DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 12/22/2025 has been entered and considered by Examiner. Claims 16,19-20,23-24,27-28 and 31 are presented for examination.
Specification
The title of the invention is objected for not being descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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 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.
Claim(s) 16, 19-20, 23-24, 27-28 and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohlsson et al. (US Pub. 20210250846 A1) in view of Shih et al. (US Pub. 20190394690 A1).
For claims 16 and 20, Ohlsson discloses a user equipment (UE) supporting a network energy saving (NES) mode in a wireless communication system ("the new latency and battery efficient UE state called inactive mode") [0007], the UE comprising: at least one transceiver (Fig. 5; the UE implementation expressly includes a transceiver.) [¶0161];
at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one transceiver (Fig. 5, element 505; the UE’s receiving and barring determinations are processor-performed.) [¶¶0142–0143, 0154]; and
at least one memory, communicatively coupled to the at least one processor (Fig. 5; processor 505 communicates through input/output ports and the transceiver.) [¶¶0156–0157, 0161–0163], storing instructions executable by the at least one processor individually or in any combination to cause the UE (Fig. 5; stored instructions configure the processing circuitry to carry out the disclosed UE operations.) [¶¶0158–0160, 0163] to:
receive, from a base station, a first access barring bit indicating whether a cell is barred (Figs. 1–2; the UE obtains a broadcast generic cellBarred indication and uses it in its access determination.) [¶¶0009, 0058–0060, 0098–0103],
receive, from the base station, a system information block 1 (SIB 1) (Figs. 1–2; the generic and/or feature-related access information is obtained from broadcast system information, expressly including SIB1.) [¶¶0009, 0108–0109],
if the first access barring bit indicates that the cell is barred (Fig. 2; one value of the generic indication denotes a barred cell.) [¶¶0009, 0100–0102, 0109] and a second access barring field indicating a cell barring status for a UE supporting NES mode (Fig. 3; Ohlsson adds a feature-specific barring indication, including cellBarred-5GC and cellBarred-CRS, alongside the generic indication. Applying this architecture to R2’s known NES class is addressed by the combination rationale.) [¶¶0009, 0011, 0013, 0069–0083].
But Ohlsson doesn’t explicitly teach if the first bit is barred and the second field is absent, determine that the cell is barred for the NES UE, perform cell reselection based on that determination
However, Shih discloses if the first access barring bit indicates that the cell is barred and a second access barring field indicating a cell barring status for a UE supporting NES mode is not configured in the SIB 1, determining that the cell is barred for the UE supporting the NES mode (Fig. 4; Shih expressly tests whether information fields are present in the received SIB/SIB1 and supplies behavior for absent information, treating the cell as barred where the flag has its non-access value and/or required information is absent. The conjunctive occurrence claimed is within that disclosed condition.) [¶¶ 0104–0106, 0108–0112], and
perform a cell re-selection based on the determination (Fig. 4; the barred/absent-information result leads to cell selection or reselection.) [¶0106].
Since, all are analogous arts addressing cell access schemes used in a mobile network; Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Ohlsson with Shih to ensure proper selection of targeted network cell(s), thus, improving network efficiency.
Claim 16 differs from claim 20 only by the additional recitation of the following limitation, which is also taught by the cited prior art. The cited prior art Ohlsson further discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) supporting a network energy saving (NES) mode in a wireless communication system [¶¶0007, 0142–0143, 0154-156], the method comprising:
All other identical limitations are rejected based on the same rationale as shown above.
For claims 19 and 23, Ohlsson disclose if the cell is not barred, performing a cell access procedure in the cell (Fig. 2, including the access-initiation step; after determining that access is permitted, the UE initiates access, including random access or camping.) [¶¶0113–0116].
For claims 24 and 28, Ohlsson discloses a base station in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising:
at least one transceiver (Fig. 6; the base-station implementation expressly includes a transceiver.) [¶0187];
at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one transceiver (Fig. 6; processor 604 communicates through the described ports and transceiver.) [¶¶0182–0183, 0187–0189]; and
at least one memory (Fig. 6, memory 605.) [¶0181], communicatively coupled to the at least one processor (Fig. 6; processing circuitry and memory collectively implement the base-station functions.) [¶¶0184–0189], storing instructions executable by the at least one processor individually or in any combination to cause the base station to (Fig. 6; stored program instructions cause the base station to carry out the described broadcasts and access functions.) [¶¶0184–0186, 0189]:
transmit, to a user equipment (UE) supporting a network energy saving (NES) mode ("the new latency and battery efficient UE state called inactive mode") [0007], a first access barring bit indicating whether a cell is barred (Fig. 4; the network node broadcasts the generic cell-barring indication. Application to R2’s NES-capable UE class follows from the stated combination.) [¶¶0122–0124, 0169–0170], and
transmit, to the UE supporting the NES mode, a system information block 1 (SIB 1) (Figs. 1 and 4; the network broadcasts the access-control indications in system information, expressly including SIB1.) [¶¶0009, 0108–0109, 0122–0124],
wherein, if the first access barring bit indicates that the cell is barred (the generic bit has a value expressly designating the cell barred.) [¶¶0009, 0100–0102, 0109] and a second access barring field indicating a cell barring status for a UE supporting NES mode (Fig. 3; the base station provides a second capability-specific barring flag in addition to the generic flag.) [¶¶0011, 0013, 0071–0083].
But Ohlsson doesn’t explicitly teach if the first access barring bit indicates that the cell is barred and a second access barring field indicating a cell barring status for a UE supporting NES mode is not configured in the SIB1, the cell is barred for the UE supporting the NES mode.
However, Shih discloses if the first access barring bit indicates that the cell is barred and a second access barring field indicating a cell barring status for a UE supporting NES mode is not configured in the SIB 1, the cell is barred for the UE supporting the NES mode (Fig. 4; Shih expressly tests whether information fields are present in the received SIB/SIB1 and supplies behavior for absent information, treating the cell as barred where the flag has its non-access value and/or required information is absent. The conjunctive occurrence claimed is within that disclosed condition.) [¶¶ 0104–0106, 0108–0112].
Since, all are analogous arts addressing cell access schemes used in a mobile network; Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Ohlsson with Shih to ensure proper selection of targeted network cell(s), thus, improving network efficiency.
Claim 24 differs from claim 28 only by the additional recitation of the following limitation, which is also taught by the cited prior art. The cited prior art Ohlsson further discloses a method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system [¶¶0184–0186, 0189], the method comprising: All other identical limitations are rejected based on the same rationale as shown above.
For claims 27 and 31, Ohlsson discloses if the cell is not barred for the UE supporting the NES mode, a cell access procedure is performed in the cell (Figs. 2 and 4; the base station broadcasts information enabling the permitted determination and facilitates UE access, including responding to random access.) [¶¶0113–0116, 0133–0136].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20120015657 A1 US 20260107319 A1 US 20250374182 A1
US 20250365658 A1 US 20240276349 A1 US 20230276343 A1
Inquiries
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to PAKEE FANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3633. The Examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9:00AM-5:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Armouche, Hadi can be reached on 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PAKEE FANG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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