DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 08/09/2024. Claims 1 and through 12 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
4. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2-4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 2, 4, and 10 recite the limitation "RRCReconfigurationcomplete". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng et al. (US 2024/0007922 A1) in view of Wu et al. (US 2016/0100341 A1).
For claim 1 Cheng teaches an operation method of a remote user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Fig. 4 “Remote UE 405”), the method comprising:
transmitting, by the remote UE, uplink data to a base station (BS) (paragraph 107 receive an uplink from remote UE and forward to base station 415”);
receiving, by the remote UE, a discovery message from one or more candidate relay UEs (paragraph 84 “remote UE receives a discovery signal from the relay UE”);
reporting, by the remote UE, a measurement result for the one or more candidate relay UEs to the BS (paragraph 52 “remote UE reporting measurements” and paragraph 97 “remote UE may compare the measured channel metric for the current relay connection to a threshold value (results) and trigger measurement report”); and
receiving, by the remote UE, an RRCReconfiguration message related to a relay UE selected from among the one or more candidate relays from the BS (paragraph 105 “Remote UE receiving RRC reconfiguration… accordingly, the remote UE communicate with the base station via the selected candidate relay UE based on the handover procedure”),
wherein the remote UE performs RRC re-establishment related to handover failure based on receiving information notifying a cell change from the relay UE (paragraph 82 “”RRC protocol provide establishment, configuration and maintenance of an RRC connection between remote UE and a base station”, paragraph 100 “the remote relay determines the candidate relays, candidate cells, or both based on the supported candidates for a handover procedure”, paragraph 228 “handover command indicating (notifying)”).
Cheng does not explicitly teach wherein the remote UE performs RRC re-establishment related to handover failure based on receiving information notifying a cell change from the relay UE.
However, Wu teaches one of functions of mobility robustness optimization (MRO) is to be able to detect link failure which occurs in movement, the link failure including handover too late, handover too early and handover to a wrong cell…radio link failure (handover failure) occurs, the terminal equipment performs connection reestablishment in another cell--MRO defines three handover type: the handover too late, the handover too early, and the handover to wrong cell (Wu: paragraphs 3-7). In addition, Wu teaches cell change notification and other notification messages (Wu: paragraph 82).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Wu in the handover procedures of Cheng in order to the remote UE performs connection reestablishment in another cell upon a handover failure (Wu: paragraphs 3-7).
For claim 2 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method, wherein the cell change includes a case in which a cell at a time the relay UE transmits the discovery message is different from a cell at a time the relay UE receives the RRCReconfigurationcomplete message from the remote UE (Cheng: Fig. 4 “RRC reconfiguration Complete-wherein the source base station (source cell) is different than target base station (target cell)”).
For claim 3 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the cell at the time the relay UE transmits the discovery message includes a cell on which the relay UE camps (Cheng: paragraph 100 “The DE 115-d may monitor for
discovery signals (e.g., discovery messages) from potential relay candidates and may determine a set of UEs 115 corresponding to candidate DE-to-network relays based on
the received discovery messages, criteria for candidate UE-to- network relays, or both” and paragraph 102 “he serving or camping cell ID associated with the relay”).
For claim 4 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the cell at the time the relay UE receives the RRCReconfigurationcomplete message includes a cell to which the relay UE is connected (Cheng: Fig. 4 “RRC reconfiguration/Handover Command messaging between Remote UE, Source Relay and source base station”)
For claim 5 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method, wherein the remote UE determines the cell change by using a cell ID (Cheng: paragraph 102 “the measurement report includes cell ID”).
For claim 6 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method of claim 2, wherein each of the one or more candidate relay UEs triggers transmission of the discovery message based on a change in the cell on which each candidate relay UE camps (Cheng: paragraph 90 “the UE may receive discovery signals broadcast by one or more candidate relay UEs and may select a relay UE from the candidate relay UEs to operate as the L2 relay for the UE based on channel metrics or other selection criteria”).
For claim 7 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method, further comprising:
establishing a connection with the relay UE by the remote UE (Cheng: paragraph 56 “communication establishment between a base station and a UE”); and
transmitting an RRCReconfigurationcomplete message to the BS through the relay UE by the remote UE (Cheng: Fig. 4 “RRC reconfiguration Complete”).
For claim 8 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method of claim 7, wherein, based on that the relay UE performs cell reselection or handover, the RRCReconfigurationcomplete message is not delivered to the BS (Cheng: Fig. 4 “RRC reconfiguration Complete—the RRCReconfigurationcomplete message is not delivered to the BS—is a design or configuration choice”).
For claim 9 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method, wherein the remote UE does not perform a connection establishment procedure with the relay UE based on receiving information notifying the cell change (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 10 Cheng in view of Wu teaches the method, wherein the remote UE does not transmit RRCReconfigurationcomplete to the BS after establishing a connection with the relay UE based on receiving information notifying the cell change (as discussed in claim 1 and 8—configuration or design choice).
For claim 11 Cheng in view of Wu teaches a remote user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (as discussed in claim 1), the remote UE comprising:
at least one processor (Cheng: Fig. 8 “processor 840”); and
at least one computer memory operatively connected to the at least one processor and configured to store instructions (Cheng: Fig. 8 “memory 830 and code 835”) that when executed cause the at least one processor to perform operations including:
transmitting uplink data to a base station (BS) (as discussed in claim 1);
receiving a discovery message from one or more candidate relay UEs (as discussed in claim 1);
reporting a measurement result for the one or more candidate relay UEs to the BS (as discussed in claim 1); and
receiving an RRCReconfiguration message related to a relay UE selected from among the one or more candidate relays from the BS (as discussed in claim 1),
wherein the remote UE performs RRC re-establishment related to handover failure based on receiving information notifying a cell change from the relay UE (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 12 Cheng in view of Wu teaches a processing apparatus related to a remote user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (as discussed in claim 1), the apparatus comprising:
at least one processor (Cheng: Fig. 8 “processor 840”) ; and
at least one computer memory operatively connected to the at least one processor and configured to store instructions (Cheng: Fig. 8 “memory 830 and code 835”) that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform operations including:
transmitting uplink data to a base station (BS) (as discussed in claim 1);
receiving a discovery message from one or more candidate relay UEs (as discussed in claim 1);
reporting a measurement result for the one or more candidate relay UEs to the BS; and receiving an RRCReconfiguration message related to a relay UE selected from among the one or more candidate relays from the BS (as discussed in claim 1),
wherein the remote UE performs RRC re-establishment related to handover failure based on receiving information notifying a cell change from the relay UE (as discussed in claim 1).
Conclusion
6. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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