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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Applicant's response filed under 37 C.F.R. § 1.111 in response to a Non-Final Office Action. No claims amended; No claims added; claims 2, 4, 10, and 12 deleted. Claims 1, 3, 5-9, 11, and 13-16 are subject to examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/30/2025, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive for the following reasons:
Applicant's Argument:
Applicant argues in substance that "Babaei does not disclose that the terminal monitors on primary secondary cell (PSCell) ... However, Hu only discloses that network devices may correspond to the PSCell, but does not clearly disclose that PDCCH monitoring is performed without PDCCH monitoring skipping for RAR reception when a terminal transmits RAP on PSCell".
Examiner's Response:
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's argument that “Hu … does not clearly disclose”, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981).
In the current office action, Primary reference Babaei teaches in Fig. 44 Par. 0459 that the wireless device will ignore the PDCCH skipping command and will monitor PDCCH on a primary cell, for receiving random access response, within a window after transmitting Random Access (RA) preamble (MsgA). Reference Babaei does not disclose PDCCH monitoring on a primary secondary cell.
In the same field of endeavor, secondary reference Hu also teaches similar functions like PDCCH monitoring, PDCCH skipping and RA process for a network device, wherein the network device corresponding to a primary cell or a primary secondary cell.
Thus, reference Babaei and reference Hu each disclose a network device functionalities - transmitting a PDCCH skipping instruction, receiving RA preamble, and transmitting a RAR. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the network device of reference Babaei could have been substituted for the network device, corresponding to the primary secondary cell, of reference Hu because both serve the purpose of transmitting and receiving same messages. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of allowing the wireless device to perform PDCCH monitoring without PDCCH monitoring skipping for RAR reception when wireless device transmits RAP on the PSCell. By this rationale, Babaei-Hu teaches the claimed invention and therefore the rejection is maintained. See rejection below.
Regarding this matter, the examiner would like to cite a relevant prior art. Please see conclusion section for details on US 20230199648 A1.
Regarding all other arguments presented by Applicant, the arguments are substantially the same as those which have already been addressed above and, in the interest of brevity, the Examiner directs Applicant to those responses above.
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.
Claim 1, 3, 5-9, 11, and 13-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Babaei (Babaei hereafter) (US 20210307108 A1) in view of Hu et al. (Hu hereafter) (US 20230131188 A1).
Regarding claim 1 and claim 9, Babaei teaches, A method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, an indication for indicating a skipping of monitoring a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) during a PDCCH skipping duration (Babaei; element “skip PDCCH monitoring” FIG. 44; a wireless device may receive a command/signaling … the command/signaling may indicate skipping monitoring the control channel for a duration, Par. 0459);
transmitting, to the base station, a random access preamble (Babaei; The wireless device may transmit a random access preamble in response to the starting the random access process, Par. 0459); and
monitoring, on a primary cell , information on the PDCCH in a duration for receiving a random access response corresponding to the random access preamble without skipping of monitoring the PDCCH during the PDCCH skipping duration (Babaei; the wireless device may ignore the command/signaling and … may monitor the control channel … within a window after transmitting the Msg3/MsgA, Par. 0459; The configuration of PCell may be UE-specific. One or more SCells of the multiple SCells configured for a UE may be configured as downlink-only SCells, e.g., may only be used for downlink reception and may not be used for uplink transmission, Par. 0138),
wherein the duration for receiving the random access response corresponding to the random access preamble comprises a message B response window (msgB- ResponseWindow) for 2-step random access procedure (Babaei; the wireless device may ignore the command/signaling and … may monitor the control channel … within a window after transmitting the Msg3/MsgA, Par. 0459; RAR window for monitoring RAR, Par. 0141; FIG. 12C shows an example of a two-step random access process … In response to the transmission of Msg A, the wireless device may receive Msg B from the base station, Par. 0144).
Although Babaei teaches Pcell is UE-specific and PDCCH is received on Pcell (Par. 0182), but failed to explicitly teach,
primary secondary cell (PSCell).
However, in the same field of endeavor, Hu teaches,
primary secondary cell (PSCell) (Hu; the network device may be a network device corresponding to a primary cell or a primary secondary cell of the terminal device, Par. 0278).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Babaei to include the use of primary secondary cell as taught by Hu in order to initiate random access procedure (Hu; Par. 0051).
Specially for claim 9, Babaei teaches, A terminal in a wireless communication system, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and a controller coupled with the transceiver and configured to (Babaei; a wireless device, Par. 0459).
Regarding claim 3 and claim 11, Babaei-Hu teaches, The method of claim 1 and The terminal of claim 9 respectively, wherein the indication for indicating the skipping of monitoring the PDCCH during the PDCCH skipping duration is received from the base station for the PSCell (Babaei; The wireless device may be indicated to skip PDCCH monitoring using physical layer signaling (e.g., using DCI, Par. 0178 & Hu; receives the PDCCH skipping instruction from the network device, Par. 0232; the network device may be a network device corresponding to a primary cell or a primary secondary cell of the terminal device, Par. 0278).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Babaei is the same as for Claim 1.
Regarding claim 5 and claim 13, Babaei-Hu teaches, The method of claim 1 and The terminal of claim 9 respectively, further comprising:
monitoring, on a special cell (SpCell), the PDCCH in a duration associated with a random access contention resolution timer (ra-ContentionResolutionTimer) without skipping of monitoring the PDCCH during the PDCCH skipping duration (Babaei; even if UE has received a DCI-based indication for PDCCH skipping, the UE may keep monitoring the PDCCH while … ra-ContentionResolutionTimer are running, Par. 0189; initiate a Random Access procedure on the SpCell, Par. 0273 & Hu; If the serving cell is a special cell (SpCell), e.g., a primary cell (PCell) or a primary secondary cell (PSCell), the UE initiates a random access procedure on the SpCell, Par. 0051).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Babaei is the same as for Claim 1.
Regarding claim 6 and claim 14, Babaei-Hu teaches, The method of claim 5 and The terminal of claim 13 respectively, further comprising: receiving, from the base station, the random access response in the duration for receiving the random access response corresponding to the random access preamble; transmitting, to the base station, a message 3 as a response to the random access response; and starting the random access contention resolution timer (Hu; when the RAR from the network device is received, a Msg3 may be transmitted to the network device, and a random access contention resolution timer (ra-ContentionResolutionTimer) is started, Par. 0201).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Hu is the same as for Claim 1.
Regarding claim 7 and claim 15, Babaei-Hu teaches, The method of claim 1 and The terminal of claim 9 respectively, wherein the indication is received in downlink control information (Babaei; The wireless device may be indicated to skip PDCCH monitoring using physical layer signaling (e.g., using DCI, Par. 0178).
Regarding claim 8 and claim 16, Babaei-Hu teaches, The method of claim 1 and The terminal of claim 9 respectively, further comprising:
receiving, from the base station, information on the PDCCH skipping duration (Babaei; the skipping the monitoring the control channel … may be for a duration and/or a time window. The duration and/or the time window may be preconfigured and/or indicated by the command/signaling and/or configured via RRC configuration, Par. 0341).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Prior art US 20230199648 A1 teaches in Par. 0109-0113 that a skipping instruction is applied for a primary secondary cell and a UE monitors or stops monitoring the target downlink control channel in a case that the UE initiates the competition-based random access process.
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 SHARMIN CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)272-6419. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/SHARMIN CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2416