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 26 May 2026, has been entered and carefully considered.
Claims 7-9, 16-18, 20 and 21 are canceled.
Claims 1-3, 5, 10-12, 14, 19, 24, 25 and 27 are amended.
Claims 1-6, 10-15, 19 and 22-28 are currently pending.
The outstanding objection to Claims 1, 10 and 19 is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendment to said claims.
The outstanding rejection of Claims 1-6, 10-15, 19 and 22-28 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendment to Claims 1, 5, 10, 14, 19 and 27.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 26 May 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive for the following reasons.
Regarding Claim 1, Applicant first states, on page 17 of the response, that (emphasis added by the Office) “Wallentin paragraph [0209] (cited for the "send a message" step) pertains to data packet forwarding from source DU to target DU - i.e., user plane data forwarding, not control plane "status change information" of candidate/target cells.” The Office notes that neither the claims nor the specification require the “status change information” to be in the control plane. The Office further notes that the claimed “status change information” is “of one of: the inter-DU change, or the intra-DU change”, but does not further limit the structure, format, or specific content of the “status change information.” As such, the Office submits that Wallentin’s disclosure, where the UE receives information related to the intra-DU change (i.e., via scheduling of user plane data from the target DU) meets the broadest reasonable interpretation of the “status change information”, absent further limitation in the claim language.
Applicant further states, on page 17 of the response, that “Applicant respectfully notes that the examiner does not cite any specific Wallentin paragraph or figure for the step "determine a status change of cells of serving DU and candidate/target cells of candidate/target DU, for a candidate/target DU". Wallentin describes message exchange for cell change but does NOT disclose the CU determining a "status change" of both serving DU cells and candidate/target cells together, for a specific candidate DU. This determination (involving intra-DU/inter-DU classification) is not present in Wallentin. According to claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 19, and 24, as amended, the CU determines a status change of cells of the serving DU AND candidate/target cells of a candidate/target DU - specifically classifying cell relationships as intra-DU or inter-DU (Claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 19, 24).” The Office first notes that Applicant’s characterization of the claim language is not commensurate with the scope of the amended claim language filed 26 May 2026, which recite “determining status change information” instead of “determining a status change.” The Office further notes that the “status change” is not claimed in terms of “classification” as presented by Applicant and does not require a specific structure, format, or content as noted above. Lastly, there is no claim language tied to “classifying cell relationships as intra-DU or inter-DU” as stated by Applicant. As such, Wallentin’s disclosure (refer to Figure 11 as cited in the Office action) of messaging related to inter-cell handover (from a source DU to a target DU) meets the broadest reasonable interpretation of the status change as presently drafted.
Applicant further states, on page 18 of the response, that “Independent claims 1, 10, and 19, as amended, require the CU to "determine a status change of one or more cells of the serving DU and one or more candidate/target cells of a candidate/target DU, for a candidate/target DU." Similar to the remark above, Applicant’s characterization of the claim language is not commensurate with the scope of the amended claim language filed 26 May 2026, which recite “determining status change information” instead of “determining a status change.”
Applicant further states, on page 18 of the response, “Independent claims 1, 10, and 19, as amended, require sending a message to the new serving DU comprising "status change information of all the candidate/target cells including their corresponding cell identifiers." Similar to the remark above, Applicant’s characterization of the claim language is not commensurate with the scope of the amended claim language filed 26 May 2026, which recite “status change of one of: the inter-DU change or the intra-DU change associated with the determined status change, for each of the one or more candidate/target cells”. The Office notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of “one or more” encompasses one; as such, Wallentin’s disclosure, at Figure 11 at step 2006, where the serving CU sends an indication of L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell procedure, which indicates an identification of a target cell reads on the broadest reasonable interpretation of “one or more” candidate/target cells.
Regarding Claim 5, Applicant states “Further, with respect to claim 5, the Examiner does not cite specific Wallentin paragraphs supporting broadcasting to each candidate DU or receiving reconfiguration information from each. This is a conclusory mapping.” The Office respectfully notes that a mapping was provided (Figure 11 at step 2010 – the CU receives an L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell change success). As noted above, Applicant’s argument appears to presume that “one or more” can only be interpreted as “multiple.” However, as the broadest reasonable interpretation of “one or more” includes “one,” Wallentin’s disclosure of the serving cell change success reads on the language of Claim 5, as currently drafted.
