ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,696,141, issued on July 28, was assigned to Huawei Technologies'Co.'Ltd.' (Shenzhen, China).

"Communication method and communication apparatus" was invented by Jianxin Jia (Shanghai), Wenfu Wu (Shanghai) and Zaifeng Zong (Nanjing, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A communication method and apparatus. A first access network device determines that a first terminal device is a last terminal device that receives data of a first multicast service via the first access network device in response to the first terminal device being in a handover preparation phase in which the first terminal device is handed over from the first access network ...