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 .
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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, 2, 6, 13, 15, 34, 37-41, 43-46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Damnjanovic et al. (US 2022/0007314, hereinafter “Damnjanovic ‘314”) in view of Kung et al. (US 2023/0308962, hereinafter “Kung”).
For claims 1, 37 and 38, Damnjanovic ‘314 discloses A method for a serving-cell change procedure performed by a wireless device (FIG. 12 is a call flow diagram 1200 illustrating L1/L2-based mobility; see Damnjanovic1 par. 0085 and Fig. 12), the method comprising:
receiving a L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling transmitted by a wireless communication node (a UE 1202 receives mobility signaling with a trigger to perform a RACH procedure with an identified cell. As illustrated, the UE 1202 receives L1/L2 mobility signaling 1210 (e.g., PHY layer or MAC layer mobility signaling). Generally, the L1/L2 mobility signaling includes information identifying a cell to add to the activated cell set (e.g., cell 1106 in this example) and a trigger indicating that the UE is to perform a RACH procedure with the identified cell (e.g., cell 1106); see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0085, 0081) in response to a cell measurement report from the wireless device (The PHY layer or MAC layer mobility signaling may be received, for example, in response to measurement reports provided to a network entity or based on transmission of one or more reference signals to a network entity for the network entity to use in measuring a channel; see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0070); and
Damnjanovic ‘314 suggests that source and target cells are supported by (belong to) the same DU. Thus, L1/L2 mobility may be particularly attractive in this scenario, as the cells can share MAC and upper layers (same DU). In this scenario, when performing a handover via L1/L2 signaling, the data path at MAC and above stays the same (see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0056). However, Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose triggering in the wireless device the serving-cell change procedure from a source serving cell of the wireless device to a target serving cell, the serving-cell change procedure comprising a set of serving-cell change operations being executed within layer-1 and layer-2. Kung discloses triggering in the wireless device the serving-cell change procedure from a source serving cell of the wireless device to a target serving cell (mobility procedure could contain that the UE triggers and/or generates a message (and transmits) to a target cell (PCell, PSCell, neighbouring Cell or a SCell); see Kung par. 0758 and Fig. 12), the serving-cell change procedure comprising a set of serving-cell change operations being executed within layer-1 and layer-2 (A (L1/L2) mobility procedure could contain a serving cell providing first information to a UE indicating/providing configuration associated with at least a target cell. The first information could provide configuration associated with one or more Cells or one or more CGs. The configuration could contain cell addition information and/or beam information associated with the target cell. The first information could be a dedicated signaling to the UE. The source cell could provide second information to the UE indicating initiation of a mobility procedure to the target cell; see Kung par. 0759 and Fig. 12). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kung's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to provide a method and apparatus for failure handling in serving cell change in a wireless communication system (see Kung par. 0002).
Specifically for claim 37, Damnjanovic ‘314 discloses A wireless device comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the processor is configured to read computer code from the memory to cause the wireless device to: (The communications device 1300 includes a processing system 1302 coupled to a transceiver 1308. The transceiver 1308 is configured to transmit and receive signals for the communications device 1300 via an antenna 1310, such as the various signals as described herein; see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0088 and Fig. 13).
Specifically for claim 38, Damnjanovic ‘314 discloses A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable program medium with computer code stored thereupon, the computer code, when executed by a processor of a wireless device, causing the wireless device to: (The processing system 1302 includes a processor 1304 coupled to a computer-readable medium/memory 1312 via a bus 1306. In certain aspects, the computer-readable medium/memory 1312 is configured to store instructions (e.g., computer-executable code) that when executed by the processor 1304, cause the processor 1304 to perform the operations illustrated in FIG. 9; see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0089 and Fig. 13).
