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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 01/21/26, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-21, 23 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Moon (Pub No 20230354275) further in view of newly cited Lim (Pub No 20220110152)
Regarding claim 1,
Applicant argues that the prior art does not teach the amended limitation.
The examiner relies on newly cited Lim to teach the limitation.
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(s) 1-2, 5-7, 10-15, 18-19, 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon (Pub No 20230354275) further in view of Lim (Pub No 20220110152)
Regarding claim 1 and 14,
Moon teaches A method performed at an apparatus, said method comprising:
at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code, said at least one memory and computer program code being configured to, with said at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to: (see memory and processor para [0063])
determining at said apparatus that a channel in unlicensed spectrum has been acquired by said apparatus or by a further apparatus for a predetermined occupancy time, said channel being one of a plurality of channels within unlicensed spectrum; (interpreted as The terminal may acquire information on the COT end time point the base station in the downlink FFP for the channel(s), see para [0236]. Also see LBT operation on a plurality of channels (e.g., a plurality of LBT subbands, a plurality of RB sets), and initiate a common COT for channel(s) in which the transmitting node succeeded in CCA, see para [0157])
initiating a scan of at least one further channel within said unlicensed spectrum to determine if said scanned at least one further channel is available; (interpreted as Accordingly, the terminal may perform the LBT operation in the idle period of the first uplink FFP, and when the sensing operation (e.g., LBT operation) is successful, the terminal may acquire a COT for the corresponding channel in the second uplink FFP, see para [0235])
determining whether a predetermined time has elapsed since said channel was acquired, said predetermined time being less than or equal to said predetermined occupancy time; and (interpreted as The terminal may acquire information on the COT end time point the base station in the downlink FFP for the channel(s), see para [0236])
following said scan indicating that at least one of said scanned at least one further channels is available, and when said predetermined time is determined to have elapsed, initiating the acquiring of one of said available scanned channels for a predetermined occupancy time. (interpreted as According to the information on the COT release time received from the base station, the terminal may regard that the base station does not occupy the channel during the remaining period of the second downlink FFP (e.g., the start period of the second uplink FFP, the idle period of the first uplink FFP, and/or the sensing slot period in the idle period of the first uplink FFP). Accordingly, the terminal may perform the LBT operation in the idle period of the first uplink FFP, and when the sensing operation (e.g., LBT operation) is successful, the terminal may acquire a COT for the corresponding channel in the second uplink FFP, see para [0235])
However Moon does not teach acquired channel is being used for communication between said apparatus and said further apparatus.
Lim teaches acquired channel is being used for communication between said apparatus and said further apparatus. (interpreted as At operation 1566, the UE receives COT acquired indication from the gNB. At operation 1568, the UE transmits/receives signals on acquired channel for COT acquired channel time, see para [0058]. Also see fig. 15b)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the channel as taught by Moon with the channel for communication between as taught by Lim with the motivation being to mitigate interference by using the COT acquired channel between the devices.
Regarding claim 2 and 15,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, said method comprising prior to initiating said scan determining whether a second predetermined period of time has elapsed since said channel was acquired, and when said second predetermined time is determined to have elapsed initiating said scan, said second predetermined period of time being shorter than said predetermined period of time. (interpreted as Alternatively, the terminal may expect that the COT duration indicator included in the DCI format 2_0 indicates the number of symbols from the reference time (e.g., the first symbol of the slot in which the DCI format 2_0 is transmitted) to the predetermined end time of the COT (e.g., the last symbol not overlapping with the idle period among the symbols within the FFP). That is, the terminal may expect that the last symbol of the COT acquired from the COT duration indicator coincides with the predetermined end time of the COT (e.g., the last symbol not overlapping with the idle period among the symbols within the FFP), see para [0166]).
