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 § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 31, 54, 56, and 58, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention:
The applicant alleges that pg.5 describes switching from full duplex in a first time slot to half duplex in a second time slot, see applicants arguments dated 03/09/2026. With regard to pg.5 the page generally discloses half duplexing schemes and does not detail utilizing Full Duplexing Frequency Division Duplexing in a first time slot, and then utilizing TDD half duplexing in a second time slot as claimed. The claims stand rejected.
Additionally each of the independent claims dependent claims are rejected for their dependency thereon and for failing to cure the deficiencies therein.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 31-34, 36-40, 54, 56, and 58, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kusashima et al. (US 2021/0067992 A1) in view of Stirling-Gallacher et al. (US 2017/0033916 A1).
Regarding claims 31, 54, 56, and 58, Kusashima discloses:
a wireless communciation system (fig.1 which discloses a wireless communications system), comprising:
a non-transitory digital storage medium having stored thereon a computer program for performing, when said computer program is run by a computer, a wireless communications method for said wireless communications system, comprising:
a base station (fig.1 depicts a base station with a plurality of beams directed to and from user equipment) for a wireless communication system (fig.1 depicts a wireless communications system), the wireless communication system comprising a plurality of UEs (fig.1 depicts a plurality of User Equipments (UE) which are configured to communicate with the base station wirelessly), the plurality of UEs comprising at least a first UE and second UE (fig.1 depicts more than 2 user equipments);
wherein the base station is configured to serve the plurality of UE’s (fig.1 depicts the base stations which are connected directly with a core network, and are configured to deliver to the UEs data from other networks and receive data from the stations to be transmitted to other parts of the network and to other networks);
wherein the first UE and the second UE are configured to transmit to and receive from the base station using time resources (fig.3 depicts a uplink and downlink frequency subband wherein the uplink and downlink subband are comprised of time and frequency resources, par.[0058] describe a scenario wherein the subbands do not overlap in frequency but do so in time), wherein the base station is configured to:
transmit to the first UE with a first or second DL sub-band, and receive from the first UE within an UL sub-band (fig.2 depicts a BS transmitting to a first UE and receiving from a second UE at a first time period. This is accomplished by using subband or bandwidth parts which allow the UE and BS to transmit at a same time. Fig.2 depicts the transmission to the UE 1 and reception to the UE 1 concurrently which requires subbands as shown in fig.3),
transmit to the second UE within the first or second DL sub-band (fig.1 depicts the base stations transmitting to a plurality of UEs using a plurality of beams/spatial links. The UEs are utilizing separate links and thus the beams formed to the UEs use a different pattern),
concurrently transmit to one of the first and second UEs and receive in from the other one of the first and second UEs (fig.2 depicts a downlink transmission to the first UE and reception of a UL data from the second UE),
wherein the first and second DL sub-bands and the UL sub-band do not overlap (fig.3 depicts an FDD FD wherein the Uplink and Downlink frequency band (e.g. the uplink and downlink subband) within a frequency band do not overlap, par.[0058] describes the FD FDD wherein the resources overlap in time which allows for full duplexing but not in frequency.).
wherein in a first time slot, the base station transmits to and receives from the first UE within the DL sub-band and with the UL sub-band, respectively (fig.3 depicts in a first time slot utilizing separate downlink and uplink subbands, par.[0058]).
wherein, a second time slot, the base station transmit to or receives from the first UE within a subband overlapping the DL sub-band and the UL sub-band (par.[0120 - 0121] wherein the UE may utilize TDD wherein the frequency resource may be the same for uplink and downlink however the time slots for uplink and/or downlink are switched according to a configuration, thus, the base stations transmits to or receives from the UE with a subband overlapping the DL and UL over a period of time to reduce interference). While the disclosure of Kusashima substantially discloses the claimed invention, it does not explicitly disclose:
wherein the base station is configured to:
provide a plurality of beams or spatial links, for a wireless communication with the plurality of UEs, the plurality of beams comprising at least a first beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the first UE and second beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the first UE and a second beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the second UE,
transmit to the first UE on the first beam or spatial link using a first transmit beam or spatial link;
transmit to the second UE on the second beam or spatial link using one or more second DL subband.
