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 Amendment
Applicant’s amendment, filed on 04/09/2026, has been entered and carefully considered.
Claims 35, 36, 38-42, 44-45, and 48 -53 have been amended and Claims 35-46 and 48-54 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed on 04/09/2026, 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.
Applicant amended the independent claims significantly, which necessitates the new ground rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 35-46 and 48-54 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.
Claim 35 recites limitation “the report further including central unit-control plane, CU-CP, identifier, the CU-CUP identifiers identifying secondary modes to which the first stored information is to be forwarded by the MN”. This limitation is indefinite for at least the following reasons:
First, the scope of “CU-CP identifier” is unclear. Neither the claim nor the specification defines what constitutes a “CU-CP” identifier”, the specification uses inconsistent terminology for the information on which the recited forwarding is based. In certain embodiment, the specification describes the network node forwarding as “to each of the cell identifiers included in the fetched information”. (see page 24, 1st para), characterizing the forwarding target as cell identifiers. In other embodiments, the specification describes “the MN CU-CP forwarding the received reports from the UE to the respective CU-CPs’s related identifiers included in the received report”, (see page 20, 4th para), characterizing the information as “CU-CPs related identifiers.” A cell identifier (e.g., a cell identity such as an NCGI or a physical cell identity) identifies a cell, whereas an identifier of a gNB-CU-CP identifies a node; the two are not coextensive. In view of this inconsistent usage, and because the specification does not define the claimed “CU-CP identifiers,” one of ordinary skill in the art would be unable to ascertain whether the claimed “CU-CP identifiers” (i) are limited to an identifier of a gNB-CU-CP node, (ii) encompass a cell identifier associated with a CU-CP, or (iii) refer to some other “CU-CP-related identifier. The metes and bounds of the claim therefore cannot be determined.
Additionally, “the first stored information” (transmitting step) lacks clear antecedent basis. The claim previous recites “first information”, “stored first information” and “the stored first information”; it is not clear whether “the first stored information” refers to the same information as “the stored first information” or to different information”.
Claim 38, 44, 48 and 50 and 52 are rejected for the same reason as stated above.
Claims 36-37, 39-43, 45-46, 49, 51, 53-54 are dependent claims of Claims 38, 44, 48 and 50 and 52 respectively, thus are rejected for the same deficiency.
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 35-39, 44-46, 48-54 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (Chang, WO 2022/121889 A1 – foreign priority date of 2020/12/10, claim mapping is based on a machine translation version), in view of Chen (US 2020/0059395 A1), further in view of Arshad et al (WO 2021/064692 A1), further in view of Kim (US 2019/0069333 A1).
Regarding claim 35, 48, Chang teaches a method performed by a user equipment, UE, for handling communication in a wireless communication network, the method comprising:
obtaining and storing first information associated with one or more secondary nodes or secondary cells, wherein the stored first information comprising mobility history information associated with at least one of the one or more secondary nodes ,SNs or secondary cells (page 6, lines 16-20, “when the UE performs an operation of entering RRC INACTIVE state, if the UE supports saving of the S‐MHI and the UE is configured with SCG, the UE adds an entry in the UE variable for saving the S‐MHI, the entry being used to record the current PSCell movement information of the UE”, also see page 5, lines 37-39, “the MHI recorded based on PSCell change is referred to as S-MHI”, it’s noted that MHI stands for mobility history information and S-MHI is for mobility history information for Secondary Cell);
receiving a second indication from the first network node, the second indication indicating a request to fetch the mobility history information associated with the at least one of the one or more SNs or secondary cells (page 12, lines 8-12: ”the UE reports the information to the network side after receiving an S‐MHI reporting request of the network side, wherein the request is realized by including a request indication information in an RRC message such as UEInformationRequest message for requesting the S‐MHI reporting); and
transmitting a report to the first network node, the report including an indication of the stored first information, or at least a part of the stored first information,
Chang doesn’t explicitly teach that indicating a capability of reporting the stored information.
Chen teaches that indicating a capability of reporting the stored information ([0065], “the UE may have informed the network (NW) of the UE's capability beforehand (e.g., whether the UE supports transmitting of the MN failure report)”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art to modify the method of Chang to include indicating a capability of reporting the stored information, as taught by Chen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to inform the network, in advance of any request, whether the UE supports transmitting the report at issue, so that the network node can determine whether and when to request he report from the UE, as expressly suggested by Chen (See para 0065 of Chen).
Chang in view of Chen doesn’t explicitly teach that the report further including central unit-control plane, CU-CP, identifiers, the CU-CP identifiers identifying secondary nodes to which the first stored information is to be forwarded by the MN.
