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 .
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Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of invention-I (claims 1-14) in the reply filed on 05/01/2026 is acknowledged. The non-elected invention-II (claim 18) is canceled.
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, 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.
Claim(s)1, 6-11, 14 and 19-22 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muhammad et al. (US 2022/0132337, “Muhammad”) in view of Kimura et al. (US 2023/0055402, “Kimura”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Muhammad unless otherwise mentioned.
Muhammad comprises the following features:
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim 1, a method comprising:
performing, by an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node, a routing of a packet to a parent node ([0097] “a child integrated access backhaul (IAB) node configured to communicate with a first parent IAB node and a descendant IAB node over a backhaul network is provided.” See Fig. 9-11.),
wherein the packet is transmitted on a backhaul (BH) link related to the parent node (See below [0083].);
detecting, by the IAB node, a BH radio link failure (RLF) on the BH link ([0083] “Methods to be performed by an IAB node (as referred to as a first IAB node in one or more embodiments and/or examples) upon detecting a link failure in its backhaul link to its parent IAB node are proposed:”, and ); and
transmitting, by the IAB node, a notification related to the BH RLF to one or more child nodes based on detecting the BH RLF ([0084] “The IAB node sends an indication to a subset of its child IAB nodes that its backhaul link has failed.”);
wherein a re-routing is disabled based on a configuration received by the IAB node from a donor node ([0090] “If a child IAB node has an alternate path to the donor, the child IAB forwards that information towards the CU via that path”, [0093] “The CU prepares an RRC Reconfiguration message to the IAB nod”. Note that disabling a path will be discussed in view of Kimura.).
It is noted that while disclosing RLF in a backhaul network, Muhammad does not specifically teach about disabled routing. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Kimura as follows;
a re-routing is disabled based on a configuration received by the IAB node from a donor node ([Kimura, 0035] “after detecting the failure by link monitoring, the router “b” (master) disables an advertising route to the router “d”.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Muhammad by using the features of Kimura in order to effectively identify a new path to increase reliability such that “to provide a technology for improving reliability of a communication system using a protocol and a multipath, the protocol enabling formation of a redundancy configuration” [Kimura, 0009].
Regarding claim 14, it is an IAB node claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitations, “at least one transceiver; at least one processor; and at least one computer memory operably connectable to the at least one processor and storing instructions” (See Fig. 22 for “Child Network Node” 16b, Processor 70, Memory 72, and [0167] “The memory 72 is configured to store data, programmatic software code and/or other information described herein. In some embodiments, the software 74 may include instructions that, when executed by the processor 70”), and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claim 6, the method of claim 1, wherein the packet is transmitted via a routing path to the parent node, and wherein the routing path is related to one or more data flows (See Fig. 9-11 for Scenarios and Fig. 20., and [0035] “Two adaptation layer routes have been established, one referred to as Adapt route A via IAB-node-3, and the other referred to as Adapt route B via IAB-node 4.” This describes traffic flows.).
Regarding claim 7, the method of claim 6, wherein the one or more data flows comprise all data flows passing through the BH link related to the parent node (See Fig. 10 for instance and Fig. 20., [0068] “When the IAB-node observes RLF on its parent link, it cannot provide further backhaul service to downstream IAB-nodes.”, and [0079] “several IAB nodes may be left disconnected from the IAB-donor (Node A1) due to a failure of a backhaul link on the path to the donor where IAB nodes B, C, D, K, N and P may be considered to be on an established communication path to donor IAB node A1 while other nodes such as IAB node O, H, J, etc. are not on this established communication path.”)
