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 .
This Office Action is in response to amendment received March 11, 2026, wherein claims 1, 4, 7, 10 and 13 being currently amended, claims 19 and 20 being currently cancelled.
In virtue of this communication, claims 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 17-18 are currently pending in this Office Action.
The Office appreciates the explanation of the amendment and analyses of the prior arts, and however, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and MPEP 2145.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argue Lin et al., Lei et al., and Panteleev et al., applied alone or in combination, clearly fail to teach or suggest the feature of teaches "in a case that the bit of the additional information bits is set to a first value, the PDCCH is repeatedly transmitted in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and a second PDCCH monitoring occasion, and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion is located in a slot subsequent to a slot containing the first PDCCH monitoring occasion" (Remarks, page 6-11) have been fully considered and are not persuasive.
In the previous office action, Examine cited para [0062], [0140] of reference Lei to teach “in a case that the bit of the additional information bits is set to a first value, the PDCCH is repeatedly transmitted in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and a second PDCCH monitoring occasion, and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion is located in a slot subsequent to a slot containing the first PDCCH monitoring occasion”. Lei disclose new field indication for inter-slot, see Fig. 7, and para [0062], “the base station may add fields to the PBCH to indicate intra-slot or inter-slot repetitions, intra-slot or inter-slot frequency hopping, or both for broadcasting physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) … the new fields may indicate whether inter-slot or intra-slot repetitions or frequency hopping is enabled, a level of repetitions enabled (e.g., numerical value of repetitions), or both” ” and para [0140], ““the base station 105 may add a pattern-repetition field (e.g., via one (1) bit) to indicate whether intra-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “0”) or inter-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “1”). Additionally or alternatively, the base station 105 may add a level-repetition field (e.g., one (1) or two (2) bits) to indicate mapping to the level of repetitions for coverage enhancement”. Thus, Lei disclose a pattern-repetition field for inter-slot, and it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to understand inter-slot is defined for different consecutive slots.
Regarding Claim 17, applicant argue paragraph [0284] of Lin et al. merely discusses "parameters" and does not teach or suggest anything at all about the specific internal structure of the search space set. Therefore, Lin et al. clearly fails to teach or suggest a relationship between PDCCH candidates with a same index for a CCE aggregation level in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion (Remarks, page 11-12) have been fully considered and are not persuasive.
Lin disclose A UE determines CCEs for a PDCCH reception based on a search space, see para [0087], “A UE determines CCEs for a PDCCH reception based on a search space
such as a UE-specific search space (USS) for PDCCH candidates with DCI format having CRC scrambled by a RNTI … A set of CCEs that can be used for PDCCH transmission to a UE define a PDCCH candidate location”. Lin disclose a search space set includes parameters for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) reception that includes a DCI format, see para [0284]. Lin further discloses search space is associated with its corresponding CORESET, see para [00280-0284]. Thereby, when second PDCCH monitoring occasion is serving as monitoring the repetition transmission of the first PDCCH, which being based on the same DCI configuration with the same CCEs configuration. When first and second PDCCH configured with the same CORESET, both of them using the same CCEs configuration.
Furthermore, Panteleev disclose the set of CORESETs is used to employ the same CCE-to-REG mapping, see para [0045], “ the set of CORESETs used to map a PDCCH
candidate are constrained to employ the same CCE-to-REG mapping, same CORESET
duration, same REG bundle size, and same pre-coder granularity… such an approach of mapping of a PDCCH candidate to multiple CORESETs may be configured for PDCCH with aggregation levels”.
Based on the aforementioned reasoning, therefore, the Applicant’s argument is not
persuasive. Further, the new ground(s) of rejection is necessitated by the applicant amendment. The Office has thoroughly reviewed Applicants' arguments but firmly believes that the cited references to reasonably and properly meet the claimed limitations.
Claim Interpretation
MPEP §2111.04 recites “The broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. For example, assume a method claim requires step A if a first condition happens and step B if a second condition happens. If the claimed invention may be practiced without either the first or second condition happening, then neither step A or B is required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. If the claimed invention requires the first condition to occur, then the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim requires step A. If the claimed invention requires both the first and second conditions to occur, then the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim requires both steps A and B.”
Note that claim 13 is a method claim and contains contingent limitations. For method claims with contingent limitations, the broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. The limitation starting with “in a case that the bit of the additional information bits is set to a first value... " is a contingent limitation recited in the method of claim 13. See MPEP 2111.04 subsection II.
