DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office Action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/13/2025 has been entered and made of record.
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 Status
Claims 1 and 11 are amended.
Claims 2, 7-8, 12 and 17-18 are cancelled.
No new claims is/are added.
Claims 1, 9-11 and 19-20 are pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Re: Rejection of Claims under 35 U.S.C. §112
Applicant’s remarks (remark pages 5-6), filed on 11/13/2025, regarding rejection of claims 1 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. §112 have been considered and the claims have been amended. The rejection of claims 1 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. §112 have been withdrawn in view of the amendment.
Re: Rejection of Claims under 35 U.S.C. §103
Applicant’s response has been fully considered. Below are applicant’s main arguments and examiner’s response to those arguments:
Applicant’s argument: (remark pages 7-9), filed on 11/13/2025, with respect to claim 1, ‘Applicant respectfully submits that Moon and Guo, either singly or in any combination thereof, do not disclose, teach, or suggest all the features recited in amended independent claim 1 … both describing switching to a different SSSG rather than continuing to monitor the first search space set group … Withdrawal of the pending rejection is therefore respectfully requested’.
Examiner’s response: Examiner respectfully disagrees. Moon teaches that the starting SSSG could be a default SSSG (Moon: [0010]) and Guo teaches that in case that the SR event has occurred, UE would start monitoring a default SSSG for pending SR response (Guo: [Page 29]). Therefore, combination of Moon and Guo teaches UE would continue monitoring the starting (first) SSSG (a default SSSG) for pending SR response, which is in light of the specification (specification PGPUB paragraph [0154]: “the UE is performing some specific procedures (e.g., beam failure recovery procedure, random access procedure, and/or scheduling request), the UE may not switch/change the current SSSG ID (or the UE may ignore the one or more DCI fields relating to SSSG switching). The UE would have to monitor a search space set (e.g., a default search space set) while performing the specific procedures … the UE may monitor for the PDCCH(s) in the default search space set in response to the event for the UE occurring, wherein the event may include a scheduling request, the random access procedure, and/or a beam failure recovery procedure”). See the detailed Office Action bellow under 35 U.S.C. § 103 section.
Applicant’s arguments (remark pages 6-9), filed on 11/13/2025, with respect to claims 1, 9-11 and 19-20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground of rejection below which better address the claimed invention as amended.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 9-11 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 20230362954 A1), hereinafter “Moon”, in view of Guo et al. (WO 2022204871 A1), hereinafter “Guo”.
Per claim 1 and 11:
Regarding claim 11, Moon teaches ‘A user equipment’ (Moon: Fig.2; [Abstract]: “a terminal for monitoring a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)”); ‘comprising: at least one processor’ (Moon: [0025]: “a processor”); ‘at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the user equipment to’ (Moon: [0025]: “a memory storing at least one instruction executable by the processor, wherein the at least one instruction causes the terminal to”);
‘receive configuration information corresponding to a plurality of search space set groups, wherein a number of search space set groups in the plurality of search space set groups is greater than two’ (Moon: [FIG.8]; [0007]: “receiving, from a base station, configuration information of a first search space set group (SSSG) and a second SSSG”; [0015]: “the third SSSG”);
‘monitor a first search space set group of the plurality of search space set groups for a physical downlink control channel using a search space set group identifier’ (Moon: [FIG.3A]; [FIG.3B]; [0007]: “performing monitoring on the first SSSG in a first period”; [0008]: “Each of the first SSSG and the second SSSG may include search space set(s) to be monitored”). However, Moon fails to expressly teach using a SSSG identifier;
‘receive downlink control information (DCI) which includes a DCI field with a value indicating switching to a second search space set group of the plurality of search space set groups’ (Moon: [0007]: “downlink control information (DCI) including an indication for switching a monitoring target from the first SSSG to the second SSSG is received from the base station in a period before the second period”);
‘wherein no search space set or no monitoring occasion is included in the second search space set group’ (Moon: [FIG.5]; [FIG.6]; [0100]: “an SSSG (e.g., a null SSSG, an empty SSSG, a dormant SSSG, etc. (hereinafter referred to as a ‘null SSSG’)) that does not include any search space set may be defined or configured … When the terminal is indicated to monitor the null SSSG, the terminal may not monitor any search space set”).
