DETAILED ACTION
This Final Office Action is in response to application number 18,020,179 filed on February 7st, 2023. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant’s amendment filed 02/05/2026 is acknowledged
Claims 1,12 and 25 have been amended
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed on February 7th,2023.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements (IDS), submitted on February 5th , 2026, May 21st, 2024 and February 7th, 2023, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on February 5th 2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1,12 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wei et al. (US 12250578 B2).
Regarding claims 1,12 and 25, Wei et al. disclose a method for determining a control-channel-element (CCE) index, comprising: determining a CCE index of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) candidate according to a number of CCEs in a plurality monitoring occasions. (Column 11 Lines 39-42 discloses “In some embodiments, the policy indicates that a starting CCE index for the single PDCCH candidate is based on a total number of CCEs in the multiple PDCCH monitoring occasions.”).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 12 and 25 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached on 571-272-8586.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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