DETAILED ACTION
This office action is a response to an application filed on 07/23/2023.
Claims 1- 20 are pending for examination.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The Examiner contends that the drawings submitted on 07/23/2023 are acceptable for examination proceedings.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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(a) 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 non-obviousness.
Claims 1- 14, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CATT “System overhead analysis of PEI and TRS/ CSI-RS for Idle mode UE” 19 January 2021, hereinafter “CATT”; and in further view of Jung et al. (US 20230412341 A1), hereinafter “Jung”.
Regarding claim 1, CATT teaches A method of wireless communication, comprising: monitoring, by a terminal device, a power saving signal (CATT: Introduction teaches PEI or paging early indication) on plurality of target time units (This is illustrated in CATT, Fig. 4, PEIs and POs) wherein the power saving signal indicates whether the terminal device is to monitor a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), which carries paging indication information, on a target Paging Occasion (PO) (CATT, Section 2.2 System Overhead of PEI and Section 2.2.1, system resource overhead);
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CATT does not explicitly teach wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO, or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs).
Jung in the same or similar field of endeavor teaches monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units (Jung: Par. 54 teaches UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle) and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs) (Jung: Fig. 7; Par. 82 teaches the UE may use Discontinuous Reception (DRX) in RRC_IDLE and RRC_INACTIVE state in order to reduce power consumption. The UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle. A PO is a set of PDCCH monitoring occasions and can consist of multiple time slots (e.g. subframe or OFDM symbol) where paging DCI can be sent. One Paging Frame (PF) is one Radio Frame and may contain one or multiple PO(s) or starting point of a PO).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to incorporate in CATT's teaching the teaching of monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO as suggested by Jung. The motivation is that (as suggested by Jung [0094]) by implementing such steps a UE may skip monitoring PPS-PDCCH on configured PPS-PDCCH monitoring occasions associated with UE's paging occasion in a given paging and/or DRX cycle if the UE has already determined whether to monitor paging DCI in the paging occasion of the given paging and/or DRX cycle by having received an indication to skip or not to skip monitoring the paging DCI in the given paging and/or DRX cycle.
Regarding claim 2, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches
the method further comprises: determining, by the terminal device, the plurality of target time units according to the plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO and the first correspondence relationship [CATT: Section 2].
Regarding claim 3, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 2. CATT in view of Jung further teaches a number of the plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO is equal to a product of a first parameter and a number of actually transmitted SSBs indicated by SSB burst position information, wherein the first parameter indicates a number of PDCCH monitoring occasions corresponding to each SSB [Jung: Par. 76- 89 teaches a PO is PDCCH monitoring occasions based on actual transmitted SSBs determined].
Regarding claim 4, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further wherein in the first correspondence relationship, the target time units satisfy a one-to-one or many-to-one relationship with the PDCCH monitoring occasions [CATT: section 2.2 teaches of monitoring different occasions with different options].
Regarding claim 5, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches herein the first correspondence relationship is agreed by protocol or pre-configured, or the first correspondence relationship is configured by a network device [Jung: Par. 105 teaches of paging frame are configured with TRS occasions as an indication].
Regarding claim 6, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches determining, by the terminal device, the plurality of target time units according to the plurality of SSBs and the second correspondence relationship [Jung: Par. 50 teaches of determine occasion corresponding to the selected SSB out of multiple SSB measurements].
Regarding claim 7, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 6. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein a number of the plurality of target time units is equal to a number of the plurality of SSBs, or the number of the plurality of target time units is equal to a product of a second parameter and the number of the plurality of SSBs [CATT: section 2.2 teaches of The Kth PDCCH monitoring occasion for paging in the PO corresponds to the Kth SSB index].
Regarding claim 8, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 7. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the second parameter is agreed by protocol or pre-configured, or the second parameter is configured by a network device [Jung: Par. 105 teaches of paging frame are configured with TRS occasions as an indication].
Regarding claim 9, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches in the second correspondence relationship, the target time units satisfy a one-to-one or many-to-one relationship with the SSB CATT: section 2.2 teaches of monitoring different occasions with different options].
Regarding claim 10, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the second correspondence relationship is agreed by protocol or pre-configured, or the second correspondence relationship is configured by a network device [Jung: Par. 50 teaches determine occasion corresponding to the selected SSB out of multiple SSB measurements].
Regarding claim 11, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the plurality of SSBs are actually transmitted SSBs indicated by SSB burst position information [Jung: Par. 89 teaches PDCCH monitoring occasions where ‘S’ is the number of actual transmitted SSBs determined according to ssb-PositionsInBurst in SIB1 and X is the PDCCH-Monitoring Occasion Per SSB-In PO if configured or is equal to 1].
Regarding claim 12, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the plurality of target time units are determined according to a first time offset [Jung: Par. 91- 92].
Regarding claim 13, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 12. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the first time offset is agreed by protocol or pre-configured, or the first time offset is configured by a network device [Jung: Par. 105 teaches of paging frame are configured with TRS occasions as an indication].
Regarding claim 14, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 1. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the plurality of target time units are within a first time length [Jung: Par. 92 teaches of length of DRX cycle].
Regarding claim 17, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 14. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein target time units within the first time length that monitor the power saving signal are a set of successive time units in time domain [CATT: Section 2.2.].
