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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The assertion of official notice that was given in the rejection of claim 5 was not traversed, rendering the asserted subject matter admitted prior art. See MPEP 2144.03.
Claim Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: claim 8 has been amended to omit the “transmitting” limitation, but has retained the term “transmitting” without reciting what is transmitted. Appropriate correction is required.
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, 10, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang, US 20220271887 in view of Awada, US 20220174567.
Claim 1: Zhang discloses a method comprising:
receiving, by a wireless device, from a serving cell related to a first transmit/receive point (TRP), a configuration for multiple cells (TRP 510 provides to the UE a candidate list of cell IDs of other candidate TRPs to be used for failure recovery. ¶¶ 84-85);
performing, by the wireless device, a link monitoring on the multiple cells (¶88);
detecting, by the wireless device, a failure on the serving cell (The UE detects beam failure, which is a failure of the serving cell related to the first TRP. ¶98);
after detecting the failure on the serving cell, selecting, by the wireless device, another cell related to a second TRP among the multiple cells based on the link monitoring on the another cell related to the second TRP based on the cell related to the second TRP (Another candidate beam, located in another cell (see ¶97, first sentence), is selected based on its monitored signal strength exceeding a threshold. ¶100. Therefore a suitable cell related to a second TRP, which was received in the candidate list from the node, is determined based on the failure. A recovery process is performed by selecting the candidate beam. ¶104); and
Zhang fails to disclose that the multiple cells comprise one or more non-serving cells; performing link monitoring on the non-serving cells; after detecting the failure, selecting a non-service cell based on the link monitoring; and transmitting, by the wireless device to the selected non-serving cell related to the second TRP, a request message for a recovery of the failure on the serving cell.
Awada discloses a network with the multiple cells that comprises one or more non-serving cells (¶¶ 92-93 and 140);
performing link monitoring on the non-serving cells (Measurements are performed on a non-serving cell. ¶130.);
after detecting a failure on a serving cell, selecting a non-service cell based on the link monitoring (¶139); and
transmitting, by the wireless device to the selected non-serving cell related to the second TRP, a request message for a recovery of the failure on the serving cell (Beam failure recover is initiated to the strongest non-serving cell. ¶¶ 139, 143, 147, and 152. This procedure involves the UE transmitting a beam failure recovery request to the non-serving cell. See also ¶116.).
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhang with Awada by monitoring and selecting a non-serving cell for beam failure recover. The motivation for this modification would have been to provide a more robust and flexible beam failure recovery procedure. See Awada ¶89.
Claim 10: Zhang-Awada discloses that the non-serving cell comprises a suitable cell whose quality is higher than a threshold value, wherein the quality comprises at least one of a beam quality or a cell quality, and wherein the threshold value comprises at least one of a preconfigured value or a value configured by a network (The suitable cell is selected based on monitored signal quality exceeding a predetermined value. See Zhang ¶¶ 98-100 and Awada ¶139.).
Claim 13: Zhang discloses that the wireless device is in communication with at least one of a mobile device, a network, or autonomous vehicles (Fig. 5 – the UE is in communication with a network).
Claim 14: Zhang-Awada discloses wireless device comprising: at least one transceiver; at least one processor; and at least one computer memory operably connectable to the at least one processor and storing instructions that, based on being executed by the at least one processor (See Zhang Fig. 3 and ¶¶75-77), perform the method of claim 1. See rejection of claim 1 above.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang-Awada in view of Sang, US 20210176656.
Claim 2: Zhang-Awada fails to disclose that the serving cell comprises at least one of a primary cell (PCell) or a primary secondary cell (PSCell), and wherein themultiple cells further comprise one or more secondary cells (SCells).
However, Sang discloses performing failure recovery by switching from a PCell to a SCell (¶¶ 9 and 13.)
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhang-Awada with the teachings in Sang, the rationale being to ensure continued communication for the UE. When motivated to make this combination, the POSITA would have found it obvious to perform the failure recovery between PCell having a first associated TRP, and a SCell having a second associated TRP.
Claims 3-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang-Awada in view of Sharma, US 20210329515.
Claim 3: Zhang-Awada fails to disclose receiving, from the non-serving cell, a response message for the request message, wherein the response message comprises a mobility command; and performing a mobility to the non-serving cell based on the mobility command.
However, Sharma discloses a beam failure recovery procedure that involves inter cell beam mobility. ¶181. The UE informs the cell about a failure, and the NW performs TRP switching among the plurality of TRPs serving the UE. ¶¶181-183. The scope of this disclosure includes that in response to a message sent to a second TRP, a message from a third TRP is received comprising the mobility message.
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhang-Awada with the teachings in Sharma, the rationale being to enable load balancing and enable the optimal TRP to serve the UE.
Claim 4: Zhang-Awada-Sharma discloses that the request message comprises an indication for the failure on the cell (Zhang ¶¶98-100, Sharma ¶¶181-183).
Claim 5: Zhang-Awada-Sharma fails to disclose the mobility command comprises a random access configuration for a random access, and wherein the performing of the mobility comprises performing a random access to the non-serving cell based on the random access configuration. However, official notice is taken that this was well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore it would have been obvious to the skilled artisan to modify Zhang-Awada-Sharma to include this feature, the rationale being to ensure seamless connectivity.
Claim 6: Zhang-Awada-Sharma discloses receiving, from the serving cell, a plurality of conditional mobility commands each of which is related to a corresponding target cell, wherein the non-serving cell is a target cell related to one of the plurality of conditional mobility commands (A plurality of conditional handover (mobility) commands are received. Sharma ¶183).
Claim 7: Zhang-Awada-Sharma discloses that the performing of the recovery procedure comprises: performing a mobility to the non-serving cell based on a mobility command for the target cell (Sharma ¶183).
Claim 8: Zhang-Awada-Sharma discloses: transmitting, receiving, from the non-serving cell, a response message for the request message (Awada ¶116), wherein the request message comprises an indication that the wireless device performs the mobility for the recovery of the failure (Sharma ¶¶181-183, Zhang ¶¶ 98-100).
Claim 9: Zhang-Awada-Sharma discloses that the response message corresponds to a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message or an RRC release message (Sharma ¶¶181-183).
Claims 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang-Awada in view of Park, US 20210314953.
Claim 11: Zhang-Awada fails to disclose that the configuration comprises a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states each of which is related to a corresponding cell among the multiple cells.
However, Park discloses a configuration that comprises a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states each of which is related to a corresponding cell in the list (¶¶ 259 and 304).
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Zhang-Awada with the teachings in Park, the rationale being to ensure that the optimal TRP is selected.
Claim 12: Zhang-Awada-Park discloses:
identifying a beam indicated by a TCI state for the non-serving cell among the plurality of TCI states, wherein the beam for the non-serving cell is used for the recovery of the failure on the service cell (Awada ¶¶ 139 and 143 and Park ¶¶ 4 and 304-311).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/ROBERT J HANCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3992