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 .
Priorities and Examiner Remarks
This application is a Continuation of PCT/CN2021/109645 (filed 07/30/2021),
which claims foreign priority to application of CHINA: 202010770403.X (filed
07/31/2020).
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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, 11-14, 21, 23-24, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DA et al. (WO 2019/137228 A1, hereinafter DA, NOTE: corresponding US 2020/0359343 A1 currently being used for rejection citation purposes below), in view of Ang et al. (US 2020/0053811 A1, hereinafter Ang) and TIAN et al. (US 2021/0385054 A1, hereinafter TIAN).
Regarding claim 1, DA teaches an apparatus, comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memories having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the one or more processors (DA, see at least fig. 5 and/or fig. 3, e.g. various components),
cause the apparatus to (DA, in general, see fig. 1 in view of fig. 2 and their respective paragraphs, in particular, see at least para. 87-99 disclosing step 101 and step 1011):
receive a first synchronization signal block (SSB) from a network device, wherein the first SSB is a first-type SSB that is not usable for a first terminal device to access a network (DA, see at least step 101 of para. 87 in view of para. 3-4, for one non-limiting example, one or more UE receives a RRM-SSB or a CD-SSB, note that RRM-SSB is also referred to as non-CD-SSB, and being used for a UE to detect CD-SSB which is used for accessing a certain cell),
the first terminal device is different from the second terminal device (DA, see at least step 101 of para. 87 in view of para. 3, for one non-limiting example, there are one or more UE that are receiving RRM-SSBs or CD-SSBs),
the first SSB comprises first indication information, and the first indication information is carried in a field that is invalid for the second terminal device in the first SSB (DA, see at least para. 96-98 in view of para. 3-4, “…step 1011: indicating whether the first SSB includes the associated RMSI by using a value of a physical resource block grid offsets (PRB-grid-offsets) parameter…”, in other words, a value is used to indicate whether RMSI is included (CD-SSB) or RMSI is not included (RRM-SSB, a.k.a. non-CD-SSB)).
DA does not specifically teach (a) the same first SSB is also a second-type SSB that is usable for a second terminal device to access a network; and (b) in response to at least that the first SSB is the second-type SSB for the second terminal device, determine at least one of a first control-resource set or first common search space based on the first SSB.
Ang teaches (a) the same first SSB is also a second-type SSB that is usable for a second terminal device to access a network (Ang, see at least para. 151-153, “…In such cases, multi-SSB handling again may be used by both the high bandwidth UEs and the lower bandwidth UEs, and non-cell-defining SSB (NCD-SSB) can be deployed to distribute lower bandwidth UEs across frequency in finer granularity…”); and TIAN further teaches (b) in response to at least that the first SSB is the second-type SSB for the second terminal device, determine at least one of a first control-resource set or first common search space based on the first SSB (TIAN, see at para. 54-59 of fig. 6, “...In 220, the terminal device determines, based on the first type of SSB, a frequency domain position (referred to as a target frequency domain position for convenience of description) of CORESET of RMSI associated with the first type of SSB. Herein, the first type of SSB mainly refers to an SSB that is not a second type of SSB. In an implementation of the present disclosure, the first type of SSB may also be called non-CD SSB...”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Ang and TIAN into DA for providing efficient techniques for configuring channel bandwidths may enhance the efficiency of a wireless communications system, as well as for effectively determine a frequency domain position of CORESET of RMSI associated with SSB.
Regarding claim 2, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches a first value of the first indication information indicates that the first SSB is the second-type SSB for the second terminal device. (DA, see at least para. 97-98, “...It should be noted that when a carrier frequency is lower than 6 GHz, there are 24 possible values for a subcarrier offset between the boundary of the SSB PRB with the associated RMSI and an RMSI PRB. 5 bits of PRB-grid-offsets are used in NR to indicate possible subcarrier offset values. Since 5 bits can indicate 32 possible values, in addition to indicating the above 24 possible values, the remaining 8 possible values may be used to indicate that the SSB does not include the associated RMSI...”)
Regarding claim 3, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches the first indication information is carried by at least one of a common subcarrier spacing field, a demodulation reference signal-type A-position field, an intra-frequency reselection field, a spare field, or a reserved field corresponding to a frequency range (FR) 1 in the first SSB. (DA, see at least para. 96-98, for one example, but not limited to, “…step 1011: indicating whether the first SSB includes the associated RMSI by using a value of a physical resource block grid offsets (PRB-grid-offsets) parameter… The PRB-grid-offset in the embodiments of the present disclosure may also be referred to as a synchronous subcarrier offset (ssb-subcarrier-offset) in the PBCH...”)
