralized unit as claimed in claim 1, the centralized unit being further configured to, after receiving, from the user equipment, an indication that at least one of the at least one activation conditions has been fulfilled: determine that a mobility procedure is to be performed for said user equipment; obtain respective configurations for a set of target cells for the user equipment; generate a new layer 1 measurement reporting configuration using said respective configurations; and signal said new layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to the distributed unit to be executed by the user equipment as part of a lower layer mobility procedure (see para 17, receiving, at the DU from the CU, one or more triggering events by which the DU can trigger the L1/L2 mobility. The method further includes sending, from the DU to the CU, one or more triggering events by which the CU can trigger the L1/L2 mobility. The method further includes: receiving, at the DU from the CU, a configuration message for the L1/L2 mobility, wherein the configuration message includes at least one of the candidate cell list or the identified at least one of the candidate cells and configurations for each of the candidate cells, or one or more execution conditions for each of the candidate cells; sending the configuration message for L1/L2 mobility from the DU to the UE; and receiving, at the DU from the UE, a confirming of the configuration message; and sending, from the DU to the CU, a confirmation of the configuration message. The method further includes receiving at least one of the candidate cells at the DU from the CU, to request the DU to activate the candidate cells via the L1/L2 mobility; also see para 100, For the report configuration (e.g. including the triggering/execution condition) update, the source configuration can be stored as a template/baseline, or the NW provides a separate set of report configurations as a template/baseline. The NW provides a set of delta configurations for each candidate cell, which can be applied based on the template/baseline when triggering the L1/L2 mobility. The delta configuration may include a list of cell basis offset value (e.g. RSRP, RSRQ, SINR value), each one associated with each candidate cell. When a candidate cell is selected/indicated to be activated/switched as a target cell, the UE adds the cell basis offset value associated with the cell to the threshold/offset value within the template/baseline configuration to generate the new report configuration for the target cell).
Regarding claim 8, Zhang discloses the centralized unit as claimed in claim 1, the centralized unit being further configured to: receive respective layer 1 measurement reporting configurations from a plurality of distributed units; and generate said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration using said received respective layer 1 measurement reporting configurations (see FIG. 5. para 66, depicting two DUs. The base station may include a CU and two DUs (DU_1 and DU_2). Although each DU may have multiple cells, for this example each DU is shown providing a single cell such that DU_1 is providing Cell 1 and DU_2 is providing Cell 2. In this example, the UE can move from Cell 1 to Cell 2 and is depicted in FIG. 5 with a UE trajectory from Cell 1 to Cell 2 which also results in a transition from DU_1 to DU_2. The mobility from cells may occur when the UE is in a position between the two cells and making its way to the third position within Cell 2. This is intra-CU mobility because the UE is moving cells within a single CU. However, this is also inter-DU mobility because the UE is moving between different DUs; also see para 17 describing the configuration message exchanged for candidate cell list/i.e., representing the reporting configurations for two DUs).
Regarding claim 9, Zhang discloses the centralized unit as claimed in claim 8, wherein receiving respective layer 1 measurement reporting configurations is performed when establishing respective interfaces between the distributed unit and the centralized unit (see FIG. 3. paras 61-63; also see FIG. 12, para 172, the CU sends a suggested candidate cell list to the candidate DU via F1 message (e.g. UE CONTEXT SETUP REQUEST message or other message) /i.e., F1 interface message, to request candidate DU to set up candidate cells. The message may also include an indication to indicate that the procedure is for L1/L2 mobility, e.g. “L1/L2 mobility” indicator. In some embodiments, before block 1204, the CU may send a UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION REQUEST message to the source DU to query the latest configuration and the source DU responds with a UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION RESPONSE message that includes full configuration information.).
Regarding claim 10, Zhang discloses the distributed unit of a radio access network, the distributed unit (see FIG. 5, having two DUs: DU_1 and DU_2) comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer code configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the distributed unit at least to:
receive, from a centralized unit of the radio access network, a layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to be executed by a user equipment as part of a lower layer mobility procedure (see para 13, sending a request message that includes a plurality of candidate cells from a centralized unit (“CU”)/i.e., receiving from CU, to a distributed unit (“DU”), to request the DU to configure at least one of the candidate cells for a Layer 1 or Layer 2 (“L1/L2”) signaling based mobility (“L1/L2 mobility”)), and at least one activation condition for autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment (“UE”); (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment; also see para 150, If the UE fails to access the candidate cell, and detects at least one of other candidate cells satisfies the corresponding triggering condition or a separate condition/threshold set by the NW (e.g. a condition/threshold only used for cell selection during failure recovery), the UE can automatically trigger the second L1/L2 mobility to the selected candidate cell/i.e., representing the autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration).
Regarding claim 13, Zhang discloses a user equipment, comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer code configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the user equipment at least to:
receive, from a distributed unit of a radio access network, a layer 1 measurement reporting configuration (see para 13, sending a request message that includes a plurality of candidate cells from a centralized unit (“CU”) to a distributed unit (“DU”), to request the DU to configure at least one of the candidate cells for a Layer 1 or Layer 2 (“L1/L2”) signaling based mobility (“L1/L2 mobility”)/i.e., received by the UE) and at least one activation condition for autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration; and cause said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to be executed when at least one of the at least one activation condition is fulfilled (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment (“UE”); (see para 13, The type of L1/L2 mobility comprises at least one of a mobility triggered by network (“NW”), a mobility triggered by the CU, a mobility triggered by the DU, or a mobility triggered by a user equipment; also see para 150, If the UE fails to access the candidate cell, and detects at least one of other candidate cells satisfies the corresponding triggering condition or a separate condition/threshold set by the NW (e.g. a condition/threshold only used for cell selection during failure recovery), the UE can automatically trigger the second L1/L2 mobility to the selected candidate cell/i.e., representing the autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration).
