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 .
Information Disclosures Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/03/2026 has been considered by examiner and made of record in the application file.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant Argument Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. 103, filed 04/23/2026, with respect to claim 1-6, 9-10, and 14 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claim 1-6, 9-10, and 14 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 13 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Examiner notes the Chockalingam and Zou did not disclose handover in L1 or L2 as the claim is amended, therefore, the examiner is using CHOCKALINGAM (US-20160360462-A1), Zou (US-20210368399-A1), and Pezeshki (US-20220225188-A1) to teach claim 13.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 1 is an apparatus claim but does not recite any structure, examiner suggests to at least add processor as well as memory. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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) 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOCKALINGAM (US-20160360462-A1) in view of Zou (US-20210368399-A1) in further view of Pezeshki (US-20220225188-A1).
Regarding Claim 13, CHOCKALINGAM discloses a communication control apparatus that controls handover of a communication device from one base station to another base station the communication control apparatus comprising performing:
a non-transitory computer readable medium configured to store instructions thereon; and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions for (paragraph [0046], Fig.4, "the memory 406 of the processing circuitry 402 may include multiple memory devices that can be associated with any common volatile or non-volatile memory type. In some scenarios, the memory 406 may be associated with a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that can store various computer program instructions which may be executed by the processor(s) 404 during normal program executions." (i.e., Fig.4 discloses processor and computer medium.)):
causing a first measurement reporter to (paragraph [0039], "The UE 302 can also measure other performance metrics, such as RRSI, RSRQ, RSCP, SNR, SINR, BER, BLER, and/or other physical layer (or “lower” layer)…" and paragraph [0052], Fig.6A:604;606;620, "…in step 608, measures a signal quality of the serving cell, e.g., the SINR of the serving cell. In some embodiments, the wireless communication device computes the SINR of the serving cell by estimating an interference-plus-noise level for the serving cell using information derived from decoding the reference signals and combines such information with signal strength measurements for the reference signals to determine and SINR value on each resource element, in a set of resource blocks," (i.e., UE measuring physical layer or lower layer of the service cell. The UE has not send out a report in the lower layer of the serving cell, that will be mapped to another prior art.));
wherein the lower layer is an L1 layer (paragraph [0039], "The UE 302 can also measure other performance metrics, such as RRSI, RSRQ, RSCP, SNR, SINR, BER, BLER, and/or other physical layer (or “lower” layer)…" (i.e., UE is measuring in lower layer));
causing a statistical value acquirer to acquire a statistical value of the first communication quality (paragraph [0039], "As would be understood by those skilled in the art, an RSRP performance metric can be defined as an average received signal power of RSs received by the UE 302 from the serving eNodeB 304 over a particular time interval. The UE 302 can also measure other performance metrics, such as RRSI, RSRQ, RSCP, SNR, SINR, BER, BLER, and/or other physical layer (or “lower” layer)…" and paragraph [0052], Fig.6A:608 "When the signal strength of the serving cell does not fall below the network-defined threshold, the wireless communication device, in step 608, measures a signal quality of the serving cell, e.g., the SINR of the serving cell. In some embodiments, the wireless communication device computes the SINR of the serving cell by estimating an interference-plus-noise level for the serving cell using information derived from decoding the reference signals and combines such information with signal strength measurements for the reference signals to determine and SINR value on each resource element, in a set of resource blocks, on which the reference signals are communicated by the serving cell of the eNodeB to the wireless communication device." (i.e., examiner is reading a statistical value as the average value of SINR.));
causing a second measurement reporter to report second communication quality of the other base station measured by the communication device to the one base station (paragraph [0052], Fig.6A:612;620 "When the signal quality of the serving cell does fall below the network-defined signal strength threshold, e.g., when conditions for an A2 event are satisfied, the wireless communication device can proceed to step 620 and send a normal (unmodified) measurement report to the serving cell…When the SINR of the serving cell falls below the UE-defined signal quality threshold, in step 612, the wireless communication device measures one or more neighbor cells, which can be located based on a search by the wireless communication device and/or based on information about neighbor cells provided by the serving cell." (i.e., When the SINR is below a threshold, a different report will be made that will include the neighboring cell measurement in order to transfer from the serving base station to the neighbor, and reported to the serving cell as shown in Fig.6:620.));
and causing a handover determiner to determine appropriateness of the handover (paragraph [0056], Fig.6A:618 "In step 618, the wireless communication device derives a measurement report that includes one or more modified values for measurements of the serving cell reported to the serving cell by the wireless communication device. The modified measurement report is derived to trigger a handover by the eNodeB to switch the wireless communication device from the serving cell to the neighbor cell." (i.e., The report that is based off from first measurement quality that is indicating the serving cell is below SINR and the second measurement quality is the measurement of the neighboring cell that the UE needs to hand off and based on both the measurement will indicate the UE to perform a handover. Examiner will rely on a different reference to teach handover in L1 or L2 measurement.)).
However, CHOCKALINGAM does not explicitly disclose at least two layers in a communication protocol hierarchy; causing a first measurement reporter to report first communication quality of the one base station measured by the communication device to the one base station in a lower layer of the two layers; causing a second measurement reporter to report second communication quality of the other base station measured by the communication device to the one base station in the lower layer; and causing a handover determiner to determine appropriateness of the handover in the lower layer based on the first communication quality and the second communication quality.
