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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Preliminary Amendment
. Applicant’s preliminary amendment, filed on 5/16/2024, has been fully considered and entered. Claims 14 and 18 are amended, claims 15, 16, 19, 22 and 25-34 are canceled, and claims 1-14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 and 24 are currently pending.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II (Claims 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 and 24) in the reply filed on 7/27/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-14 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 7/27/2026.
Priority
This application is a 371 National Stage of International Patent Application PCT/CN2021/133247, filed on November 25, 2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) is submitted on 5/16/2024, 12/11/2024 and 3/13/2025 were filed in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. According, the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 17, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by You et al. (US 20240064584 A1 and You hereinafter).
Regarding claim 17, You teaches a processor of a user equipment (UE) (Paragraph 0013; an apparatus includes a transceiver and a processor) configured to perform operations comprising:
receiving a handover command from a source cell (Figure 7 and Paragraphs 0122 and 0140; handover command from source network device. Figure 11 and Paragraph 0237; the source network device sends a handover command to the UE); and
transmitting an uplink signal to a target cell (Figure 11 and Paragraphs 0245 and 0247; send uplink data according to the transmission resource), wherein the uplink signal comprises user data (Figure 11 and Paragraph 0247; UE uplink data) and is a first transmission to be performed to the target cell after the reception of the handover command (Figure 11; as can be seen from Figure 11, the UE transmits uplink data in S1108, this is the first transmission to the target network device after receiving handover command in S1105), wherein the UE does not transmit any signals to the target cell prior to the first transmission (Figure 11; as can be seen from Figure 11, the UE does not transmit any signals to target before transmitting uplink data in S1108).
Regarding claim 18, You teaches all of the limitations of claim 17, as described above. Further, You teaches wherein the handover command comprises a type-1 configured grant (CG) configuration or timing advance (TA) information to be used for the first transmission (Figure 7 and Paragraph 0140, Figure 11 and Paragraph 0239; the handover command may include TA indication information, for example, the RACH-skip information introduced above, so the handover command may indicate that the handover process is a RACH-less handover process, that is, the first configuration information described above may indicate the terminal device to perform a first type of handover).
Regarding claim 20, You teaches all of the limitations of claim 17, as described above. Further, You teaches receiving a dynamic uplink grant from the target cell (Figure 11 and Paragraphs 0241 and 0243; the target network device transmits DCI to the UE, and the DCI includes a third dynamic scheduling resource), wherein the dynamic uplink grant is to be used for the first transmission (Figure 11 and Paragraph 0244; the third dynamic scheduling resource is determined as the transmission resource. Paragraph 0247; uplink data is transmitted based on the transmission resource).
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 21, 23 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over You, as applied in claim 17 above, further in view of Li (US 20220408327 A1).
Regarding claim 21, You teaches all of the limitations of claim 17, as described above.
You does not explicitly teach initiating a timer in response to the handover command; monitoring for a downlink signal from the target cell after the first transmission, wherein the timer expires prior to the reception of the downlink signal; and declaring a handover failure based on the timer. In an analogous art, Li teaches initiating a timer in response to the handover command (Figures 5 and 6, Paragraphs 0099; at step 52, the terminal device starts the first timer in response to receiving the handover command); monitoring for a downlink signal from the target cell after the first transmission (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; the terminal device starts the first timer (also referred to as RACH-less timer) and monitors the PDCCH), wherein the timer expires prior to the reception of the downlink signal (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; if the first timer (RACH-less timer) expires); and declaring a handover failure based on the timer (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; when RACH-less timer expires, it means that the RACH-less access fails). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of You and Li because it would ensure success rate of handover access of the terminal device (Li, Paragraphs 0003 and 0004).
Regarding claim 23, You teaches all of the limitations of claim 17, as described above.
You does not explicitly teach initiating a timer; receiving, a dynamic uplink grant from the target cell to be used for the first transmission; stopping the timer in response to the dynamic uplink grant, wherein the UE is configured to declare a handover failure if the dynamic uplink grant is not received prior to the expiration of the timer. In an analogous art, Li teaches initiating a timer (Figures 5 and 6, Paragraphs 0099; at step 52, the terminal device starts the first timer in response to receiving the handover command); receiving, a dynamic uplink grant from the target cell to be used for the first transmission (Figures 5 and 6, Paragraph 0108; when the predetermined condition is met and while the first timer is running, the terminal device monitors a first downlink channel that is used to dynamically schedule a third uplink resource); stopping the timer in response to the dynamic uplink grant (Figure 5 and Paragraph 0114; if the third uplink resource dynamically scheduled by the first downlink channel is available while the first timer is running, the terminal device transmits RRCReconfigurationComplete information on the third uplink resource and stops the first timer), wherein the UE is configured to declare a handover failure if the dynamic uplink grant is not received prior to the expiration of the timer (Paragraph 0137; when the predetermined condition is met, the random access procedure is directly triggered. The predetermined condition may include RACH-less handover failure or a dynamically scheduled uplink transmission resource being unavailable). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of You and Li because it would ensure success rate of handover access of the terminal device (Li, Paragraphs 0003 and 0004).
Regarding claim 24, You teaches all of the limitations of claim 17, as described above. Further, You teaches initiating a timer in response to the first transmission (Paragraph 0093; the UE determines an HARQ process corresponding to a CG resource based on a network configuration, and starts a CG timer after the UE completes an uplink data transmission through the corresponding CG resource by using a certain HARQ. When the CG timer expires, it is implicitly indicated that the data transmitted by the corresponding HARQ process has been correctly received by a network).
You does not explicitly teach monitoring for a downlink signal from the target cell in response to the first transmission, wherein the timer expires prior to the reception of the downlink signal; and declaring a handover failure based on the timer. In an analogous art, Li teaches monitoring for a downlink signal from the target cell in response to the first transmission (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; the terminal device starts the first timer (also referred to as RACH-less timer) and monitors the PDCCH), wherein the timer expires prior to the reception of the downlink signal (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; if the first timer (RACH-less timer) expires); and declaring a handover failure based on the timer (Figure 4 and Paragraph 0096; when RACH0less timer expires, it means that the RACH-less access fails). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of You and Li because it would rensure success rate of handover access of the terminal device (Li, Paragraphs 0003 and 0004)
Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kim al. (US 20210105674 A1) discloses starting timer in response to Handover Command message, stop the timer when handover process is successful and upon expiration of the timer, determine the handover failure.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jing Gao whose telephone number is (571)270-7226. The examiner can normally be reached on 9am - 6pm M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor Alison Slater can be reached on (571) 270-0375. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Jing Gao/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2647
