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 .
Amendments 09/23/2026 is/are entered.
Claims 1, 2, 17, 22, 23, 28, 65, 67-79 are pending.
Claims 22-23, 28, 75-79 are withdrawn as being directed to non-elected invention.
Response to Amendment
In Remarks and amendments filed 09/23/2026, Applicant has amended the claims and elected Group 1 including claims 1, 2, 65, and 67-74. In view of the amendment, a review and updated ground of restriction has been necessitated. The examiner assert that the language “for multi-cell BFD” is superficial at best, a narrative that expresses an intended use, and in an ambiguous way at that. There is no evidence in the claims that the steps and structures are exclusive to multi-cell BFD. Simply inserting such a general intended use statement simply is not sufficient to handwave a Restriction/Election Requirement.
As they stand, both Groups merely share the common step generic communication of the UAI. The UE side performs most of the heavy lifting with special technical features unique to the UE side that the Base Station side simply does not perform, such as determining status of the prohibition timer expiration, generating the UAI content and cell list creation, determining cell list creation condition. None of these acts are done at the base station. The alleged “Group I and II having a technical relationship” only goes as far as “the base station receives the UAI”. That alone cannot change the fact that the base station is passive receiver in this process and does not share the UE’s technical elements of determining status of the prohibition timer expiration, generating the UAI content and cell list creation, determining cell list creation condition. A base station might be allowed to be included in a system claim (claim 67 for example) which in fact actively recites and requires UE’s operation in its entirety (and only for that reason alone). In its own claim set, the base station simply does not share the mentioned special technical features performed by the UE. Group 2 can be practiced separately on their own merits because it merely receives UAI from any UE that sends the UAI, regardless of whether the UE perform the method recited in group I. A reference that discloses a base station that receives the UAI would not necessarily includes the UE’s listed features above. Conversely, should Group I be found allowable because of the UE’s determining status of the prohibition timer expiration, generating the UAI content and cell list creation, and determining cell list creation condition, Group II would not be also allowable because the base station does not perform such steps (Even if Applicant were to attempt to recite those UE’s limitations in Group II, it would be non-limiting narrative describing on the UE’s side when the claims are in fact directed to the base station and, thus, subjected to a rejection under 35 USC 112 – Fourth paragraph)
As an updated search necessitated by the amendments, References US 2025/0119765 as well as 2024/03124617 discloses at least the common feature reporting UAI reporting for BFD for cells. As generic step of communication of UAI for BFD is already disclosed by prior art, and the base station simply does not participate in determining status of the prohibition timer expiration, generating the UAI content and cell list creation, determining cell list creation condition, the Groups I and II lack unity of the invention. The restriction is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 17, 65, 67-68, 71-72 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Koskinen et al. (US 2025/0119765) in view of Martin et al. (US 2024/0314617).
As to claim 1:
Koskinen discloses:
A method for processing user assistance information (UAI), performed by a user equipment (UE), (See at least ¶0054-0057, claims 1/26, method performed by a UE that processes and transmits UAI) comprising:
for beam failure detection (BFD) in a system of a plurality of cells, determining to enable a prohibition timer,
(See at least ¶0054, 0060, 0070, UAI prohibit timer for managing measurement relaxation reporting. ¶0046, 0044, 0022-024, 0068, 0082, BFD measurement to detect/prevent failures in a system of a plurality of cells)
wherein reporting of UAI is allowed when the prohibition timer expires, (See at least ¶0052, while the timer is running, the UAI is not to be transmitted. ¶0074 – Fig. 2, Step 218-220, UE to transmit the report after the timer has expired. ¶0044, 0057, transmitting the report based on the expiry of the UAI prohibition timer) the UAI is configured to indicate whether the UE meets a relaxation measurement condition. (¶0054, 0057, 0069, 0074, expressively teach the report may be transmitted as UAI. The report may indicate a measurement relaxation condition. For example, the report may indicate that a measurement relaxation condition is met or not met.)
