Detailed Action
1. The Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 06/29/2026. In virtue of this communication, claims 1-30 are currently pending in this Office Action.
Response to Arguments
2. In Remarks, applicant arguments are mainly based on the amended claim limitations “receiving an indication of a set of candidate neighbor cells of a second radio access technology having a higher priority level than the first radio access technology” and “performing measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells of the second radio access technology having the higher priority level than the first radio access technology”. However, the amended claim limitations are considered obvious.
In light of fig. 8 in view of fig. 6 in this instant application, the amended claim limitations could be reasonably interpreted as “receiving an indication of a set of candidate neighbor cells of a second radio access technology”, “performing measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells of the second radio access technology”, and then, “the candidate neighbor having the higher priority level than the first radio access technology”. See MPEP 2111.
In accordance with MPEP 2111, in the amended claim limitations, claim does not specifically define what are really involved or required in receiving an indication for the cells with higher priority and performing measurement for the candidate cells with higher priority. Additionally, claim does not specifically define what are involved in priority such as signal strength or power consumption or data rate, so on. In other words, claim does not specifically recite how UE identifies the higher priority candidate cells and how UE differently performs the measurement for the higher priority candidate cells with different RATs. Hence, the amended claim limitations do not overcome the previously applied prior art by a patentable weight. However, to advance the prosecution, further evidence is provided to show the obviousness of the amended claim limitations.
In conclusion, applicant is suggested to recite the claim in light of fig. 3 especially features of 315 in fig. 3 in addition to specifically defining that “a connected state” is a RRC connected state or a connection management connected state, for instance, see CN-connected and RRC-Connected in Da Silva et al. Pub. No. US 2024/0137817 A1 so that the claimed invention may overcome the prior art by a patentable weight.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
5. Claims 1-3, 5-15, 17-27 and 29-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jha et al. Pub. No.: US 2021/0044993 A1 in view of Yang et al. Pub. No.: US 2017/0019819 A1 and evidenced by Prabhakar et al. Pub. No.: US 2021/0195439 A1.
Claim 1
Jha discloses a method (fig. 1-29 depict for accessing new radio service in multi-RAT dual connectivity) for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
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communicating, in a connected state (901 in fig. 9 for UE in connected mode), with a first cell associated with a first radio access technology (LTE cell in 901 of fig. 1 and see fig 4A for RAN 404 of LTE RAT);
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receiving an indication of a set of candidate neighbor cells (902 in fig. 9 and see 1403 in fig. 14 for neighbor cells) associated with a second radio access technology (see 916 in fig. 9 for Scell for NR and 404 in fig. 4A for NR RAT) having a higher priority level than the first radio access technology (eNB1 has the highest priority in fig. 19A and see par. 0219 for the prioritized ENDC, i.e., new radio RAT);
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performing measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells (see fig. 7 for steps 908-909-910-911 in fig. 9); and
initiating an inter-radio access technology redirection procedure (swapping form PCell to SCell in 914 in fig. 9 and see fig. 7 for details) to access a target cell of the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology based at least in part on the measurements (steps 914-916 in fig. 9 for swapping the cell).
Although Jha does not explicitly anticipate the claim limitations: “a second radio access technology having a higher priority level than the first radio access technology; performing measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology having the higher priority level than the first radio access technology”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following reasons.
Firstly, to consider the obviousness of the claim limitation “performing measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology”, recall that Jha would have measured the serving cells whether the cells support only NR or only LTE or both NR and LTE (see fig. 4-9). Hence, Jha discloses the measuring serving with the second RAT. To advance the prosecution, further evidence is provided. In particular, Yang teaches performing IRAT measurement (1212 in fig. 12, it means that serving base station and target base station are servicing the different RATs as to a first RAT and a second RAT).
Secondly, Yang teaches a second radio access technology having a higher priority level than the first radio access technology (1304 in fig. 13 and see par. 0056 for different priority configurations for different RATs).
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify accessing New Ration NR service in multi-RAT dual connectivity of Jha by providing dynamic handover as taught in Yang. Such a modification would have included a user equipment UE to transition the communication from a serving cell to a target cell of a second RAT so that the higher data transfer speeds are continued over multiple radio access technologies as suggested in par. 0004-0006 of Yang.