However, the above techniques were known prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention. For example, the disclosure of Stirling-Gallacher discloses:
wherein the base station (fig.7b discloses a base station 700) is configured to:
provide a plurality of beams or spatial links (fig.7b describes the base station 700 transmitting beams or rather spatial links to the UEs), for a wireless communication (fig.7b which depicts wireless communication) with the plurality of UEs (fig.7b which depicts the plurality of UE’s), the plurality of beams comprising at least a first beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the first UE (fig.7b which depict a first beam/spatial link which is directed toward the UE-1) and second beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the first UE and a second beam or spatial link for a wireless communication with the second UE (fig.7b which depicts a second beam/spatial link which is directed toward the UE-2),
transmit to the first UE on the first beam or spatial link using first resources (fig.6 BS Tx to UE2);
transmit to the second UE on the second beam or spatial link using one or more second resources (fig.6 in another time period either before or after transmission to UE-2 the BS may transmit on beams, as disclosed in fig.7 to UE-1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing of the instant application to apply the transmission techniques as discussed in Kusashima, with the full-duplex transmissions as discussed in Stirling-Gallacher. The motivation/suggestion would have been to improve spectral efficiency of the network.
Regarding claim 32, Kusashima discloses:
wherein time resources used by the base station for transmitting to and for receiving from the first UE and the second UE comprise one or more time slots (fig.3 depicts at least one time period or slot for communications between the UEs and the base station, fig.2 depicts at least two slots of time for communications between the UEs and base station with uplink and downlink occurring concurrently as is known with full duplex systems).
Regarding claim 33, Kusashima discloses:
wherein no signal cancellation is implemented at the first UE and at the second UE to cancel one or more transmission signals at least in presence of one or more concurrent receive signal from the base station (par.[0058] which describes non-overlapping frequency resources such that interference can be avoided, thus there is no need for self-interference cancellation, as there is little to no interference).
Regarding claim 34, Stirling discloses:
wherein the UE comprises a plurality of antennas or an antenna array, the first UE configured to control the antennas or the antenna array so as to set a receive beam pattern and/or a transmit beam pattern of the antenna such that a radiation towards the base station is stronger than a radiation towards the second UE, and/or the second UE comprises a plurality of antennas or an antenna array, the second UE configured to control the antennas or the antenna array so as to set a receive beam pattern and/or a transmit beam pattern of the antenna such that a radiation towards the base station is stronger than a radiation towards the first UE (fig.7a-c as depicted the main-lobe of the beam is directed toward the base station, and away from the adjacent UE).
Regarding claim 36, Stirling discloses:
wherein the first and second UEs are configured to * estimate an inter-UE-interference channel between the first and second UEs, e.g., through listening to an interference signal, like pilots in the inter-UE-interference channel, and * exchange information about the estimated inter-UE-interference channel, the first and second UEs may be configured to communicate with each other using a direct communication channel, like a sidelink channel, and the information about the estimated inter-UE-interference channel is communicated or transferred via the direct communication channel and/or via the base station (par.[0060 – 0063]).
Regarding claim 37, Stirling discloses:
wherein the first and second UEs are configured to trigger an inter-UE-interference channel estimation updating procedure responsive to a change of an inter-UE interference level exceeding a threshold (par.[0100] the threshold being the difference detected).
Regarding claim 38, Stirling discloses:
wherein the base station is configured to allocate the same resources to the first and second UEs in case an inter-UE- interference level between the first UE and the second UE is below a threshold (fig.12a elements 1216-1220).
Regarding claim 39, Stirling discloses:
wherein the first and second UEs are located at a distance, wherein the distance is a distance at which the inter-UE-interference level between the first UE and the second UE is below a threshold, and/or * is a distance at which a pathloss between the UEs is above a threshold, and/or * is a long haul among the UEs, which assures that each UE's UL time slot attenuates enough, e.g., due to the wireless channel pathloss, before the UE's UL time slot reaches the other UE and interferes with the other UE's DL time slot (par.[0053 – 0054]).