Regarding claim 14, Zhang discloses the user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein causing said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to be executed when at least one of the at least one activation condition is fulfilled comprises autonomously signalling said at least one layer 1 measurement report after at least one of the at least one activation conditions has been fulfilled (see para 150, If the UE fails to access the candidate cell, and detects at least one of other candidate cells satisfies the corresponding triggering condition or a separate condition/threshold set by the NW (e.g. a condition/threshold only used for cell selection during failure recovery), the UE can automatically trigger the second L1/L2 mobility to the selected candidate cell/i.e., representing the autonomous execution of the layer 1 reporting configuration).
Regarding claim 15, Zhang discloses the user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein causing said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration to be executed when at least one of the at least one activation condition is fulfilled comprises: signalling, to the distributed unit, an indication that said at least one of the at least one activation conditions has been fulfilled; and receiving a trigger from the distributed unit that causes the user equipment to execute said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration (see para 157, the DU determines the suggested candidate cells, the DU sends a request candidate cell list to CU via F1 message (e.g. UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION REQUIRED message or other message) to request CU to allow DU to set up. The message may also include an indication to indicate that the procedure is for L1/L2 mobility and/or an indication to indicate that the procedure is for which type of L1/L2 mobility (e.g. “UE triggered L1/L2 mobility”)).
Regarding claim 16, Zhang discloses a user equipment (see FIGs. 7 - 8), comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer code configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the user equipment at least to:
receive, from a distributed unit of a radio access network, a layer 3 measurement reporting configuration and at least one activation condition for indicating that a layer 1 reporting configuration is to be executed (see para 72, FIG. 8. At step 802, the network (“NW”)/i.e., representing the DU, pre-configures one or multiple candidate/neighbor cells for inter-cell mobility/i.e., representing a layer 3 measurement reporting configuration, via RRC signaling (e.g. a RRCReconfiguration message). The candidate cell configuration may include a plurality of candidates to act as the target cell; also see FIG. 7);
determine that at least one of said at least one activation condition is fulfilled (see para 72, the configuration message includes triggering conditions that are used by the UE for triggering the mobility based also on the configurations for the candidate cells; also see FIG.7); and
signal a layer 3 measurement report with an indication that at least one of the at least one activation condition is fulfilled (see para 73, the UE evaluates the triggering conditions in block 806. The evaluation of the triggering conditions is used for identifying a target cell from among the candidate cells in block 808. The triggering conditions may also be referred to as execution conditions. Specifically, if at least one candidate cell satisfies the triggering conditions, then the UE can switch to that candidate cell/i.e., L3 measurement report, … in block 808 may also include activating or switching to the target cell, and the UE can communicate with the target cell in block 810. The communication between the UE and the target cell is through L1/L2 signaling).
Regarding claim 17, Zhang discloses the user equipment as claimed in claim 16, the user equipment being further configured to receive, from the distributed unit, physical uplink control channel resources for layer 1 measurement reporting with at least one of: said layer 1 measurement reporting configuration (see para 71, The mobility between cells can be triggered by the network (e.g. the base station)... L1/L2 signaling is used for improved mobility between cells); or
Regarding claim 18, Zhang discloses the user equipment as claimed in claim 16, wherein layer 3 and layer 1 measurement reporting configurations are comprised in a same message (see FIG. 7. Para 104, In block 706, the L1/L3 measurements related to neighbor cells (including candidate cells) are reported by the UE to the NW. The NW selects the target candidate cell based on the measurements report in block 708 and sends a triggering command (e.g. L1/L2 command) in block 710 to indicate that the UE selects the indicated cell to perform inter-cell mobility… The UE can trigger the L1/L3 measurement report upon meeting the condition/event for the configured report type (e.g. aperiodic, semi-Persistent, periodic, or event triggered).
Regarding claim 19, Zhang discloses the user equipment as claimed in claim 16, wherein the at least one activation condition comprises at least one of: Examiners Note: Using BRI consistent with the specification, the limitation “property of the serving cell” has been interpreted to mean: activation condition of the serving cell based on threshold. Based on this interpretation, see para 19, The L1 measurement configuration comprises a threshold for L1 Reference Signal Received Power (“RSRP”) measurements of serving cell to control the L1 measurement for the candidate cell or neighbor cell. The method further includes performing, by the UE, a L1 measurement for the candidate cell or the neighbor cell, when determining the L1 RSRP measurement result of the serving cell becomes worse than a threshold; also see para 87, a threshold for SpCell/serving cell RSRP measurement controlling when the UE is required to perform L1 measurements on non-serving/candidate cells (e.g. L1 SSB RSRP threshold, or L1 CSI-RS RSRP threshold). When the serving cell becomes worse than the threshold, the UE may be required to perform L1 measurements on non-serving/candidate/neighbor cells. Those measurements are then used for selecting/identifying a target cell from amongst the candidate cells);
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEEPA BELUR whose telephone number is (571)270-3722. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8 am - 4:30 pm.
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, Kevin Bates can be reached at 571-272-3980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/DEEPA BELUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472