Regarding claim 5 and 18,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, said predetermined time being selected in dependence upon a desired overlap of said occupancy times. (interpreted as The COT end time of the terminal may not be later than a reference time (e.g., a start time of the next downlink FFP, a start time of the idle period before the next downlink FFP, a start time of a sensing slot in the idle period before the next downlink FFP), see para [0239]. Also see That is, the COT initiated by the base station and the COT initiated by the terminal may overlap with each other, see para [0240])
Regarding claim 6 and 19,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, said apparatus performing an initial step of at least one of: initiating transmission of an indication to said further apparatus that multiple channel communication within the unlicensed spectrum between said apparatus and said further apparatus is to be performed; and receiving an indication from said further apparatus that multiple channel communication within the unlicensed spectrum between said apparatus and said further apparatus is to be performed. (interpreted as described above, the transmitting node may perform an LBT operation on a plurality of channels (e.g., a plurality of LBT subbands, a plurality of RB sets), and initiate a common COT for channel(s) in which the transmitting node succeeded in CCA. Alternatively, the transmitting node may independently initiate a COT for each of the channel(s) that succeeded in CCA. For the plurality of channels, the common COT or respective COTs may be shared with the receiving node, and the receiving node may perform transmission in the shared COT, see para [0157])
Regarding claim 7,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, wherein said determining at said apparatus that a channel in the unlicensed spectrum has been acquired by said apparatus or by said further apparatus comprises acquiring said channel, said method further comprising: repeating said initiating scanning of said channels and acquiring available scanned channels for a predetermined occupancy time a plurality of times during a period of multiple channel communication between said apparatus and said further apparatus. (interpreted as On the other hand, when the FBE operation scheme is used, a communication node may perform a sensing operation for channel access at a time that is periodically repeated. For example, an FFP may be periodically repeated, and a sensing operation may be performed in a specific period of each FFP (e.g., idle period within the FFP)., see para [0108]. Also see multiple idle periods for channel sensing fig. 13.)
Regarding claim 10,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, wherein said step of determining at said apparatus that a channel in the unlicensed band has been acquired by said apparatus or by said further apparatus for a predetermined occupancy time comprises receiving a signal from said further apparatus indicating that said further apparatus has acquired said channel. (interpreted as When the DCI including the COT initiation indicator is transmitted in a COT of a downlink FFP, an uplink FFP to which the COT initiation indicator is applied may be determined according to a combination of one or more of a reception end time of the downlink FFP, a reception time of the DCI, a time (e.g., T) required for the terminal to obtain triggering of COT initiation (e.g., COT initiation indicator) by processing the DCI, a subcarrier spacing of a downlink bandwidth part, and a subcarrier spacing of an uplink bandwidth part, see para [0284].)
Regarding claim 11,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 10, said method comprising:
following acquiring said scanned available channel transmitting an indication to said further apparatus that said scanned available channel has been acquired for a predetermined occupancy time; and receiving a signal from said further apparatus indicating that said further apparatus has acquired a further one of said plurality of channels in the unlicensed spectrum prior to or on said predetermined occupancy time that said scanned available channel was acquired for expiring. (interpreted as The base station may configure (e.g., indicate) the terminal to early release the COT initiated by the terminal. For example, the base station may transmit information related to the end time (e.g., a specific symbol in the FFP) of the COT initiated by the terminal to the terminal, and the terminal may terminate the COT at the time indicated by the information on the end time of the COT. The information related to the COT end time may be transmitted to the terminal through a signaling procedure with the base station (e.g., RRC signaling procedure, DCI signaling procedure, etc.), see para [0238])
Regarding claim 12,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 1, comprising performing a further check that said scanned available channel is still available immediately prior to initiating the acquiring of said channel (interpreted as Accordingly, the terminal may perform the LBT operation in the idle period of the first uplink FFP, and when the sensing operation (e.g., LBT operation) is successful, the terminal may acquire a COT for the corresponding channel in the second uplink FFP, see para [0235])
Regarding claim 13,
Moon teaches A computer program comprising computer readable instructions which when executed by a processor on an apparatus are configured to cause said apparatus to perform a method according to claim 1. (interpreted as he exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented as program instructions executable by a variety of computers and recorded on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium may include a program instruction, a data file, a data structure, or a combination thereof. The program instructions recorded on the computer readable medium may be designed and configured specifically for the present disclosure or can be publicly known and available to those who are skilled in the field of computer software, see para [0322])
Regarding claim 23,
Moon teaches The apparatus according to claim 14, said apparatus further comprising transmit circuitry configured to transmit signals, receive circuitry configured to receive signals, and scan security configured to scan channels in unlicensed spectrum. (interpreted as Referring to FIG. 2, a communication node 200 may comprise at least one processor 210, a memory 220, and a transceiver 230 connected to the network for performing communications. Also, the communication node 200 may further comprise an input interface device 240, an output interface device 250, a storage device 260, and the like. Each component included in the communication node 200 may communicate with each other as connected through a bus 270, see para [0062])
Claim(s) 3-4, 16-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon (Pub No 20230354275) further in view of Lim (Pub No 20220110152) and Park (Pub No 20210298074)
Regarding claim 3 and 16,
Moon in view of Lim teaches The method according to claim 2, however does not teach wherein a value of said second predetermined period of time is specific to a particular channel.