Regarding claim 18, the combined CATT in view of Jung teaches all the limitations in the parent claim 14. CATT in view of Jung further teaches wherein the power saving signal is carried by at least one of: the PDCCH, a Tracking Reference Signal (TRS), a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS), or a Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS); wherein the power saving signal is a paging early indication (PEI) [CATT: Introduction; Jung: Par. 95- 105].
Regarding claim 19, CATT teaches A method of wireless communication, comprising (CATT: Introduction teaches PEI or paging early indication) transmitting, by a network device, a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units (This is illustrated in CATT, Fig. 4, PEIs and POs) wherein the power saving signal indicates whether the terminal device is to monitor a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), which carries paging indication information, on a target Paging Occasion (PO) (CATT, Section 2.2 System Overhead of PEI and Section 2.2.1, system resource overhead);
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CATT does not explicitly teach wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO, or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs).
Jung in the same or similar field of endeavor teaches monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units (Jung: Par. 54 teaches UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle) and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs) (Jung: Fig. 7; Par. 82 teaches the UE may use Discontinuous Reception (DRX) in RRC_IDLE and RRC_INACTIVE state in order to reduce power consumption. The UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle. A PO is a set of PDCCH monitoring occasions and can consist of multiple time slots (e.g. subframe or OFDM symbol) where paging DCI can be sent. One Paging Frame (PF) is one Radio Frame and may contain one or multiple PO(s) or starting point of a PO).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to incorporate in CATT's teaching the teaching of monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO as suggested by Jung. The motivation is that (as suggested by Jung [0094]) by implementing such steps a UE may skip monitoring PPS-PDCCH on configured PPS-PDCCH monitoring occasions associated with UE's paging occasion in a given paging and/or DRX cycle if the UE has already determined whether to monitor paging DCI in the paging occasion of the given paging and/or DRX cycle by having received an indication to skip or not to skip monitoring the paging DCI in the given paging and/or DRX cycle.
Regarding claim 20, CATT teaches A terminal device, comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store a computer program, wherein the processor is configured to call and run the computer program stored in the memory to perform an operation of monitoring a power saving signal power (CATT: Introduction teaches PEI or paging early indication) on plurality of target time units (This is illustrated in CATT, Fig. 4, PEIs and POs) wherein the power saving signal indicates whether the terminal device is to monitor a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), which carries paging indication information, on a target Paging Occasion (PO) (CATT, Section 2.2 System Overhead of PEI and Section 2.2.1, system resource overhead);
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CATT does not explicitly teach wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO, or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs).
Jung in the same or similar field of endeavor teaches monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units (Jung: Par. 54 teaches UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle) and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO or the plurality of target time units have a second correspondence relationship with a plurality of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs) (Jung: Fig. 7; Par. 82 teaches the UE may use Discontinuous Reception (DRX) in RRC_IDLE and RRC_INACTIVE state in order to reduce power consumption. The UE monitors one paging occasion (PO) per DRX cycle. A PO is a set of PDCCH monitoring occasions and can consist of multiple time slots (e.g. subframe or OFDM symbol) where paging DCI can be sent. One Paging Frame (PF) is one Radio Frame and may contain one or multiple PO(s) or starting point of a PO).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to incorporate in CATT's teaching the teaching of monitoring a power saving signal on a plurality of target time units and wherein the plurality of target time units have a first correspondence relationship with a plurality of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO as suggested by Jung. The motivation is that (as suggested by Jung [0094]) by implementing such steps a UE may skip monitoring PPS-PDCCH on configured PPS-PDCCH monitoring occasions associated with UE's paging occasion in a given paging and/or DRX cycle if the UE has already determined whether to monitor paging DCI in the paging occasion of the given paging and/or DRX cycle by having received an indication to skip or not to skip monitoring the paging DCI in the given paging and/or DRX cycle.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15-16 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 an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowable subject matter:
A full search was conducted and the features of the instant claims 15-16 were not found to be in any reasonable combination of the closest prior art in combination of CATT in view of Jung.
With respect to exemplary, the prior arts in above teach of method and devices for tracking and detecting power saving signal for idle mode of mobile devices [CATT: Figs. 1,2; section 2.2] with monitoring PO with SSB [Jung: Par. 50; Fig. 7].
However, the combined CATT in view of Jung does not disclose, suggest or render obvious the limitations of the instant claim 15 reciting;
“wherein the first threshold is determined according to a number of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO, or the first threshold is determined according to a number of actually transmitted SSBs indicated by SSB burst position information;
wherein the first threshold is greater than or equal to a number of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the target PO, or the first threshold is greater than or equal to a number of actually transmitted SSBs indicated by SSB burst position information”
Moreover, the combined CATT in view of Jung does not disclose, suggest or render obvious the limitations of the instant claim 16 reciting;
“determining, by the terminal device, a position of the first time length according to a second time offset and a third time offset;
wherein the second time offset is an offset between an end position of the first time length and a starting position of the target PO, and the third time offset is an offset between a starting position of the first time length and the starting position of the target PO;
wherein the third time offset is greater than or equal to a second threshold;
wherein the second time offset and/or the third time offset are agreed by protocol or pre-configured, or the second time offset and/or the third time offset are configured by a network device”.
Therefore, Claims 15- 16 are indicated as containing allowable subject matter and allowed over the closest Prior Art references of CATT in view of Jung.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record (see attached PTO-892) and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of the action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYAW Z SOE whose telephone number is (571)270-0304. The examiner can normally be reached on 9am-5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles C Jiang can be reached on 5712707191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYAW Z SOE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412