DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
This action is in response to preliminary amendments filed on 2/20/2024.
Claims 1-2, 4-11, 13, & 21-25 have been examined and are rejected.
Priority
This application is a 371 of PCT/EP2021/073488 filed 8/25/2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 3/8/2024 & 4/29/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1-2, 4-11, 13, & 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Roy et al. (US 2023/0102334 A1) in view of Rune et al. (US 2025/0350354 A1).
With regard to Claim 1, Roy teaches:
A method for cell change assistance in a non-terrestrial network, NTN, with a plurality of moving cells served by at least one satellite, (improved cell selection for Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) by using satellite assistance information [Roy: 0007]);
the method comprising:
providing, by a network element of the NTN to a user equipment, UE, cell change assistance information for selecting at least one moving cell of the plurality of moving cells, the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of orbital trajectory of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells; (the UE receives assistance information from LEO satellites that can include the satellite's long term ephemeris in the format of Position Velocity (PV) information or details of satellite's other orbital parameters [Roy: 0020; 0026; Fig. 3]).
However, Roy does not explicitly teach (where underlining indicates the portion of each limitation not taught):
the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells.
In a similar field of endeavor involving performing cell reselection based on ephemeris data, Rune discloses:
the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells; (the cell coverage information may contain area shape descriptions and time dependence information [Rune: 0081; 0093-94; 0124]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Roy in view of Rune in order to provide cell change assistance information indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells in the system of Roy.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roy with Rune as doing so would allow the UE to have a more accurate representation of the cell shape by enabling the network to combine its knowledge of beam footprints of the satellites at any given time and compute the resulting cell area, which could have the form of a polygon (ideally a hexagon), whose shape, size and time dependence would be conveyed to the UE [Rune: 0127].
With regard to Claim 2, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 1, further comprising: generating, by the network element, the cell change assistance information, wherein the generating is based on information indicative of one or more of the following: a serving cell for the UE; a position of the UE; a movement of the UE; a movement of the satellite; (the assistance information can include satellite's long term ephemeris in the format of Position Velocity (PV) information or details of satellite's other orbital parameters [Roy: 0020]).
With regard to Claim 4, Roy-Rune teaches:
A method for preparing cell change of a user equipment, UE, in a non-terrestrial network, NTN, with a plurality of moving cells served by at least one satellite; (improved cell selection for Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) by using satellite assistance information [Roy: 0007]);
the method comprising:
receiving, by the UE, cell change assistance information provided by a network element of the NTN for selecting a cell for cell change, the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of orbital trajectory of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells; (the UE receives assistance information from LEO satellites that can include the satellite's long term ephemeris in the format of Position Velocity (PV) information or details of satellite's other orbital parameters [Roy: 0020; 0026; Fig. 3]);
and selecting, by the UE, at least one moving cell from the plurality of moving cells as target cell for cell change, based on the received cell change assistance information; (UE can use the satellite information to estimate the candidate cells for cell reselection along the LEO satellite's orbit, and can re-select a cell having the highest rank based on signal strength [Roy: 0028-29]).
However, Roy does not explicitly teach (where underlining indicates the portion of each limitation not taught):
the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells.
In a similar field of endeavor involving performing cell reselection based on ephemeris data, Rune discloses:
the cell change assistance information identifying at least a subset of the plurality of moving cells and being indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells; (the cell coverage information may contain area shape descriptions and time dependence information [Rune: 0081; 0093-94; 0124]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Roy in view of Rune in order to provide cell change assistance information indicative of a geometric layout of at least the subset of the plurality of moving cells in the system of Roy.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roy with Rune as doing so would allow the UE to have a more accurate representation of the cell shape by enabling the network to combine its knowledge of beam footprints of the satellites at any given time and compute the resulting cell area, which could have the form of a polygon (ideally a hexagon), whose shape, size and time dependence would be conveyed to the UE [Rune: 0127].
With regard to Claim 5, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, wherein the method further comprises: updating a database of cell information, the database comprising previously received cell change assistance information, with the presently received cell change assistance information for use after selecting the cell; (publicly available orbital state vector data represented as Two-Line-Elements are updated quite frequently [Rune: 0029], wherein a previous shape or size of the cell coverage area may be used as a current shape or size of the cell coverage area [Rune: 0314]).
With regard to Claim 6, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 5, wherein the selecting is further based on the stored database of previously received cell change assistance information and/or presently received cell change assistance information; (UE can use the satellite information to estimate the candidate cells for cell reselection along the LEO satellite's orbit [Roy: 0028-29]. Rune teaches a previous shape or size of the cell coverage area may be used as a current shape or size of the cell coverage area [Rune: 0314]).