Regarding: “for multi-cell BFD”, Koskinen does not refer to the exact wording “multi-cell” BFD, however Nokia already discloses BFD measurement relaxation in wireless system that handovers with neighbor cells occurs wherein failure might occur (See at least ¶0046, 0044, 0022-024)
Martin, in a related field of relaxation of RF monitoring requirements in RF system, makes such suggestion more explicit. Specifically, it teaches a report of the measurement-relaxation state that includes respective indication for each of plurality of serving cells in the context of BFD (See claim 1, 9).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to apply Martin’s teaching of reporting BFD measurement report with indicators for each serving sells to the system of Koskinen to arrive at a UAI transmission that has a respective indication of a respective measurement relaxation state information for each of a plurality of serving cells for multi-cell BFD. Both references address the same technical problem of power-efficient RLM/BFD measurement relaxation reporting. This report reduces signal overhead/load as multiple cells are reported in one UAI transmission, and further motivated by Koskinen’s desire to prevent radio link or handover failures may be caused because neighbor cells for handover candidates are not measured early enough (Koskinen, ¶0044).
As to claim 65:
Koskinen discloses:
A communication device, comprising a processor, a transceiver, a memory, and an executable program stored on the memory and capable of being executed by the processor (Fig. 3, ¶0083, processor/memory/transceiver); wherein, when the processor is configured to:, (See at least ¶0054-0057, claims 1/26, method performed by a UE that processes and transmits UAI) comprising:
for beam failure detection (BFD) in a system of a plurality of cells, determining to enable a prohibition timer,
(See at least ¶0054, 0060, 0070, UAI prohibit timer for managing measurement relaxation reporting. ¶0046, 0044, 0022-024, 0068, 0082, BFD measurement to detect/prevent failures in a system of a plurality of cells)
wherein reporting of UAI is allowed when the prohibition timer expires, (See at least ¶0052, while the timer is running, the UAI is not to be transmitted. ¶0074 – Fig. 2, Step 218-220, UE to transmit the report after the timer has expired. ¶0044, 0057, transmitting the report based on the expiry of the UAI prohibition timer) the UAI is configured to indicate whether the UE meets a relaxation measurement condition. (¶0054, 0057, 0069, 0074, expressively teach the report may be transmitted as UAI. The report may indicate a measurement relaxation condition. For example, the report may indicate that a measurement relaxation condition is met or not met.)
Regarding: “for multi-cell BFD”, Koskinen does not refer to the exact wording “multi-cell” BFD, however Nokia already discloses BFD measurement relaxation in wireless system that handovers with neighbor cells occurs wherein failure might occur (See at least ¶0046, 0044, 0022-024)
Martin, in a related field of relaxation of RF monitoring requirements in RF system, makes such suggestion more explicit. Specifically, it teaches a report of the measurement-relaxation state that includes respective indication for each of plurality of serving cells in the context of BFD (See claim 1, 9).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to apply Martin’s teaching of reporting BFD measurement report with indicators for each serving sells to the system of Koskinen to arrive at a UAI transmission that has a respective indication of a respective measurement relaxation state information for each of a plurality of serving cells for multi-cell BFD. Both references address the same technical problem of power-efficient RLM/BFD measurement relaxation reporting. This report reduces signal overhead/load as multiple cells are reported in one UAI transmission, and further motivated by Koskinen’s desire to prevent radio link or handover failures may be caused because neighbor cells for handover candidates are not measured early enough (Koskinen, ¶0044).
As to claim 67:
A system for processing user assistance information (UAI), comprising: a user equipment (UE), configured to perform the method according to claim 1, and is thus rejected by the same reasonings as claim 1 above over Koskinen in view of Martin.
and a base station, configured to receiving UAI sent by the UE, wherein the UAI is configured to indicate whether the UE meets the relaxation measurement condition for multi- cell. (Koskinen, Fig. 2, ¶0057-0059, network node 120, i.e. base station receiving said UAI disclosed by Koskinen in view of Martin.
