DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/15/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
3. 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.
Please note: Examiner has cited particular columns, line numbers, and figures in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teaching of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well.
Applicants are reminded that MPEP 2141.02 states:
A prior art reference must be considered in its entirety, i.e., as a whole, including portions that would lead away from the claimed invention. W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 220 USPQ 303 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
5. Claims 36-59 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Eklof et al (WO 2020197480) (hereinafter Eklof) (Eklof is disclosed in the IDS filed on 03/15/2024).
For convenience, herewith, the examiner provides the English copy of the prior art Eklof.
Regarding claims 36 and 58:
As shown in figures 1-18, Eklof discloses a discloses wireless device (see UE in figures 1, 5, 7-10, 13-14), comprising:
radio circuitry (1437 in figure 14) configured to communicate with a wireless network (see wireless network in figures 1 and 7-10, 13-14); and
processing circuitry (1438 in figure 14) operatively coupled to the radio circuitry (1437 in figure 14) and configured to:
determine that a handover failure (HOF) has occurred in connection with a reconfiguration of at least one connection of the wireless device to the wireless network (on page 14, Eklof teaches “A first failure case is that the UE fails to connect to the target cell which fulfilled the conditions for conditional handover and to which the UE attempts to handover to. In one embodiment the UE starts a timer Txxx when the condition in a CHO has been fulfilled, and if the handover has not successfully completed upon expiry of Txxx, the conditional handover is considered failed”); and
send, to the wireless network, one or more messages reporting the HOF, the one or more messages comprising one or both of (a) an indication of at least one listen-before- talk (LBT) failure experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration or (b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration (on page 14, Eklof teaches “The problems that may occur when the UE accesses the new cell are e.g. random access problems, timer T304 or equivalent Txxx may expire (timer for supervising execution of the handover). Random access problems may include for instance no random access response received within a random access (RA) response window, no received random access response contains a random access preamble identifier corresponding to the transmitted random access preamble, unsuccessful contention resolution, etc. The UE should be able to report such problems as random access problems, expiration of T304, expiration of Txxx, etc. A new connectionFailureType e.g. {chof} is introduced in some embodiments. The failure type may be used in combination with a cause value, e.g. any of the existing causes (t310-Expiry, randomAccessProblem, rlc-MaxNumRetx, t312-Expiry-r12) or a new cause value e.g. t304-Expiry, or txxx-Expiry).
Please note, due to the “OR” clause is the claim, under broadest reasonable interpretation, the examiner considers only one the alternatives “(b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration” of the claim for examination.
Regarding claims 50 and 59:
As shown in figures 1-18, Eklof discloses a network node (see network node in figures 1, 6, 7-10, 13-14), comprising:
radio circuitry configured to communicate with one or more wireless devices; and
processing circuitry operatively coupled to the radio circuitry and configured to: receive a report of a handover failure (HOF) experienced by a wireless device in connection with a reconfiguration of at least one connection of the wireless device to the wireless network, the report comprising one or both of (a) an indication of at least one listen-before-talk (LBT) failure experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration or (b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration (on page 14, Eklof teaches “A first failure case is that the UE fails to connect to the target cell which fulfilled the conditions for conditional handover and to which the UE attempts to handover to. In one embodiment the UE starts a timer Txxx when the condition in a CHO has been fulfilled, and if the handover has not successfully completed upon expiry of Txxx, the conditional handover is considered failed. The problems that may occur when the UE accesses the new cell are e.g. random access problems, timer T304 or equivalent Txxx may expire (timer for supervising execution of the handover). Random access problems may include for instance no random access response received within a random access (RA) response window, no received random access response contains a random access preamble identifier corresponding to the transmitted random access preamble, unsuccessful contention resolution, etc. The UE should be able to report such problems as random access problems, expiration of T304, expiration of Txxx, etc. A new connectionFailureType e.g. {chof} is introduced in some embodiments. The failure type may be used in combination with a cause value, e.g. any of the existing causes (t310-Expiry, randomAccessProblem, rlc-MaxNumRetx, t312-Expiry-r12) or a new cause value e.g. t304-Expiry, or txxx-Expiry); and
perform one or more network optimization tasks, based on the indication (see pages 14-15).
Please note, due to the “OR” clause is the claim, under broadest reasonable interpretation, the examiner considers only one the alternatives “(b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration” of the claim for examination.
Regarding claims 37 and 51:
Eklof further discloses wherein said determining that a HOF has occurred comprises detecting expiry of a reconfiguration timer (pages 2, 5, 11, 13-14).
Regarding claim 38:
Eklof further discloses wherein the one or more messages further indicate expiry of the reconfiguration timer as a cause of the HOF (pages 2, 5, 11, 13-14).
Regarding claims 39 and 52:
Eklof further discloses wherein the one or more messages comprise a cause indication indicating random access problem as a cause of the HOF (pages 2, 5, 11, 13-14).
Regarding claims 40-42, 44-48 and 53-56:
Eklof further discloses wherein the one or more messages comprise a cause indication indicating LBT failure as a cause of the HOF (claim 40 depends on claim 36, the method of claim 36 recites “…one or both of (a) an indication of at least one listen- before-talk (LBT) failure experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration or (b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration”. Due to the “OR” clause in claim 36, under broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim, the examiner has considered only one of the claimed “or” clauses of claim 36, which is “(b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration”. Thus, the remaining limitations “(a) an indication of at least one listen- before-talk (LBT) failure experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration” of claim 36 is not considered by the examiner. The claimed limitations of claim 40 “a cause indication indicating LBT failure as a cause of the HOF” is unrelated to the “(b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration” of claim 36; therefore, under broadest reasonable interpretation, the claimed limitations of “(b) an indication of a random access problem experienced by the wireless device in connection with the reconfiguration” of claim 2 is not considered by examiner. The same examiner’s claim interpretations is applicable for claims 41-42, 44-48 and 54-56.
Regarding claim 43:
Eklof further discloses wherein the one or more messages identify at least one uplink bandwidth part (UL BWP) in which at least one LBT failure was experienced by the wireless device (pages 12, 16, 24).
Regarding claim 49:
Eklof further discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium (1030 in figure 10) comprising, stored thereupon, a computer program product comprising computer program instructions for execution on a processor (1020 in figure 10), the computer program instructions being configured to cause the processor to carry out a method according to claim 36 (page 27).
Regarding claim 57:
Eklof further discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium (1080 in figure 10) comprising, stored thereupon, a computer program product comprising computer program instructions for execution on a processor (1070 in figure 10), the computer program instructions being configured to cause the processor to carryout a method according to claim 50 (page 27).
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kitazoe et al. (US 8180058) disclose a method that facilitates employing a random access procedure in a wireless communication environment. The method includes transmitting a random access preamble to a base station. Further, the method can comprise receiving a random access response from the base station based upon the random access preamble. Moreover, the method can include transmitting a scheduled transmission message, which includes at least a portion that is unencrypted, to the base station as granted by the random access response when employing contention based random access.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KABIR A TIMORY whose telephone number is (571)270-1674. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hannah S Wang can be reached at 571-272-9018. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KABIR A TIMORY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631