Lastly, to address the obviousness of the amended claim limitation “performing measurement on the set of candidate neighbor cells [of the second radio access technology] having the higher priority level [than the first radio access technology]”, it’s to note that claim does not specifically define how to measure for a first RAT cell, a second RAT cell and a cell of a RAT with higher priority than a different RAT. Accordingly, it’s reasonable to interpret the amended claim limitation as the measuring the cells for different RATs with different priorities is rendered obvious by Jha’s fig. 9 and fig. 12-13 of Yang. To advance the prosecution, further evidence is provided herein. In particular, Prabhakar teaches UE in connected mode for determining the measurement configured by the network (1902-1906 in fig. 19 and 2002-2006 in fig. 20) to rank the neighbor cells for measurement (1910 in fig. 19 and 2010 in fig. 20, i.e., cell with different RAT with higher priority) and prioritize the neighbor cell based on measured (1922 in fig. 19).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify accessing New Ration NR service in multi-RAT dual connectivity of Jha in view of Yang by providing smart mechanism for 5G NR cell measurement as taught in Prabhakar to obtain the claimed invention as specified in the claim. Such a modification would have included a smart mechanism in 5G to measure NR cells so that the risk of overheating a wireless device is diminished with low cost, low complexity as suggested in par. 0004 of Prabhakar.
Claim 2
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein receiving the indication of the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology (Jha, fig. 2A & 4A for 5G NR cell) comprises:
receiving a system information block (Jha, par. 0117, receiving system information block SIB from a PCell) that indicates that the set of candidate neighbor cells support the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure (Jha, fig. 7-14, the cell supporting for swapping from LTE to NR; Yang, RAT-1 and RAT-2 in fig. 9 and fig. 12-13 for IRAT for redirection; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 3
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 2, wherein receiving the system information block comprises:
receiving the system information block from the first cell (Jha, par. 0117, receiving system information block SIB from a PCell, for fig. 9, PCell can be said the first cell; accordingly, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 5
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein initiating the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure comprises:
initiating a UE initiated LTE to New Radio redirection procedure (Jha, fig. 7-14, PCell to SCell from LTE or NR; and thus, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 6
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
receiving a second indication that the second radio access technology is associated with the higher priority level than the first radio access technology (Jha, fig. 4-14 for LTE and NR and the cell reselection on the prioritized neighbor band in 1803 in fig. 18 and highest ranking in fig. 19A; Yang, the second RAT having higher priority than the first RAT in fig. 13; therefore, the combined prior art meets the claim).
Claim 7
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 6, wherein the performing the measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology is based at least in part on receiving the second indication that the second radio access technology is associated with the higher priority level than the first radio access technology (Jha, fig. 7-14 and fig. 19A for ranking highest; Yang, RAT-1 and RAT-2 in fig. 9 & 12-13 for higher priority; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the combined prior art to perform equally well to the claim).
Claim 8
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
selecting the target cell from the set of candidate neighbor cells based at least in part on the target cell having a highest signal strength of the set of candidate neighbor cells (Jha, having higher signal strength of 911 in fig. 9 and comparing RSRP and RSRQ in fig. 7; Yang, signal quality of second RAT in fig. 19; for these reasons, the combined prior renders the claim obvious).
Claim 9
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
performing the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure to access the target cell (Jha, fig. 7-27 for swapping cell; Yang, fig. 12-13), wherein performing the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure comprises:
camping on the target cell (Jha, see 1109 in fig. 11 and camping on the anchor band and non-anchor band in par. 0080-0082, 0098 & 0193); and
acquiring information associated with the target cell (Jha, acquiring reconfiguration information with neighbor gNB in fig. 13; Yang, fig. 12 for measuring IRAT cell, i.e., target base station); and
entering the connected state with the target cell based on the acquired information (Jha, as depicted in fig. 9-14, RRC reconfiguration to get connected to neighbor eNB for NR from the serving cell, it could be said that now RRC connected state with NR, and see RRC connected state in par. 0098; Yang, RRC signaling in par. 0059 & 0065, it means that the combination supports RRC signaling and inactive or idle or connected state for power saving; and hence, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 10
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining that the target cell has a signal strength exceeding a threshold for performing the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure (Jha, measuring signal strength in 909 of fig. 9, i.e., RSRP and RSRQ in fig. 7 ; Yang, fig. 19 for measuring signal quality), wherein the initiating the inter-radio access technology redirection procedure is based at least in part on the determining (Jha, based on measurement report in step 911 of fig. 9, i.e., see fig. 7, swapping PCell to SCell in step 914; Yang, fig. 12-13 for performing inter RAT handover and see measuring signal quality in fig. 19; accordingly, the combined prior art meets the claim condition).
