DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 31 Jan 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement was considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13-16, 18-20, 29, 30, 33, and 34 are allowed.
Response to Arguments
As for claim 1, no specific argument was provided in the Reply that details how the amendments to claim 1 overcome the obviousness rejection. Reply, 16-17. In general, the Examiner notes that Ghanbarinejad teaches a UE that is “enabled” for half-duplex communication and can indicated that such a function is “supported” by the UE. Ghanbarinejad, ¶¶131, 211. Rudolf (citation provided in PTO-892, dated 8 May 2025) teaches intra-band, dual-carrier aggregation. Rudolf, figure 14 (bottom half). In Rudolf, the gNB’s carriers may operate in full-duplex, while the UE operates in half-duplex. As a result, the combination of Ghanbarinejad in view of Rudolf renders the claimed invention of claim 1 unpatentable.
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 1-12, 21-26, 27, and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by Ghanbarinejad (US 20240244547) in view of Rudolf (US 20230106194).
Regarding claim 1, Ghanbarinejad teaches an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to one or more memories, configured to cause the UE to:
transmit capability information that indicates the UE has a capability for an intra-band conflict resolution rule for resolution of a conflict (Ghanbarinejad, [0069], [0072], capability information may be communicated via signaling, report to network, [0066]-[0067], [0419], conflict resolution rule), in at least one symbol, between a first communication on a first semi-statically configured resource of a first carrier and a second resource on a second carrier based at least in part on a first priority of the first communication (Ghanbarinejad, [0066]-[0067], [0153], priority rule to solve conflict for overlap resource),
the UE is a half-duplex UE (Ghanbarinejad, ¶125 – UE is enabled for half-duplex behavior and not capable of simultaneous transmission and reception with a serving cell),
the capability for the intra-band conflict resolution rule is specific to half-duplex communication at the UE (Ghanbarinejad, ¶¶131, 211 – UE is “enabled” for half-duplex behavior; Ghanbarinejad, ¶¶135-136 – half duplex operation is used to handle directional collisions in TDD CA),
the first semi-statically configured resource has a first link direction and the second resource has a second link direction different than the first link direction (Ghanbarinejad, [0114]-[0116], [0304]-[0308], resource semi-static configuration, DL resource, UL resource); . . .
the UE is configured to communicate in half-duplex in accordance with the intra-band conflict resolution rule (Ghanbarinejad, ¶276 – conflict resolution for intra-band scenarios; Ghanbarinejad, ¶¶136, 212 – UE handles collision resolution by executing half-duplex on a carrier aggregation TDD mode) . . . and . . .
perform, in half-duplex, one of the first communication or a second communication on the second resource in accordance with the intra-band conflict resolution rule (Ghanbarinejad, ¶¶155, 157, 163 – only perform one communication when dropping either a downlink or uplink attribute for one or more symbols when it has the lower priority).
While Ghanbarinejad teaches a UE served by two serving cells (i.e. carriers) during dual connectivity (Ghanbarinejad, ¶108), where each cell or carrier operates on the same frequency band (Ghanbarinejad, ¶219), Ghanbarinejad does not explicitly teach (1) “the UE is configured to communicate with the first carrier in the first direction on first frequency resources of a frequency band in accordance with a sub-band full duplex configuration for the first carrier; the UE is configured to communicate with the second carrier in the second link direction on second frequency resources of the frequency band in accordance with the sub-band full duplex configuration for the second carrier; and the first carrier and the second carrier are configured for sub-band full duplex intra-band carrier aggregation.”
However, Rudolf teaches a gNB operating with full-duplex mode even when the UE operates in half-duplex. Rudolf, ¶151. In particular, Rudolf teaches an intra-band carrier aggregation, where each carrier is configured to transmit in a different direction. Id. at ¶158 and figure 14. When a half duplex UE is configured for transmission in a XDD slot, another UE may execute reception during that slot. Id. at ¶157. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to accommodate both half-duplex UEs, as taught by Ghanbarinejad, in the carrier aggregation scenario, taught by Rudolf, in order to enable full-duplex communication at the network side, which allows a gNB to implement features that are not typically available for legacy, half-duplex UEs. Id. at ¶168.
Regarding claim 2, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the second resource is semi-statically configured for transmission or reception of at least one of: a physical uplink control channel, a physical uplink shared channel, a sounding reference signal, a physical random access channel, a physical downlink control channel, a physical downlink shared channel, or a channel state information reference signal (Ghanbarinejad, [0131]-[0133], [0368], UL-DL-Configuration with PDSCH, PUSCH etc).
Regarding claims 3 and 31, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the second resource is configured, by a cell- common time division duplexing (TDD) configuration or a dedicated TDD configuration, for the second link direction (Ghanbarinejad, [0130]-[0133], tdd-UL-DI-ConfigurationDedicated with PDSCH, or PUSCH etc).
Regarding claim 4, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the one or more processors, to cause the UE to perform at least one of the first communication or the second communication on the second resource in accordance with the intra-band conflict resolution rule, are configured to perform at least one of the first communication or the second communication based at least in part on a second priority associated with the second communication or the second resource (Ghanbarinejad, [0066], [0179]-[0185], priority with DL/UL conflict).
Regarding claim 5, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the first cell is a reference cell, wherein the second priority is higher than the first priority, and wherein to cause the UE to perform at least one of the first communication or the second communication and
transmit the second communication and drop the first communication based at least in part on the second priority (Ghanbarinejad, [0130]-[0133], [0153], [0192], [0203]-[0204], reference cell, priority with dropping).
Regarding claim 6, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the second resource is semi-statically configured for transmission or reception of a channel or signal (Ghanbarinejad, [0114]-[0115], [0304]-[0305], semi-static configuration).
Regarding claim 7, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein at least one of the first priority or the second priority is based at least in part on at least one of. a physical channel priority, a logical channel priority, a quality of service requirement, a signal type, a channel type, a content of the first communication or the second communication, a time-domain behavior, or a time-domain relationship between the first semi-statically configured resource and the second resource (Ghanbarinejad, [0163], [0165], priority cell, priority signaling).
Regarding claim 8, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the second cell is a reference cell, and wherein to cause the UE to perform at least one of the first communication or the second communication in accordance with the intra-band conflict resolution rule and perform a selected communication, of the first communication or the second communication, that is associated with a higher priority of the first priority or the second priority (Ghanbarinejad, [0153], resource may take a higher priority).
Regarding claim 9, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the UE to drop a communication, of the first communication or the second communication, that is associated with a lower priority of the first priority or the second priority ([0163], lower priority type).
Regarding claim 10, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the first priority satisfies a threshold, wherein the second resource is configured, by a cell-common time division duplexing (TDD) configuration or a RRC dedicated TDD configuration, for the second link direction, wherein the second cell is a reference cell, and wherein to cause the UE to perform at least one of the first communication or the second communication and transmit the first communication based at least in part on the first priority satisfying the threshold (Ghanbarinejad, [0130]-[0133], [0257]-[0260], [0267]-[0269], tdd-UL-DI-ConfigurationDedicated, threshold).
Regarding claim 11, Ghanbarinejad also teaches wherein the second communication is not scheduled or configured on the second resource (Ghanbarinejad, [0130]-[0131], UE may not be configured to monitor PDCCH).
Claims 21-27 and 31 are the network node apparatus claims corresponding to UE apparatus claims 1-8 respectively, and rejected under the same rationale set forth in connection with the rejection of claims 1-8 respectively, above.
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 the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461