With regard to Claim 7, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, wherein the selecting is further based on information indicative of one or more of the following: a position of the UE; a movement of the UE; a movement of the satellite; a location of the cell; a movement of the cell; a received power of the cell at the UE; an expected availability time of the cell coverage at the UE position.; (the assistance information can include satellite's long term ephemeris in the format of Position Velocity (PV) information or details of satellite's other orbital parameters [Roy: 0020; 0025], wherein as signal strength, measured in terms of reference signal received power (RSRP) and reference signal received quality (RSRQ), falls below certain threshold, the UE starts measuring the signal strength and quality of neighboring cells for cell reselection [Roy: 0026]. Rune teaches that ephemeris data consists of at least 5 parameters describing the shape and position in space of the satellite orbit [Rune: 0039], and further teaches that a UE may use the expected time to be served obtained from the cell coverage information as input to a decision whether to execute a conditional mobility operation in RRC_CONNECTED state, state, such as conditional handover, conditional PSCell addition, conditional PSCell change and/or conditional SCell addition. [Rune: 0180]).
With regard to Claim 8, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, further comprising: performing cell change, in response to one or more of the following: one or more radio-based measurement events; one or more conditional handover, CHO, conditions; one or more NTN trigger events; (as signal strength, measured in terms of reference signal received power (RSRP) and reference signal received quality (RSRQ), falls below certain threshold, the UE starts measuring the signal strength and quality of neighboring cells for cell reselection [Roy: 0026]. Rune teaches a UE may use the expected time to be served obtained from the cell coverage information as input to a decision whether to execute a conditional mobility operation in RRC_CONNECTED state, state, such as conditional handover, conditional PSCell addition, conditional PSCell change and/or conditional SCell addition [Rune: 0180], and further teaches a UE may re-select or be handed over to a cell which does not provide the greatest signal strength at the UE's location for camping or communication to achieve other advantages such as a longer time to be served in the cell (depending on cell movements or cell switches) or for better load balancing between the cells [Rune: 0087]).
With regard to Claim 9, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, wherein the cell change assistance information is further indicative of the movement of the plurality of cells; (the assistance information can include satellite's long term ephemeris in the format of Position Velocity (PV) information or details of satellite's other orbital parameters [Roy: 0020; 0025]. Rune teaches that ephemeris data consists of at least 5 parameters describing the shape and position in space of the satellite orbit, wherein a moving cell is a cell that follows the footprint of a beam (or possibly multiple beams) of a certain satellite as the satellite travels along its orbit [Rune: 0039; 0119]).
With regard to Claim 10, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, wherein the subset of moving cells indicated by the cell change assistance information constitute less than a full footprint of cells served by the satellite; (selecting a subset of neighboring cells based on ephemeris information, depicted by arrow 301 as the satellite moving direction, such that the network and satellite can provide the next tier candidate cell information of the selected beams to the UE, and the UE need to perform measurements and cell searching only on the selected candidate beams [Roy: 0026; Fig. 3]).
With regard to Claim 11, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 4, wherein the cell change assistance information is indicative of one of a plurality of pre-defined footprint layouts, wherein each of the plurality of pre-defined footprint layouts is characterized by a geometric cell pattern; (the network and satellite can provide the next tier candidate cell information of the selected beams to the UE [Roy: 0026; Fig. 3]. Rune teaches the cell coverage area may go from an elongated/stretched hexagon (inscribed in an ellipse) to a regular hexagon (i.e. a hexagon with rotational symmetry—i.e. inscribed in a circle—and inner angles of 120 degrees each) and then back to an elongated/stretched hexagon again as the satellite's elevation angle changes from small to large and back go small again [Rune: 0098]).
With regard to Claim 13, Roy-Rune teaches:
The method according to claim 11, wherein the cell change assistance information is further indicative of a numbering of cell identifiers within the indicated one of the plurality of pre-defined footprint layouts; (the ephemeris information could be based on position, velocity (P, V), next beam (e.g., candidate cell) information in the form of Physical Cell ID [Roy: 0025; Fig. 3]. Rune teaches if satellite ephemeris data and cell coverage information is provided to a UE in another cell than the cell coverage information concerns, additional parameters may be provided to further facilitate the UE's interaction with the network, e.g. one or more cell identifiers of the cell the cell coverage information concerns, e.g. the PCI and/or the NCGI, an identifier of the PLMN the concerned cell belongs to, e.g. a PLMN ID, one or more identifier(s) of the tracking area(s) the concerned cell belongs to, e.g. one or more TAI(s) or TAC(s), and/or an identifier of the satellite responsible for serving the cell (i.e. transmitting and receiving (and forwarding) signals and data in the cell) [Rune: 0082; 0119]).
With regard to Claims 21-25, they appear substantially similar to the limitations recited by claims 4-8 and consequently do not appear to teach or further define over the citations provided for said claims. Accordingly, claims 21-25 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 4-8.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Yavuz et al. (US 2025/0286613 A1 ) which teaches the amount of time until a service link or feeder link switch is determined based on an expected time to be served which is based on a position of the wireless device in a cell, and/or is based on an overlap period between a first satellite and a second satellite [Yavuz: 0177; 0089], and also teaches cell reselection Radio Link Failure (RLF) is triggered directly when the serving cell is stopping to serve the area such as when Tservice timer indicates that the expected time to be served goes below a threshold [Yavuz: 0109-10].
In the case of amendments, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and support, for ascertaining the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AUSTIN J MOREAU whose telephone number is (571) 272-5179. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00 - 6:00 ET.
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/AUSTIN J MOREAU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446