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 .
Response to Amendment
This action is in reply to the Applicant’s amendments filed on 16 August 2024.
Claims 13, 18, and 19 have been amended.
Claims 20 and 21 have been added.
Claims 17 have been canceled.
Claims 1-16 and 18-21 are currently pending and have been examined.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 13 recites the limitation "the third message”, “fourth message”, and “fifth message” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim as claim 1 only cites the first message.
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 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 of this title, 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, 2, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. PGPub. No. 20210126738 to Vankayala et al. in further view of U.S. PGPub. No. 20190373627 to Luo et al.
As to Claims 1, 18, and 19, Vankayala discloses a network side device, non-transitory readable storage medium, and method, comprising: a progressor, a memory, and a program stored in the memory and executable on the processor (Fig. 1A, Fig. 2B, Fig. 5, paragraph [0074, 0029, 0034], where the communication network implemented in hardware, software, firmware, etc.):
wherein the network side device comprises a central unit CU and a distributing unit DU, and the method comprises (Fig. 2B,paragraph [0048], where the communication network includes the control unit (CU), distributed unit (DU) and the user equipment (UE – terminal));
sending a first message to the DU by the CU through a first interface, wherein the first message indicates information of coordinated cell of a terminal (Fig. 2B, paragraph [0048. 0076], where the CU feed (send) information regarding best cell (coordinated cell – cell for network communication) of the user equipment (terminal) after measuring the reference signal power and quality of the cells to the DU. Also the communication network connected through the network interface).
Vankayala disclose all of the subject matter as described above (Fig. 1A, Fig. 2B, Fig. 5, paragraph [0048, 0076]) except for cell of terminal configured by the DU.
However, It is well known in art to measure the reference signal power and quality of the cell tied to specific distribution unit. Also Luo in the same field of endeavor teaches the reporting measurement of reference signal power and quality of associated cell of the DU (Fig. 3, paragraph [0113, 0114, 0162]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention use the measurement of the reference signal associated with each cell of DU as taught by Luo to modify the network system and method of Vankayala to mitigate the interference and improve the quality of service to the UEs and base stations (Luo - paragraph [0162]).
As to Claim 2 and 20, Vankayala in view of Luo further discloses the transmission method wherein the first message indicate information of a coordinated cell newly added to or deleted from a terminal context (Vankayala - Fig. 1B, paragraph [0029, 0030, 0048], where the cell best suited for each UE is identified and information is updated (implicitly added/deleted as moved in and out of each cell region))(Luo – Fig. 3). The suggestion/motivation is the same as that used in the rejection for claims 1 and 18.
Claims 3 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. PGPub. No. 20210126738 to Vankayala et al. and U.S. PGPub. No. 20190373627 to Luo et al. in further view of 3GPP Publication TS 38.473 (V16.8.0) to 3GPP.
As to Claims 3 and 21, Vankayala discloses all of the subject matter as described above for sending a first message to the DU by the CU through a first interface, wherein the first message indicates information of coordinated cell of a terminal (Fig. 2B, paragraph [0048. 0076]) except for first message is a terminal context modification request message.
However, 3GPP in the same field of endeavor teaches the context modification request message from CU to DU (Fig. 8.3.4.2, Section 8.3.4.2, Page 48).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention use the various information type of message between the CU and DU as taught by 3GPP to modify the network system and method of Vankayala to support various communication standards and enhance the served cell management between the CU and DU.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-12 and 14-16 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art of record fail to anticipate or render obvious step of the terminal context modification request message comprises a predefined coordinated cell field, and the predefined coordinated cell field represents the information of the coordinated cell of the terminal.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SUNG S AHN whose telephone number is (571)270-3706. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 9-6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hannah Wang can be reached on 571-272-9018. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SUNG S AHN/Examiner, Art Unit 2631 (571)-270-3706
sung.ahn@uspto.gov