Arshad teaches a UE mobility history report that includes instructions directing the master node to forward the report to a secondary node ([0090], “the UE mobility history report can include instructions for the network node to transmit a portion of the UE mobility history report to a secondary node”).
Kim teaches a central unit-control plane, CU-CP identifier, namely “CU-CP ID: a CU-CP node identifier”(see [0218]), which is expressly identified a sone of the information elements used in mobility control procedures described therein ([0208]: the IEs used in the mobility control procedure described in the present specification may be described as follows, and all or a part thereof may be used”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to further modify the method of Chang as modified by Chen to include in the transmitted report identifiers of the secondary nodes to which the stored information is to be forwarded by the MN, as taught by Arshad, and to implement such identifiers as CU-CP identifiers, as taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include the forwarding instruction/identifiers of Arshad in Chang’s report because Chang’s UE stores mobility history information associated with one or more secondary nodes and reports it to the network, and Arshad recognizes that the portion of such a report associated with a secondary node is useful to that secondary node. In order to carry out Arshad’s instruction to forward the report to a secondary node, the master mode must be able to determine which secondary nose is the intended recipient – particularly where, as in Chang, the stored information maybe associated with more than one secondary node. Including identifiers of the target secondary nodes in the report is the predictable means of enabling the master node to route the forwarded report correctly, and avoids the master node either flooding the report to all secondary node or being unable to forward it at all.
Chang, Chen, Arshad and Kim are analogous art, either being directed to mobility-related signaling and reporting between a UE and network nodes in a multi-connectivity and/or NG-RAN system, and each being the same field of endeavor as claimed invention and reasonably pertinent to the problem addressed by the Applicant.
Regarding claim 36, 49, the aforementioned references teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 35, Chang further teaches: transmitting to the first network node, a first indication that indicates presence or availability of mobility history information (page 5, lines 1-6, “if the UE supports saving of the MHI and there is an available MHI in the VarMobilityHistoryReport variable, the UE includes an indication (mobilityHistoryAvail information element) for informing the base station that it has the saved MHI in the RRC connection setup complete message or RRC connection recovery complete message, and sets the value of the information element to TRUE”) of the at least one of the one or more secondary nodes or secondary cells at the UE (page 6, lines 16-20, “when the UE performs an operation of entering RRC INACTIVE state, if the UE supports saving of the S‐MHI and the UE is configured with SCG, the UE adds an entry in the UE variable for saving the S‐MHI, the entry being used to record the current PSCell movement information of the UE”).
Regarding claim 37, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations as applied to claim 35, Chang further teaches that the indication of or the first stored information is transmitted to the first network node (page 12, lines 6-7: “when the UE executes the S‐MHI reporting time, the UE reports the recorded S‐MHI information to a network side through an RRC message”, page 3, lines 39-41, “the UE may acquire radio resources through two base stations at
the same time. One is a Master Node (MN), which is a base station to which the UE maintains RRC connection”, it’s noted that network side comprising a master node correspond to the first network node).
Regarding claim 38, 50, Chang teaches a method/device performed by a first network node for handling communication in a wireless communication network, the method comprising:
transmitting to the UE, a second indication indicating a request to fetch mobility history information associated with the at least one of the one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells (page 12, lines 8-12: ”the UE reports the information to the network side after receiving an S‐MHI reporting request of the network side, wherein the request is realized by including a request indication information in an RRC message such as UEInformationRequest message for requesting the S‐MHI reporting); and
receiving a report from the UE, the report including an indication of the first stored information or at least part of the first stored information from the UE (page 12, lines 6-7: “when the UE executes the S‐MHI reporting time, the UE reports the recorded S‐MHI information to a network side through an RRC message
Chang doesn’t explicitly teach that receiving a capability indication that a UE is capable of reporting a first stored information.
Chen teaches that receiving a capability indication that a UE is capable of reporting a first stored information ([0065], “the UE may have informed the network (NW) of the UE's capability beforehand (e.g., whether the UE supports transmitting of the MN failure report)”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art to modify the method of Chang to include indicating a capability of reporting the stored information, as taught by Chen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to inform the network, in advance of any request, whether the UE supports transmitting the report at issue, so that the network node can determine whether and when to request he report from the UE, as expressly suggested by Chen (See para 0065 of Chen).
Chang in view of Chen doesn’t explicitly teach that the report further including central unit-control plane, CU-CP, identifiers, the CU-CP identifiers identifying secondary nodes to which the first stored information is to be forwarded by the MN.
Arshad teaches a UE mobility history report that includes instructions directing the master node to forward the report to a secondary node ([0090], “the UE mobility history report can include instructions for the network node to transmit a portion of the UE mobility history report to a secondary node”).