As to claim 2:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 1, wherein the relaxation measurement condition comprises at least one of: a cell signal quality relaxation measurement condition; or a low mobility relaxation measurement condition. (See Koskinen, ¶0052-0053, criteria includes signal power/beam quality measurement. Martin, ¶0009, criteria further includes lower threshold mobility detection)
As to claim 68:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 1, wherein the UAI comprises one or more cell identifications for indicating one or more cells, the one or more cell identifications are configured to indicate whether the UE meets the relaxation measurement condition in a corresponding serving cell. (As previously stated, Martin (claim 1/9), report includes a respective indication of a respective measurement relaxation status information for each of a plurality of serving cells. Koskinen specifically clarifies in ¶0054, 0057, and 0069 , UAI is used to report a measurement relaxation status of UE with respect to a given serving cell, wherein a measurement relaxation status may indicate whether a condition for RRM/RLM/BFD measurement relaxation is met or not)
As to claim 17:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 68, wherein the one or more cell identifications comprises: one or more cell identifications of one or more cells that meets the relaxation measurement condition; or one or more cell identifications of one or more cells that does not meet the relaxation measurement condition. (Koskinen specifically clarifies in ¶0054, 0057, and 0069 , UAI is used to report a measurement relaxation status of UE with respect to a given serving cell, wherein a measurement relaxation status may indicate whether a condition for RRM/RLM/BFD measurement relaxation is met or not. Martin (claim 1/9), report includes a respective indication of a respective measurement relaxation status information for each of a plurality of serving cells)
As to claim 71:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 68, further comprising: creating a cell list for the multi-cell BFD, wherein the cell list comprises one or more cell identifications for indicating one or more cells. (Koskinen in combination with martin discloses sending a UAI relaxation measurement report for multi-cell BFD as applied above. Koskinen’s own report already identifies the serving cell. Martin in claim 1 and 2 discloses cell set including a plurality of serving cells (i.e. cell list), each entry includes cell indicator to distinguish from each other with a respective measurement relaxation state information. Koskinen, ¶0100 discloses each list member has an identifier to uniquely identify and separate a member)
As to claim 72:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 71, wherein creating a cell list for the multi- cell BFD comprises at least one of:
when a primary cell of the UE meets the relaxation measurement condition, creating the cell list comprising a cell identification of the primary cell;
when a secondary cell of the UE meets the relaxation measurement condition, adding a cell identification of the secondary cell that meets the relaxation measurement condition to the cell list;
or when a secondary cell whose cell identification is in the cell list does not meet the relaxation measurement condition, deleting the cell identification of the secondary cell that does not meet the relaxation measurement condition from the cell list.
(Koskinen, Wireless network node 120 may be considered as a serving node for UE 110 and one cell of wireless network node 120 may be a serving cell for UE 110 per ¶0046, i.e. the cell where the UE is in RRC connected mode (¶0054), which by definition a primary cell. Koskinen in combination with martin discloses sending a UAI relaxation measurement report for multi-cell BFD as applied above. Koskinen’s own report already identifies the serving cell. Martin in claim 1 and 2 discloses cell set including a plurality of serving cells (i.e. cell list), each entry includes cell indicator to distinguish from each other with a respective measurement relaxation state information. Koskinen, ¶0100 discloses each list member has an identifier to uniquely identify and separate a member)
Claim(s) 69-70 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Koskinen et al. (US 2025/0119765) in view of Martin et al. (US 2024/0314617) and in further view Sengupta et al. (US 2020/0383167).
As to claim 69:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 1, further comprising: in response to the prohibition timer expiring, sending the UAI based on the one or more cell identifications for indicating one or more cells, wherein the UAI comprises an indicator corresponding to each serving cell of the UE. (Koskinen, ¶0052, 0074, steps 217-220, expressively teaches transmitting the UAI report of the measurement-relaxation status when the UAI prohibit timer is not running. Martin in the combination discloses the report includes per-cell basis indicia for each serving cell identifying each (Claim 1 of Martin).
Except that neither of the references names the usage of a bitmap as vehicle to convey indicators corresponding to each serving cell of the UE.
Sengupta, in a related field of endeavor, discloses, in at least ¶0120-0123, teaches the well-known technique of encoding per-cell status (in this case beam failure status) as a compact bitmap in which one bit corresponds to one serving cell in the same context of a cell report.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to send Koskinen/Martin UAI report in a concise and compact form that carries cell-specific information by encoding them as a bitmap corresponding to each serving cell. The bitmap implementation is a well-established practice that has the advantage of compact signaling choices with clear track record of effectiveness and ease of implementation.
As to claim 70:
Koskinen in view of Martin and Sengupta discloses all limitations of claim 69, wherein the bitmap comprises a plurality of bits, one bit corresponds to one cell. (Sengupta, at least ¶0120-0124, encoding per-cell status (in this case beam failure status) as a compact bitmap in which one bit corresponds to one serving cell in the same context of a cell report. Specifically, a plurality of bits (1-octet or 4-octet bitmap) wherein one bit (C_i) corresponds to one cell (index i))
Claim(s) 73-74 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Koskinen et al. (US 2025/0119765) in view of Martin et al. (US 2024/0314617) and in further view of 3GPP TS 36.331 (V15.3.0)(2018) – relevant excerpt is provided with this Action.
