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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 8/06/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/06/26 have been considered but they are moot due to the fact that all independent claims have been amended, to which new ground rejection has been made as shown below.
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 9 and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (3GPP R1-1903353, NPL dated 8/28/23, 28 pages) in view of Yi (US 20210203468 A1).
For independent claim 9, D1 discloses a terminal comprising:
a processor that performs Bandwidth Part (BWP) switching for each of a plurality of secondary cells used for carrier aggregation (Section 2.2, 1st para “… For the case of carrier aggregation (CA), BWP switching can also be applied independently in primary cell (PCell) and secondary cells (SCells)”); and
a receiver that receives, when the terminal is configured with a plurality of BWPs (the para under Table 1, item 1: “… Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP”), information indicating a BWP to be transitioned to a Dormant state or a BWP to be transitioned from the Dormant state to an active state of the plurality of BWPs, for each of the plurality of secondary cells (Section 2.2, 1st para “For the case of carrier aggregation (CA), BWP switching can also be applied independently in primary cell (PCell) and secondary cells (SCells)” and Section 2.2, 2nd para “In the dormant state, UE doesn’t need to monitor PDCCH but keeps periodic measurements and reports. The main benefit is faster recovery time to the activated state, reduced from 24 ms to 8 ms. This feature achieves better balance in UE power saving and SCell efficiency.”),
wherein the processor switches a BWP configured to each of the secondary cells: to the BWP to be transitioned to the Dormant state; or to the BWP to be transitioned to the active state (Section 2.2, 1st para “BWP switching can also be applied independently in primary cell (PCell) and secondary cells (SCells)” and Section 2.2, 2nd para “In the dormant state, UE doesn’t need to monitor PDCCH but keeps periodic measurements and reports. The main benefit is faster recovery time to the activated state, reduced from 24 ms to 8 ms. This feature achieves better balance in UE power saving and SCell efficiency.” And the para above Figure 2, “… The key idea is the active power consumption configuration of a follower cell is determined by that of the associated leader cell, which implies that a switch of power consumption configuration in a leader cell initiates a configuration switch in the associated follower cells. …”), and
wherein the terminal further comprises a transmitter that performs a CSI report when the secondary cell (Section 2.2, 1st para “BWP switching can also be applied independently in primary cell (PCell) and secondary cells (SCells)”) is in the Dormant state (Section 2.2, 2nd para “In the dormant state, UE doesn’t need to monitor PDCCH but keeps periodic measurements and reports” and Section 2.1, last para, Proposal 2, 2nd bullet “Allowing power saving signal to trigger A-CSI reporting …”) and a BWP configured to the secondary cell is a Downlink (DL) BWP (Section 10, 2nd para “… Additional DL RS resources can be considered to assist UE in performing RRM/CSI measurement and channel time/frequency and/or beam tracking” and Section 2.1, 4th para “The power saving signal/channel in triggering UE frequency domain processing adaptation for further study is the power saving signal/channel can be used to trigger the indication of DL and/or UL RS configuration for channel tracking, CSI measurements with possible associated reporting occasion, and beam management for the additional assistance of dynamic switching of BWP or activation of SCell in achieving the power saving gain …”);
wherein the information indicating transition to the dormant state, or to the active state and indicate if CSI reporting is performed (Section 2.1, last para, last bullet “Allowing power saving signal to trigger A-CSI reporting outside DRX OnDuration.”); and
wherein the information is received when a primary cell is in an active state and without indicating that the primary cell transitions to the active states (Section 2.2, 2nd para “In the dormant state, UE doesn’t need to monitor PDCCH but keeps periodic measurements and reports. The main benefit is faster recovery time to the activated state, reduced from 24 ms to 8 ms. This feature achieves better balance in UE power saving and SCell efficiency.” and Section 5, 1st para “DRX reduces power consumption by allowing the UE to spend a higher proportion of its time in sleep states. This can be achieved by increasing the DRX cycle duration, or by reducing the active period determined by the OnDuration and Inactivity timers, …”).
D1 is silent on: the information includes bit fields with each bit indicating “yes” or “no” option for each feature. However, using a bit to indicate a state/feature is well-known technique in the art. For example, in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication, Yi discloses using this technique ([0479] “… each bit indicates transition of a power state for a cell of a plurality of cells configured to the wireless device. For example, the first command comprises a bitmap of [1 . . . 0 . . . 1], wherein the bitmap corresponds to transition of a power state of PCell, . . . , SCellk, . . . , SCellm shown in FIG. 27. In the example, a bit value ‘1’ corresponds to an indication to transition to a normal state of a corresponding cell. The bit value ‘0’ corresponds to an indication to transition to a dormant state of the corresponding cell. ...”. Similarly, a bit field may be used to indicate “if CSI reporting is performed” or not. Therefore, it would have been an obvious try to use/apply the teaching of Yi above to present the by D1 to yield a predictable result of presenting each state/feature according to MPEP 2143(E) or MPEP 2143(D).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 and Yi for the benefit of indicating the presentation of a specific state/feature ([0479] of Yi).
Independent claim 13 is rejected because it is a corresponding claim of the base station that is associated with the terminal of claim 9 and has the same subject matter as claim 9.
Independent claim 14 is rejected because it is a claim of the method performed by the terminal of claim 9 and has the same subject matter as claim 9.
Independent claim 15 is rejected because it is a claim of the system comprises the terminal of claim 9 and the base station of claim 13 and has the same subject matter.
As to claim 12, D1 in view of Yi discloses claim 9, D1 further discloses: wherein the information further includes power saving information before on-duration of Discontinuous Reception (DRX), and the power saving information includes a Wakeup indication (Section 2.1, Proposal 2 “Allowing power saving signal to trigger A-CSI reporting outside DRX OnDuration” and Section 6.1, 1st para “Wakeup mechanism can be utilized to indicate whether UE needs to monitor the upcoming DRX OnDuration”; note that “before” is “outside” of the OnDuration).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIANYE WU whose telephone number is (571)270-1665. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 8am-6pm.
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/JIANYE WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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