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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of group I, claims 15-18, 22-25 with traverse, filed on 6/29/2026, is acknowledged. The arguments regarding the restriction requirements have been considered and they are not persuasive.
Applicant argue, page 8,
To achieve the override protection of signaling-based MDT during inter-RAT mobility and thereby prevent the interruption of MDT, both the terminal's transmission of the indicator and the base station's determination based on that indicator must be performed together. The combination (Group I) therefore does require the specific features of the subcombination (Group II) for examining its patentability
The examiner respectfully disagrees. In group I, the (first) base station already made a decision to transmit logged measurement configuration information to the terminal without using any information from the terminal. In other words, the indicator indicating that the terminal is available of the signaling-based logged measurement from the terminal is not used by the (first) base station to make the decision whether to transmit logged measurement configuration information to the terminal. The (first) base station could make the decision based on other information. According to group I, it is not necessary that “both the terminal's transmission of the indicator and the base station's determination based on that indicator must be performed together”. Furthermore, in group I, no limitation recites the second base station makes any decision, let alone, making decision based on the indicator from the terminal, and no limitation recites the usage of the indicator transmitted by the terminal.
The case when the decision by the second base station is based on the indicator from the terminal can be used for other purpose. Since separate search must be performed for the limitation “determining whether to transmit logged measurement configuration information to the terminal based on the indicator”, there is serious burden on the examiner.
The restriction retains.
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) 15-18, 22-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ram (US 20230057408) in view of Yilmaz (US 20200305036).
Regarding claim 22, Ram discloses a terminal in a communication system, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and a controller coupled with the transceiver, wherein the controller is configured (figs. 8-9) to:
receive, from a first base station associated with a first radio access technology (RAT), logged measurement configuration information, wherein the logged measurement configuration information includes an indicator indicating signaling-based logged measurement (fig. 10, [0056][0163][0181], configuring the UE with logged measurement configuration that includes the different configurations/options/parameters/indications; upon receiving a logged measurement configuration in another RAT),
receive, from the first base station, a radio resource control (RRC) release message ([0182], receive (through transceiver 301) a release message from the wireless communication network. The release message may be a Radio Resource Control RRC connection release message or an RRC release message),
enter an RRC idle state based on the RRC release message ([0184], may transition the communication device to a dormant state in response to receiving the release message),
perform logging of measurement result during the RRC idle state, based on the logged measurement configuration information ([0186], perform MDT measurements in accordance with the logged MDT measurement configuration while in the dormant state),
perform a selection of a cell, during the RRC idle state ([0010][0187][0102], may transition the communication device to a connected state, performs cell selection/cell reselection within the configured validity area),
perform an RRC connection procedure with the cell associated with a second base station, the second base station associated with a second RAT (fig. 3, [0009][0013-15], UE is setting up a connection coming from RRC_IDLE; UE can report them in the resume complete messages (while in LTE rel-15, early measurement reporting was possible only via UE Information Request/Response after the connection is resumed/established), and
transmit, to the second base station, an RRC message indicating a completion of the RRC connection procedure, the RRC message including an indicator indicating the terminalis available of the signaling-based logged measurement ([0009][0010][0013-15], the UE may also indicate the availability of stored idle measurements in RRCConnectionResumeComplete; UE can report them in the resume complete messages (while in LTE rel-15, early measurement reporting was possible only via UE Information Request/Response after the connection is resumed/established).
Normally, when a connection is released and a new connection is to be established, the new connection can be associated with the second RAT. To further support this feature, Yilmaz discloses perform an RRC connection procedure with the cell associated with a second base station (RAT), transmit, to the second base station, an RRC message (Yilmaz [0081], UE 100 initiates a RRC connection establishment procedure to establish an RRC connection in the second RAT, fig. 6, s606, Light-weight RRC connection setup complete (from UE to NW)).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings as given by Ram with the teachings given by Yilmaz. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection establishment technique in a wireless communication network (Yilmaz, [0007]).
Claim 15 is rejected similarly with claim 22.
Regarding claims 23, 16, Ram and Yilmaz disclose the terminal of claim 22, wherein the first RAT is associated with evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), and wherein the second RAT is associated with new radio (NR) (Ram, [0002][0306], LTE (Long Term Evolution) and NR (New Radio)).
Regarding claims 24, 17, Ram and Yilmaz disclose the terminal of claim 22, wherein the controller is further configured to,
in case that the terminal received the logged measurement configuration information, start a timer associated with the logged measurement configuration information for the first base station (Ram, [0027], a timer (T330) is started at the UE upon receiving the configurations and set to loggingduration (10 min-120 min). The UE shall perform periodical MDT logging with the interval set to logginginterval (1.28 s-61.44 s) when the UE is in RRC_IDLE), and
wherein in case that the timer is running, the RRC message is transmitted to the second base station (Ram, fig. 6, Yilmaz, [0081]) .
Regarding claims 25, 18, Ram and Yilmaz disclose the terminal of claim 22, wherein the first RAT and the second RAT are different from each other (Ram, [0002][0306], LTE (Long Term Evolution) and NR (New Radio)).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHENSHENG ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1985. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8:00am-6:00pm.
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/ZHENSHENG ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474
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