DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
RCE filed 1/24/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 1, 15, 21, and 28 have been amended.
Claims 3-7, 17-19, 23-26, and 30-32 have been previously cancelled.
Claims 1, 2, 8-16, 20-22, 27-29, and 33 remain pending.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 8, 10, 11, 13-16, 20-22, 27-29, and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei et al. (US20210360592A1), hereafter Wei, in view of Cai et al. (US20170347351A1), hereafter Cai.
Regarding claims 1, 13, and 21,
Wei discloses a first device (Fig. 1, 4; UE 104/404) comprising one or more processors and a non-transitory memory storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (Fig. 13, 16; processor 1304/1604, CRM 1306/1606; paragraph 98, 117), cause the first device to perform a method (Fig. 10, 14) comprising receiving, by a first device from a second device (Fig. 1, 4; base station 102/402), a semi-statically signaled higher layer message (i.e. Fig. 10, steps 1020/1040; receiving UL/DL configuration 1011/1031 via semi-static RRC; paragraph 44, 51, 66, 72, 81, 89, 105) including reservation information for time and frequency domain network resources available for communications using a plurality of wireless communication protocols (i.e. coexistence of LTE/MTC, NR/NB-IoT, etc.; Fig. 2A-D; Fig. 5A-B; paragraphs 3-4, 7, 63-64, 67, 70).
Wei also shows receiving, by the first device from the second device, a dynamically signaled DCI message (paragraph 44, 48, 65, 75, 83, 91, 108) including a reservation indicator indicating a reservation status of a time and frequency domain network resource from the time and frequency domain network resources for communications using a wireless communication protocol (Fig. 10, step 1060 receiving indication 1051) and communicating, by the first device, using machine type communications using the wireless communication protocol, the communicating occurring over an available time and frequency domain network resource from the time and frequency domain network resources (Fig. 10, step 1071; paragraph 70; UL/DL configuration indicates set of valid resources for eMTC).
Wei further discloses the reservation indicator comprising a single bit indicator associated with the time and frequency domain network resource (paragraph 83; one or more bits of DCI to indicate use of first or second UL/DL configuration), where the indicator is “equal to 1” to indicate the resource being available, or “equal to 0” to indicate in accordance with the reservation information associated with the time and frequency domain network resource (Wei: Fig. 2A-D, 7; paragraph 70-71 and 83; each bit of the indicator/bitmap set to 0 or 1 to provide the described indications of valid, invalid, and/or partially valid resources).
Wei does not expressly disclose reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC.
Cai discloses analogous art (Title: Physical Resource Sharing on Wireless Interface) reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC (paragraph 52; Fig. 2; dynamically activate and deactivate resource sharing based on resource sharing bitmap indicators, including scheduling time intervals for MTC).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Wei by providing reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC, as shown by Cai, thereby enabling MTC traffic and legacy traffic to share resources for a target scheduling time interval.
Regarding claims 15 and 28,
Wei discloses a first device (Fig. 1, 4; base station 102/402) comprising one or more processors and a non-transitory memory storage comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (Fig. 13, 16; processor 1304/1604, CRM 1306/1606; paragraph 98, 117), cause the first device to perform a method (Fig. 10, 11) comprising sending, by a first device to a second device (Fig. 1, 4; UE 104/404), a semi-statically signaled higher layer message (i.e. Fig. 10, steps 1020/1040; receiving UL/DL configuration 1011/1031 via semi-static RRC; paragraph 44, 51, 66, 72, 81, 89, 105) including reservation information for time and frequency domain network resources available for communications using a plurality of wireless communication protocols (i.e. LTE, NR, MTC, NB-IoT, etc.; Fig. 2A-D; Fig. 5A-B; paragraphs 3-4).
Wei also shows sending, by the first device to the second device, a dynamically signaled DCI message (paragraph 44, 48, 65, 75, 83, 91, 108) including a reservation indicator indicating a reservation status of a time and frequency domain network resource from the time and frequency domain network resources for communications using a wireless communication protocol (Fig. 10, step 1050 sending indication 1051) and communicating, by the first device, using machine type communications using the wireless communication protocol, the communicating being in accordance with the reservation indicator (Fig. 10, step 1071; paragraph 70; UL/DL configuration indicates set of valid resources for eMTC).
Wei further discloses the reservation indicator comprising a single bit indicator associated with the time and frequency domain network resource (paragraph 83; one or more bits of DCI to indicate use of first or second UL/DL configuration), where the indicator is “equal to 1” to indicate the resource being available, or “equal to 0” to indicate in accordance with the reservation information associated with the time and frequency domain network resource (Wei: Fig. 2A-D, 7; paragraph 70-71 and 83; each bit of the indicator/bitmap set to 0 or 1 to provide the described indications of valid, invalid, and/or partially valid resources).
Wei does not expressly disclose reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC.
Cai discloses analogous art (Title: Physical Resource Sharing on Wireless Interface) reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC (paragraph 52; dynamically activate and deactivate resource sharing based on indicator, including scheduling time intervals for MTC).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Wei by providing reservation information indicating MTC resources are disallowed and overriding the reservation information to indicate a reservation status of resources that is allowed for MTC, as shown by Cai, thereby enabling MTC traffic and legacy traffic to share resources for a target scheduling time interval.
