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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/8/2024 and 10/24/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 28 and 29 are objected to because of the following informalities: Both claims depend on cancelled claim 1.
Appropriate correction is required.
For purpose of advanced prosecution claims are treated as dependent to claim 17.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 17, 18, 20-22, 24-28, 30-33 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liberg et al (US 2023/0060101) in view of Ericsson (3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting 115-e Tdoc R2-2108740, applicant’s IDS).
Regarding claims 17 and 30, Liberg discloses method and apparatus performed by a user equipment for monitoring paging from a non-terrestrial network (NTN) the method comprising: receiving, via the NTN, (i) a configuration for the UE to monitor paging messages from the NTN during a paging time window, PTW, while the UE operates in a non- connected state (Liberg 0056, 0058, 0070 and 0161 discloses configuring eDRX operation for NTN paging specifically assigning an eDRX period such that PTW is aligned with satellite passage. Further teaching operation in RRC idle and RRC inactive states).
Liberg further teaches a PTW indication indicating that the UE is allowed to adjust the PTW and modifying the PTW based on at least one NTN coverage time interval during which the UE has NTN coverage (0070 and 0161 discloses modifying the UE’s effective paging monitoring interval beyond the originally configured paging monitoring).
However, while Liberg does not clearly disclose receiving, via the NTN, a PTW extension indication indicating that the UE is allowed to adjust the PTW.
Ericsson teaches addressing discontinuous NTN coverage by providing signaling that allowed the UE to modify its paging monitoring (Proposals 4 and 5 disclose the network indicates a time window before and after a coverage gap within which additional paging occasions are monitored. Proposal 7 teaches the network indicated whether the UE is allowed to monitor additional paging occasions within the indicated time window).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to combine Ericsson’s signaling mechanism with Liberg’s PTW based paging in order to provide the UE with information for adapting its paging monitoring according to predicted NTN coverage and improve UE reachability during discontinuous satellite coverage.
Regarding claims 31 and 36, these claims are the network counter side of claims 17 and 30, same rejection above applies.
Regarding claim 18 , Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches the modifying includes: receiving assistance information related to attributes of NTN cells projected onto a surface of the Earth from a Non-Geosynchronous Orbit, NGSO, satellite that provides a quasi-Earth-fixed service link during the at least one NTN coverage time interval (Ericsson Proposal 2- the UE is informed when coverage will be available and that the UE estimates the moving coverage area and determined when the coverage is unavailable and when coverage returns based on satellite assistance information, such as ephemeris information).
Regarding claim 32, this claim is the network counter side of claim 18, same rejection above applies.
Regarding claim 20, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches receiving assistance information related to attributes of a non-geosynchronous orbit satellite that provides an Earth-Moving service link during the at least one NTN coverage time interval (Ericsson pages 2 and 3, teaches satellite assistance information such as ephemeris information during both earth-fixed and earth moving cells and UE estimates the moving coverage area using satellite assistance information).
Regarding claim 33, this claim is the network counter side of claim 20, same rejection above applies.
Regarding claim 21, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches the assistance information comprises satellite ephemeris information and/or an antenna panel angle (Ericsson Proposal 2).
Regarding claim 22, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches the configuration is an extended Discontinuous Reception, eDRX, configuration (Liberg 0070 teaches assigning an eDRX period).
Regarding claim 24, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches the receiving of the configuration and the PTW extension indication occurs while the UE operates in a connected state, the method further comprising: switching to the non-connected state (Ericsson Proposal 7 teaches that the network provides coverage monitoring and paging time windows prior to coverage gap including when the UE registers with its location. Furthermore, Ericsson teaches that the network indicates whether the UE is allowed to monitor additional paging.)
Regarding claim 25, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches the receiving of the configuration and the PTW extension indication via the NTN employs a first satellite, and the at least one NTN coverage time interval is provided using a second satellite different from the first satellite (Ericsson inherently teaches NGSO satellites with moving coverage and intermittent satellite availability further showing successive satellites provides coverage- handover and continuity service is inherent to both Liberg and Ericsson’s systems).
