DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in reply communication filed on 10/30/2025.
Claims 22-29 and 42-53 are pending.
Claims 1-21 and 30-41 are cancelled.
Claims 42-53 are new.
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 .
Election/Restriction
Claims 1-21 and 30-41 withdraw/cancelled from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a non-elected of 3 inventions covered by the claims indicated as claims 1-16 directed to real time rate matching, claims 17-19 directed to UE capability, claims 20-21 directed to NR-PDCCH, claims 30-38 directed to estimating efficient for a plurality of RMI, and claims 39-41 directed to activating rate matching pattern, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 10/30/2025,
Claim Objections
Claims 22-53 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 22 and 50 recited, “A method comprising:” in line 1. For clarity and descriptive, it is suggested to change to “A methods for configuring or utilizing rate matching patterns and interference measurements, the method comprising:”.
Claim 42 recited, “An apparatus comprising:” in line 1. For clarity and descriptive, it is suggested to change to “An apparatus for configuring or utilizing rate matching patterns and interference measurements, the apparatus comprising:”.
All dependent claims are also objected based on dependency.
Appropriate corrections are required.
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 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) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived 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 22-23, 42-43, and 50-51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Yoon et al. (US 2021/0392668) in view of Sengupta et al. (US 2020/0382354).
Regarding claim 22, Yoon discloses a method of operating a base station [See Fig. 11, 15, ¶¶ 138- 142, 178-216; a method of operating a BS], the method comprising:
transmitting, to a user equipment (UE) in a cell of a first radio access technology (RAT), one or more messages to configure an interference measurement [See ¶¶ 140, 179; transmitting, to a user equipment (UE) in NR system/(first RAT) CSI/beam configuration/CSI-related configuration information to configure interference measurement] based on a channel state information (CSI) interference measurement resource (IMR) that corresponds to a reference signal of a second RAT [See ¶¶ 180-185; based on CSI-IM-based IM resource (IMR) that corresponds/similarly to a CSI-IM in LTE/(second RAT)];
receiving, from the UE, an indication of one or more neighbor cell (NC)-reference signal receive power (RSRP) values that corresponds to the CSI IMR [See Fig. 11, ¶¶ 142, 160, 190-191; receiving, from the UE, an indication of one or more neighbor cell (NC)-reference signal receive power (RSRP) values that corresponds to the CSI IMR (UE reports the best SSBRI and the RSRP corresponding to the best SSBRI to the BS)];
selecting a rate matching pattern [See ¶ 190; configured independently of a zero power (ZP) CSI-RS resource for PDSCH rate matching].
Yoon does not explicitly disclose selecting a rate matching pattern “based on the one or more NC-RSRP values”; and scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission based on the rate matching pattern.
However, Sengupta discloses selecting a rate matching pattern based on the one or more NC-RSRP values [See ¶¶ 157, 161; determining (selecting) one or more LTE CRS patterns to rate match around using parameters, wherein the parameters are configured via higher layer signaling for each ZP CSI-RS resource configuration, See ¶¶ 134-137]; and
scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission based on the rate matching pattern [See ¶¶ 34, 115, 121, 157; scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) DL transmission based on the rate matching pattern, ¶ 137].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “selecting a rate matching pattern based on the one or more NC-RSRP values; and scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission based on the rate matching pattern” as taught by Sengupta in the system of Yoon, so that it would provide spectrum sharing among 5G/NR and LTE RATs that prevent or avoid reference signal collisions between these two RATs [See Sengupta; ¶ 3].
Regarding claim 23, the combined system of Yoon and Sengupta discloses the method of claim 22.
Yoon further discloses wherein transmitting the one or more messages comprises:
providing a CSI resource information element (IE) to configure the CSI IMR for measurement [See ¶ 142; providing a CSI resource information element (IE) to configure the CSI IMR for measurement]; and
providing a CSI report IE that references the CSI resource IE to configure a report based on the CSI IMR [See ¶ 142; providing the reports of the best SSBRI and the RSRP corresponding to the best SSBR].
Regarding claims 42-43, the claims recite an apparatus comprising: interface circuitry and processing circuitry (See Fig. 25, ¶ 360; first wireless device 100 include one or more processors 102 and one or more memories 104, and further include one or more transceivers 106 and/or one or more antennas 108) to perform the method steps recited as in claims 22-23 respectively; therefore, claims 42-43 are rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claims 22-23 respectively.
Regarding claims 50-51, the claims recite a method to perform the method steps recited as in claims 22-23 respectively; therefore, claims 50-51 are rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claims 22-23 respectively.
Claims 27 and 47 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Yoon et al. (US 2021/0392668) in view of Sengupta et al. (US 2020/0382354), and further in view of KIM et al. (WO 2020/166976).
Regarding claim 27, the combined system of Yoon and Sengupta discloses the method of claim 22, but does not explicitly disclose wherein the one or more NC-RSRP values comprises a layer-1 value.
However, KIM discloses wherein the one or more NC-RSRP values comprises a layer-1 value [See page 13 lines 12-15, wherein the CSI calculation, and L1 (layer 1)-RSRP (reference signal received). power) is used for computation and mobility].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “wherein the one or more NC-RSRP values comprises a layer-1 value” as taught by KIM in the combined system of Yoon and Sengupta, so that it would provide setting different rate matching or puncturing of resources related to DMRS in partially overlapped resources and non-overlapping resources, loss of resources for data can be reduced, and resource efficiency [See KIM; page 4 lines 48-49].
Regarding claim 47, the claim recites the apparatus of claim 42 to perform the method step recited as in claim 27; therefore, claim 47 is rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claim 27.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24-26, 28-29, 44-46, 48-49, and 52-53 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.
Conclusion
In additional to references cited that are used for rejection as set forth above, Hao et al. (US 2021/0297121) is also considered as relevant prior arts for rejection of in claims 22, 42, and 50 (See ZHOU; Fig. 5, ¶¶ 39-42).
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/PHONG LA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469