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 § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1-4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
In the amendment dated 6/9/26, applicant has replaced the phrase “retuning time” with “returning time” in claim 1, line 5; claim 2, line 6; claim 3, line 8 and claim 4, line 6. However, “returning time” is not supported by the specification.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/09/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding claim 1,
The applicant argues that the prior art teaches does not teach the amended limitation “identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities”.
However, the examiner disagrees because the prior art only teaches 3 different retuning capabilities and therefore reads upon the claim limitation “identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities”. Furthermore, the limitation regarding the “identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities is satisfied since it transmits all three different capabilities which teaches the limitation of claim 1 the “identifying one capability” limitation. The limitation does not require that the prior art to transmit “only one retuning capability”.
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 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stern-Berkowitz (Pub No 20180316464) further in view of Rico (Pub No 20170332370)
Regarding claim 1 and 3,
Stern-Berkowitz teaches A method performed by a user equipment (UE) configured to communicate using any of a plurality of subbands, the method comprising:
Controller; and a transceiver, wherein the controller is configured to: (controller and transceiver, para [0042])
transmitting to a base station, in a radio resource control (RRC) message, (interpreted as The retuning time may be configured via a higher layer signaling, see para [0301]. Also see higher layer signaling (e.g., RRC signaling), see para [0320]) capability information including a retuning time for frequency hopping (interpreted as The different retuning time may be determined according to the intra-mode narrowband hopping and/or inter-mode narrowband hopping. For example, when a narrowband location is changed from a first narrowband to a second narrowband, a first retuning time (T_re1) may be used if the first and the second narrowbands may be a same mode of operation. A second retuning time (T_re2) may be used if the first and the second narrowbands may be a different mode of operation, see para [0301])
Stern-Berkowitz teaches indicating retuning time, however, Stern-Berkowitz does not teach identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities on retuning time for frequency hopping.
Rico teaches identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities on retuning time for frequency hopping. (interpreted as The UE switching capability information may include an indication of a 3 symbol switching time for CC1 to CC3, a 1 ms switching time from CC1 to CC4, a 2 ms switching time from CC2 to CC3, and that switching is not supported for CC2 to CC4, see para [0111)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the two different retuning times as taught by Stern-Berkowitz with the different retuning/switching times as taught by Rico since it would have been a design choice to include any plurality of switching times to accommodate the different parameters of the system.
Regarding claim 2 and 4,
Stern-Berkowitz teaches A method performed by base station configured to communicate with a user equipment (UE) configured to communicate using any of a plurality of subbands, the method comprising:
Controller; and a transceiver, wherein the controller is configured to: (controller and transceiver, para [0042])
Receiving, from the UE, in a radio resource control (RRC) message, (interpreted as The retuning time may be configured via a higher layer signaling, see para [0301]. Also see higher layer signaling (e.g., RRC signaling), see para [0320]) capability information including information indicating (interpreted as The different retuning time may be determined according to the intra-mode narrowband hopping and/or inter-mode narrowband hopping. For example, when a narrowband location is changed from a first narrowband to a second narrowband, a first retuning time (T_re1) may be used if the first and the second narrowbands may be a same mode of operation. A second retuning time (T_re2) may be used if the first and the second narrowbands may be a different mode of operation, see para [0301])
Stern-Berkowitz teaches indicating retuning time, however, Stern-Berkowitz does not teach identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities on retuning time for frequency hopping.
Rico teaches identifying one capability from among three different possible capabilities on retuning time for frequency hopping. (interpreted as The UE switching capability information may include an indication of a 3 symbol switching time for CC1 to CC3, a 1 ms switching time from CC1 to CC4, a 2 ms switching time from CC2 to CC3, and that switching is not supported for CC2 to CC4, see para [0111)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the two different retuning times as taught by Stern-Berkowitz with the different retuning/switching times as taught by Rico since it would have been a design choice to include any plurality of switching times to accommodate the different parameters of the system.
Claim(s) 5-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stern-Berkowitz (Pub No 20180316464) further in view of Rico (Pub No 20170332370) and Kim (Pub No 20150365968)
Regarding claim 5, 6, 7, 8,
Stern-Berkowitz in view of Rico teach the method according to claim 1, however do not teach wherein the capability information includes the information per frequency band.
Kim teaches wherein the capability information includes the information per frequency band (interpreted as UE capability information message including capability indicators indicating per-frequency band dynamic TDD operation supportabilities at step 1000, see para [0074])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the capability information taught by the capability information per frequency band with as taught by Kim with the motivation being to include metrics such as frequency for the frequency switching.
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
/HUY D VU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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