Regarding Claim 2, Applicant states, on page 24 of the response “Zhang describes a CU generating a "reference configuration" and triggering updates (Zhang Fig. 14). However, Zhang is concerned with the content of configurations (e.g., CSI-RS resources). It nowhere describes the CU explicitly determining a state transition type based on DU boundaries (intra VS. inter). However, there is no requirement in the claim language that a “state transition type” is determined. Applicant further states that “there is no motivation to combine Zhang's configuration generation with Wallentin's signaling relay in a way that would arrive at the claimed "status change" determination.”” The Office respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, the Office submits that maintaining and/or improving network reliability for the UE as it moves constitutes both knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and a motivation found in Zhang itself (refer to page 8).
Applicant’s arguments, filed 26 May 2026, with respect to the rejection of Claims 22 and 23 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of Claims 22 and 23 has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 19, 27 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wallentin et al (United States Pre-Grant Publication 2025/0374137), hereinafter Wallentin
Regarding Claim 1, Wallentin discloses a Centralized Unit (CU) (103) of a Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN node) (Figure 1, NG-RAN comprises gNBs with a gNB-CU) comprising:
a processor (Figure 16 – network node 1600 (gNB) comprises processing circuitry 1602; see also paragraph 0271); and
a memory, communicatively coupled to the processor, wherein the memory stores processor-executable instructions, which, on execution, causes the processor (Figure 16 – network node 1600 (gNB) comprises memory storing instructions executed by the processing circuitry; see also paragraph 0272) to:
receive a notification indicating one of: an inter- Distributed Unit (DU) change (as shown in Figure 11, the change is from a source DU to a target DU), or an intra-DU change (Note: the “intra-DU change” is claimed in the alternative to the “inter-DU change” and is therefore not required as part of the broadest reasonable interpretation) associated with a serving cell due to L1/L2 triggered mobility (LTM) for a User Equipment (UE), from a serving DU of the UE in the NG-RAN (Figure 11 at step 2005 – the serving CU receives an indication of a L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell procedure from the source (i.e., serving) DU as part of a procedure to switch from a source DU to a target DU; refer to paragraph 0207 at step 2005);
determine status change information of one of: the inter-DU change, or the intra-DU change involving one or more cells of the serving DU and one or more candidate/target cells of a respective candidate/target DU for each candidate/target DU amongst a plurality of candidate/target DUs upon changing the serving cell for the UE to a new serving cell, wherein the new serving cell is one of the one or more candidate/target cells of a candidate/target DU (Figure 11 at step 2006 – the serving CU prepares an indication of L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell procedure (i.e., inter-DU change), which indicates an identification of a target cell; refer to paragraph 0207 at step 2006);
send a message comprising the status change information of one of: the inter-DU change or the intra-DU change associated with the determined status change, for each of the one or more candidate/target cells including their corresponding cell identifiers to a new serving DU, wherein content of the message is further transmitted to the UE by the new serving DU (Figure 11 at step 2006 – the serving CU sends an indication of L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell procedure, which indicates an identification of a target cell; refer to paragraph 0207 at step 2006; Figure 11 at step 2009 – the target DU schedules user plane data for the UE (refer to paragraph 0207 at steps 2008 and 2009); paragraph 0209 – packets that were not previously delivered by the source DU are transmitted from CU to the target DU, which are then sent to the UE); and
receive a confirmation of reconfiguration at the new serving DU and the UE corresponding to the status change information at the new serving DU and the UE, wherein the UE applies one or more configuration changes provided by the CU prior to the change in the serving cell, as part of the reconfiguration (Figure 11 at step 2010 – the serving CU receives an L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell change success message; Figure 11 at steps 2004 and 2007 – the UE applies configuration changes to switch over to the target DU).
Claim 10 is a method comprising the same steps performed by the CU of Claim 1. Therefore, Claim 10 is rejected for the same reasons as presented above for Claim 1.
Claim 19 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions to cause a CU to perform the same steps as Claim 1. Noting that Wallentin discloses a memory (Figure 16 – network node 1600 (gNB) comprises memory storing instructions executed by the processing circuitry; see also paragraph 0272), the remaining limitations are rejected for the same reasons as presented above in claim 1.
Regarding Claims 5, 14 and 27, Wallentin discloses broadcast(ing) a serving cell change notification message to each of one or more candidate/target DUs detected by the CU based on a first measurement report received from the UE (Figure 11 at step 2006 – the CU sends an indication of L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell change procedure to the target DU); and receive a reconfiguration information corresponding to the status change information for each of the candidate/target cells, from each of the one or more candidate/target DUs (Figure 11 at step 2010 – the CU receives an L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell change success).
