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 .
This Office Action is a response to communications dated 08/14/2024. Claims 1-2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 18-23, and 25-27 are pending in the application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed 8/14/2024 and 5/12/2025 comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. They have been considered and placed in the application file.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the claim limitation of “before any connections for UEs are not established at the network node” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The specification is objected to as failing to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter. See 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1) and MPEP § 608.01(o). Correction of the following is required: the claim limitation of “before any connections for UEs are not established at the network node” as commonly recited in claims 1-2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 18-23, and 25-27.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 18-23, and 25-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As per claims 1-2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 18-23, and 25-27, there is no support for the claim limitation of “before any connections for UEs are not established at the network node” in the specification. In accordance with the specification, paragraphs [0009], [0037], [0054], and [0066], a feature is disclosed in verbatim as “the redundant connections may be in place before any UE 3 is connected to the main CU-CP 5C.” Such feature described in the before-mentioned paragraph appears to be opposite from the recitation in claims 1-2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, and 25-27. Therefore, from the disclosed feature, the claimed limitation of “before any connections for UEs are not established at the network node” cannot be unambiguously derived to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventors, at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
It is noted that there is no art applied in the determination of the allowability of the claims at this time. However, should the response to this Office Action overcome all of the above raised issues, the instant application shall be placed in a favorable condition for allowance because there appears no existing art found teaching a novel and unobvious invention reciting the limitations of “transmitting, to at least one of a user plane unit of a distributed base station and a distributed unit of the distributed base station, information identifying a further control plane unit to act as a redundant unit for a control plane unit of the distributed base station for a user equipment (UE) served by the control plane unit, before any connections for UEs are not established at the network node, wherein the information is used for activating the further control plane unit to act as the redundant unit due to a failure of the control plane unit,” structurally and functionally interconnected in a manner as claimed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Tamura et al. (US 2024/0365432).
Darshini et al. (US 12,149,939).
Teyeb et al. (US 2023/0292185).
Chenumolu et al. (US 2023/0276327).
Ishii (US 11,903,070).
Barabell et al. (US 11,595,831).
Yang et al. (US 2019/0297652).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRANK DUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-3164. The examiner can normally be reached 7:00AM-3:30PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MICHAEL THIER can be reached at 571-272-2832. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only: (1) Central Fax which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; (3) EFS WEB; or (4) the service window on the Alexandria campus. EFS web is the recommended way to submit the form since this allows the form to be entered into the file wrapper within the same day (system dependent). Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.03.
/FRANK DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474 August 14, 2026
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