CTNF 18/717,526 CTNF 71288 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia 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 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 6, 13, 20, 26, 42-49, 53 and 57 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2021/0099926 A1) in view of Xu et al. (US 2021/0051534 A1) . Chen teaches PSCell dual connectivity conditional mobility of UEs (paragraph 0046 and Figure 1). Chen teaches the source BS sends an RRC Reconfiguration message including CHO configuration of at least one CHO candidate cell and at least one CHO execution condition (paragraph 0071). Chen does not teach the RRC message indicates a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate PSCell not selected in the first conditional PSCell change is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional PSCell change. In the same field of invention directed to conditional handovers, Xu teaches that an RRC command can indicate a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change (RRC command 1524 for keeping conditional handover information for other not selected cells in paragraph 0105 and Figure 15. Therefore, it 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching of providing a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change in the conditional mobility of the UEs in Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques in the same field to yield the predictable result of maintaining the configuration Information for not selected candidate cells. With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis. Claims [Claim 6] (Original) A method performed by a Radio Access Network (RAN) node configured to operate as a Secondary Node (SN) associated with a Secondary Cell Group (SCG) in dual connectivity for a User Equipment (UE) (Chen, US 2021/0099926 A1, paragraph 0046 and Figure 2) , the method comprising: transmitting to the UE, via a Master Node (MN) or via a direct signaling radio bearer between the SN and the UE, a first SN Radio Resource Control (RRC) message containing configurations of a plurality of candidate Primary Secondary Cell Group (SCG) Cells (PSCells) for a first conditional PSCell change (In Chen, MN transmits to UE configurations of CHO candidate cells and execution conditions in paragraphs 0104-0105) , wherein the first SN RRC message indicates that a mode of operation is applied, requested, recommended, or available in which a configuration of at least one candidate PSCell not selected in the first conditional PSCell change is to be reused by the UE for a subsequent second conditional PSCell change (In Xu, RRC message 1524 indicates a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change in paragraph 0105 and Figure 15. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching into Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques used in the same field to yield the predictable result of maintaining the configuration Information for not selected candidate cells. In Xu, it 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 to combine the first RRC CHO command 1520 with the second RRC HO command 1524 in Figure 15 for the reason that the NW (cell#1) does not wait for responses for the first RRC CHO command) . [Claim 13] (Original) A method performed by a User Equipment (UE) (Chen, US 2021/0099926 A1, paragraph 0046 and Figure 2) , the method comprising: receiving, via a Master Node (MN) or via a direct signaling radio bearer between the UE and a Secondary Node (SN), a first SN Radio Resource Control (RRC) message containing configurations of a plurality of candidate Primary Secondary Cell Group (SCG) Cells (PSCells) for a first conditional PSCell change; if an execution condition is satisfied for one of the plurality of candidate PSCells, applying a configuration corresponding to the one candidate PSCell for which the execution condition has been satisfied (In Chen, MN transmits to UE configurations of CHO candidate cells and execution conditions in paragraphs 0104-0105) ; and if the first SN RRC indicates that a mode of operation is applied, requested, recommended, or available in which a configuration of at least one candidate PSCeII not selected in the first conditional PSCeII change is to be reused by the UE for a subsequent second conditional PSCeII change, maintaining the configuration of the at least one candidate PSCeII for use in the second conditional PSCeII change (In Xu, RRC message 1524 indicates a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change in paragraph 0105 and Figure 15. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching into Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques used in the same field to yield the predictable result of maintaining the configuration Information for not selected candidate cells. In Xu, it 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 to combine the first RRC CHO command 1520 with the second RRC HO command 1524 in Figure 15 for the reason that the NW (cell#1) does not wait for responses for the first RRC CHO command) . [Claim 20] (Original) A method performed by a Central Unit (CU) of a Radio Access Network (RAN) node (Chen, US 2021/0099926 A1, Master Node MN can be interpreted as a central unit since it provides the control plane connection to the core network in paragraph 0051) , the method comprising: sending a first message to a Distributed Unit (DU) (In Chen, the Secondary Node SN is the DU since it does not have a control plane connection to the core network in paragraph 0053, where it 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 for the Mobility Control Information provided by