Park teaches wherein a value of said second predetermined period of time is specific to a particular channel. (interpreted as The COT 210 may start at a beginning of the FFP 202.sub.3 and a duration of the COT 210 may be dependent on the data load. In the example illustrated in FIG. 2, the duration of the COT 210 is not greater than a duration of the MCOT 204, see para [0056])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the COT duration taught by Moon with the COT duration based on load as taught by Park since it would have been obvious to have a length of the COT duration before performing LBT to be based on a load parameter since more load means longer COT is needed.
Regarding claim 4 and 17,
Moon in view of Lim teaches the method according to claim 3, however does not teach said method comprising determining said second predetermined time for said at least one further channel to be scanned in dependence upon at least one of: a determined channel load and channel occupancy of said at least one further channel; and stored historical data indicative of a latency between a scan commencing and said at least one further channel being determined to be available.
Park teaches said method comprising determining said second predetermined time for said at least one further channel to be scanned in dependence upon at least one of: a determined channel load and channel occupancy of said at least one further channel; and stored historical data indicative of a latency between a scan commencing and said at least one further channel being determined to be available. (interpreted as The COT 210 may start at a beginning of the FFP 202.sub.3 and a duration of the COT 210 may be dependent on the data load. In the example illustrated in FIG. 2, the duration of the COT 210 is not greater than a duration of the MCOT 204, see para [0056])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the COT duration taught by Moon with the COT duration based on load as taught by Park since it would have been obvious to have a length of the COT duration before performing LBT to be based on a load parameter since more load means longer COT is needed.
Claim(s) 8-9, 20-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon (Pub No 20230354275) further in view of Lim (Pub No 20220110152), Jupp (Pub No 20190232969), and Yuan (Pub No 20160295355)
Regarding claim 8 and 20,
Moon teaches The method according to claim 7, said method further comprising: on acquiring said one of said available scanned channels, requesting an uplink transmission from said further apparatus; (interpreted as On the other hand, when the terminal succeeds in CCA in the idle period of the first uplink FFP, the terminal may initiate a COT in the second uplink FFP, and may transmit an uplink signal from a start part of the COT of the second uplink FFP, see para [0192]) ; for a predetermined occupancy time period; and (interpreted as On the other hand, when the terminal succeeds in CCA in the idle period of the first uplink FFP, the terminal may initiate a COT in the second uplink FFP, and may transmit an uplink signal from a start part of the COT of the second uplink FFP, see para [0192])
However Moon in view of Lim does not teach where said uplink transmission is not received within a set time:
and selecting a further one of said scanned available channels and acquiring said further one of said scanned available channels; marking said one of said available scanned channels as unavailable.
Jupp teaches where said uplink transmission is not received within a set time:
and selecting a further one of said scanned available channels and acquiring said further one of said scanned available channels (interpreted as if the controller does not receive a response message within the threshold time period, a failure of the communications channel may be detected, see para [0044])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the system taught by Moon with the channel failure as taught by Jupp since it is known in the art of communications to use threshold timers so resources are not wasted on waiting on poor channels.
However Moon in view of Lim and Jupp does not teach marking said one of said available scanned channels as unavailable.
Yuan teaches marking said one of said available scanned channels as unavailable. (interpreted as channels that correspond to interference energy values greater than the median are all marked as unavailable channels, see para [0051]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the system taught by Moon in view of Lim with the channel failure marking as taught by Yuan since to further indicate that the channels are not to be used.
Regarding claim 9 and 21,
Moon teaches the method according to claim 8, wherein said predetermined time is selected to provide a set overlap period for said occupancy times, said step of selecting and acquiring said further one of said scanned available channels being performed within said set overlap period. (interpreted as The COT end time of the terminal may not be later than a reference time (e.g., a start time of the next downlink FFP, a start time of the idle period before the next downlink FFP, a start time of a sensing slot in the idle period before the next downlink FFP), see para [0239]. Also see That is, the COT initiated by the base station and the COT initiated by the terminal may overlap with each other, see para [0240])
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BAO G NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-7732. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10pm - 6:30pm.
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/BAO G NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2461
/JASON E MATTIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461