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 .
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03 July 2024 is being considered by the examiner.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Figure 7 of the application illustrates the claimed invention.
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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) 1-2, 5, 7-8, 14-16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eklof et al. (US 2023/0300691 A1) in view of Wu et al. (US 2021/0105690 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 5, 7, 14, 16 and 18, Eklof et al. discloses a terminal device, a network device and a communication method, comprising:
if a first condition is met, starting, by a terminal device, a handover condition evaluation task related to conditional handover, and/or
if a second condition is met, stopping or skipping starting, by the terminal device, the handover condition evaluation task related to the conditional handover,
wherein the handover condition evaluation task related to the conditional handover is used to evaluate whether a conditional handover event associated with a first conditional handover target cell is met, the first conditional handover target cell is one of at least one conditional handover target cell corresponding to conditional handover configuration information configured by a network device, and the conditional handover configuration information configured by the network device comprises configuration information corresponding to the at least one conditional handover target cell.
([0117]: “A Conditional Handover (CHO) is defined as a handover that is executed by the UE when one or more handover execution conditions are met. The UE starts evaluating the execution condition(s) upon receiving the CHO configuration, and stops evaluating the execution condition(s) one the execution condition(s) is met.
Eklof et al. teach sending a reconfiguration message to a terminal device, wherein the reconfiguration message is used to instruct the terminal device to start a handover condition evaluation task related to conditional handover (see figure 11).
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Wu et al. in the same field of invention, also teaches this feature.
Wu et al. teaches ([0125]: “the S-BS 104A determines 971 to reconfigure the condition(s) if the S-BS 104A reconfigures or release configuration(s) previously sent to the UE 102. In some implementations, the S-BS 104A determining 971 to reconfigure the condition(s), the S-BS 104A transmits 972 an RRC reconfiguration message including the reconfigured condition(s) to the UE 102.”)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reconfigure or release the condition(s) for the UE 102.
Regarding claims 2, 8 and 15, Eklof et al. teaches wherein the conditional handover configuration information configured by the network device is configured by a current serving cell of the terminal device or configured by a historical cell of the terminal device.
([0114]: While the UE evaluates the condition, it should continue operating per its current RRC configuration, i.e., without applying the conditional HO command. When the UE determines that the condition is fulfilled, it disconnects from the serving cell, applies the conditional HO command and connects to the target cell.”).
Regarding claims 1, 7, 11 and 16, (WO 2018/156696 A1) discloses a terminal device, a network device and a communication method, comprising:
if a first condition is met, starting, by a terminal device, a handover condition evaluation task related to conditional handover, and/or
if a second condition is met, stopping or skipping starting, by the terminal device, the handover condition evaluation task related to the conditional handover3,
wherein the handover condition evaluation task related to the conditional handover is used to evaluate whether a conditional handover event associated with a first conditional handover target cell is met, the first conditional handover target cell is one of at least one conditional handover target cell corresponding to conditional handover configuration information configured by a network device, and the conditional handover configuration information configured by the network device comprises configuration information corresponding to the at least one conditional handover target cell.
(WO 2018/156696 A1) discloses conditional handover and mobility state estimation. In embodiments, a conditional handover (CHO) command may indicate a first condition and a second condition. The first condition may indicate a condition to execute a handover (HO) of the CHO and the second condition may indicate a condition to not execute the HO or discard the CHO command. See figure 9.
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Claim(s) 6, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eklof et al. (US 2023/0300691 A1) in view of Wu et al. (US 2021/0105690 A1), further in view of (WO 2020/263028 A1).
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 20, Eklof et al. fails to teach wherein the at least one conditional handover target cell comprises a primary cell (PCell) or a primary secondary cell (PSCell) that is configured for the terminal device.
(WO 2020/263028 A1) discloses “The network configures the UE with one or more candidate target SpCells in the conditional configuration. The UE evaluates the condition of each configured candidate target SpCell. The UE applies the conditional configuration associated with one of the target SpCells which fulfils associated execution condition. The network provides the configuration parameters for the target SpCell in the ConditionalReconfiguration information.”)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement CHO handover with PSCell, such as teaching in WO 2020/263028 A1.
Claim(s) 3, 9, 12, 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eklof et al. (US 2023/0300691 A1) in view of Wu et al. (US 2021/0105690 A1), further in view of (WO 2018/172383 A1).
Regarding claims 3, 9, 14, 12, 17 and 19, wherein the first condition comprises one or more of following conditions:
that the terminal device succeeds in receiving a first reconfiguration message sent by the network device (see Wu et al. [0126];
(WO 2018/172383 A1) teaches “In proposed conditional handover approaches a terminal device might only hand over to a target cell if a signal quality of the serving (source) cell is below a predetermined threshold and a signal quality of a target cell is above a predefined threshold. A conditional handover can help prevent a terminal from handing over too early or too late into the target cell, which could cause ping-ponging or radio link failure between the target and serving cells.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to set signal quality of the serving cell above a threshold so to prevent a terminal from handing over too early into a target cell.
Claim(s) 4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eklof et al. (US 2023/0300691 A1) in view of (WO 2018/172383 A1).
Regarding claims 4 and 10, Eklof et al. fails to teach wherein the second condition comprises one or more of following conditions:
that a signal measurement result, measured by the terminal device, of a serving cell is greater than or equal to a second threshold. (WO 2018/172383 A1) teaches in the same field of invention teaches (“In proposed conditional handover approaches a terminal device might only hand over to a target cell if a signal quality of the serving cell is below a predefined threshold and a signal quality of the target cell is above a predefined threshold. A conditional handover can help prevent a terminal from handing over too early or too late into the target cell, which could cause ping-pong or radio link failure between the target and serving cells.”).
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the worse signal quality of serving cell above the threshold so to prevent a terminal from handing over too early into the target cell.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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