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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claim(s) 1-18, 20 and 32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lu et al. (U.S. 2023/0308975), hereinafter Lu, in view of Lee et al. (U.S. 2022/0132599), hereinafter Lee.
With respect to Claim 1, Lu teaches a path fallback method, comprising:
in a scenario where a source integrated access and backhaul (IAB) donor has migrated F1 of an edge IAB node from a source path to a target path (¶ 0196, “after the new F1 connection is established, the migrating IAB node maintains the old F1 connection with the source donor device, and releases the old F1 connection with the source donor device if one of the following conditions is satisfied.”)
determining to migrate F1 of an edge integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node from a target path to a first path, wherein the first path is a source path or an else path, the source path being a path used by F1 of the edge IAB node before using the target path and (¶ [0347], “as the child IAB-node or UE may possibly fail in migrating or reconfiguring, the child IAB-node and the served UE will release the original F1 connection after completing the RRC reconfiguration, which may ensure that the child IAB-node or UE may turn back to the source donor when the migration fails.”)
the else path being a path other than the target path and the source path; and
transmitting indication information to at one of a target IAB donor and/or the edge IAB node, the indication information being used to give an indication to release or suspend configuration information for transmitting, on the target path, all or part of F 1 of the edge IAB node (¶ 0215 – 0218, “, after the new F1 connection is established, the child IAB-node may maintain the old F1 connection with the source donor device, and release the old F1 connection with the source donor device if one of the following conditions is satisfied… after a predetermined time after the new F1 connection with the target donor device is established.”)
Lu fails to explicitly teach herein the source path is a path through a source IAB donor centralized unit (CU), a source IAB donor distributed unit (DU), a parent node of the source path, and the edge IAB, and the target path is a path through the source IAB donor CU, a target IAB donor DU, a parent node of the target path, and the edge IAB.
Lee teaches the source path is a path through a source IAB donor centralized unit (CU), a source IAB donor distributed unit (DU), a parent node of the source path, and the edge IAB, and the target path is a path through the source IAB donor CU, a target IAB donor DU, a parent node of the target path, and the edge IAB (¶ 0092. “Each donor node 310 may include a respective CU 330 and DU 340, which may be examples of CU functionality and DU functionality, respectively, described with reference to FIG. 2. The node 315 may include MT 345 and DU 350, which may be examples of MT functionality and DU functionality, respectively, described with reference to FIG. 2. The donor nodes 310 may share a common CU, such as CU 330-c, so that signaling between the donor nodes 310 is reduced during, for example, handovers between the donor nodes 310.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Lu with the invention of Lee in order to properly support the various architectures of the network as the term distributed unit and centralized unit imply that each centralized unit will have multiple distributed units, which means that handovers may occur between distributed units and it would be obvious to make the system work in that instance.
With respect to Claim 2, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting the indication information to at one of the target IAB donor and/or the edge IAB node comprises: transmitting a first message to the target IAB donor, the first message being used to give an indication to the target IAB donor to release or suspend first configuration information which is used for transmitting F1 of the edge IAB node. (¶ 0215 – 0218, “after the new F1 connection is established, the child IAB-node may maintain the old F1 connection with the source donor device, and release the old F1 connection with the source donor device if one of the following conditions is satisfied… after receiving an RRC reconfiguration complete message transmitted by the grandchild IAB-node or UE served by the child IAB-node.”
With respect to Claim 3, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 2, wherein the first message is an Xn Application Protocol (XnAP} message (¶ 0157, “In the embodiment of this disclosure, the context information on the migrating IAB node and the context information on the child IAB-node or UE are included in same Xn messages or different Xn messages.”)
With respect to Claim 4, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 2, wherein the first configuration information comprises any one or more of the following items:
Internet Protocol (IP} to Layer 2 mapping,
mapping between an ingress backhaul radio link control channel and an egress backhaul radio link control channel,
backhaul adaptation protocol routing configuration, an IP address allocated to the edge IAB node by the target IAB donor, and a backhaul radio link control channel (¶ 0161, “and as the child IAB-node may possibly not change the backhaul RLC channel mapping after migrating to the target donor.”)
With respect to Claim 5, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting the indication information to at least one of the target IAB donor or the edge IAB node comprises: transmitting a second message to the edge IAB node, the second message being used to give an indication to the edge IAB node to release or suspend second configuration information which is used for transmitting, on the target path, F1 of the edge IAB node (¶ 0215 – 0218, “after the new F1 connection is established, the child IAB-node may maintain the old F1 connection with the source donor device, and release the old F1 connection with the source donor device if one of the following conditions is satisfied… after receiving an RRC reconfiguration complete message transmitted by the grandchild IAB-node or UE served by the child IAB-node.”
With respect to Claim 6, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 5, wherein the second message is a radio resource control (RRC} message, and the transmitting the second message to the edge IAB node comprises: transmitting the second message to a mobile termination (MT} of the edge IAB node (¶ 0054, “[0054] a receiving unit configured to receive an RRC reconfiguration message transmitted by a source donor device or a target donor device”.)
