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 2 and 18 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.
Regarding exemplary claim 2, claim 2 depends from claim 1. Claim 1 is directed to the RAN node, however claim 2 is directed to the User Equipment. As such the metes and bounds of what is attempting to be claimed cannot be ascertained because a UE is not part of the apparatus of claim 1, only that the RAN node releases a connection of the UE, and that it transmits a request to a CN node to initiate paging for the UE. Claim 18 also has similar deficiencies. Correction is required.
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)(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.
Claim 17, 19-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by RRC Inactive State – new procedures in TS23.502; S2-176992 Ljubljana, Slovenia (cited by Applicant) (hereinafter Slovenia).
Regarding claim 17, Slovenia discloses an apparatus of a core network (CN) (i.e. AMF) for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories, configured to: receive a first request from a first radio access network (RAN) node to initiate paging for a user equipment (UE), the first request including a first identifier of the UE (p. 7, section 4.8.x5, point 2: Serving NG-RAN sends NG Relay Paging request (NGAP) and paging scope; and transmit a second request to a second RAN node to page the UE based at least in part on receiving the first request, wherein the second request comprises a second identifier of the UE (p. 7 section 4.8.x5, points 3 and 4: AMF based on the received UE’s Paging scope, selects the NG-RAN nodes to relay, and then sends the NGAP Paging request).
Regarding claim 19, Slovenia discloses the first identifier and second identifier are the same (its inherent that the UE identifier would be transmitted to the NG-RANs in the paging area, otherwise the paging RANs would be unable to know which UE to page).
Regarding claim 20, Slovenia discloses the identifier is a NGAP UE identifier (p. 7, section 4.8.x5, point 2).
Regarding claim 21, Slovenia discloses the UE is in an RRC-IDLE or RRC-INACTIVE state prior to transmitting the second request (p. 7, line 1; UE in RRC inactive state).
Regarding claim 22, Slovenia discloses transmit to the first RAN mode a context setup message for the UE and receive the first request based at least on transmitting the context setup message (p. 6, steps 2b-4, AMF sends last serving RAN node a request and receives and relays the XnAP messages for the new NG-RAN node to complete the resumption of the RRC connection).
Regarding claim 23, Slovenia discloses receiving, from the first RAN node, an indication to retain an identifier for the UE after release of a radio resource control (RRC) connection of the UE, wherein the first request is received based at least in part on a receipt of the indication (p. 6 steps 5a-b: new NG-RAN node provides forwarding address to last serving NG-RAN node).
Regarding claim 24, Slovenia discloses the indication is to retain a NGAP connection with the first RAN node (p. 6 steps 5a-b: new NG-RAN node provides forwarding address to last serving NG-RAN node).
Regarding claim 25, Slovenia discloses receiving, from the first RAN node, a first indication to retain an identifier for a second UE; and receive a second indication from the first RAN node to release the identifier for the second UE (p. 6, steps 2a, NGAP relay Xn request to retrieve UE context).
Regarding claim 26, Slovenia discloses establishing a Next Generation application protocol (NGAP) connection with the first RAN node associated with the UE, wherein the first request is received via the NGAP (p. 6, steps 2a, NGAP relay Xn request to retrieve UE context).
Regarding claim 27, Slovenia discloses transmitting the first identifier to the RAN node, wherein the first request including the first identifier is received based at least in part on a transmission of the first identifier to the RAN node (p. 6 step 3b NGAP Relay indication).
Regarding claim 28, Slovenia discloses the first request comprises a request for a paging identifier for the UE, and wherein the second request is transmitted based at least in part on providing the second identifier as a paging identifier for the UE (p. 7 steps 1-4, Paging Scope).
Claims 30 is rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5-16, 19, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nalla et al. (WO 2024/102139) (hereinafter Nalla) in view of Slovenia.
Regarding claim 1, Nalla discloses an apparatus of a radio access network (RAN) node for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (paras 27-28), configured to: release a radio resource control (RRC) connection of a user equipment (UE) (para 14: data arrives for UE in RRC_IDLE state, indicating that the RAN node has released the connection; para 15: on context release.