Kim teaches a central unit-control plane, CU-CP identifier, namely “CU-CP ID: a CU-CP node identifier”(see [0218]), which is expressly identified a sone of the information elements used in mobility control procedures described therein ([0208]: the IEs used in the mobility control procedure described in the present specification may be described as follows, and all or a part thereof may be used”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to further modify the method of Chang as modified by Chen to include in the transmitted report identifiers of the secondary nodes to which the stored information is to be forwarded by the MN, as taught by Arshad, and to implement such identifiers as CU-CP identifiers, as taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include the forwarding instruction/identifiers of Arshad in Chang’s report because Chang’s UE stores mobility history information associated with one or more secondary nodes and reports it to the network, and Arshad recognizes that the portion of such a report associated with a secondary node is useful to that secondary node. In order to carry out Arshad’s instruction to forward the report to a secondary node, the master mode must be able to determine which secondary nose is the intended recipient – particularly where, as in Chang, the stored information maybe associated with more than one secondary node. Including identifiers of the target secondary nodes in the report is the predictable means of enabling the master node to route the forwarded report correctly, and avoids the master node either flooding the report to all secondary node or being unable to forward it at all.
Chang, Chen, Arshad and Kim are analogous art, either being directed to mobility-related signaling and reporting between a UE and network nodes in a multi-connectivity and/or NG-RAN system, and each being the same field of endeavor as claimed invention and reasonably pertinent to the problem addressed by the Applicant.
Regarding claims 39, 51, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations as applied to claim 38, Chang further teaches: receiving from the UE a first indication that indicates presence or availability of mobility history information of the at least one of the one or more secondary nodes or secondary cells at the UE (page 5, lines 1-6, “if the UE supports saving of the MHI and there is an available MHI in the VarMobilityHistoryReport variable, the UE includes an indication (mobilityHistoryAvail information element) for informing the base station that it has the saved MHI in the RRC connection setup complete message or RRC connection recovery complete message, and sets the value of the information element to TRUE”, also see page 6, line 17, “the UE supports saving of the S-MHI”).
Regarding claim 44, 52, Chang teaches a method/device performed by a second network node operating as a secondary node, SN, for handling communication in a wireless communication network, the method comprising:
receiving from a first network node, message or RRC connection recovery complete message, and sets the value of the information element to TRUE”, also see page 6, line 17, “the UE supports saving of the S-MHI; and
transmitting a second indication to the first network node, indicating a request to fetch the mobility history information associated with the one or both of the one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells (page 12, lines 8-12: ”the UE reports the information to the network side after receiving an S‐MHI reporting request of the network side, wherein the request is realized by including a request indication information in an RRC message such as UEInformationRequest message for requesting the S‐MHI reporting).
Chang doesn’t explicitly teach that receiving a capability indication that a UE is capable of reporting a first stored information.
Chen teaches that receiving a capability indication that a UE is capable of reporting a first stored information ([0065], “the UE may have informed the network (NW) of the UE's capability beforehand (e.g., whether the UE supports transmitting of the MN failure report)”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art to modify the method of Chang to include indicating a capability of reporting the stored information, as taught by Chen. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to inform the network, in advance of any request, whether the UE supports transmitting the report at issue, so that the network node can determine whether and when to request he report from the UE, as expressly suggested by Chen (See para 0065 of Chen).
Chang in view of Chen doesn’t explicitly teach that the report further including central unit-control plane, CU-CP, identifiers, the CU-CP identifiers identifying secondary nodes to which the first stored information is to be forwarded by the MN; communicating information regarding the mobility history information from UE to secondary node via a master node.
Arshad teaches a UE mobility history report that includes instructions directing the master node to forward the report to a secondary node ([0090], “the UE mobility history report can include instructions for the network node to transmit a portion of the UE mobility history report to a secondary node”); communicating information regarding the mobility history information from UE to secondary node via a master node ([0090], “In some embodiments, the network node is a master node. In additional or alternative embodiments, the UE mobility history report can include instructions for the network node to transmit a portion of the UE mobility history report to a secondary node”).
Kim teaches a central unit-control plane, CU-CP identifier, namely “CU-CP ID: a CU-CP node identifier”(see [0218]), which is expressly identified a sone of the information elements used in mobility control procedures described therein ([0208]: the IEs used in the mobility control procedure described in the present specification may be described as follows, and all or a part thereof may be used”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to further modify the method of Chang as modified by Chen to include in the transmitted report identifiers of the secondary nodes to which the stored information is to be forwarded by the MN, as taught by Arshad, and to implement such identifiers as CU-CP identifiers, as taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include the forwarding instruction/identifiers of Arshad in Chang’s report because Chang’s UE stores mobility history information associated with one or more secondary nodes and reports it to the network, and Arshad recognizes that the portion of such a report associated with a secondary node is useful to that secondary node. In order to carry out Arshad’s instruction to forward the report to a secondary node, the master mode must be able to determine which secondary nose is the intended recipient – particularly where, as in Chang, the stored information maybe associated with more than one secondary node. Including identifiers of the target secondary nodes in the report is the predictable means of enabling the master node to route the forwarded report correctly, and avoids the master node either flooding the report to all secondary node or being unable to forward it at all.