However, Guo in the same field of endeavor teaches monitoring by using a SSSG identifier (Guo: [Page 4]: “an SSSG identifier (ID) of the SSSG, to which the wireless communication device should behanded over to perform PDCCH monitoring”; [Page 19]: “the UE should be switched to the SSSG ID for monitoring the PDCCH”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Guo’s teaching with that of Moon in order to support group of search space sets (Guo: [Page 2]: “The wireless communication device may receive, from the wireless communication node, control information. The wireless communication device perform physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring using a group of search space sets (SSSs) selected from a plurality of search space set groups (SSSGs) according to the control information”).
Combination of Moon and Guo teaches ‘in response to receiving the DCI and determining for that an event has not occurred, forgo monitoring any search space set, included in the plurality of search space set groups, for the physical downlink control channel, wherein the event comprises a scheduling request procedure’. Moon teaches monitoring the at least one search space set for the physical downlink control channel in the first search space set group in response to determining that the first search space set group includes at least one search space set (Moon: [FIG.3A]; [FIG.3B]; [0007]: “performing monitoring on the first SSSG in a first period”; [0008]: “Each of the first SSSG and the second SSSG may include search space set(s) to be monitored”) and forgo monitoring the first search space set for the physical downlink control channel in response to determining that no search space set or no monitoring occasion is included in the first search space set group (Moon: [FIG.5]; [FIG.6]; [0100]: “an SSSG (e.g., a null SSSG, an empty SSSG, a dormant SSSG, etc. (hereinafter referred to as a ‘null SSSG’)) that does not include any search space set may be defined or configured … When the terminal is indicated to monitor the null SSSG, the terminal may not monitor any search space set”; [0007]: “a first search space set group (SSSG) and a second SSSG”). Guo teaches that UE would start monitoring the PDCCH according to the default SSSG upon waiting for a scheduling request response (a scheduling request procedure) (Guo: [Page 29]: “the wireless communication apparatus 104 or 204 transmits the SR on the PUCCH and the SR waits for Pending … the PDCCH is started to be monitored according to the default SSSG”). Therefore, if UE is not in a scheduling request procedure, UE would not start to monitor the PDCCH according to the default SSSG based on Guo’s teaching, in another word, UE would only monitor the PDCCH according to the first search space set group, and so in case that the first search space set group includes at least one search space set, UE would monitor the at least one search space set in the first search space set group for a physical downlink control channel and in case that no search space set or no monitoring occasion is included in the first search space set group, UE would forgo monitoring the search space set for the physical downlink control channel based on Moon’s teaching;
‘in response to receiving the DCI and determining that the event has occurred, continuing to monitor the first search space set group for the physical downlink control channel using the search space set group identifier, instead of switching to the second search space set group’ (Moon: [0010]: “the starting SSSG may be a default SSSG configured by the base station”. Guo: [Page 29]: “the wireless communication apparatus 104 or 204 transmits the SR on the PUCCH and the SR waits for Pending … the PDCCH is started to be monitored according to the default SSSG”. in case that the event has occurred, UE would continue to monitor the starting SSSG (a default SSSG) for pending SR response).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Guo’s teaching of SR with that of Moon in order to start monitoring PDCCH according to the default SSSG when UE is waiting for a scheduling request response (see reference quotes in element above).
Regarding claim 1, claim 1 recites the method implemented by the user equipment of claim 11 (see rejection of claim 11 above).
Per claim 9 and 19:
Regarding claim 19, Moon teaches the user equipment of claim 11 (discussed above).
Moon teaches ‘wherein a format of the downlink control information comprises one of DCI format 0_1, format 0_2, DCI format 1_1,or DCI format 1_2’ (Moon: [0113]: “the DCI may be a scheduling DCI (e.g., DCI formats 0_0, 1_0, 0_1, 1_1, 0_2, 1_2, etc.)”).
Regarding claim 9, claim 9 recites the method implemented by the user equipment of claim 19 (see rejection of claim 19 above).
Per claim 10 and 20:
Regarding claim 20, Moon teaches the user equipment of claim 11 (discussed above).
Moon does not expressly teach, but Guo teaches ‘wherein the downlink control information further includes the number of search space set groups in the plurality of search space set groups’ (Guo: [Page 7]: “Numberofsearchspacegroup-r17), indicating the number of search space sets supported”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Guo’s teaching with that of Moon in order to support group of search space sets (Guo: [Page 2]: “a group of search space sets (SSSs) selected from a plurality of search space set groups (SSSGs)”).
Regarding claim 10, claim 10 recites the method implemented by the user equipment of claim 20 (see rejection of claim 20 above).
Conclusion
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/G.F./Examiner, Art Unit 2462
/YEMANE MESFIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2462