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 Objections
Claims 1, 8 and 15 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, each of original claim’s preamble recites BS-DU. Examiner believes and rectifies the limitation to BS-CU, as according to the specification. See strikethroughs and underscores (for additions) in the rejection below.
Regarding claim 8, it is a hybrid claim due to being claimed as an apparatus but the body only has method steps & lacks structure. This can be overcome by adding after the colon “:” structural details, such as processor and memory.
Regarding claim 15, the computer readable medium (CRM) needs to include “instructions stored on computer readable medium”. Having CRM comprising instructions is not enough, as the processor cannot execute them.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-13, 15-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toeda (US 2022/0217664) in view of Xu (US 2023/0036797).
Regarding claim 1, 8 and 15, Toeda describes a method/base station control unit (BS-CU) comprising one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors/non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by 1+ processors, causes a base station control unit (BS-CU), comprising:
sending, by a base station central unit (BS-CU) to a base station distributed unit (BS-DU), a first message indicating that a wireless device supports a traceability to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) (para. 66-67, gNB-CU 210 sends to gNB-DU 230 system information (message) indicating UE 1000 (wireless device)’s reference time will be supplied with timeInfoUTC (traceability to UTC).
Toeda fails to further explicitly describe:
receiving, by the BS-CU from the BS-DU, a second message indicating whether the BS-DU provides the traceability to UTC.
Xu also describes time synchronization involving the BS-CU & BS-DU (title & fig. 3), further describing:
receiving, by the BS-CU from the BS-DU, a second message indicating whether the BS-DU provides the traceability to UTC (fig. 5 step 502 & para. 145, DU sends to CU its second reference time, being a UTC [supported/traceable] time, para. 164. See also para. 29, where second reference time = reference time of the DU).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the DU of Toeda to provide the CU its traceability of UTC.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this provides precise control of services & high-precision time synchronization between a terminal device & radio network side (Xu para. 3).
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, Toeda and Xu combined describe:
wherein a base station comprises both the BS-CU and the BS-DU (Toeda, fig. 1, gNB 200 (base station) comprises the CU 210 & DU 230).
Regarding claim 3, 10 and 17, Toeda and Xu combined describe:
sending, by the BS-CU to the wireless device, an indication that a base station provides traceability to UTC (Toeda, fig. 6 & para. 64-69, gNB-CU transmits system information with timeInfoUTC to gNB-DU in step S1, which updates such system information’s time in step S2, accounting for transmission delay between DU & terminal device, and forwarding to UE 100 in step S3).
Regarding claims 4, 11 and 18, Toeda fails to further explicitly describe:
determining, by the BS-CU, the indication that the base station provides traceability to UTC, based on: the second message; and a capability of the BS-CU to support traceability to UTC.
Xu also describes time synchronization involving the BS-CU & BS-DU (title & fig. 3), further describing:
determining, by the BS-CU, the indication that the base station provides traceability to UTC, based on: the second message; and a capability of the BS-CU to support traceability to UTC (fig. 5 step 502 & para. 145, DU sends to CU its second reference time, being a UTC [supported/traceable] time, para. 164. Based on the received UTC, CU determines its first reference time in step 503 [to also be traceable to UTC).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the BS-CU of Toeda to determine capability of BS-CU to support traceability to UTC as in Xu.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this provides precise control of services & high-precision time synchronization between a terminal device & radio network side (Xu para. 3).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 19, Toeda fails to further explicitly describe:
sending, by the BS-CU to the BS-DU and based on the second message, a configuration request for the wireless device.
Xu also describes time synchronization involving the BS-CU & BS-DU (title & fig. 3), further describing:
sending, by the BS-CU to the BS-DU and based on the second message, a configuration request for the wireless device (Xu fig. 3 step 303 & para. 101, based on receiving reference time information report message in step 302, CU sends via DU to terminal a configuration [request] comprising reference time on a DU side in step 303).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the BS-CU of Toeda to provide the BS-DU a configuration request for wireless device as in Xu.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this provides precise control of services & high-precision time synchronization between a terminal device & radio network side (Xu para. 3).
Regarding claims 6, 13, 20, Toeda fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the first message comprises at least one of: a requested time service type for the wireless device.
Xu also describes time synchronization involving the BS-CU & BS-DU (title & fig. 3), further describing:
wherein the first message comprises at least one of: a requested time service type for the wireless device (Xu fig. 3 step 301 & para. 99, CU sends (first) message to DU comprising request of reference time service [type], ultimately for time synchronization of the terminal (wireless device, para. 102-104).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the first message of BS-CU in Toeda to provide the BS-DU a configuration request for wireless device as in Xu.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this provides precise control of services & high-precision time synchronization between a terminal device & radio network side (Xu para. 3).
Regarding claim 7, Toeda fails to further explicitly escribe:
wherein the second message comprises at least one of: an allowed time service type for the wireless device
Xu also describes time synchronization involving the BS-CU & BS-DU (title & fig. 3), further describing:
wherein the second message comprises at least one of: an allowed time service type for the wireless device (Xu fig. 3 step 302 & para. 100, CU receives (second) message from DU comprising reference (allowed) time service [type], ultimately for time synchronization of the terminal (wireless device, para. 102-104).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the second message in Toeda to comprise an allowed time service type for wireless device as in Xu.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this provides precise control of services & high-precision time synchronization between a terminal device & radio network side (Xu para. 3).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Centonza (US 2020/0404605) describing optimized time synchronization for UE from gNB comprising CU & DUs using time traceability to UTC (fig. 1-2 & para. 4 & 31), Xu (US 2023/0262629) describing time difference messaging between CU & DU (fig. 9), involving third message (para. 186) & second time difference (para. 189), Andres Maldonado (US 2024/0373374) describing clock resiliency where gNB 10 comprises CU & DU (title & para. 75), Abendini (US 2019/0394738) describing timing alignment between base station 505b which comprises CU 510 & DU 520 & MT 505 (fig. 5), Kim (US 2023/0137019) describing DU acquires clock from CU (fig. 16-17 & fig. 18 S1705), where after the step of transmitting the oscillator clock of the central unit (CU) to each distributed unit (DU), the steps of: synchronizing an oscillator clock of the DU by each distributed unit (DU), based on a difference between the oscillator clock of the DU and the oscillator clock of the CU (para. 15), and Bedrosian (US 2013/0039359) describing time synchronization from UTC time (fig. 1).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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