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 § 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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 7-11, 14-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by HONG (US 2024/0040457 A1-PCT Filed: Dec. 8, 2020).
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 16, HONG teaches a method of performing wireless communication by a user equipment (UE)/ a user equipment (UE), comprising: a transceiver configured to enable wireless communication in a non-terrestrial wireless network (NTN) (see pars. 0053-0055: the relative location relation between the terminal and the satellite, and the measurement information of the satellite cell is transmitted based on the relative location information, which provides CHO with more choices of handover conditions, thereby enhancing the CHO handover mode and improving the handover performance in the NTN system); and a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to/ a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a user equipment (UE), cause the UE to perform operations, the operations comprising:
receiving a message including a conditional handover instruction to perform a handover operation from a first base station in a serving cell to a second base station in a target cell (see pars 0103-0105: At step S301, configuration information of the candidate target cell is received from a base station, in which the configuration information of the candidate target cell is configured to configure the candidate target cell of the terminal for CHO. The configuration information may be used to configure one or more candidate target cells. The candidate target cell may be an adjacent cell of the serving cell in which the terminal is located), wherein the conditional handover instruction includes a channel quality condition for the handover operation and an additional condition for the handover operation (see pars 0103-0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc), and wherein the first base station and the second base station are in a non-terrestrial wireless network (NTN) (see par. 0125: Compared with CHO, which only supports handover based on the reference signal quality, the embodiment of the disclosure takes into account the relative location relation between the terminal and the satellite, the base station receives the measurement information of the satellite cell transmitted by the terminal based on the relative location information, thus having more choices of CHO handover conditions, thereby enhancing the CHO handover mode and improving the handover performance in the NTN system); determining an operation order between testing the channel quality condition and testing the additional condition (see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc. If the handover condition is satisfied, it can perform handover to the candidate target cell that satisfies the condition based on the configuration information); performing measurement operations to measure quality of a channel between the UE and the second base station in the target cell to test the channel quality condition ((see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc. If the handover condition is satisfied, it can perform handover to the candidate target cell that satisfies the condition based on the configuration information); determining whether the channel quality condition is met based on the measurement operations (see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc. If the handover condition is satisfied, it can perform handover to the candidate target cell that satisfies the condition based on the configuration information); determining whether the additional condition is met (see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc. If the handover condition is satisfied, it can perform handover to the candidate target cell that satisfies the condition based on the configuration information); and in response to a determination that the channel quality condition is met and a determination that the additional condition is met, performing the handover operation to handover the UE from the first base station to the second base station (see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc. If the handover condition is satisfied, it can perform handover to the candidate target cell that satisfies the condition based on the configuration information).
Regarding claims 2 and 17, HONG also teaches wherein the operation order indicates testing the channel quality condition is performed before testing the additional condition (see par. 0115: Compared with the way that the terminal only considers the reference signal quality information as the CHO condition, it is possible to combine various parameters such as the location of the terminal and the like, to improve the reliability of handover).
Regarding claims 7, 14 and 20, HONG also teaches in response to a determination that the additional condition is not met, maintaining connection on a channel between the UE and the first base station in the serving cell (see par. 0067 and par. 0069: In such case, whether to perform the handover, remaining location unchanged, or not performing the handover can be determined by the UE itself or can be determined according to other conditions or according to relevant communication protocols. Instead, if the elevation angle of the terminal's position is less than the second minimum elevation angle value, the terminal may not perform handover to the candidate target cell).
Regarding claims 8 and 15, HONG also teaches receiving a configuration from the first base station, wherein the configuration indicates the operation order between testing the channel quality condition and testing the additional condition (see par. 0105: After acquiring the configuration information, the terminal can determine whether a handover condition for the CHO is satisfied at any time during the communication process based on parameters such as its own location, a relative location relation with the satellite and/or the reference signal quality information, etc.).
Regarding claim 9, HONG also teaches wherein the additional condition is a distance condition indicating at least a starting distance to perform the handover operation,
the operation order indicates testing the distance condition is performed before testing the channel quality condition, the determining whether the additional condition is met comprises performing a distance measurement to test whether the distance condition is met, and the performing the measurement operations comprises performing the measurement operations after determining the distance condition is met (see pars. 0125-0129: Compared with CHO, which only supports handover based on the reference signal quality, the embodiment of the disclosure takes into account the relative location relation between the terminal and the satellite, the base station receives the measurement information of the satellite cell transmitted by the terminal based on the relative location information, thus having more choices of CHO handover conditions, thereby enhancing the CHO handover mode and improving the handover performance in the NTN system. [0126] In some embodiments, the satellite cell includes: a serving cell where the terminal is located and/or at least one candidate target cell, and the relative location information between the terminal and the satellite includes at least one of the followings: [0127] a first distance of a location of the terminal relative to a reference location of the serving cell; [0128] a second distance of the location of the terminal relative to a reference location of the at least one candidate target cell; [0129] a first minimum elevation angle value of the terminal capable of receiving a satellite signal corresponding to the serving cell; and [0130] a second minimum elevation angle value of the terminal capable of receiving a satellite signal corresponding to the at least one candidate target cell).
Regarding claim 10, HONG also teaches wherein the additional condition is a distance condition indicating at least a starting distance to perform the handover operation, the operation order indicates testing the distance condition is performed after testing the channel quality condition, and the determining whether the additional condition is met comprises performing a distance measurement to test the distance condition is met after determining the channel quality condition is met (see pars. 0125-0129: Compared with CHO, which only supports handover based on the reference signal quality, the embodiment of the disclosure takes into account the relative location relation between the terminal and the satellite, the base station receives the measurement information of the satellite cell transmitted by the terminal based on the relative location information, thus having more choices of CHO handover conditions, thereby enhancing the CHO handover mode and improving the handover performance in the NTN system. [0126] In some embodiments, the satellite cell includes: a serving cell where the terminal is located and/or at least one candidate target cell, and the relative location information between the terminal and the satellite includes at least one of the followings: [0127] a first distance of a location of the terminal relative to a reference location of the serving cell; [0128] a second distance of the location of the terminal relative to a reference location of the at least one candidate target cell; [0129] a first minimum elevation angle value of the terminal capable of receiving a satellite signal corresponding to the serving cell; and [0130] a second minimum elevation angle value of the terminal capable of receiving a satellite signal corresponding to the at least one candidate target cell).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 12-13 and 18-19 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.
Regarding claims 3, 12 and 18, the prior art of record does not mention wherein the additional condition is a time condition indicating a starting time T1 and an ending time T2 to perform the handover operation during a time range from T1 to T2, and the determining whether the additional condition is met comprises testing the starting time T1 is met and testing the ending time T2 is not exceeded, as specified in claims 3, 12 and 18. Therefore, it is objected.
Claims 4-6 depend on claim 3. Therefore, they are objected.
Claim 13 depends on claim 12. Therefore, it is objected.
Claim 19 depends on claim 18. Therefore, it is objected.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID Q NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-7844. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jinsong Hu can be reached at 5712723965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DAVID Q NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
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