Since this are contingent limitations not required to occur, they are not required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. Applicant is encouraged to require the conditions of the limitation to occur within the claim language or otherwise rewrite the claim language to avoid using contingent claiming. The prior art mapping was mapped to address the claim language, including the contingent limitations, however the contingent limitations are not included in the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim scope, so they cannot be relied upon to distinguish the claim scope from the prior art.
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.
Claims 1,4,7,10,13 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin et al. (US 20210007066 A1, hereinafter Lin) in view of Lei et al. (US 20210274451 A1, hereinafter Lei), and further in view of Panteleev et al. (US 20190182807 A1, hereinafter Panteleev).
Claim 1: Lin teaches a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 3, element 116), comprising:
reception circuitry configured (Fig. 3, elements 310,325,315, [0069], “the processor 340 could control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of reverse channel signals by the RF transceiver 310, the RX processing circuitry 325, and the TX processing circuitry 315 in accordance with well-known principles”) to receive, from a base station, a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) block (Fig. 28 element 2801, [0275], “a UE is provided with a configuration of sub-CORESET #0 and Type0-PDCCH CSS set through PBCH in step 2801”, [0102], “PBCH is used to deliver MIB to UEs within the serving cell. MIB indicates a configuration of a control resource set (CORESET) #0 and corresponding search space set for scheduling transmission of RMSI, paging, and PRACH configuration”, wherein MIB is properly interpreted as first information);
And processing circuitry configured (Fig. 3, element 340, [0069], “The processor 340 can include one or more processors or other processing devices and execute the OS 361 stored in the memory 360 in order to control the overall operation of the UE 116”) to: monitor physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) candidates for a first search space set based on the first information (Fig. 28 element 2803, [0275], “the associated sub-CORESET #0 is the sub-CORESET #0 with highest RBs indices. The UE then monitors Type0-PDCCH in the CSS set and associated sub-CORESET #0 in step 2803”, [0116], “UE monitors PDCCH candidates in any of the following search space
sets: a Type0-PDCCH CSS set configured by pdcch-ConfigSIB1 in MIB”),
and the first PDCCH monitoring occasion is determined based on the first information and an index, the index being an index of the received SS/PBCH block ([0160], “For the SS/PBCH block and CORESET multiplexing pattern 1, a Cat-L UE monitors PDCCH candidates in CSS0-light over X consecutive slots starting from slot, n′.sub.0, such that n′.sub.0=n.sub.0+D_CSS0, where n0 is the starting slot index for PDCCH Monitoring in Type0-PDCCH CSS set associated with a SS/PBCH block with index i, and D_CSS0 is time offset between the start of PDCCH monitoring occasion in CSS0-light and the start of PDCCH monitoring occasion in Type0-PDCCH CSS set associated with same SS/PBCH block”, [0116], “UE monitors PDCCH candidates in any of the following search space sets: a Type0-PDCCH CSS set configured by pdcch-ConfigSIB1 in MIB”. Fig. 15, [0163], illustrate monitoring occasion from Type0-PDCCH CSS set associated with SS/PBCH block with index i=0, 1, 2, 3 under different configurations ).
wherein the first information is a master information block (MIB) ([0116], “UE monitors PDCCH candidates in any of the following search space sets: a Type0-PDCCH CSS set configured by pdcch-ConfigSIB1 in MIB”. [0102], “PBCH is used to deliver MIB to UEs within the serving cell. MIB indicates a configuration of a control resource set (CORESET) #0 and corresponding search space set for scheduling transmission of RMSI, paging, and PRACH configuration”).
However, Lin does not explicitly teach the SS/PBCH block providing first information and second information different from the first information,
determine whether PDCCH repetition for the first search space set is applied or not based on a value of a bit in additional information bits,
wherein the second information is the additional information bits, the MIB and the additional information bits are included in the PBCH the MIB and the additional information bits are not contained in each other.
in a case that the bit of the additional information bits is set to a first value, the PDCCH candidate is repeatedly transmitted in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and a second PDCCH monitoring occasion, and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion is located in a slot subsequent to a slot containing the first PDCCH monitoring occasion.