Zou discloses at least two layers in a communication protocol hierarchy (paragraph [0118], "RRC (L3) level measurements may be used if both beam level measurements and cell level measurement are required by source node 302, which may bring longer delay due to extra L3 processing and filtering. In another embodiment, L1 measurement may be used per beam basis with shorter filtering time and shorter delay." (i.e., Zou discloses two layers.));
causing a first measurement reporter to report first communication quality of the one base station measured by the communication device to the one base station in a lower layer of the two layers (paragraph [0116], Fig.3:304, "At step 304, UE 301 transmits a first measurement report to source node 302…" and paragraph [0117], "…In another embodiment, each of the series of measurement reports may include beam level measurement results of the source node and the target node. The candidate beams of the neighboring radio access node may include beams of source node 302 and beams of target node 303, which may have been indicated to UE 301 through the handover pre-configuration message." and paragraph [0120], "a lower layer signaling (e.g., an MAC PDU or an L1 signaling message) may be used to carry the measurement report to reduce delays that may be introduced by RRC layer filtering and reporting." (i.e., Zou discloses reporting first measurement report of source node in the lower layer such as L1 signaling.)),
wherein the lower layer is an L1 layer (paragraph [0120], "a lower layer signaling (e.g., an MAC PDU or an L1 signaling message) may be used to carry the measurement report to reduce delays that may be introduced by RRC layer filtering and reporting." (i.e., Zou discloses reporting of lower layer. L2 layer was not given patentable weight.));
causing a second measurement reporter to report second communication quality of the other base station measured by the communication device to the one base station in the lower layer, (paragraph [0116], Fig.3:307, "At step 307, after receiving the handover pre-configuration message, UE 301 transmits a second measurement report to source node 302, which includes physical layer beam level measurement results of source node 302 and target node 303." and paragraph [0117], "UE 301 may monitor radio conditions of the neighboring radio access nodes and may report measurement results by transmitting a series of measurement reports, which include the first measurement report and the second measurement report. The radio conditions that UE 301 monitors may include physical layer (L1) measurements of candidate beams of a neighboring radio access node…" and paragraph [0120], "a lower layer signaling (e.g., an MAC PDU or an L1 signaling message) may be used to carry the measurement report to reduce delays that may be introduced by RRC layer filtering and reporting." (i.e., Zou discloses reporting multiple measurement in the lower layer and that can include measurement of the neighboring node such as a target node for handover.)).
CHOCKALINGAM and Zou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field hand-off or reselection arrangements. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified CHOCKALINGAM to implement the method of Zou of reporting measurement as it provides the reporting in L3 and also has reporting in L1 signaling message that provides reduced delays that is introduced by RRC layer filtering and reporting (Zou, paragraph [0120], “the first measurement report and the second measurement report may be RRC signaling messages. Alternatively, a lower layer signaling (e.g., an MAC PDU or an L1 signaling message) may be used to carry the measurement report to reduce delays that may be introduced by RRC layer filtering and reporting.”). Furthermore, there is a requirement of meeting Ultra-Reliability and Low-Latency communication and having lots of challenges and Zou provides techniques and solutions to fix with interruptions caused by the handover (Zou, paragraph [0101], “To meet requirements of Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC), mobility management in 5.sup.th generation (5G) new radio (NR) networks faces many challenges… Furthermore, using a Dual Connectivity (DC) technique in 5G NR, the UE may receive traffic data from both the source node and the target node during the handover. This technique may reduce latency of the traffic by mitigating throughput fluctuation and minimizing service interruption caused by the handover. However, efficient radio resource utilization on both the source node and the target node may be difficult to achieve without proper data synchronization and buffer management mechanisms. Therefore, flexible and advanced handover techniques are desired to solve the above issues.”).
However, CHOCKALINGAM in view of Zou do not disclose and causing a handover determiner to determine appropriateness of the handover in the lower layer based on the first communication quality and the second communication quality.
Pezeshki discloses and causing a handover determiner to determine appropriateness of the handover in the lower layer based on the first communication quality and the second communication quality (paragraph [0047], "The wireless communications systems may also support lower layer (e.g., layer one (L1) or layer two (L2)) handover procedures. For example, a UE may be served by one or more serving cells. The UE may be handed over or reassigned serving cells over time as channel conditions change, as the UE moves in the wireless communications systems, etc. This change in serving cells may be referred to as inter-cell mobility, and in some cases, may be referred to as L1/L2 inter-cell mobility." (i.e., Pezeshki teaches handover can be performed in the lower layer and CHOCKALINGAM discloses handover based on the first and second communication quality, and in combination teach the last limitation of claim 13.)).
CHOCKALINGAM in view of Zhou and Pezeshki are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field handoff or reselecting arrangements. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified CHOCKALINGAM to implement the system of Pezeshki of lower layer handover because the handover based on L1 or L2 signaling may be dynamic and exhibit a higher efficiency and reduce latency when compared to L3 handover (Pezeshki, paragraph [0047], “Thus, handover procedures based on L1 or L2 signaling may be dynamic and exhibit a higher efficiency and reduced latency when compared to L3 handover procedures.” ).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-12,14 and 18-20 allowed. Claim 1 would also be allowed by overcoming the objection.
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Erkin S. Abdullaev whose telephone number is (571)272-4135. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday - 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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ERKIN S. ABDULLAEV
Examiner
Art Unit 2648
/ERKIN ABDULLAEV/Examiner, Art Unit 2648
/WESLEY L KIM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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