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 10/31/25, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-8 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 Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.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 Stern-Berkowitz (Pub No 20180316464) further in view of newly cited Rico (Pub No 20170332370)
Regarding claim 1,
Applicant argues that the prior art does not teach the 3 different retuning capabilities.
The examiner relies on newly cited Rico to teach the limitations.
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) 1-4 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)
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 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])
However Stern-Berkowitz does not teach one of three possible capabilities on retuning time for frequency hopping.
Rico teaches one of three 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])
However Stern-Berkowitz does not teach one of three possible values on retuning capabilities for frequency hopping.
Rico teaches one of three possible values on retuning capabilities 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,
The method according to claim 1, however does 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
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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/BAO G NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2461
/HUY D VU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2461