As to claim 73:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 71, and regarding: clearing or deleting the cell list when a primary cell of the UE does not meet the relaxation measurement condition; and sending UAI indicating not expecting relaxation measurement when the cell list is empty or the cell list is deleted.
The claim is directed to house-keeping concept for keeping the UAI concise yet sufficient by removing entries (cells) that do not meet the relaxation measurement condition and sent the cleaned up cell list.
Koskinen already discloses the UE to determine, for a serving cell, whether said BFD measurement relaxation condition is met and transmit the report (UAI) subjected to a timer (See ¶0052, 0054, 0057). Martin discloses a list of serving cells with respective indication of the measurement-relaxation condition. They are silent on said clearing or deleting the cell list when a primary cell of the UE does not meet the relaxation measurement condition before sending the cell list.
TS 36.311, in a related field of cell list management for reporting, discloses section 5.5.2.5 that a measObject includes cellsToRemoveList. And “for each cellIndex included in the cellsToRemoveList: remove the entry with matching cellIndex”. Section 5.3.10.3a similarly provides that upon reception of an sCellToReleaseList, the UE releases each listed Scell. As such, TS 36.331.V15.3.0 defines expressively the conventional practice of housekeeping for cell list by trimming (removing) cell entries that are unnecessary to keep the list concise and reduce transmission load.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the cell list of Koskinen/Martin to incorporate clearing or deleting the cell list when a primary cell of the UE does not meet the relaxation measurement condition before sending the cell list. Koskinen expressively teaches that UAI report indicates whether the measurement-relaxation condition is met or not met (¶057, 0074). When the list is empty (no cells meet) or has been deleted, the natural and only content of the UAI is the indication that the UE is not expecting relaxation measurement. The set of cells whose relaxation status is reported is simply another cell list. When a cell no longer meets the condition, POSITA would have applied such house-keeping measure that remove unnecessary entries before UAI is sent with the indication that the UE is not expecting relaxation measurement. Doing so effectively reduces signal loads/overhead.
As to claim 74:
Koskinen in view of Martin discloses all limitations of claim 71, regarding:
sending the UAI carrying an updated cell list when a cell identification in the cell list is updated and the prohibition timer expires; wherein the cell identification in the cell list being updated comprises: adding and/or deleting the cell identification in the cell list.
Koskinen already discloses the UE to determine, for a serving cell, whether said BFD measurement relaxation condition is met and transmit the report (UAI) subjected to a timer (See ¶0052, 0054, 0057). Martin discloses a list of current serving cells with respective indication of the measurement-relaxation condition, implying the list is updated to include cells the UE is currently in RRC connected. They are, however, silent on explicit language regarding: adding and/or deleting the cell identification in the cell list.
TS 36.311, in a related field of cell list management for reporting, discloses section 5.5.2.5 that a measObject includes cellsToRemoveList. And “for each cellIndex included in the cellsToRemoveList: remove the entry with matching cellIndex”. Section 5.3.10.3a similarly provides that upon reception of an sCellToReleaseList, the UE releases each listed Scell. As such, TS 36.331.V15.3.0 defines expressively the conventional practice of updating cell list, in the sense of housekeeping for cell list by trimming (removing) cell entries that are unnecessary to keep the list concise and reduce transmission load.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the cell list of Koskinen/Martin to incorporate clearing or deleting the cell list when a primary cell of the UE does not meet the relaxation measurement condition before sending the cell list. Koskinen expressively teaches that UAI report indicates whether the measurement-relaxation condition is met or not met (¶057, 0074). When the list is empty (no cells meet) or has been deleted, the natural and only content of the UAI is the indication that the UE is not expecting relaxation measurement. The set of cells whose relaxation status is reported is simply another cell list. When a cell no longer meets the condition, POSITA would have applied such house-keeping measure that remove unnecessary entries before UAI is sent with the indication that the UE is not expecting relaxation measurement. Doing so effectively reduces signal loads/overhead.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
HE (US 2021/0352507) - To more efficiently utilize resources, a UE may receive, from a base station, RRM measurement relaxation criteria for a stationary UE. The UE may skip one or more RRM measurements based on the RRM measurement relaxation criteria for the stationary UE.
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/QUAN M HUA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645
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