With respect to Claim 7, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 5, wherein the second message is an FlAP message, and the transmitting the second message to the edge IAB node comprises: transmitting the second message to a distributed unit (DU) of the edge IAB node (¶ 0220, “ in some embodiments, the child IAB-node may further receive an F1AP (F1 application protocol) message transmitted by the target donor device via the new F1 connection, and transmit the RRC reconfiguration message to the grandchild IAB-node or UE. The F1AP message contains the RRC reconfiguration message for the grandchild IAB-node or UE served by the child IAB-node.”)
With respect to Claim 8, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 5, wherein the second configuration information comprises any one or more of the following items:
a backhaul adaptation protocol header rewrite table,
and an IP address allocated to the edge IAB node by the target IAB donor (¶ 0141, “The BAP configuration information includes a BAP address, a transport layer (IP) address, a default uplink backhaul RLC channel identifier and/or a default uplink BAP routing identifier, allocated by the source donor device for the IAB node. The default uplink BAP routing identifier refers to a default destination BAP address and a default path identifier.”)
With respect to Claim 9, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 1,wherein the determining to migrate F 1 of the edge IAB node from the target path to the first path comprises:
determining, based on at least one item of a load of a source IAB donor, a load of the target IAB donor, a load of a neighboring cell, or a measurement report of the edge IAB node, to migrate F1 of the edge IAB node from the target path to the first path.
With respect to Claim 10, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according claim 1, further comprising:
transmitting an RRC reconfiguration message to the edge IAB node, the RRC reconfiguration message being used for handing over the edge IAB node to an IAB parent node of the first path; (¶ 0301, “[0301] 1806: the source donor transmits an F1AP message (a DL RRC MESSAGE TRANSFER or UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION REQUEST) to the parent IAB-node of the migrating IAB-node under the source donor, which includes the RRC reconfiguration message for the migrating IAB-node”)
receiving an RRC reconfiguration completion message transmitted by the edge IAB node (¶ 0333, “1813: the migrating IAB-node initiates random access to the parent IAB-node under the target donor and transmits an RRCReconfigurationComplete message, the parent IAB-node under the target donor places this message in an F1AP message (UL RRC MESSAGE TRANSFER) and transfers it to the target donor, and then the migrating IAB-node transmits signaling or data generated by itself via the new uplink backhaul RLC channel and the new default BAP path.”)
and configuring or activating third configuration information of each node of the first path, the third configuration information being used for transmitting F1 of the edge IAB node (¶ 0335, “the target donor configures the new backhaul RLC channel mapping and BAP routing configuration for the migrating IAB-node via the F1AP message, and then the migrating IAB-node transmits the signaling or data of the served UE and child IAB-node via the new backhaul RLC channel and the new BAP path.”)
With respect to Claim 11, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 10, wherein the transmitting the RRC reconfiguration message to the edge IAB node comprises:
transmitting the RRC reconfiguration message to the edge IAB node through the IAB parent node of the first path (¶ 0301, “[0301] 1806: the source donor transmits an F1AP message (a DL RRC MESSAGE TRANSFER or UE CONTEXT MODIFICATION REQUEST) to the parent IAB-node of the migrating IAB-node under the source donor, which includes the RRC reconfiguration message for the migrating IAB-node”); the
receiving the RRC reconfiguration completion message transmitted by the edge IAB node comprises:
receiving the RRC reconfiguration completion message which is transmitted by the edge IAB node through an IAB parent node of the target path (¶ 0333, “1813: the migrating IAB-node initiates random access to the parent IAB-node under the target donor and transmits an RRCReconfigurationComplete message, the parent IAB-node under the target donor places this message in an F1AP message (UL RRC MESSAGE TRANSFER) and transfers it to the target donor, and then the migrating IAB-node transmits signaling or data generated by itself via the new uplink backhaul RLC channel and the new default BAP path.”)
With respect to Claim 12, Lu in view of Lee teaches the method according to claim 10, wherein the third configuration information comprises any one or more of the following items: IP to Layer 2 mapping, mapping between an ingress backhaul radio link control channel and an egress backhaul radio link control channel, backhaul adaptation protocol stack routing configuration, an IP address allocated by the target IAB donor to the edge IAB node, and a backhaul radio link control channel (¶ 0141, “The BAP configuration information includes a BAP address, a transport layer (IP) address, a default uplink backhaul RLC channel identifier and/or a default uplink BAP routing identifier, allocated by the source donor device for the IAB node. The default uplink BAP routing identifier refers to a default destination BAP address and a default path identifier.”)
With respect to Claims 13-18 and 20, Claims 13 – 18 and 20 are the apparatus that corresponds to the method of Claims 1-6 and 8, and are rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claim 32, Claim 32 the non-transitory computer readable medium that corresponds to the method of Claims 1, and are rejected accordingly.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELA NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5660. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9AM - 5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jae Y Lee can be reached at 571-270-3936. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANGELA NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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