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 .
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, 2, 5, 13, 15, 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JI et al PG PUB 2022/0408465.
Re Claims 1, 22, 24, 26, 28, JI et al teaches a network device (processing circuitry, memory, non-transitory CRM) operating in a communication network via a Pcell, Scell and a terminal device (a communication device includes processing circuitry and memory) [0137] wherein the network device configures a Pcell and Scell for the terminal device; based on a cross-carrier scheduling capability of the terminal device, the network device configures the Scell as a scheduling cell for the cross-carrier scheduling whereby the terminal is configured with CR-SS (search space) to monitor a first DCI with a first scheduling information associated with communication with the Pcell [0138 0139 0140]; as the terminal device monitors the foregoing SSs simultaneously, the network device further configures the Pcell as self-scheduled whereby the terminal device monitors SE-SS for a second DCI with a second scheduling information associated with second communication for the PCell; the network device configures Scell as self-scheduled whereby the terminal monitors O-SS for a third DCI (for scheduling) related to communication for the Scell.
JI et al fails to explicitly teach “not monitor the Pcell for any scheduling associated with communication with any Scells of the one or more Scells”. However, JI et al teaches the Pcell has a limited control channel capacity [0049]. Based on the limited control channel capacity, one skilled in the art would have been motivated to have “not monitor for Pcell for any scheduling associated communications for Scells” to conserve power at the terminal device and to mitigate for the limited control channel capacity. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled to have “not monitor the Pcell” as claimed.
Re Claims 2, 23, JI et al teaches the network device configures (the configuration message) the Pcell as self-scheduled whereby the terminal device only monitors SE-SS for the second scheduling information associated with communication via the Pcell [0139] and the terminal device monitoring CR-SS for the Scell for the first scheduling information for the Pcell and monitoring the O-SS for the scheduling information for at least one other Scell.
Re Claims 5, 30, JI et al teaches the CR-SS (a second set of PDCCH) that belongs to USS (a communication specific SS) for the Scell and SE-SS (a subset of a set of PDCCH candidates that belongs to CSS for the Pcell [0052].
Re Claim 13, JI e al teaches the terminal device receiving a first scheduling configuration information indicating the CR-SS with a first search space index; the terminal device receiving a second scheduling information indicating the SE-SS with a second search space index; O-SS (the first SSS) is linked with the second scheduling configuration includes/indicates a number of PDCCH candidates [0143] wherein the terminal device monitoring the CR-SS (the second set of PDCCH candidates) on the Scell and receiving the DCI (first DCI format) with the first scheduling information .
Re Claim 15, JI et al teaches the terminal device is configured with a set of PDCCH candidates based on CORESET identifier/index [0117].
Re Claim 18, JI et al teaches the terminal device is configured with SE-SS based CORESET identifier/index (a second CORESET index); the terminal detects the DCI (the second DCI format) according to the SE-SS (a third set of PDCCH candidates) on the Pcell and communicates the terminal device on the Pcell based on the scheduling information in the detected DCI.
Claims 3, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JI et al PG PUB 2022/0408465 in view of KIM et al PG PUB 2021/0250920.
Re Claims 3, 20, JI et al teaches the terminal monitoring the foregoing SSs simultaneously for scheduling the activation of the one or more Scell to support CA aggregation via cross-carrier scheduling [0049]. JIN et al fails teaches “ceasing to monitor for PDCCH candidates on the Scell for communication on the Pcell”. However, KIM et al teaches a DCI indicates deactivation of Scell in the case of cross-scheduling [0522]. When the Scell is deactivated, the terminal device would have ceased the monitoring for the CR-SS (PDCCH candidates) on the Scell to conserve battery life. One skilled in the art would have been motivated to have cease monitoring of the PDCCH candidates to conserve battery life. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled to have combined the teachings.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-11, 31 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Re Claims 10 and 31, Prior art fails to teach second PDCCH DCI format ending in a second symbol of the Scell, the end of the first symbol earlier than the end to the second symbol as claimed.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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/ANDREW LEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475