Claim 11
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
maintaining a database of the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology (since claim does not specifically recite what are required to be database, storing the tables in fig. 7, 17 and 19 of Jha requires a database and see fig. 30 for having memory that can maintain such a database; Yang, memory 776 in eNB 710 in fig. 7), wherein the indication is received via the database (Jha, reconfiguration form neighbor cell in fig. 9-27; Yang, measurement control and perform IRAT measurement in fig. 12; for these reasons, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the combined prior art to perform equally well to the claim, see MPEP 2143, KSR Exemplary Rationale F).
Claim 12
Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining, after receiving the indication, that the first cell has not configured the measurements for the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology (Jha, receiving reconfiguration in fig. 9-27 are indicating for measurement for neighbor cells that not configured by the serving cell; Yang, receiving measurement control message 1208 in fig. 12); and
triggering the performing of the measurements on the set of candidate neighbor cells associated with the second radio access technology based at least in part on the determining (Jha, fig. 9-27 for measuring neighbor cell as depict in fig. 7 & 19; Yang, perform IRAT measurement 1212 in fig. 12; and thus, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 13-15 and 17-24
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Claims 13-15 and 17-24 are apparatus for UE claims corresponding to method claims 1-3 and 5-12. All of the limitations of claims 13-15 and 17-24 are found reciting for the structure of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 1-3 and 5-12. Accordingly, claims 13-15 and 17-24 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claims 1-3 and 5-12 respectively set forth above.
Additionally, Jha discloses an apparatus (apparatus in fig. 5) for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (UE in fig. 1-19), comprising: a processor (processor 508 in fig. 5); memory (memory 502 in fig. 5) coupled with the processor (in fig. 5 processor coupled to communicate with memory); and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor (the processor in fig. 5 would execute the instructions stored in memory to perform the steps as detailed in fig. 9-27).
Claim 25-27 and 29
Claims 25-27 and 29 are apparatus claims corresponding to method claims 1-3 and 5. All of the limitations of claims 25-27 and 29 are found reciting for the structure of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 1-3 and 5. Accordingly, claims 25-27 and 29 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claims 1-3 and 5 respectively set forth above.
6. Claims 4, 16 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jha, in view of Yang, Prabhakar and Baratam et al. Pub. No.: US 2015/0208327 A1.
Claim 4
Although Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar, does not disclose “the method of claim 1, further comprising: performing a background public land mobile network search, wherein the indication of the set of candidate neighbor cells is based at least in part on the background public land mobile network search”, claim 4 is considered obvious by the following rationales.
In fact, Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar discloses PLMN search (searching in fig. 2-27 of Jha and fig. 12-13 of Yang includes PLMN cell search because LTE, new radio NR or 5G are backhauled to PLMN cellular network) and the indication of the set of candidate neighbor cells (Jha, the neighbor cells are indicated in reconfiguration in fig. 9-27 and see cells in fig. 7, 17 & 19; Yang, IRAT measurement in fig. 12). Although, the combination of the prior art does not explicitly show a background PLMN search, the background scanning or searching for cell is intrinsic feature in wireless communication for optimizing the battery power of a mobile device. To advance the prosecution, the evidence is provided herein. In particular, Baratam teaches a UE for performing a background PLMN search (par. 0063 & 0097).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify accessing New Ration NR service in multi-RAT dual connectivity of J Jha, in view of Yang and Prabhakar by providing background public land mobile network search as taught in Baratam to obtain the claimed invention as specified in the claim. Such a modification would have included a user equipment UE to transition to a target cell of a second RAT so that the higher data transfer speeds are continued over multiple radio access technologies without interruption as suggested in par. 0004-0006 of Baratam.
Claim 16 and 28
Claims 16 and 28 are apparatus and computer product claims corresponding to method claim 4. All of the limitations of claims 16 and 28 are found reciting for the structure of the same scopes of the respective limitations in claim 4. Accordingly, claims 16 and 28 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claim 4 respectively set forth above.
Conclusion
7. 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.
Contact Information
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAN HTUN whose telephone number is (571)270-3190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7 AM - 5 PM.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
Prosecution Insights