Regarding claim 4, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches the at least one of the first control-resource set or the first common search space is determined based on the first SSB by using at least one of the common subcarrier spacing field, the demodulation reference signal-type A-position field, the intra-frequency reselection field, the spare field, or the reserved field corresponding to the FR 1 in the first SSB. (DA, see at least para. 96-98, for an unlimited example, “…The PRB-grid-offset in the embodiments of the present disclosure may also be referred to as a synchronous subcarrier offset (ssb-subcarrier-offset) in the PBCH…”; Ang, see at least para. 124, for an unlimited example, “…At 515, the UE 115-b may acquire the SSB/PBCH and identify an initial downlink BWP (also referred to as RMSI CORESET bandwidth, or BWP0 in various examples herein) to be monitored from RMSI. In some cases, the RMSI CORESET may be an initial RMSI CORESET in an initial common search space…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Ang and TIAN into DA for providing efficient techniques for configuring channel bandwidths may enhance the efficiency of a wireless communications system, as well as for effectively determine a frequency domain position of CORESET of RMSI associated with SSB.
Regarding claim 11, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 1. To be more specific, although reciting subject matters slightly different, one skilled in the art would have known the method of claim 11 performs reverse (or corresponding) procedures of the claim 1 apparatus. For example, it would be an apparatus of claim 14 that performs the reverse (or corresponding) receiving from and transmitting to the claim 1 apparatus. Hence, the examiner applies the same rejection reasoning as set forth in claim 1.
Regarding claims 12, 13, and 14, in view of claim 11 above, these claims are rejected for the same reasoning as claims 2, 3, and 4, respectively, except each of these claims is in method claim format.
Regarding claim 23, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches wherein the second terminal device is a reduced capability (REDCAP) terminal device. (DA, see at least para. 3-4, UE detects RRM-SSB and CD-SSB; Ang, see at least para. 151-153, “…In such cases, multi-SSB handling again may be used by both the high bandwidth UEs and the lower bandwidth UEs, and non-cell-defining SSB (NCD-SSB) can be deployed to distribute lower bandwidth UEs across frequency in finer granularity…”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Ang and TIAN into DA for providing efficient techniques for configuring channel bandwidths may enhance the efficiency of a wireless communications system, as well as for effectively determine a frequency domain position of CORESET of RMSI associated with SSB.
Regarding claim 24, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches wherein the first terminal device is a non- REDCAP terminal device. (DA, see at least para. 3-4, UE detects RRM-SSB and CD-SSB)
Regarding claim 27, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches wherein the first SSB is used to synchronize with the network device. (DA, see at least para. 3-4, “...When a UE attempts to access a certain cell, the UE needs to search for a CD-SSB at sync-raster frequency positions one by one to obtain the RMSI of the cell to be accessed...”)
Claim 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DA in view of Ang and TIAN, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Yang LIU (US 2021/0022069 A1, hereinafter LIU).
Regarding claim 21, DA in view of Ang and TIAN teaches claim 1.
DA in view of Ang and TIAN does not teach wherein the first indication information is carried by one bit from public broadcast channel (PBCH).
LIU teaches wherein the first indication information is carried by one bit from public broadcast channel (PBCH) (LIU, see at least para. 73 in view of para. 69, e.g. on-off indication information).
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate LIU into DA in view of Ang and TIAN to reduce the searching time for SSB.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 05/18/2026 have been fully considered. Regarding independent claims 1 and 11, since applicant's amendment necessitated new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action, previous Office action's rejections are moot. Accordingly, corresponding dependent claims have also been rejected in this Office action.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following claims are allowable:
Claims 5, 10, 15, 20, 22, 25-26, and 28.
Reasons of allowability:
Regarding independent claims 5 and 15, these claims are allowable since they have incorporated the identified ASM of claim 9 and 19, respectively. Hence, all of their respective dependent claims 10, 20, 22, 25-26, and 28 are also allowable.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YEE F LAM whose telephone number is (571)270-7577. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ayman Abaza can be reached on 571-270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/YEE F LAM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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