Regarding claim 26, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches modifying includes: extending the PTW to cover the at least one NTN coverage time interval during which the UE has NTN coverage (Ericsson Proposals 4, 5 and 7 specifically disclose the network indicates a time window before and after a coverage gap and indicates whether the UE is allowed to monitor additional paging within that time window- one would have understood that monitoring additional paging within the indicated time window as extending the effective PTW based paging to include the available NTN coverage interval.)
Regarding claim 27, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above teaches extending the PTW to cover at least one paging opportunity during the at least one NTN coverage time interval (Ericsson Proposal 4 and 7).
Regarding claim 28, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above disclose a PTW, paging monitoring and eDRX but fail to expressly disclose receiving a paging message during the PTW; and switching to a connected state if the paging message indicates a mobile terminated event. However, official notice is taken that it is well known it the art to have an idle UE receive paging and establish for example and RRC. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to employ conventional paging procedures within Liberg’s NTN paging framework because Liberg already teaches monitoring paging during a PTW and conventional paging procedures is a well known response to successful paging.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liberg et al (US 2023/0060101) in view of Ericsson (3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting 115-e Tdoc R2-2108740, applicant’s IDS) and further in view of Park et al (US 2023/0224839).
Regarding claim 19, Liberg as modified by Ericsson above disclose assistance information but fail to specifically disclose the assistance information comprises a reference location of a serving cell and/or a radius of the serving cell. However, Park teaches NTN assistance information includes serving cell reference location (Park 0086- In the NTN, when the frame boundary keeps changing over time, the UE may need to predict a downlink slot/frame boundary based at least in part on a UE location and NTN assistance information. The NTN assistance information may include satellite ephemeris information and/or feeder link time-drift information).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to use Park’s reference timing for in a NTN with Liberg’s existing paging because incorporating well known location parameters into an existing paging technique would only improve determination of the NTN coverage interval.
Claims 23 and 35 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liberg et al (US 2023/0060101) in view of Ericsson (3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting 115-e Tdoc R2-2108740, applicant’s IDS) and further in view of Li et al (US 2024/0323721).
Regarding claim 23, Liberg as modified above teaches eDRX configuration but fails to specifically disclose transmitting a preferred eDRX configuration. However, Li disclose transmitting a preferred eDRX configuration before the receiving of the configuration (Li figure 3 and 0040-0045, sending by the eNB, an indication of allowed eDRX to the UE via system information block AND sending by the UE, UE-specific DRX parameters and/or preferred eDRX parameters in an attach request or a tracking area update (TAU) request. Sending by the MME, an eDRX configuration to the UE after receiving the above-mentioned attach request or TAU request, in which the eDRX configuration carries one or more eDRX parameters aforementioned).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to use Li’s preferred eDRX parameters with Liberg’s existing paging in order to improve DRX configurations and achieve the desired power savings.
Regarding claim 35, this claim is the network counter side of claim 23, same rejection above applies.
Claims 29 and 34 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liberg et al (US 2023/0060101) in view of Ericsson (3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting 115-e Tdoc R2-2108740, applicant’s IDS) and further in view of Wang et al (US 2023/0038417).
Regarding claim 29, Liberg as modified above fails to specifically disclose receiving, during the PTW, a PTW indication specifying a second PTW.
However, Wang discloses during a first PTW, a PTW indication specifying a second PTW (Wang 0011- where the first duration indicates a time interval to a next PTW or a time interval to a next paging.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to use Wang’s data transmission paging with Liberg’s existing paging framework in order to provide Liberg with computing resources of the first network device such as a core network device can be saved, an interaction procedure is simple, and flexibility is higher.
Regarding claim 34, this claim is the network counter side of claim 29, same rejection above applies.
Conclusion
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/EDAN ORGAD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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