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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on . The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 5 and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding Claims 5 and 12-14, they state: “wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving measurement data regarding inter-radio access technology, inter-RAT, handover.” Without an indication of “and” or “or” the claims are considered indefinite since it is unclear as to whether “inter-radio access technology”, “inter-RAT, handover” are alternatives or are inclusive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claimed invention is directed to a "a computer program comprising computer executable program code which when executed by a processor causes an apparatus to perform the method of claim 1" without an accompanying embodiment or medium, therefore the claim is directed to software per se and is not directed to statutory subject matter.
To overcome this rejection, examiner suggests amending the limitations to recite a non-transitory embodiment, as supported by the specification.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sarkar et al. (WO 2022/144582) in view of Catovic et al. (US 2009/0264130).
Regarding Claim 1, Sarkar teaches a computer implemented method for defining neighbor relations in a communication network, the method comprising: receiving neighbor cell measurement data from a mobile user equipment, wherein said neighbor cell is of another radio access technology compared to the radio access technology of the current cell serving said mobile user equipment; (Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells” and Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”) comparing the received measurement data with a threshold; (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”), but does not teach storing a relational object connecting said serving cell and said neighbor cell based on said comparison.
Catovic teaches storing a relational object connecting said serving cell and said neighbor cell based on said comparison (Par. [0055] “At 704 a neighbor relation can be established when the reports of the neighbor cell occurs at least a fixed number of times within a fixed time interval and the signal quality of the neighbor cell exceeds a threshold value).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Catovic’s storing a neighbor relation with Sarkar’s measurement data reporting of a different radio access technology cell to improve device handover during LTE-NR interworking.
Regarding Claim 2, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 1, Sarkar further teaching wherein said measurement data indicates power of a signal received from the neighbor cell (Pg. 3, Lines 15-19 ”In one arrangement, an example handover modulation criterion may comprise a difference between the source cell’s Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and the target cell’s RSRP being greater than the tunable threshold value, which may comprise a neighbor cell interference parameter, by an offset”).
Regarding Claim 3, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 2, Catovic further teaching wherein said relational object is stored in the event the power exceeds the threshold (Par. [0055] “At 704 a neighbor relation can be established in when the reports of the neighbor cell occurs at least a fixed number of times within a fixed time interval and the signal quality of the neighbor cell exceeds a threshold value).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Catovic’s storing a neighbor relation based on signal power with Sarkar’s measurement data reporting of a different radio access technology cell to improve device handover during LTE-NR interworking.
Regarding Claim 4, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 1, Sarkar further teaching wherein the serving cell is a cell of the fourth generation mobile network, LTE cell, and the neighbor cell is a cell of the fifth generation mobile network, NR cell (Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 5, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 1, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving measurement data regarding inter-radio access technology, inter-RAT, handover (Pg. 3, Lines 15-19 “In one arrangement, an example handover modulation criterion may comprise a difference between the source cell’s Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and the target cell’s RSRP being greater than the tunable threshold value, which may comprise a neighbor cell interference parameter, by an offset” and Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 6, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 1, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving an event B1 measurement report (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”).
Regarding Claim 7, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 1, Catovic further teaching wherein said storing a relational object comprises storing an identifier of the neighbor cell (Par. [0055] “At 704 a neighbor relation can be established in when the reports of the neighbor cell occurs at least a fixed number of times within a fixed time interval and the signal quality of the neighbor cell exceeds a threshold value”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Catovic’s storing of a neighbor cell relation with Sarkar’s measurement data reporting of a different radio access technology cell to improve device handover during LTE-NR interworking.
Regarding Claim 8, Sakar in view of Catovic teaches the method of Claim 1, where Sarkar teaches an apparatus, comprising: a processor; and a memory (22) including computer program code (27), the memory (22) and the computer program code (27) being configured, with the processor (21), to cause the apparatus (20, 111) to perform the method of claim 1 (Pg. 3 Lines 23-27 “In still further aspects, one or more systems, network nodes, elements or apparatuses are disclosed, each comprising at least one processor and persistent memory having program instructions stored thereon, wherein the program instructions are configured to perform an embodiment of the methods set forth herein when executed by the respective at least one processor”).
Regarding Claim 9, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the method of Claim 1 where Sarkar teaches a computer program comprising computer executable program code which when executed by a processor causes an apparatus to perform the method of claim 1 (Pg. 3 Lines 27-30 “In still further aspects, a computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium is disclosed, which is operative to store computer readable program code, the computer readable program code operable, when executed by processing circuitry to perform any of the methods set forth herein”).