the AMF to be received by the MN (i.e. CU) since it has the control plane connection and to send the Mobility Control Information as the first message to a SN (i.e. DU) since it does not have a connection to the control plane) ; and receiving a second message from the DU in response to the first message (It 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 for a SN (i.e. DU) to respond to a first message in order to acknowledge that the first message has been received) , wherein the first message indicates a request for a first conditional mobility for a User Equipment (UE) and indicates that a mode of operation is applied, requested, recommended, or available in which a configuration of at least one candidate target cell not selected in the first conditional mobility is to be reused by the UE for a subsequent second conditional mobility (In Xu, RRC message 1524 indicates a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change in paragraph 0105 and Figure 15. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching in Chen where the Mobility Control Information provided by the AMF 112 would have indicated Xu’s mode of operation that is distributed to the SNs (i.e. DUs) for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques used in the same field to yield the predictable result of indicating a mode of operation where configurations of not selected cells can be reused for subsequent second conditional mobility ) . [Claim 26] (Original) A method performed by a Distributed Unit (DU) of a Radio Access Network (RAN) node (Chen, US 2021/0099926 A1, Master Node MN can be interpreted as a central unit since it provides the control plane connection to the core network in paragraph 0051 and the Secondary Node can be interpreted as the distributed unit since it has no connection to the control plane in paragraph 0053) , the method comprising: receiving a first message from a Central Unit (CU) (In Chen, the Secondary Node SN is the DU since it does not have a control plane connection to the core network in paragraph 0053, where it 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 for the Mobility Control Information provided by the AMF to be received by the MN (i.e. CU) since it has the control plane connection and to send the Mobility Control Information as the first message to a SN (i.e. DU) since it does not have a connection to the control plane) ; and sending a second message to the CU in response to the first message (It 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 for a SN (i.e. DU) to respond to a first message in order to acknowledge that the first message has been received) , wherein the first message indicates a request for a first conditional mobility for a User Equipment (UE) and indicates that a mode of operation is applied, requested, recommended, or available in which a configuration of at least one candidate target cell not selected in the first conditional mobility is to be reused by the UE for a subsequent second conditional mobility (In Xu, RRC message 1524 indicates a mode of operation in which a configuration of at least one candidate cell not selected is to be reused by the UE for subsequent conditional cell change in paragraph 0105 and Figure 15. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching in Chen where the Mobility Control Information provided by the AMF 112 would have indicated Xu’s mode of operation that is distributed to the SNs (i.e. DUs) for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques used in the same field to yield the predictable result of indicating a mode of operation where configurations of not selected cells can be reused for subsequent second conditional mobility ) . [Claim 42] (New) The method according to claim 6, further comprising determining whether the configuration of the at least one candidate PSCeII not selected in the first conditional PSCeII change is to be maintained by the UE for the subsequent second conditional PSCeII change (In Xu, RRC message 1524 indicates a mode of operation in which “keep CHO” correspond to keeping the configurations associated with a plurality of not selected cells in CHO command 1520. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known techniques used in the same field to yield the predictable result of maintaining the configuration Information for not selected candidate cells ) . [Claim 43] (New) The method according to claim 6, further comprising transmitting to the UE, after completion of the first conditional PSCeII change, a second SN RRC message containing at least one updated execution condition for the subsequent second conditional mobility with respect to the at least one candidate PSCeII (Xu teaches providing updated conditional handover Information in paragraph 0084. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching of providing updated conditional handover Information in Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of updating conditional handover Information at any time when such Information has changed) . [Claim 44] (New) The method according to claim 6, wherein the first SN RRC message indicates to the UE that a source PSCeII in the first conditional PSCeII change is to be one of candidate PSCells in the subsequent second conditional PSCeII change (Xu teaches that removing the source cell from the candidate cell list is optional in paragraph 0098. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching that it is optional to remove the source cell from the candidate list for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of maintaining the source cell as one of the candidate cells where it would have been further obvious to transmit such indication at any time such as the first RRC since a response is not required for providing the CHO configurations) . [Claim 45] (New) The method according to claim 44, further comprising transmitting to the UE, after completion of the first conditional PSCeII change, a third SN RRC message containing an execution condition for the subsequent second conditional mobility with respect to a new candidate PSCeII corresponding to the source PSCeII (Xu teaches providing updated conditional handover Information in paragraph 0084. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching of providing updated conditional handover Information in Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of updating conditional handover Information at any time when such Information has changed) . [Claim 46] (New) The method according to claim 13, further comprising receiving from the SN, after completion of the first conditional PSCeII change, a second SN RRC message containing at least one updated execution condition for the subsequent second conditional PSCeII change with respect to the at least one candidate PSCeII (Xu teaches providing updated conditional handover Information in paragraph 0084. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching of providing updated conditional handover Information in Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of updating conditional handover Information at any time when such Information has changed) . [Claim 47] (New) The method according to claim 13, further comprising, after completion of the first conditional PSCeII change, maintaining a configuration of a source PSCeII in the first conditional PSCeII change to use the source PSCeII as one of candidate PSCells in the subsequent second conditional PSCeII change (Xu teaches that removing the source cell from the candidate cell list is optional in paragraph 0098. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching that it is optional to remove the source cell from the candidate list for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of maintaining the source cell as one of the candidate cells where it would have been further obvious to transmit such indication at any time such as the first RRC since a response is not required for providing the CHO configurations) . [Claim 48] (New) The method according to claim 13, further comprising, if the first SN RRC message indicates that a source PSCeII in the first conditional PSCeII change is to be one of candidate PSCells in the subsequent second conditional PSCell change, maintaining a configuration of the source PSCell for use in the second conditional PSCell change (Xu teaches that removing the source cell from the candidate cell list is optional in paragraph 0098. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching that it is optional to remove the source cell from the candidate list for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of maintaining the source cell as one of the candidate cells where it would have been further obvious to transmit such indication at any time such as the first RRC since a response is not required for providing the CHO configurations) . [Claim 49] (New) The method according to claim 47, further comprising receiving from the SN, after completion of the first conditional PSCeII change, a third SN RRC message containing an execution condition for the subsequent second conditional PSCeII change with respect to a new candidate PSCeII corresponding to the source PSCeII (Xu teaches providing updated conditional handover Information in paragraph 0084. It 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 to adopt Xu’s teaching of providing updated conditional handover Information in Chen for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a known technique to yield the predictable result of updating conditional handover Information at any time when such Information has changed) c . [Claim 53] (New) The method according to claim 20, wherein the first conditional mobility is a conditional handover, a conditional Primary Secondary Cell Group (SCG) Cell (PSCeII) change, or a conditional PSCeII addition, and the subsequent second conditional mobility is a conditional handover or a conditional PSCeII change (Both Chen and Xu teach CHO which is Conditional HandOvers) . [Claim 57] (New)The method according to claim 26, wherein the first conditional mobility is a conditional handover, a conditional Primary Secondary Cell Group (SCG) Cell (PSCeII) change, or a conditional PSCeII addition, and the subsequent second conditional mobility is a conditional handover or a conditional PSCeII change (Both Chen and Xu teach CHO which is Conditional HandOvers) . Allowable Subject Matter 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim s 50-52 and 54-56 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. 13-03-01 AIA The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art of record fails to anticipate or make obvious the particular second message from the DU or the particular UE Context messages . Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELVIN C MARCELO whose telephone number is (571)272-3125. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6:00. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Asad Nawaz can be reached at 571-272-3988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. MELVIN C. MARCELO Primary Examiner Art Unit 2463 /MELVIN C MARCELO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463 May 30, 2026 Application/Control Number: 18/717,526 Page 2 Art Unit: 2463
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