Regarding claim 40, the combination of Stirling and Kusashima describes:
wherein for receiving from the base station, the UE is configured to receive:
in alternating, non-overlapping first and second DL time slots; and/or
in a plurality of consecutive first and second DL time slot separated by one or more time slots, wherein the plurality of consecutive first and second DL time slots may overlap or not; and
wherein for transmitting to the base station, the UE is configured to transmit
in alternating, non-overlapping first and second UL time slots; or
in non-overlapping first and second UL time slot separated by two or more time slots (Stirling and Kusashima disclose full-duplex transmission over nonoverlapping or overlapping time resources, additionally, the frequency resources may overlap in frequency and in time. The time slots uplink and downlink reception happen for a first UE and a second UE, in a time slot and downlink and uplink may happen for another UE in an adjacent time slot, see figs. of Sterling and Kusashima).
Claim(s) 35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kusashima, and Stirling-Gallacher, as applied to claim 31, in view of Pradhan et al. “Full-Duplex Communication for Future Wireless Networks: Dynamic Resource Block Allocation Approach”, dated 2016 and submitted as prior art by the applicant.
Regarding claim 35, the disclosures of Kusashima and Stirling disclose:
wherein the first UE is configured to control the antennas or the antenna array so as to set a receive beam pattern and/or a transmit beam pattern of the antenna, and/or wherein the second UE is configured to control the antennas or the antenna array so as to set a receive beam pattern and/or a transmit beam pattern of the antenna such that.
While the disclosure of Stirling teaches directing beams toward the base station and away from the second UE, it does not explicitly disclose directing a null towards the opposite UE. However, the effect of directing a main-lobe towards a transmitter and away from competing receivers is well-known in the art, and discussed in Pradhan.
That is Pradhan discloses:
a null directed towards the second UE or first UE (Furthermore, the disclosure of Pradhan explicitly discloses: pg.64 3. Dynamic Resource Block Allocation: “As described in the previous sections, to tackle this interference, a smart antenna based approach is used which allows multiple antennas at UE’s to form directed beams towards eNB and nulls towards other UEs”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the techniques discussed in Stirling and Kusashima, with the techniques as discussed in Pradhan. The motivation/suggestion would have been to reduce interference.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §§ 102 and 103
Applicant's arguments filed 03/09/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant alleges that the disclosure teaches utilizing in a first time slot full duplexing, and in a second time slot utilizing half duplex based on pg.5. The office notes that while pg.5 describes half-duplexing, it does not disclose utilizing half duplexing in a second time slot, and full duplexing in another time slot. A portion of pg.5 is reproduced below for convenience:
“Wireless communication networks or systems as described above with reference to Fig. 1 or Fig. 2 utilize wireless medium resources - most prominently the time and frequency resources -- either in a time duplexing manner or in a frequency duplexing manner, also referred to as time division duplex, TDD, and frequency division duplex, FDD. On the basis of these techniques a bidirectional communication link between two communication nodes may be established, when considering a point-to-point scenario. In case of two spatially- coexisting communication links the potential interference between these links needs to be handled, for example by using spectral filters, such as duplexers, in the FDD case or by using distinct time slots in the TDD case. Applying these techniques allows realizing a bidirectional link.
In other words, the FDD scheme and the TDD scheme are used to split the available time- frequency resources of the wireless communication network among those entities involved in the communication. However, splitting the available time-frequency resources among the communicating-involved entities causes a half-duplex communication since the transmission and the reception are not performed at the same time and frequency, so that the time-frequency resources of the wireless communication network are not efficiently utilized.
It is noted that the information in the above section is only for enhancing the understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.”
As can be seen the disclosure generally describes half duplexing schemes, however, the disclosure appears to be directed toward full duplexing, see abstract, title, and other portions of the disclosure. Also, the disclosure does not teach transition from a full duplexing scheme to a half-duplexing scheme in different time slots. Nevertheless the disclosures of Kusashima (US 2021/0067992 A1) and Gallacher et al. (US 2017/0033916 A1) similarly disclose half duplex and full duplexing schemes as have been described above. Thus, the disclosure of Kusashima in view of Gallacher disclose the claimed features.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Applicant’s arguments, see 112 Rejection, filed 03/09/2026, are persuasive as the indication of 112 rejection was made in error.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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JAMAAL HENSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2411
/JAMAAL HENSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411