Lei, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches the SS/PBCH block providing first information and second information different from the first information (Fig. 7, [0114], “base station 105-a may add information elements and fields to PBCH 210 to support coverage enhancement for broadcasting different downlink messages (e.g., PDCCH, PDSCH, DMRS, or the like) to UE 115-a … The added fields may be mapped to a subset of unused, reserve, or re-purposed information bits carried by PBCH 210 (e.g., including a MIB TB, a PHY payload of PBCH 210, a DMRS scrambling ID of PBCH 210, or a combination thereof)”, wherein the added fields in a PHY payload of PBCH 210, unused portions of PBCH, or a DMRS scrambling ID of PBCH 210 are reading as second information. MIB is reading as first information. [0140], “add a pattern-repetition field (e.g., via one (1) bit) to indicate whether intra-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “0”) or inter-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “1”)… the base station 105 may add a level-repetition field (e.g., one (1) or two (2) bits) to indicate mapping to the level of repetitions for coverage enhancement”, [0144], “the base station 105 may determine the PBCH for carrying the added fields for the UE capabilities of the second type of communications or second UE class”),
wherein the second information is the additional information bits, the MIB and the additional information bits are included in the PBCH the MIB and the additional information bits are not contained in each other ([0062], “the base station may add fields to the PBCH to indicate intra-slot or inter-slot repetitions, intra-slot or inter-slot frequency hopping, or both for broadcasting physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) … the new fields may indicate whether inter-slot or intra-slot repetitions or frequency hopping is enabled, a level of repetitions enabled (e.g., numerical value of repetitions), or both. These new fields may be mapped to unused, reserved, or re-purposed portions of the PBCH, a master information block (MIB) transport block (TB), a physical payload of the PBCH, a DMRS scrambling identifier (ID) of the PBCH”, wherein the new fields mapped to a physical payload of the PBCH, a DMRS scrambling identifier (ID) of the PBCH, unused portions of the PBCH is reading as second information carried not in MIB. Fig. 7, [0144], “the base station 105 may determine the PBCH for carrying the added fields for the UE capabilities of the second type of communications or second UE class. For example, the base station 105 may transmit the PBCH carrying the added fields (e.g., intra-slot or inter-slot repetitions, intra-slot or inter-slot frequency hopping, or both for broadcasting a PDCCH, PDSCH or DMRS) based on the repurposed, reserved, or unchanged fields as identified in 720 and 730”, Fig. 9, 10A, 10B, [0115], “UE 115-a may also perform a multiplexing pattern determination 225 to determine a multiplexing pattern that base station 105-a is using for transmitting downlink messages to UE 115-a (e.g., PBCH 210, SSB 215, CSS sets in PBCH 210, SIB1 in PBCH 210 …different multiplexing patterns (e.g., TDM, FDM, hybrid of TDM and FDM… To accommodate different multiplexing patterns and repetition-based transmissions for broadcasting the downlink messages for the NR Light communications, look-up tables may be defined and used for default configurations of CORESET0 and Type0-PDCCH monitoring occasions, where the look-up tables may be parameterized based on the combinations of the bandwidth, SCS.sub.SSB, and SCS.sub.Type0-PDCCH”).
in a case that the bit of the additional information bits is set to a first value, the PDCCH candidate is repeatedly transmitted in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and a second PDCCH monitoring occasion, and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion is located in a slot subsequent to a slot containing the first PDCCH monitoring occasion (Fig. 7, [0062], “the base station may add fields to the PBCH to indicate intra-slot or inter-slot repetitions, intra-slot or inter-slot frequency hopping, or both for broadcasting physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) … the new fields may indicate whether inter-slot or intra-slot repetitions or frequency hopping is enabled, a level of repetitions enabled (e.g., numerical value of repetitions), or both”, [0140], “the base station 105 may add a pattern-repetition field (e.g., via one (1) bit) to indicate whether intra-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “0”) or inter-slot repetition for PDCCHs or PDSCHs is enabled (e.g., a “1”). Additionally or alternatively, the base station 105 may add a level-repetition field (e.g., one (1) or two (2) bits) to indicate mapping to the level of repetitions for coverage enhancement”, wherein “intra-slot repetition for PDCCHs” is reading as second PDCCH monitoring occasion is located in a slot subsequent to the first PDCCH).
Lin and Lei are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the PBCH structure of Lin to add additional information bits to indicate PDCCH repetition as taught by Lei, for the benefit of allowing base station to identify system information unique to UE capabilities with unused, reserved, or repurposed information bits carried by the PBCH (Fig. 7, paragraph [0142]), adding a level-repetition field to indicate mapping to the level of inter-slot repetition for coverage enhancement (paragraph [0140]) .
