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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (US 20260046738) in view of Cui (CN 116634513, machine translated version is used).
Regarding claim 1, Xu discloses a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) connected to a serving cell, the WTRU comprising: a processor (fig. 9) configured to:
receive configuration information, wherein the configuration information indicates a first terrestrial network (TN) cell (fig. 4, [0057], receives a conditional handover command or configuration; the CHO includes a condition #1 associated with a candidate TN-cell-1);
determine that the serving cell is not suitable based on a determination that a first condition is satisfied, wherein the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell ([0043][0068], the UE's data throughput is increased and the NTN cell cannot offer more data rate to the UE 110, the serving cell may be an NTN cell, such as the NTN cell 152);
determine that a first alternate cell is not suitable for handover based on a determination that a second condition is satisfied, wherein the first alternate cell is the first TN cell ([0058], fig. 4, selects TN-cell 1 when condition #1 is met, which may imply that condition #2 is not met, where TN cell 2 is not selected and associated with #2),
based on the determination that the first alternate cell is not suitable for handover, determine a second alternate cell as a candidate alternate cell, wherein the second alternate cell is a second TN cell ([0058], fig. 4, selects TN-cell 1 when condition #1 is met, which may imply that condition #2 is not met, TN cell 2 is associated with #2. Here, the TN-cell 2 corresponding to the first alternate cell; and TN-cell 1 is the second alternate cell).
Xu only implicitly discloses determine the first alternate cell is not suitable for handover based on a determination that a second condition is satisfied, that is, Xu does not explicitly disclose determine that a first alternate cell is not suitable for handover based on a determination that a second condition is satisfied;
transmit a wake-up signal (WUS) to the second alternate cell.
Cui discloses determine that a first alternate cell is not suitable for handover based on a determination that a second condition is satisfied, wherein the first alternate cell is the first TN cell (Cui, [0038][0072], if waking up a base station (a first alternate cell) fails; the target base station 102 is a base station that connects the terminal device to the ground cellular network or a TN);
based on the determination that the first alternate cell is not suitable for handover, determine a second alternate cell as a candidate alternate cell, wherein the second alternate cell is a second TN cell (Cui, [0072], if waking up a base station (a first alternate cell) fails, the communication device regenerates the list of base stations to be woken up based on the current location of the terminal device and the base station, and then wakes up the selected base station from the regenerated list of the base stations; [0062]);
transmit a wake-up signal (WUS) to the second alternate cell (Cui, [0072], then wakes up the selected base station from the regenerated list of the base stations; [0062]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of handoff between NTN and TN as given by Xu with the teachings of utilizing wake-up signals to save energy given by Cui. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide wide communication coverage in remote areas and saving more energy (Cui, 0004][0116]).
Claim 11 is rejected similarly with claim 1.
Regarding claims 2, 12, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:
perform a measurement associated with the second alternate cell (Cui, [0010], the terminal device measuring that the signal received power of other cells; [0072][0062]);
determine a third alternate cell based on the measurement; and monitor the third alternate cell (Cui, [0010], the terminal device measuring that the signal received power of other cells besides the cell accessed by the terminal device is greater than a preset power threshold; [0072][0062]).
Regarding claims 3, 13, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 2, wherein the measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement, wherein the measurement is performed within a duration after the transmission of the WUS (Cui. [0010][0062][0072]), and
wherein the processor is further configured to: determine that the RSRP measurement is greater than a threshold, wherein the third alternate cell determined based on the measurement is based on the determination that the RSRP measurement is greater than a threshold (Cui. [0010][0062][0072]).
Regarding claims 4, 14, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to: send an indication to the serving cell that indicates an identity of the third alternate cell; and send an indication to the third alternate cell indicating to stay awake (Cui, [0072], successfully waking up the base station, the terminal device disconnects from the target satellite).
Regarding claims 5, 15, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine that a third condition is satisfied, wherein the third condition is associated with at least one of the serving cell or the third alternate cell; based on the determination that the third condition is satisfied, determine that the third alternate cell is suitable for mobility; and based on the determination that the third alternate cell is suitable for mobility, perform at least one of, a handover to the third alternate cell (Xu, [0070]; the UE 110/201 determines whether a service based handover condition is met. At block 720, the UE 110/201 switches from a first cell to a second cell if the service based handover condition is met, where the first cell is one of an NTN cell and a TN cell, the second cell is the other of the NTN cell and the TN cell.), or a transmission of an indication to the third alternate cell, wherein the indication requests a wake-up of the third alternate cell if the third alternate cell is in an NES state (Cui, [0072][0116]). It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claims 6, 16, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein the second alternate cell is determined based on one or more of a WTRU location, a satellite location associated with an NTN cell, a TN cell reference location, NTN cell ephemeris information, an NTN cell network energy savings (NES) state, an NTN beam NES state, or a TN cell NES state (Xu, [0033]; Cui, [0122], determine at least one candidate base station based on the location of the terminal device and the location distribution of base stations in the area where the terminal device is located). It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claims 7, 17, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein the first condition is associated with a measurement on a reference signal from the serving cell, an active quality of service (QoS) requirement (Xu, [0068]), a satellite orbit, satellite ephemeris information, a satellite service time, a beam hopping pattern, or beam power sharing. It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claims 8, 18, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein the configuration information further indicates one or more of a network energy savings (NES) state associated with the first TN cell, a first reference location associated with the first TN cell, or a WUS configuration associated with the first TN cell (Cui, [0122], determine at least one candidate base station based on the location of the terminal device and the location distribution of base stations in the area where the terminal device is located). It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claims 9, 19, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein the WUS is transmitted using a WUS configuration, and wherein the processor is further configured to: determine the WUS configuration, wherein the WUS configuration is determined based on one or more of a WTRU location, a satellite location associated with an NTN cell, satellite ephemeris information, or a reference location, wherein the WUS configuration is an area-specific WUS configuration (Cui, [0072][0122], determine at least one candidate base station based on the location of the terminal device and the location distribution of base stations in the area where the terminal device is located, regenerating the list based on the location of the terminal, send the wake-up signal or configuration). It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claims 10, 20, Xu and Cui disclose the WTRU of claim 1, wherein to determine the second alternate cell, the processor is further configured to: send assistance information to the serving cell, wherein the assistance information includes WTRU location information; and receive, from the serving cell, an indication indicating the second alternate cell, wherein the second alternate cell is determined based on the indication (Xu, fig. 4, CHO command, including candidate cells and conditions; Cui, [0035], the QoS of the service requested by the terminal device).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHENSHENG ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1985. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8:00am-6:00pm.
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/ZHENSHENG ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474
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