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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the application filed on 01/08/2024 has a total of 16 claims pending in the application; there are 3 independent claims and 13 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-13, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FUJISHIRO et al. Publication No. (US 2021/0219368 A1) in view of Shah et al. Publication No. (US 2023/0397084 A1).
Regarding claim 1, FUJISHIRO teaches an apparatus (IAB node 300 FIG.3) comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code (controller 320 includes at least one processor and memory with a program executed by the processor [0055-56] FIG.3) the at least one memory and computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor (controller 320 performs various controls in the IAB node 300. The controller 320 includes at least one processor and memory. The memory stores a program executed by the processor and information used for processing by the processor [0055-56] FIG.3), cause the apparatus at least to:
determine for one or more integrated access and backhaul nodes (one or more integrated access and backhaul (IAB) nodes 300 FIG.1) one or more respective actions to be taken by that integrated access and backhaul node in response to a radio link failure in a network of integrated access and backhaul nodes (The IAB node 300 performs RRC Re-establishment when a failure occurs in the radio connection with an upper apparatus to which the IAB node 300 is connected. Such a failure in the radio connection is sometimes referred to as Radio Link Failure (RLF), When detecting RLF with the IAB node 300-1, the IAB node 300-2 searches for the gNB 200 or the IAB node 300 that can be connected to, other than the IAB node 300-1, and attempts to reestablish a radio connection to the found gNB 200 or IAB node 300 [0211-214], said determining being dependent on one or more of:
loading associated with one or more integrated access and backhaul nodes (The RRC message and/or F1 message sent to the donor gNB 200 may include a Measurement Report message indicating a measured radio state notifying a measured load state, particularly a state of resource load, for actions to be triggered based on a load state threshold value [0172-175] FIG.8); and
FUJISHIRO does not explicitly teach a status of one or more links between two or more of the integrated access and backhaul nodes.
Shah teaches a status of one or more links between two or more of the integrated access and backhaul nodes (Shah: After establishing optimum routes based on the measurement processing, an IAB donor node may generate unique route IDs with corresponding paths and a preferred neighbor nodes list for each IAB node, based on the status of each link on an path, monitoring RLF status indication between IAB nodes to notify adjacent nodes of a BH link status and the channel quality for link level communications to a destination node [0200-204] FIG.4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified FUJISHIRO by the teaching of Shah to measure the link status between nodes in order to detect link degradation and impact on an link and be able to recover from the RLF and/or establish an alternate path (Shah: [00209-217] FIG.4).
Regarding claim 2, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the respective action comprises one or more of: waiting for a radio link failure to end and attempting to re-establish a link to an original to integrated access and backhaul node; sending a failure indication to a child integrated access and backhaul node; attempting to establish a new connection to any reachable integrated access and backhaul node (the IAB node 300-2 finds the IAB node 300-3 under the donor gNB 200-2, which is different from the donor gNB 200-1 before RLF, and attempts to reestablish a radio connection to the IAB node 300-3 [0213-214] FIG.14); and attempting handover to an ordered list of integrated access and backhaul nodes (The priority information may include a list of cell identifiers or a list of node identifiers. These identifiers may be arranged in descending order or ascending order of priority. The priority information may include a priority identifier indicating the priority associated with each identifier. The priority identifier may be a 1-value (High, etc.), a 2-value (Low/High, etc.), and/or a numerical value (0 to 7, etc.) [0230-231] FIG.14).
Regarding claim 3, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim1,wherein each link is an established link or a link which is establishable during a handover (the gNB 200-1 that has received the IAB indication from the IAB node 300-1 may transmit a handover request for requesting the handover of the IAB node 300-1 to another gNB [0084] FIG.13).
Regarding claim 4, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim1, further caused to: collect information from two or more of the integrated access and backhaul nodes about one or more of: the loading associated with one or more integrated access and backhaul nodes; and the one or more links between two or more of the integrated access and backhaul nodes (the message that includes two or more of a radio state, a load state, and a communication delay state may be defined. The donor gNB 200 manages or changes the connection relationship (topology) of the IAB node 300 and the UE 100 under the donor gNB 200, and manages or changes a data transfer route (routing table) based on the RRC message and/or the F1 message [0175-177] FIG.11).
Regarding claim 5, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim 1, further caused to: cause information about the one or more respective actions to be taken by a respective integrated access and backhaul node in response to a radio link failure to be transmitted to the respective integrated access and backhaul node (When detecting RLF with the IAB node 300-1, the IAB node 300-2 searches for the gNB 200 or the IAB node 300 that can be connected to, other than the IAB node 300-1, and attempts to reestablish a radio connection to the found gNB 200 or IAB node 300 [0213-14] FIG.14).
Regarding claim 6, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim 1, caused to: perform the determining of the one or more actions, prior to an occurrence of a radio link failure (the IAB node 300-2 finds the IAB node 300-3 under the donor gNB 200-2, which is different from the donor gNB 200-1 before RLF, and attempts to reestablish a radio connection to the IAB node 300-3 [0213-214] FIG.14).
Regarding claim 7, FUJISHIRO teaches the apparatus of claim 1, caused to: determine the one or more actions based on one or more load related criteria (message sent to the donor gNB 200 may include a message notifying a measured load state (particularly a state of resource load). Such a message may be referred to as a Resource Status Update message [0173-175] FIG.24).
Regarding claims 8-12, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-7, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “receiving” side reciting RLF recovery instead of actions taken to recover from the RLF (explained in claim 1) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claims 13 and 18-20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-7, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “method” side and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Claims 14-17 (canceled).
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
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/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472