Although Nalla discloses the AMF sends a request to page the UE and that the NGAP PAGING arrives from the 5GC (5G Core Network) it is not explicit that a RAN node transmits a request to a core network (CN) node to initiate paging for the UE, the request including an identifier of the UE. In analogous art, Slovenia discloses another 5G RAN node which transmits a request to a core network (CN) node to initiate paging for the UE, the request including an identifier of the UE (p. 3, line 13 #1, CN Paging requires that for a UE in RRC Inactive state, RAN notifies the CN that it shall page a UE, and #2 that the AMF would need to support paging; also see p. 7 section 4.8x5 NG-RAN Paging Relay via the 5GC and the serving NG-AN node decides to relay the paging via the 5GC, including the Paging Scope (i.e. identifier of the UE)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Slovenia with Nalla in order to have the old RAN node transmit incoming data to the UN in an efficient manner.
Regarding claim 3, Nalla-Slovenia transitioning the UE to an RRC-idle state or to an RRC-inactive state (Nalla: para 14: data arrives for UE in RRC_IDLE state).
Claims 5-9 are rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claim 10, Nalla-Slovenia disclose the identifier of the UE comprises an S-TMSI (Nalla: para 15).
Regarding claim 11, its inherent to the system of Nalla-Slovenia that the identifier of the UE would have been received based at least in part on setting up the RRC connection prior to releasing the RRC connection.
Regarding claim 12, Nalla-Slovenia discloses the invention in the context of one UE, however does not explicitly state a second UE, but Nalla does disclose a plurality of UEs can exist in the system (see para 14), and one of ordinary skill in the art would clearly understand from the combination that merely repeating the methodology explained in claim 1 with a second UE would meet the limitations as claimed.
Regarding claim 13, Nalla discloses receiving the UE identifier from the CN node ( Slovenia: p. 7 Fig 4.8x5-1 and point 3-4, AMF selects NG-RAN nodes to conduct paging, and the AMF relays NGAP paging to the NG-RAN nodes in the UE’s Paging scope).
Regarding claim 14 and 15, Nalla-Slovenia discloses receiving an additional request from the CN node to page the UE based at least in part on transmitting the request, wherein the additional identifier of the UE is the same as the identifier of the UE (Slovenia p. 7 discloses paging relay via the core network, where the core network will determine NG-RAN nodes based on the UE’s paging scope, as the serving NG-RAN node may be part of the scope a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the serving NG-RAN would receive the additional request; also see Nalla para 6, p. 2 line 30-p. 3, line 4 which discloses paging the UE in all cells of the TA of the GNB when a paging expiry timer expires).
Claims 16 and 29 are rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nalla in view of Slovenia in view of Zhang et al. (WO 2021/224149) (cited by applicant in IDS) (hereinafter Zhang).
Regarding claim 2, Nalla-Slovenia discloses the invention as described above. Nalla-Slovenia does not explicitly state that the UE comprises an entity of a repeater node. In analogous art, Zhang discloses another telecommunications system which establishes a relay request wherein the UE comprises an entity of a repeater node (e.g. abstract UE1 and UE2 can accept relay requests of a remote UE. Also see para 124). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Zhang with Nalla-Slovenia in order to efficiently establish a L2 UE-to-NW relay connection as supported by Zhang (para 31).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nalla in view of Slovenia in view of Orsino et al. (USPGPUB 2025/0227662) (hereinafter Orsino).
Regarding claim 4, Nalla-Slovenia discloses the invention as described above. Nalla-Slovenia do not explicitly disclose the RAN node transmitting an RRC release message to the UE. IN analogous art, Orsino discloses another RAN node (gNB 106) which, after transmitting a paging request to CN to page target relay UE, will transmit an RRC release message to the UE (Fig. 7 ref 718 and para 149, gNB sending a release message to release the remote UE to RRC_IDLE or RRC_Inactive). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Orsino with Nalla-Slovenia in order to provide an efficient method to communicate with a relay UE since the gNB does not have any direct signaling to the relay UE (see para 2).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Slovenia in view of Zhang.
Regarding claim 18, Slovenia discloses the invention as described above. Slovenia does not explicitly state that the UE comprises a repeater node. In analogous art, Zhang discloses another telecommunications system which establishes a relay request wherein the UE comprises an entity of a repeater node (e.g. abstract UE1 and UE2 can accept relay requests of a remote UE. Also see para 124). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Zhang with Slovenia in order to efficiently establish a L2 UE-to-NW relay connection as supported by Zhang (para 31).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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JOSEPH E. AVELLINO
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2478
/JOSEPH E AVELLINO/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2478