For claims 2, 39 and 45, Damnjanovic ‘314 discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling comprises a layer-2 MAC CE (The cells that are activated/deactivated by L1/L2 signaling may be based on network control, UE recommendation, or UE decision. In general, the L1 /L2 signaling (e.g., DCI and/or MAC-CEs) could carry activation and/or deactivation commands (e.g., that indicate cells to be activated and cells to be deactivated); see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0063), the layer-2 MAC CE comprising at least one of:
beam information indicating which Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state can be activated for uplink and/or downlink communications after the serving-cell change procedure (In multi-beam operation (e.g., involving FRI and FR2 bands), more efficient uplink/downlink beam management may allow for increased intra-cell and inter-cell mobility (e.g., L1 and/or L2-centric mobility) and/or a larger number of transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states. For example, the states may include the use of a common beam for data and control transmission and reception for UL and DL operations, a unified TCI framework for UL and DL beam indication, and enhanced signaling mechanisms to improve latency and efficiency ( e.g., dynamic usage of control signaling); see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0050);
a Timing Advance (TA) information associated with time alignment between the wireless device and the target serving cell (FIG. 11 is a call flow diagram 1100 illustrating L1/L2-based mobility in which a UE 1102 receives mobility signaling with timing advance information for activated cells in the set of cells. As discussed above, the set of cells generally include cells that support PHY layer or MAC layer mobility; see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0081, 0084);
a preamble index of a RACH preamble for the wireless device to perform random access to the target serving cell (In response to receiving the L1/L2 mobility signaling 1210, the UE transmits a RACH preamble 1212 to the identified cell 1206, and the UE 1202 receives a RACH response 1214 from the identified cell 1206 in response to transmitting the RACH preamble 1212. The RACH response 1206 may include timing advance information or otherwise include information from which a timing advance to apply to the identified cell 1206 may be derived; see Damnjanovic ‘314 par. 0086); or
Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose identity information for the target serving cell; a RACH Occasion (RO) index for the wireless device to perform the random access to the target serving cell. Kung discloses identity information for the target serving cell ( The signaling could indicate identity of the target Cell or beam(s) used for the mobility procedure. The Source Cell, in response to receiving the signaling, could indicate another mobility procedure (via transmitting another second information) to the UE. The signaling could be a MAC CE or RRC message; see Kung par. 0718); a RACH Occasion (RO) index for the wireless device to perform the random access to the target serving cell (5.1 Random Access Procedure. 5.1.1 Random Access Procedure Initialization. The Random Access procedure described in this clause is initiated by a PDCCH order, by the MAC entity itself, or by RRC for the events in accordance with TS 38.300 [2]. There is only one Random Access procedure ongoing at any point in time in a MAC entity. The Random Access procedure on an SCell shall only be initiated by a PDCCH order with ra-Preambleindex different from 0b000000. RRC configures the following parameters for the Random Access procedure: prach-Configurationindex: the available set of PRACH occasions for the transmission of the Random Access Preamble for Msg1. These are also applicable to the MSGA PRACH if the PRACH occasions are shared between 2-step and 4-step RA types; see Kung par. 0247-0251). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kung's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to provide a method and apparatus for failure handling in serving cell change in a wireless communication system (see Kung par. 0002).
For claims 6, 44 and 46, Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 1, further comprising: performing by the wireless device the set of serving-cell change operations for the serving-cell change procedure to the target serving cell in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling. Kung discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising: performing by the wireless device the set of serving-cell change operations for the serving-cell change procedure to the target serving cell in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling (an objective of the work item is to specify mechanisms and procedures (e.g., a L1/L2 mobility procedure, or mobility procedure) for dynamic switching mechanisms among serving cells, including Special Cell(s) (SpCell) and/or Secondary Cell(s) (SCell) based on L1/L2 signaling. The serving cells could include a target Cell of the mobility procedure and one or more Secondary Cells (to be added or released) in the mobility procedure; see Kung par. 0706; The second information does not contain RRC signaling and/or RRC messages. The second information could be a L1 ( e.g., Downlink control information) or a L2 (e.g., MAC CE) message. The first information and the second information could be transmitted in different signaling and/or timings. The UE does not initiate the mobility procedure to the target cell in response to (reception of) the first information. The UE could transmit a mobility completion message to the target cell indicating a completion of the procedure. Additionally and/or alternatively, the target cell could transmit an acknowledgement to the UE indicating completion of the procedure; see Kung par. 0759). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kung's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to provide a method and apparatus for failure handling in serving cell change in a wireless communication system (see Kung par. 0002).