Regarding claim 8, the method of claim 6, wherein the one or more data flows comprise one or more first data flows and one or more second data flows, further comprising:
based on a routing path for the one or more first data flows being unable to be switched, transmitting, by the IAB node, the notification related to the BH RLF to the one or more child nodes ([0116] “If the alternate communication path is not configured, transmission of the radio link failure indication to another descendant IAB node is caused.”), and
based on a routing path for the one or more second data flows being able to be switched, switching, by the IAB node, the routing path for the one or more second data flows from parent node to another parent node (See Fig. 11 for Scenario C, and [0030] “In this scenario (depicted in FIG. 11), the backhaul-link failure occurs between IAB-node C and IAB-node D. IAB-node D has to reconnect to the new IAB-donor (e.g., IAB-donor A2) via a new route.”).
Regarding claim 9, the method of claim 8, wherein the notification related to the BH RLF comprises information informing the one or more first data flows for which routing path is unable to be switched ([0099] “the radio link failure indication is a failure report that indicates at least one of: a cause of the detected backhaul link failure; IAB node identification; failure report identifier”).
Regarding claim 10, the method of claim 8, wherein the one or more first data flows and the one or more second data flows are associated with the one or more child nodes (See Fig. 9-11, each scenario depicts data flows to node D from either A1 or A1 that are Donor IAB node.).
Regarding claim 11, the method of claim 8, wherein the one or more first data flows are associated with one or more child nodes and the one or more second data flows are associated with one or more other child nodes (See Fig. 19.).
Regarding claims 19 and 21, the method of claim 1 and the IAB node of claim 14, respectively, wherein the IAB node has BH links with multiple parent nodes (See Fig. 12.).
Regarding claims 20 and 22, the method of claim 1 and the IAB node of claim 14, respectively, wherein the donor node is a parent node ([0087] “The indication can include a report that is to be forwarded to the donor CU”).
Claim(s) 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muhammad et al. (US 2022/0132337, “Muhammad”) in view of Kimura et al. (US 2023/0055402, “Kimura”) and further in view of Hwang et al. (US 2023/0292211, “Hwang”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Muhammad unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 12, it is noted that while disclosing RLF in a backhaul network, Muhammad does not specifically teach about transmitting the indication to other child nodes. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Hwang as follows;
the method of claim 11, further comprising: based on the routing path for the one or more second data flows being unable to be switched, transmitting, by the IAB node, the notification related to the BH RLF to the one or more other child nodes ([Hwang, claim 3] “the performing of the routing to the different path other than the path via the parent IAB node comprises: identifying, based on a BAP routing entry, the different path other than the path via the parent IAB node; and in case that the different path other than the path via the parent IAB node is available, performing the routing to the available different path and then transmitting UL BAP data.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Muhammad by using the features of Hwang in order to reduce latency and overheads such that “the IAB node may immediately notify the radio link failure to its lower terminal, so that the lower terminal can immediately perform handover to a different parent terminal.” [Hwang, 0010].
Claim(s) 13 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muhammad et al. (US 2022/0132337, “Muhammad”) in view of Kimura et al. (US 2023/0055402, “Kimura”) and further in view of Shah (US 2022/0191957).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Muhammad unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 13, it is noted that while disclosing RLF in a backhaul network, Muhammad does not specifically teach about a mobile node connected to a IAB to be connecting to another mobile node. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Shah as follows;
the method of claim 1, wherein the IAB node communicates with a user equipment (UE) (See Fig. 20 for child IAB node C and UE.), and wherein the UE is in communication with at least one of a mobile device, a network, or autonomous vehicles other than the UE ([Shah, Fig. 1 and 0016] “a mobile node 106 may handle traffic and signals between electronic devices, such as the user equipment (UE) 110”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Muhammad by using the features of Shah in order to provide continue connection without disconnection for a mobile such that “t cellular service providers can use wired backhauls to provide backhaul for broadband cellular services and to support the addition of new cell sites, such as gNodeB sites implementing 5G NR technology, to provide additional bandwidth and/or additional wireless coverage.” [Shah, 0008].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Harry H. Kim whose telephone number and email address are as follows; 571-272-5009, harry.kim2@uspto.gov.
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/HARRY H KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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