Panteleev, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches determine whether PDCCH repetition for the first search space set is applied or not based on a value of a bit in additional information bits ([0031], “The maximum CORESET duration that may be configured in a cell is configured implicitly via Physical Broadcast CHannel (PBCH)”, [0039], “UE is configured with a repetition level or a number of repetition of a PDCCH candidate over a configured number, R, of consecutive monitoring occasions of a CORESET”,[0041], “the UE is configured with multiple CORESETs and, as part of a UESS configuration, the multiple CORESET indices are included to imply that corresponding to each monitoring occasion for the search space, the PDCCH candidate is repeated in the indicated CORESETs in a pre-defined or configured order of CORESET indices. This approach can be applied to map PDCCH repetitions on CORESETs with different configurations of frequency and/or time domain resources of the CORESET”, [0048], “ the exact number may be configured as part of the search space configuration. Alternatively, the search space configuration may indicate the maximum number of repetitions that may be used to transmit a PDCCH in the search space, Rmax”, [0049], “if the UE is configured with a search space set configuration such that it assumes PDCCH candidates may be transmitted with R=1 (i.e., no repetition), R=2 or 4 with Rmax=4 repetitions over Rmax monitoring occasions, the UE is expected to monitor for PDCCH candidates with no repetitions (R=1) in not only the first monitoring occasion but also the second, third, or fourth monitoring occasions, and PDCCH candidates with R=2 repetitions starting at the first monitoring and third monitoring occasion, and PDCCH candidates with R=4 repetitions starting at the first monitoring occasion”, wherein monitoring occasion is determined based on R and Rmax).
Lin and Panteleev are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the PBCH structure of Lin to add additional information bits to determine whether PDCCH repetition for the first search space set is applied or not as taught by Panteleev, for the benefit of allowing UE to combine the repeated PDCCH candidates to improve reception reliability and/or coverage when UE is configured with a number of repetition of a PDCCH candidate over a configured number of consecutive monitoring occasions of a CORESET(paragraph [0039]).
Claim 7 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Lin further teaches a base station (Fig. 2, element 102), transmission circuitry (Fig. 2, element 215, 220, 210a, [0059], “The TX processing circuitry 215 encodes, multiplexes, and/or digitizes the outgoing baseband data to generate processed baseband or IF signals” ) and processing circuitry(Fig. 2, element 225, [0060], “The controller/processor 225 can include one or more processors or other processing devices that control the overall operation of the gNB 102”).
Claim 13 is a method of Claim 1, and is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1.
Claim 4: Lin teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein: the MIB includes a first parameter related to the first search space set and a second parameter related to a control resource set (CORESET), the CORESET is associated with the first search space set, and the index of the CORESET is CORESET index 0, the index of the first search space set is search space set index 0 ([0102], “ PBCH is used to deliver MIB to UEs within the serving cell. MIB indicates a configuration of a control resource set (CORESET) #0 and corresponding search space
set”. Fig. 28, [0275], “a UE is provided with a configuration of sub-CORESET #0 and Type0-PDCCH CSS set through PBCH in step 2801”).
Claim 10 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 7 and claim 4.
Claim 17: The combination of Lin, Panteleev and Lei teaches the UE of claim 1, PDCCH candidates with a same index for a control channel element (CCE) aggregation level in the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion provide same downlink control information (DCI) (Lin, [0284], “ a search space set includes parameters for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) reception that includes a DCI format”, [0087], “A UE determines CCEs for a PDCCH reception based on a search space such as a UE-specific search space (USS) for PDCCH candidates with DCI format having CRC scrambled by a RNTI … A set of CCEs that can be used for PDCCH transmission to a UE define a PDCCH candidate location”, [00280-0284], wherein search space is associated with its corresponding CORESET. Thereby, when second PDCCH monitoring occasion is serving as monitoring the repetition transmission of the first PDCCH, which being based on the same DCI configuration with the same CCEs configuration. When first and second PDCCH configured with the same CORESET, both of them using the same CCEs configuration.
Panteleev, [0045], “ the set of CORESETs used to map a PDCCH candidate are constrained to employ the same CCE-to-REG mapping, same CORESET duration, same REG bundle size, and same pre-coder granularity… such an approach of mapping of a PDCCH candidate to multiple CORESETs may be configured for PDCCH with aggregation levels”), for a DCI format with a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled by a system information radio network temporary identifier (SI-RNTI) (Lin, [0260], “the UE is expected to monitor Type0-PDCCH or DCI formats with CRC scrambled by SI-RNTI for scheduling information of RMSI”, [0124], “a Cat-L UE can monitor PDCCH candidates in any of the following: a Type0-PDCCH CSS set configured by pdcch-ConfigSIB1 in MIB or by searchSpaceSIB1 in PDCCH-ConfigCommon or by searchSpaceZero in PDCCH-ConfigCommon for a DCI format with CRC scrambled by a SI-RNTI on the primary cell of the MCG”, [0102], “PBCH is used to deliver MIB to UEs within the serving cell. MIB indicates a configuration of a control resource set (CORESET) #0 and corresponding search space set for scheduling transmission of RMSI, paging, and PRACH configuration”).
Claim 18 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 7 and claim 17.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/Y.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/NICHOLAS A JENSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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