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
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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Jia et aal (US 20230180227)- relying on PCT/CN2020/107581 filed Aug.6, 2020
As to claims 1 and 9 Jia discloses an operating method of a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Jia – Terminal of Fig.1, Fig.19), and a user equipment (UE) in the wireless communication system, the UE comprising: a transceiver (Jia 1930 of Fig.19); the operating method comprising: receiving a system information block (SIB) from a serving cell (Jia ¶0091- 1st sentence- terminal equipment 102 verifies whether there exists a valid stored version of a system information block ; identifying a value of areaScope included in si-Schedulinglnfo for the received SIB and a value of areaScope for a previously stored SIB (Jia ¶0091-1stand 2nd sentences- the terminal equipment 102 verifies whether there exists a valid stored version of a system information block. For a stored version of an SIB, when the stored version of the SIB is associated with “areaScope” and its value is identical to “areaScope” value of the SIB received in system scheduling information (si-SchedulingInfo) of a serving cell, the terminal equipment 102 checks whether a system information area identity and other information in the system scheduling information are in consistence with corresponding information associated with the stored version of the SIB); determining whether the serving cell is a non-public network (NPN)-only cell; when the serving cell is the NPN-only cell and the UE is an NPN capable UE, determining whether NPN-related parameters included in the si-SchedulingInfo are identical to NPN-related parameters included in the previously stored SIB (Jia ¶0162- when the terminal equipment has an NPN capability and the serving cell is an NPN-only cell, when the value tag associated with the SIB, the NPN-Identity and a cell identity in the other information are identical to the value tag, the NPN-Identity and the cell identity associated with the stored version, the terminal equipment considers that the stored version is valid.); and when the NPN-related parameters are identical, determining that the previously stored SIB is valid for the serving cell(Jia ¶0159- s702- it may also be that for a stored version of the SIB, when the system information area identity and the value tag associated with the SIB in the scheduling information and the NPN identity (NPN-Identity) in the other information are identical to the system information area identity, the value tag and the NPN identity associated with the stored version, the terminal equipment considers that the stored version is valid.) , and otherwise, determining that the previously stored SIB is not valid for the serving cell (Jia ¶0165-s704).
As to claims 2 and 10 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 1 and 9 respectively, wherein the determining whether the previously stored SIB is valid comprises, when the serving cell is the NPN-only cell and the UE is the NPN capable UE, determining whether the previously stored SIB is valid without determining whether public land mobile network (PLMN)-related parameters included in the si-SchedulingInfo are identical to PLMN-related parameters included in the previously stored SIB (Jia ¶0211- last sentence- That the terminal equipment in Rel-16 has a capability to support a non-public network (NPN) is taken into account in this method, so that the terminal equipment may check the NPN identity, instead of the PLMN identity, so as to determine validity of a stored version of an SIB, thereby avoiding uncertainty of the behaviors of the terminal equipment when the network device does not broadcast the PLMN identity.).
As to claims 3 and 11 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 2 and 10 respectively, wherein the identifying of the value of the areaScope comprises identifying whether the areaScope value for the previously stored SIB is identical to the areaScope value in the si-SchedulingInfo for the SIB received from the serving cell (Jia ¶0190- when the area scope is associated, and for the stored version of the SIB, a value of the area scope is identical to a value from the serving cell received in the system scheduling information on the SIB,).
As to claims 5 and 13 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 2 and 10 respectively, wherein the identifying of the value of the areaScope comprises identifying whether there is no areaScope for the previously stored SIB and the areaScope value is not included in the si-SchdulingInfo for the SIB from the serving cell (Jia ¶0249- 1st sentence- when the area scope does not exist for the stored version of the SIB and a value of the area scope is not included in the system scheduling information on the SIB from the serving cell,).
As to claims 7 and 15 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 1 and 9 respectively, further comprising, when it is determined that the previously stored SIB is not valid for the serving cell, re-obtaining an SIB from the serving cell (Jia ¶0095- the terminal equipment 102 may possibly consider that all stored versions of the SIB are invalid, hence, the terminal equipment 102 is needed to reacquire the SIB again).
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 4, 6, 8, 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jia in view of Tseng et al (US 20220014980).
As to claims 4 and 12 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 3 and 11 respectively, however silent wherein the determining whether the NPN parameters are identical comprises determining whether a first NPN identity included in an NPN-IdentityInfoList and a systemInformationArealD and a valueTag that are included in the si-Schedulinglnfo are identical to an NPN identity, a systemInformationArealD; and a valueTag associated with the previously stored SIB. However in an analogous art Tseng remedies this deficiency: (Tseng ¶0092- if the serving cell is a NPN-only cell and the first NPN-Identity included in the NPN-IdentityInfoList is identical to the NPN-Identity associated with the stored SIB segments, and the {valueTag}, {areaScope} (e.g., present/not present) and {systemInformationAreaID} provided by the serving cell are also the same as the {valueTag}, {areaScope} (e.g., present/not present) and {systemInformationAreaID} associated with the stored SIB segments, the UE may determine that the stored SIB segments are valid for the cell.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Jia with that of Tseng for the purpose of checking validity of system information in a private network (Tseng ¶0067).
As to claims 6 and 14 Jia discloses the operating method and UE of claims 5 and 13 respectively, however silent wherein the determining whether the NPN parameters are identical comprises determining whether a first NPN identity included in an NPN-IdentityInfoList, and a Cellidentity and a valueTag that are included in the si-SchedulingInfo are identical to an NPN identity, a Cellidentity, and a valueTag associated with the previously stored SIB. However in an analogous art Tseng remedies this deficiency: (Tseng, Table 1- if the cell is an NPN-only cell and the first NPN-Identity included in the NPN-IdentityInfoList, the systemInformationAreaID and the valueTag that are included in the si-SchedulingInfo for the SIB received from the serving cell are identical to the NPN-Identity, the systemInformationAreaID and the valueTag associated with the stored version of that SIB: 1. consider the stored SIB or the stored SIB segment as valid for the cell. b. if the areaScope is not present for the stored version of the SIB and the areaScope value is not included in the si-SchedulingInfo for that SIB from the serving cell: i. if the cell is non-NPN-only cell and the first PLMN-Identity in the PLMN-IdentityInfoList, the cellIdentity and valueTag that are included in the si-SchedulingInfo for the SIB received from the serving cell are identical to the PLMN-Identity, the cellIdentity and the valueTag associated with the stored version of that SIB). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Jia with that of Tseng for the purpose of checking validity of system information in a private network (Tseng ¶0067).
As to claim 8 Jia discloses the operating method of claim 1, however silent wherein the NPN-only cell is a cell available only to an NPN subscriber. However, in an analogous art Tseng remedies this deficiency (Tseng ¶0066 1st sentence- a cell that is only available for normal service for the NPNs' subscribers may be referred to as an NPN-only cell.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Jia with that of Tseng for the purpose of designating a cell that is only available for normal service for NPNs' subscriber (Tseng ¶0221).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DERRICK V ROSE whose telephone number is (571)270-7460. The examiner can normally be reached 9am- 6pm.
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/DERRICK V ROSE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462