DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present U.S. non-provisional application is being examined under the first-inventor-to- file provisions of the AIA . The present U.S. non-provisional application, filed on November 22, 2023, is the U.S. national stage of an international PCT application, filed on May 20, 2022, and claims priority to a foreign application, filed on June 2, 2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on November 22, 2023, June 3, 2025, and August 26, 2025 were filed before the mailing date of a first Office action in the present U.S. non-provisional application, in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
This Office action is responsive to the election on January 20, 2026. The election of invention group I without traverse is acknowledged. Claims 11-17 are withdrawn from consideration. Claims 1-10 and 18 are pending for consideration in the present U.S. non-provisional application.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 would be considered as allowable if rewritten into independent form to include all of the limitations of the respective base claim and any intervening claims. The claimed invention is neither anticipated by the prior art of record, nor considered as obvious in view thereof to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
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 1-7, 9, 10 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over Hasegawa et al. (US 2023/0007562 A1) in view of Luo et al. (US 2023/0164524 A1).
1. A communication system (Hasegawa, FIG. 1) comprising:
a first base station to operate as a donor for integrated access and backhaul (Hasegawa, FIG. 1, Id.), the first base station including a central unit and a distributed unit (Luo, FIG. 10); and
one or more second base stations to operate as nodes of the integrated access and backhaul (Hasegawa, paras. [0063], [0070], “Specifically, the IAB donor transmits, to the IAB node #1, the path setting packet with an instruction to perform termination processing on the packet the destination address of which is the address for multicast and to transfer the packet to the IAB nodes #3 and #4 (Step S201). The IAB donor also transmits, to the IAB node #3 via the IAB node #1, the path setting packet with an instruction to perform termination processing on the packet the destination address of which is the address for multicast (Steps S202 and S203). Similarly, the IAB donor transmits, to the IAB node #4 via the IAB node #1, the pass setting packet with an instruction to perform termination processing on the packet the destination address of which is the address for multicast (Steps S204 and S205). […] Thus, by setting the destination address of the packet to the address for multicast, each IAB node transfers the packet to the IAB node connected to the lower position thereof in accordance with the path setting packet received in advance and transmits the data contained in the packet to the UE, which is subordinate thereto. Thus, when multicasting the data, the IAB donor only needs to transmit the packet once to the IAB node #1, which is positioned on the packet transfer path, without transmitting the packet individually to each IAB node. Consequently, the number of packets transmitted and received in the IAB network can be reduced, and the occurrence of congestion can be avoided to mitigate a reduction in throughput.”), wherein
the central unit performs address configuration for multicasting data from the central unit toward a communication terminal in a backhaul adaptation layer in which data transmitted and received by the communication terminal is routed, on the distributed unit and the second base stations (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], “S910: A CU (namely, a donor-CU or a first network device) of a donor node sends first configuration information to a DU (namely, a donor-DU or a second network device) of the donor node, sends second configuration information to each intermediate IAB node that is on a path from the donor-CU to a first terminal device, and sends third configuration information to a last-hop IAB node. […] The routing information is the same as the routing information in the first configuration information. When receiving the first multicast service, the intermediate IAB node determines whether the first multicast service needs to be forwarded, in other words, whether the first multicast service needs to be sent to the next-hop IAB node. For example, the IAB node determines whether a BAP address in routing information included in a BAP layer encapsulated outside a received data packet is the same as a BAP address of the IAB node. If the BAP addresses are the same, it indicates that the IAB node is the last-hop IAB node; otherwise, the IAB node needs to forward the first multicast service.”)
Hasegawa et al. may not seem to describe the identical claimed invention, however in the same field of endeavor, Luo et al. provides prior art disclosure for the claimed invention, such as the central unit performs address configuration for multicasting data from the central unit toward a communication terminal in a backhaul adaptation layer in which data transmitted and received by the communication terminal is routed, on the distributed unit and the second base stations (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.) The prior art disclosure and suggestions of Luo et al. are for reasons of enabling flexible transmission of multicast service (Luo, paras. [0006], [0281], “The embodiments may provide a method for multicast communication, a first network device, and a second network device, to transmit a multicast service in a unicast manner, and further implement flexible transmission of the multicast service. […] In conclusion, according to the method for multicast communication, the donor-CU configures, for the donor-DU, the intermediate IAB node, and the last-hop IAB node, corresponding configuration information used for multicast, so that the donor-DU, the intermediate IAB node, and the last-hop IAB node can multicast a multicast service based on the corresponding configuration information.”) In view of the prior art of record, the claimed invention 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, for reasons of enabling flexible transmission of multicast service.
2. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to the second base station connected to the communication terminal (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
3. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to the second base station to which another second base station is not connected, among the second base stations to which the communication terminal is connected (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
4. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates the same address as a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to each of a plurality of the second base stations having the same connection destination (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
5. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to the second base station to which a communication terminal that receives multicast data is connected (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
6. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates the same address, as a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to the second base stations in the same layer with reference to the distributed unit or the communication terminal (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
7. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit allocates the same address, as a multicast address in the backhaul adaptation layer, to a plurality of the second base stations that form a path to a communication terminal that is a multicast data transmission destination (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
9. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the central unit duplicates data to be a multicast transmission target (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.)
10. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein in a case of receiving multicast data, to be transmitted to the same communication terminal, from different paths, the second base station transfers multicast data received from any one of the paths (Hasegawa, paras. [0063], [0070], Id.)
18. A base station that includes a central unit and a distributed unit (Luo, FIG. 10, Id.) and operates as a donor for integrated access and backhaul (Hasegawa, FIG. 1, Id.), wherein
the base station performs address configuration for multicasting data toward a communication terminal in a backhaul adaptation layer in which data transmitted and received by the communication terminal is routed (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.), on one or more other base stations that operate as nodes of the integrated access and backhaul (Hasegawa, paras. [0063], [0070], Id.)
Hasegawa et al. may not seem to describe the identical claimed invention, however in the same field of endeavor, Luo et al. provides prior art disclosure for the claimed invention, such as the base station that includes a central unit and a distributed unit (Luo, paras. [0242], [0261], Id.) The prior art disclosure and suggestions of Luo et al. are for reasons of enabling flexible transmission of multicast service (Luo, paras. [0006], [0281], Id.) In view of the prior art of record, the claimed invention 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, for reasons of enabling flexible transmission of multicast service.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record (PTO-1449, PTO-892) and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the subject matter of the present U.S. non-provisional application.
Shimoda et al. (US 2024/0187960 A1) provides reference disclosure considered as relevant to the subject matter of the claimed invention (Shimoda, Abstract, “A communication system includes: a first base station that operates as a donor for integrated access and backhaul, the first base station including a central unit and a distributed unit; and one or more second base stations that operate as nodes of the integrated access and backhaul, and in a case where multicast transmission of data is performed from the first base station to a communication terminal, the central unit performs a configuration for the multicast transmission on the distributed unit and the one or more second base stations.”)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Timothy J. Weidner whose telephone number is (571) 270-1825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time.
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/TIMOTHY J WEIDNER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476