Regarding claims 2, 16, 22, and 29,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses dynamically signaled message further including a resource assignment indicating an available time and frequency domain network resource, and the communicating occurring over the available time and frequency domain network resource (Wei: paragraph 70; Fig. 10, steps 1070/1071/1080; communication according to first or second UL/DL configuration indicated by indication 1051; Cai: paragraph 52; dynamically activate and deactivate resource sharing based on indicator). See motivation above.
Regarding claims 8, 20, 27, and 33,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses reservation information comprising a bitmap associated with the time and frequency domain network resource (paragraph 65, 70, 80, 87, 103; valid resources indicated using a bitmap).
Regarding claim 10,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses the reservation indicator comprising two bits (paragraph 83; one or more bits of DCI to indicate use of first or second UL/DL configuration), a first bit corresponding to a first slot of a subframe, and a second bit corresponding to a second slot of the subframe (paragraph 44-50, 69-71, 83; Fig. 2A-D, 7 shows how resources are broken down into slots/subframes).
Regarding claim 11,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses the reservation information comprising the bitmap with each bit of the bitmap corresponding to a symbol of a slot (paragraph 65).
Regarding claim 14,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses time and frequency domain network resources comprising physical resource blocks (PRBs) or sets of PRBs (Fig. 2A-B; paragraph 46).
3. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei and Cai in view of Chen et al. (US20180019839A1), hereafter Chen.
Regarding claim 9,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses bitmaps with RB and/or symbol level granularity (paragraph 65) but does not expressly disclose the bitmap being 20 or 80 bits in length. However, analogous art to Chen discloses bitmaps being 20 bits in length (paragraph 101; bitmap of N-bits, i.e. 20, corresponding to N MTC-SIBs indicating availability and scheduling).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Wei and Cai by providing a bitmap of 20 or 80 bits in length, as shown by Chen, thereby providing corresponding availability and scheduling information of the resources defined by the system information block.
4. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei and Cai in view of Kim et al. (US20160007334A1), hereafter Kim.
Regarding claim 12,
The combination of Wei and Cai discloses bitmaps with RB and/or symbol level granularity (paragraph 65) but does not expressly disclose the bitmap being 7 bits in length.
Kim discloses analogous bitmaps being 7 bits in length (paragraph 109; Table 5; bandwidth allocated to MTC terminal indicated using a bitmap of 7 bits).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Wei and Cai by providing a bitmap of 7 bits in length, as shown by Kim, thereby providing corresponding availability and scheduling information of the resources defined by the system information block.
Response to Arguments
5. Applicant's arguments filed 7/17/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the Remarks on pg. 8 of the Amendment, argument I, Applicant contends secondary Wei teaches away from using a semi-static higher layer message (as now claimed) such as RRC due to inefficient resource utilization.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As now shown in the rejection, Wei clearly discloses the use of a semi-statically signaled higher layer message in conveying UL/DL configuration defining reservation information for the time and frequency domain network resources available for communication as well as reservation indicator indicating a reservation status of the time and frequency domain network resources, for which MTC communications occur. Wei’s disclosure of using only semi-static signaling (i.e. in steps 1011-1031 of Fig. 10) leading to inefficient resource utilization is precisely why the other portions of Wei (i.e. steps 1051-1071 of Fig. 10) are cited in showing subsequent indications that efficiently indicates which of the first and second semi-statically signaled configurations are to be used. This is consistent with Applicant’s solution as well, such as that shown in Figs. 6-8 in which the initial semi-static/RRC signaling is modified by subsequent DCI-signaled indications of scheduling/override. Cai is relied upon to show analogous resource reservation indication and information through the resource sharing bitmap (i.e. Fig. 2), similar to the bitmap disclosed in Wei. Therefore, the rejections based on the combination of Wei and Cai are properly maintained.
In the Remarks on pg. 9-10 of the Amendment, argument II, Applicant contends Wei at best discloses one bit in DCI associated with UL/DL configuration but does not show the limitations amended into the independent claims from previously dependent claims in which the indicator is “equal to 1” to indicate the resource being available, or “equal to 0” to indicate in accordance with the reservation information associated with the time and frequency domain network resource.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As shown in the rejection, Wei discloses resources of the indicated UL/DL configuration are further indicated as valid/invalid based on a bitmap. From this cited disclosure, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that each bit of the indicator/bitmap is set to 0 or 1 to provide the described indications of valid, invalid, and/or partially valid subframes/slots/symbols of resources, as claimed. Similarly, secondary disclosure of the resource sharing bitmap in Cai (i.e. Fig. 2, paragraph 52) shows similar, dynamic activation/deactivation based on a signaled indicator bitmap, including scheduling time intervals for MTC. Therefore, the rejections based on the combination of Wei and Cai are properly maintained.
In the Remarks on pg. 10-11 of the Amendment, argument III, Applicant contends the asserted indicator in the DCI overrides the asserted reservation information.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As shown in the rejection, initial semi-static/RRC signaling (Fig. 10, steps 1011-1031) are modified by subsequently signaled indications (Fig. 10, steps 1051-1071), similarly to the contested claimed limitations, while Cai is secondarily-cited to shows similar, dynamic activation/deactivation based on a signaled indicator bitmap, including scheduling time intervals for MTC that would override previously signaled configuration. Therefore, the rejections based on the combination of Wei and Cai are properly maintained.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 mail date of this action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY B SEFCHECK whose telephone number is (571)272-3098. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 6AM-4PM.
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/GREGORY B SEFCHECK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477