For claims 13 and 40, Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 1, further comprising initiating a RACH procedure to access the target serving cell in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling, if at least one of following conditions is met: a Time Advance (TA) value associated with the target serving cell is invalid; there is an absence of the TA value or a Time Advance Group ID (TAG ID) associated with the target serving cell; there is an absence of the TA value in the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling; or a MAC reset is performed. Kung discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising initiating a RACH procedure to access the target serving cell in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling (the one or more actions could be the UE switching (from contention-free random access procedure) to contention-based random access procedure to the target Cell. Additionally and/or alternatively, the UE could perform a random access procedure to the target Cell on an initial or default Bandwidth Part (BWP)… the one or more actions could include the UE stopping a (current) random access procedure (to the target Cell); see Kung par. 0719-720), if at least one of following conditions is met: a Time Advance (TA) value associated with the target serving cell is invalid; there is an absence of the TA value or a Time Advance Group ID (TAG ID) associated with the target serving cell; there is an absence of the TA value in the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling; or a MAC reset is performed (Additionally and/or alternatively, the one or more actions could include the UE could considering a time alignment information associated with the target Cell to be invalid. For example, the UE could consider timeAlignmentTimer(s) associated with the target Cell as expired. For another example, the UE could stop timeAlignmentTimer(s) associated with the target Cell. The time alignment information could be provided by or derived from the first or the second information. The UE could initiate a random access procedure to the target Cell to obtain a new time alignment information. Additionally and/or alternatively, the one or more actions could include the UE performing (part of) MAC reset of a MAC entity associated with the target Cell in response to failure of the mobility procedure; see Kung par. 0731-0732). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kung's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to provide a method and apparatus for failure handling in serving cell change in a wireless communication system (see Kung par. 0002).
For claims 15 and 41, Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises initiating a RACH procedure, and as part of the RACH procedure: when a RACH preamble identifier and/or a RACH Occasion (RO) identifier are/is provided by the wireless communication node via layer-2 signaling , determining that a Contention-Free RACH (CFRA) procedure is followed, and using the RACH preamble identifier and the RO identifier for the CFRA procedure. Kung discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises initiating a RACH procedure, and as part of the RACH procedure: when a RACH preamble identifier and/or a RACH Occasion (RO) identifier are/is provided by the wireless communication node via layer-2 signaling, determining that a Contention-Free RACH (CFRA) procedure is followed, and using the RACH preamble identifier and the RO identifier for the CFRA procedure (5.1.3 Random Access Preamble Transmission. The MAC entity shall, for each Random Access Preamble: if PREAMBLE_TRANSMISSION_COUNTER is greater than one; and if the notification of suspending power ramping counter has not been received from lower layers; and if LBT failure indication was not received from lower layers for the last Random Access Preamble transmission; and if SSB or CSI-RS selected is not changed from the selection in the last Random Access Preamble transmission: increment PREAMBLE_POWER_RAMPING_COUNTER by 1. select the value of DELTA_PREAMBLE according to clause 7 .3; set PREAMBLE_RECEIVED_TARGET_POWER to preambleReceivedTargetPower+DELTA_PREAMBLE+(PREAMBLE_POWER_RAMPING_COUNTER-I )xPREAMBLE_POWER_RAMPING_STEP+POWER_OFFSET_2STEP_RA; except for contention-free Random Access Preamble for beam failure recovery request, compute the RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion in which the Random Access Preamble is transmitted; instruct the physical layer to transmit the Random Access Preamble using the selected PRACH occasion, corresponding RA-RNTI (if available), PREAMBLE_INDEX, and PREAMBLE_RECEIVED_TARGET_POWER; see Kung par. 0350-0360). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kung's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to provide a method and apparatus for failure handling in serving cell change in a wireless communication system (see Kung par. 0002).
