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 .
Response to Amendment
This communication is considered fully responsive to the amendment filed on 08/28/2026.
Claims 1 and 14 have been amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims filed on 08/28/2026 have been considered but are moot because the arguments are related solely to newly added limitations addressed in the instant Office Action with newly identified prior art, thus rendering the applicant’s arguments moot.
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 Fujishiro et al. (US 2024/0267969, provisional application, 63257246 (“246”)).
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, wherein the packet is transmitted on a backhaul (BH) link related to the parent node (This will be discussed in view of Fujishiro.);
detecting, by the IAB node, a BH radio link failure (RLF) on the BH link ([0184] “network node 16 such as via one or more of processing circuitry 68, processor 70, radio interface 62 and communication interface 60 is configured to detect (Block S140) a backhaul link failure between the child IAB node 16b and the first parent IAB node 16, as described herein.”); and
transmitting, by the IAB node, a notification related to the BH RLF to one or more child nodes based on i) detecting the BH RLF ([0201] “When an IAB node 16 (referred to as “child IAB node 16b” in one or more embodiments) detects a type of link failure towards its parent IAB node 16, e.g., radio link failure, on its backhaul link, the IAB node 16 may send a first indication (referred to as primary indication(s) in one or more embodiments and/or examples) to other descendant IAB nodes 16c-16n/UEs 22 informing about such a failure.”) and ii) the IAB node being unable to perform a re-routing for any traffic (This will be discussed in view of Fujishiro.);
wherein the re-routing is disabled based on a configuration received by the IAB node from a donor node (This will be discussed in view of Fujishiro.).
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;
performing, by an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node, a routing of a packet to a parent node, wherein the packet is transmitted on a backhaul (BH) link related to the parent node ([Fujishiro, 0257] “the IAB node 300-1, when detecting the BH RLF for the IAB node 300-2, switches the route of the packet in the uplink direction to the route via an IAB node 300-3 which is the alternative path to perform the rerouting.” See [246, 0227]);
transmitting, by the IAB node, a notification .. and ii) the IAB node being unable to perform a re-routing for any traffic ([Fujishiro, 0302] “In consideration of the above observations, a simple solution may be to transmit the Type2 Indication when at least one route is unavailable due to a BH RLF. This solution can cover both the single and dual connectivity and also both the NR-DC and EN-DC. For example, during a BH RLF in the single connectivity, all routes are unavailable. In EN-DC, an MCG RLF does not affect any route and an SCG RLF brings all routes to be unavailable. In the NR-DC, a BH RLF may or may not affect some routes depending on the mapping of BH links and routes. Therefore, RAN2 should agree on this unified operation for the trigger condition of the Type2 Indication.” See [246, page 31]);
the re-routing is disabled based on a configuration received by the IAB node from a donor node ([Fujishiro, 0314] “Proposal 5: RAN2 should agree that the donor configures the IAB node regarding whether to perform local rerouting upon receiving the Type2 BH RLF Indication.” See [246, page 32]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Muhammad’s IAB node, which notifies its children upon detecting a backhaul failure, to notify them when no route is available and to let the donor configure whether the node reroutes locally, as taught by Fujishiro such that “The communication control method includes: configuring, for a relay node, dual connectivity in which a first parent node managing a master cell group is a master node and a second parent node managing a secondary cell group is a secondary node; transmitting, by the relay node, a first notification to a child node when a radio link failure is detected in one of a first backhaul link between the relay node and the first parent node and a second backhaul link between the relay node and the second parent node” [Fujishiro, 0004].
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 Fujishiro et al. (US 2024/0267969, provisional application, 63257246 (“246”)) 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 Fujishiro et al. (US 2024/0267969, provisional application, 63257246 (“246”)) 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
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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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