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 § 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.
Claims 1, 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Venkataraman et al (US 2022/0377659 A1), hereinafter as “Ven”.
Regarding claim 1, 39, Ven teaches a cell determination method/appratus, performed by a terminal, comprising:
determining a target slice to be accessed and at least one frequency associated with the target slice (Fig. 4, step 405-410; [0053], “Based on which network slice has the highest priority for the UE 110, the UE 110 may initiate a reselection procedure and target a cell that operates on a frequency corresponding to the highest priority network slice”, it’s noted that a highest priority network slice is chosen as target slice); and
determining one or more candidate cells supporting the target slice in one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency (Fig. 4, step 410, [0053], “Based on which network slice has the highest priority for the UE 110, the UE 110 may initiate a reselection procedure and target a cell that operates on a frequency corresponding to the highest priority network slice”, [0058], “In 410, the UE 110 identifies a cell that supports a particular network slice”).
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.
Claim 2, 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ven in view o f Han et al (US 2020/0120547 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Ven teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 1, further teaches that:
performing a cell reselection in the one or more candidate cells
Ven doesn’t explicitly teach that determining priorities of frequencies associated with the target slice and performing a cell reselection in the one or more candidate cells based on the priorities of the frequencies.
In the same field of endeavor, Han teaches that determining priorities of frequencies associated with the target slice and performing a cell reselection in the one or more candidate cells based on the priorities of the frequencies ([0140], “when a plurality of carrier frequencies can support the network slice supported by the terminal device, the terminal device may further select a carrier frequency with a highest priority as the target carrier frequency based on a priority of each carrier frequency, to select a to-be-camped cell on the target carrier frequency”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Han in the system disclosed by Ven. Frequency-priority-based reselection is the conventional NR mechanism. Applying Han’s per frequency priority to Ven’s slice-aware frequency set is “use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way”, yielding the predictable result of selectin the best frequency among those supporting the target slice.
Regarding claim 5, Ven teaches all of the limitations of Claim 2, further teaches that determining whether the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency support the slice with the highest priority based on indication information of a network device (Ven, ([0036], “the UE 110 receives network slice information from the network. The network slice information may indicate whether a particular network slice is supported by a particular cell and/or frequency band”). However, Ven does not explicitly teach that in response to determining that all cells of the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency support the slice with the highest priority, determining the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency as the one or more candidate cells.
Han teaches that in response to determining that all cells of the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency support the slice with the highest priority, determining the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency as the one or more candidate cells ([0134], “when performing cell reselection, the terminal device selects, based on the identifier of the network slice supported by each carrier frequency included in the cell reselection information, a carrier frequency that can support the network slice supported by the terminal device as a target carrier frequency, to select a to-be-camped cell on the target carrier frequency”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to apply Han’s frequency-level slice indication in Ven’s highest-priority-slice method to reduce signaling overhead and let the UE treat an entire slice-supporting frequency layer as candidate-bearing — applying a known technique to a known method to yield a predictable result.
Regarding claim 6, the aforementioned references further teaches that determining the one or more candidate cells supporting the target slice in the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency comprises: determining one or more slices supported by the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency based on indication information of a network device and determining one or more cells supporting the slice with the highest priority in the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency as the one or more candidate cells (Ven, [0053], the gNB 120A may indicate a set of 5G frequencies where the network slice is supported. Based on which network slice has the highest priority for the UE 110, the UE 110 may initiate a reselection procedure and target a cell that operates on a frequency corresponding to the highest priority network slice”).
Regarding claim 7, the aforementioned references further teaches determining the one or more candidate cells supporting the target slice in the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency comprises: determining, based on indication information of a network device, a cell list comprising one or more cells that support the slice with the highest priority in the one or more cells corresponding to the at least one frequency; and determining the one or more cells in the cell list as the one or more candidate cells (Ven, [0034], “The exemplary embodiments relate to collecting information regarding which network slices are supported by particular cells and/or frequency bands. This information may then be considered by the UE 110 during cell selection or any other instance in which the UE 110 directly or indirectly selects a cell to camp on”, it’s noted that the set of cell(s) supporting the highest-priority slice are considered as candidate cells).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-9, 11-20, 24, 27 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.
Conclusion
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/SIMING LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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