For claims 34 and 43, Damnjanovic ‘314 does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 31, wherein the wireless device determines that an ACK is received according to at least one of the following conditions: a RACH procedure has been successfully performed; a DCI for a new C-RNTI has been received; or an uplink grant for new transmission has been received of which a corresponding HARQ process ID is used for sending the RRC notification. Kung discloses The method of claim 31, wherein the wireless device determines that an ACK is received according to at least one of the following conditions: a RACH procedure has been successfully performed; a DCI for a new C-RNTI has been received; or an uplink grant for new transmission has been received of which a corresponding HARQ process ID is used for sending the RRC notification (The UE could consider the mobility procedure to be completed in response to acknowledgement from the target cell. Alternatively, the UE could consider the mobility procedure to be complete in response to transmission of the mobility completion message. Alternatively, the UE could consider the mobility procedure to be complete in response to completion of a random access procedure (associated with the mobility procedure); see Kung par. 0759; The second information is not a RRC message/signaling. The second information could contain a PDCCH signaling (e.g., DCI) and/or MAC CE. The second information could indicate the UE to initiate a mobility procedure adding/activating (a part of) the one or more Cells; see Kung par. 0768; The mobility procedure could comprise the UE transmitting UL data or control information to the target cell. The UL data could contain information associated with the UE (e.g., C-RNTI MAC CE). The UL data could be transmitted via PUSCH. The UL control information could be transmitted via PUCCH; see Kung par. 0777).
Claim(s) 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Damnjanovic ‘314 and Kung, and further in view of Damnjanovic et al. (US 2021/0385708, hereinafter “Damnjanovic ‘708”)
For claim 28, the combination of Damnjanovic ‘314 and Kung does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 1, further comprising: in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling, performing an RRC reconfiguration procedure to effectuate the serving-cell change procedure according to a first field in a prestored RRC reconfiguration message associated with the target serving cell. Damnjanovic ‘708 discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising: in response to receiving the L1/L2 triggered mobility signaling, performing an RRC reconfiguration procedure (As illustrated in FIG. 9, as an initial step, at step 1, a UE may establish an RRC connection with a source cell. While FIG. 9 illustrates an RRC connection with a source cell, in other examples, the UE may establish an RRC connection any one of the cells in the configured cell set. After establishing RRC connection with the source cell at step 1, the UE may be configured (via an RRC reconfiguration message) at step 2 with a set of cells for L1/L2 mobility. The UE may send an RRC reconfiguration complete message, at step 3, acknowledging receipt of the configuration; see Damnjanovic ‘708 par. 0085) to effectuate the serving-cell change procedure according to a first field in a prestored RRC reconfiguration message associated with the target serving cell (Examiner’s note: this is an intended use that does not place meaningful limits on the scope of the claim. Not given patentable weight because the claim does not require the step to effectuate the serving-cell change procedure). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Damnjanovic ‘708's arrangement in Damnjanovic ‘314's invention to allow for dynamically signaling mobility of a user equipment (UE) between a set of cells and dynamically updating a set of cells and beams activated to serve the UE (see Damnjanovic ‘708 par. 0002).
Claim(s) 31 and 42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Damnjanovic ‘314 and Kung, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 2025/0106726, hereinafter “Wang”).
For claim 31 and 42, the combination of Damnjanovic ‘314 and Kung does not explicitly disclose The method of claim 1, further comprising further comprising, after a set of serving cell change operations, transmitting, by the wireless device, an RRC notification message to the target serving cell. Wang discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising further comprising, after a set of serving cell change operations, transmitting, by the wireless device, an RRC notification message to the target serving cell (upon reception of a RRC reconfiguration message comprising a set of configurations for a set of candidate cells, and the configurations of the candidate cells are delta configurations, the terminal device 120 may use or combine the reference RRC configuration and configuration corresponding to each candidate cell to generate a new or actual RRC configuration (i.e., the second configuration) corresponding to the candidate cell. Then the terminal device 120 may store the second configurations for the candidate cells in a variable of the terminal device 120, or the terminal device 120 may replace or update the stored second RRC configurations with the newly generated second RRC configuration of the candidate cells. In these embodiments, the terminal device 120 may directly apply the currently stored second RRC configuration for the candidate cell upon an execution condition is fulfilled or a lower signaling is received; see Wang par. 0085). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Wang's arrangement in 's invention to enable a serving cell change via a lower layer signaling, in order to reduce the latency, overhead and interruption time (see Wang par. 0045).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 35 and 36 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 an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: claims 35 and 36 would be allowable because the closest prior arts listed above either alone or in combination, fail to anticipate or render obvious, the claimed invention of “determining that an NACK is received when a timer which is configured in the target serving cell for determining whether the serving-cell change procedure is successful or not has expired and that no ACK has been received”, in combination with all other limitations in the claim(s) above as defined by applicant.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
-Jin et al. (US 2024/0284280);
-Awada et al. (US 2025/0056343).
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/CHAE S LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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