Chang, Chen, Arshad and Kim are analogous art, either being directed to mobility-related signaling and reporting between a UE and network nodes in a multi-connectivity and/or NG-RAN system, and each being the same field of endeavor as claimed invention and reasonably pertinent to the problem addressed by the Applicant.
Regarding claim 45, 53, the aforementioned references further teach: receiving, from the first network node, a first indication that indicates presence or availability of mobility history information of the one or both of the one or more secondary nodes and one or more primary secondary cells at the UE (Chang, page 5, lines 1-6, “if the UE supports saving of the MHI and there is an available MHI in the VarMobilityHistoryReport variable, the UE includes an indication (mobilityHistoryAvail information element) for informing the base station that it has the saved MHI in the RRC connection setup complete message or RRC connection recovery complete message, and sets the value of the information element to TRUE”, also see page 6, line 17, “the UE supports saving of the S-MHI”).
Regarding claim 46, 54, the aforementioned references further teach: receiving from the first network node, an indication of the first stored information, the first stored information, or a part of the first stored information (Chang, page 12, lines 6-7: “when the UE executes the S‐MHI reporting time, the UE reports the recorded S‐MHI information to a network side through an RRC message”).
Claims 40-43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chang (WO 2022/121,889 A1), Chen, Arshad and Kim, further in view of Wang et al (US 2024/0306048).
Regarding claim 40, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations except that:
transmitting to a second network node operating as a secondary node, SN, the first indication that the UE has available first stored information associated with the one or both of the one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells.
Wang teaches that transmitting to a second network node operating as a secondary node, SN, the first indication that the UE has available first stored information associated with the one or both of the one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells ([0057], “If the SPCR information is associated with the SN-initiated change, the terminal device 110 may transmit, to the MN 122, the availability of the SPCR information associated with the SN-initiated PSCell change”, [0058], upon receipt of the availability of SPCR information associated with SN-initiated PSCell change, the MN 122 may forward 320 the availability of SPCR information associated with SN-initiated PSCell change to the target SN (in this example, the SN 121)”, also see abstract, “the terminal stores the information concerning the change of the primary cell of the secondary node”, it’s noted that SPCR information corresponds to successful PSCell change report, which is considered as a form of mobility history information).
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 Wang in the system disclosed by Chang in view of Chen, Arshad and Kim. Because both references addressed UE-stored mobility history in MN/SN architectures. Wang applies well-known signaling and reporting techniques (configuration signaling, UE storage, subsequent reporting) to mobility history associated with secondary nodes. Incorporating these techniques into the MN/SN system of Chang in view of Chen, Arshad and Kim would have been a predictable and routine design choice, yielding the expected result of improved mobility coordination.
Regarding claim 41, the aforementioned references further teach: transmitting to a second network node, operating as a secondary node, SN, the capability indication that the UE is capable of reporting (Chen, [0065], “the UE may have informed the network (NW) of the UE's capability beforehand (e.g., whether the UE supports transmitting of the MN failure report)”) mobility history information associated with the at least one of one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells ((Chang, page 5, lines 1-6, "if the UE supports saving of the MHI and there is an available MHI in the
VarMobilityHistoryReport variable, the UE includes an indication (mobilityHistoryAvail information
element) for informing the base station that it has the saved MHI in the RRC connection setup complete message or RRC connection recovery complete message, and sets the value of the information element to TRUE”, also see page 6, line 17, “the UE supports saving of the S-MHI”).
Regarding claim 42, the aforementioned references further teach: receiving a request from a second network node (Wang, Fig. 5, [0087], request send by SN to MN), operating as a secondary node, SN, to fetch mobility history information associated with the one or both of the one or more secondary nodes and secondary cells from the UE (Chang, page 12, lines 8-12: ”the UE reports the information to the network side after receiving an S‐MHI reporting request of the network side, wherein the request is realized by including a request indication information in an RRC message such as UEInformationRequest message for requesting the S‐MHI reporting).
Regarding claim 43, the aforementioned references further teach that: transmitting the first stored information or a part of the first stored information to a second network node operating as a secondary node, SN, or another network node (Arshad, [0089], [0090], “ the UE mobility history report can include instructions for the network node to transmit a portion of the UE mobility history report to a secondary node”).
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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/SIMING LIU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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