Regarding Claims 6, 15 and 28, Wallentin discloses the notification received from the serving DU comprises an Identification Number of the new serving cell of the new serving DU among one or more candidate/target DUs determined for serving the UE (Figure 11 at step 2005 – the source DU sends an indication of L1/L2 based inter-cell mobility serving cell procedure comprising an identification of the target cell).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 2, 11 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wallentin in view of Zhang et al (WIPO Publication 2024/156123), hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding Claims 2, 11 and 24, Wallentin discloses the limitations of Claims 1, 10 and 19, as described above. However, Wallentin does not disclose wherein to determine the status change information, the processor is configured to: determine a change in state of each of the one or more candidate/target cells of the serving DU and each of the one or more candidate/target cells from intra-DU to inter-DU or inter-DU to intra-DU, based on the change in the UE's serving cell. In an analogous art, Zhang discloses this. Specifically, Zhang discloses, at Figure 14 and pages 31-32 that the CU generates a reference configuration, including additional/candidate cell info list) based on configuration from candidate DUs, where the CU triggers a source configuration update and/or candidate configuration update based on the reference configuration (via a UE context modification procedure or UE context setup procedure). Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Wallentin and Zhang. One would have been motivated to do so in order to improve network reliability for the UE as it moves.
Claims 3, 4, 12, 13, 25 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wallentin in view of Da Silva et al (United States Pre-Grant Publication 2025/0357983), hereinafter Da Silva.
Regarding Claims 3, 12 and 25, Wallentin discloses the limitations of Claims 1, 10 and 19, as described above. However, Wallentin does not disclose wherein prior to receiving the notification, the processor is configured to: detect one or more candidate/target DUs among plurality of DUs based on a first measurement report received from the UE, wherein each of the one or more candidate/target DUs comprise the one or more candidate/target cells; transmit a setup request or modification request, requesting preparation of a LTM target cell configuration, to each of the one or more candidate/target DUs detected based on the first measurement report; and transmit the one or more configuration changes corresponding to the status change information to be performed by the UE as part of the reconfiguration to the serving DU, upon receiving LTM candidate cell configurations from each of the one or more candidate/target DUs. In an analogous art, Da Silva discloses this. Specifically, Da Silva discloses prior to receiving the notification, the processor is configured to:
detect one or more candidate/target DUs among plurality of DUs based on a first measurement report received from the UE, wherein each of the one or more candidate/target DUs comprise the one or more candidate/target cells (Figure 8 and paragraph 0133 - the CU may determine one or more candidate cells and the associated DU, which is the neighbor DU in this case);
transmit a setup request or modification request, requesting preparation of a LTM target cell configuration, to each of the one or more candidate/target DUs detected based on the first measurement report (Figure 8 and paragraph 0133 - The CU transmits a request e.g., UE CONTEXT SETUP REQUEST message over F1AP) for the neighbor DU to configure at least one L1/L2 inter-cell mobility candidate cell for the UE).; and
transmit the one or more configuration changes corresponding to the status change information to be performed by the UE as part of the reconfiguration to the serving DU, upon receiving LTM candidate cell configurations from each of the one or more candidate/target DUs (Figure 8 and paragraph 0148 - The serving DU generates an updated version of the CSI measurement configuration (e.g., IE CSI-MeasConfig) and transmits it to the CU in a response message (e.g., UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION RESPONSE). The CU generates the RRCReconfiguration message including the updated CSI measurement configuration (e.g., in CellGroupConfig IE) and transmits it to the UE via the serving DU (e.g., DL RRC MESSAGE TRANSFER).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Wallentin and Da Silva. One would have been motivated to do so in order to configure CSI-RS (or SSB) resources in L1/L2 mobility candidate cells provided by neighbor DUs, i.e., for inter-DU cell changes (refer to paragraph 0018 of Da Silva).
Regarding Claims 4, 13 and 26, the combination of Wallentin and Da Silva discloses the one or more configuration changes are provided to the UE using a Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration message (Da Silva at Figure 8 and paragraph 0151 - the UE receives the RRCReconfiguration message the CSI resource configuration per L1/L2 inter-cell mobility candidate, including the configuration of RS to be measured and reported by the UE for CSI. Within various IE(s), fields, and/or parameters of the RRCReconfiguration message, the UE obtains a configuration of each L1/L2 inter-cell mobility candidate cell to be applied (or switched to) upon receiving lower layer signaling (e.g., MAC CE or DCI) indicating that the UE should switch to a L1/L2 inter-cell mobility candidate cell and/or a TCI state of a L1/L2 inter-cell mobility candidate cell). Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further combine Wallentin and Da Silva. One would have been motivated to do so in order to configure CSI-RS (or SSB) resources in L1/L2 mobility candidate cells provided by neighbor DUs, i.e., for inter-DU cell changes (refer to paragraph 0018 of Da Silva).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 22 and 23 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 (Claims 5 and 14, respectively).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW W. CHRISS whose telephone number is (571)272-1774. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8am-4pm ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Bates can be reached at (571) 272-3980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDREW W CHRISS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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