Regarding Claim 10, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 2, Sarkar further teaching wherein the serving cell is a cell of the fourth generation mobile network, LTE cell, and the neighbor cell is a cell of the fifth generation mobile network, NR cell (Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 11, Sarkar in view Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 3, Sarkar further teaching wherein the serving cell is a cell of the fourth generation mobile network, LTE cell, and the neighbor cell is a cell of the fifth generation mobile network, NR cell (Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 12, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 2, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving measurement data regarding inter-radio access technology, inter-RAT, handover (Pg. 3, Lines 15-19 “In one arrangement, an example handover modulation criterion may comprise a difference between the source cell’s Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and the target cell’s RSRP being greater than the tunable threshold value, which may comprise a neighbor cell interference parameter, by an offset” and Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 13, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 3, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving measurement data regarding inter-radio access technology, inter-RAT, handover (Pg. 3, Lines 15-19 “In one arrangement, an example handover modulation criterion may comprise a difference between the source cell’s Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and the target cell’s RSRP being greater than the tunable threshold value, which may comprise a neighbor cell interference parameter, by an offset” and Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 14, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 4, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving measurement data regarding inter-radio access technology, inter-RAT, handover (Pg. 3, Lines 15-19 “In one arrangement, an example handover modulation criterion may comprise a difference between the source cell’s Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and the target cell’s RSRP being greater than the tunable threshold value, which may comprise a neighbor cell interference parameter, by an offset” and Pg.9-10, Lines 31-2 “Accordingly, it will be realized that in some embodiments primary cells 104-1 to 104-N may be based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen (NG) RAT technologies according to applicable 3GPP standards and specifications, with corresponding secondary cells 108B-1 to 108B-K and 110B-1 to 110B-P based on any 2G/3G/4G/5G/NextGen RAT technologies different from that of the primary cells”).
Regarding Claim 15, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 2, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving an event B1 measurement report (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”).
Regarding Claim 16, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 3, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving an event B1 measurement report (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”).
Regarding Claim 17, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 4, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving an event B1 measurement report (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”).
Regarding Claim 18, Sarkar in view of Catovic teaches the invention of Claim 5, Sarkar further teaching wherein said receiving neighbor cell measurement data comprises receiving an event B1 measurement report (Pg. 17, Lines 14-16 “A Measurement Report 450 (e.g., based Bl Event, which measures or otherwise indicates if a secondary neighbor NR cell is of stronger signal strength/quality by a threshold) may be generated by UE 402 towards target MeNB 410”).
Regarding Claim 19, Catovic in view of Sarkar teaches the invention of Claim 2, Catovic further teaching wherein said storing a relational object comprises storing an identifier of the neighbor cell (Par. [0055] “At 704 a neighbor relation can be established in when the reports of the neighbor cell occurs at least a fixed number of times within a fixed time interval and the signal quality of the neighbor cell exceeds a threshold value”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Catovic’s storing of a neighbor cell relation with Sarkar’s measurement data reporting of a different radio access technology cell to improve device handover during LTE-NR interworking.
Regarding Claim 20, Catovic in view of Sarkar teaches the invention of Claim 3, Catovic further teaching wherein said storing a relational object comprises storing an identifier of the neighbor cell (Par. [0055] “At 704 a neighbor relation can be established in when the reports of the neighbor cell occurs at least a fixed number of times within a fixed time interval and the signal quality of the neighbor cell exceeds a threshold value”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Catovic’s storing of a neighbor cell relation with Sarkar’s measurement data reporting of a different radio access technology cell to improve device handover during LTE-NR interworking.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Yang et al. (US 2020/0396656) discloses “In an implementation, in response to determining that a signal quality of the target cell is higher than a first threshold (that is, B1 event) according to the measurement report, the first base station determines that a handover from the source cell to the target cell is required to be performed” (Par. [0031]), and “In this way, DC-based Inter-RAT handover is implemented, that is, DC-based HO is used to support Inter-RAT mobility management, which can shorten the interruption in the Inter-RAT handover and improve user service experience in the hybrid deployment scenario of 4G and 5G” (Par. [0049]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH NGHIA DINH whose telephone number is (571)272-5607. The examiner can normally be reached Mon. - Fri. 7:30AM-5PM.
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/J.N.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2641
/CHARLES N APPIAH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2641
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