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 .
Claims 1-6 are amended.
Claims 1-6 have been examined and rejected based on new grounds of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites in part: “…and a processor that controls to omi when a specific condition is satisfied.” The underlined claim limitation is unclear as to what is meant by “at least part of the reference signal”, in the context of the claim, since it implies a reference signal received partially or split in part so as to be able to receive a part of the reference signal, making the underlined limitation confusing and hence unclear. For the sake of comparison with prior art, the above limitation will be interpreted to mean “the UE will omit measurement of a reference signal when a specific condition is satisfied”.
The dependent claims 2-3, 6 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph by virtue of their dependency and for the same reasons stated above.
Additionally, claims 3, 6 recites in part: “… the processor performs an action not to assume the reception of at least a part of the reference signal based on a notification received from the network”. The underlined claim limitation is unclear as to 1) how can a UE “not assume reception”. Here it is not clear what action is “not to assume”, since it is very vague as to what exactly is the meaning of the limitation “performs an action not to assume” and what is the “assumed action”.
2) The limitation “part of a reference signal” is unclear as to what is meant by “at least part of the reference signal”, since it implies a reference signal received partially or split in part so as to receive a part of the reference signal, making the underlined limitations confusing and hence unclear. For the sake of comparison with prior art, the above limitation will be interpreted to mean “the UE will not receive a reference signal by omitting measurement of the reference signal”.
Claim 4 recites in part: “A base station … a processor that assumes not to receive a measurement result …”. The underlined claim limitation is unclear as to how can a base station “assumes not to receive a measurement result”, since the base station can either receive a measurement result or not receive a measurement result, making this limitation unclear, confusing and hence indefinite.
Claim 5 recites in part: “… omitting reception of at least a part of the reference signal…”. it is unclear as to what is meant by “omit reception of at least part of the reference signal”, since it implies omit a reference signal received partially or split in part, making the underlined limitation confusing and hence unclear. For the sake of comparison with prior art, the above limitation will be interpreted to mean “the UE will omit measurement of a reference signal when a specific condition is satisfied”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nagraj (US 10,868,588 B2, from IDS).
Regarding Claim 1, Nagraj discloses a terminal (see FIG. 3. terminal 350 and also see FIG. 5) comprising:
a receiver (see FIG. 3, Rx/Tx 354, transceiver) that receives a reference signal periodically transmitted from a network (see FIG. 5, page 22, lines 34-41, the base station may notify UE to monitor one or more reference signals. The reference signals may include, e.g., any of CSI-RS, DMRS for NR-PDCCH in C-SS, DMRS for NR-PBCH in user search space (U-SS), NR-SSS, and a reference signal for time/frequency tracking. The reference signals may comprise periodic, aperiodic or semi-persistent transmissions … line 49, The base station may transmit reference signals to UE);
a transmitter (see FIG. 3, Rx/Tx 354, transceiver) that transmits a measurement result of the reference signal; and
a processor (see FIG. 3, control processor 359) that control to omit a reception of at least a part of the reference signal when a specific condition is satisfied (Examiners Note: Please refer to the claim interpretation above, based on this interpretation, see FIG. 5, see col 14, lines 12-24, Similar to the conditional transmission of a reference signal performed by the base station, the UE may perform conditional measurement of a reference signal. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 5, when the UE has received a transmission, e.g., a data transmission, a control transmission, or a reference signal transmission 522, having an SNR or signal quality above a threshold within a time window 524, the UE may skip 526 measurement of a reference signal. The skipped reference signal may be, e.g., for RLM, beam recovery, beam management, etc. The data/control/RS transmission received from the base station may comprise any of PDCCH, PDSCH, RS, etc.)
Regarding Claim 2, Nagraj discloses the terminal according to claim 1, wherein the specific condition includes a condition defined by one or more operation is performed or not in a specific period, the ore or more operation selected from a transmission of uplink data, a transmission of uplink reference signal, a reception of downlink data, a report of reception acknowledgement, and a report of channel status indicator (see FIG. 5, as illustrated in FIG. 5, when the UE has received a transmission, e.g., a data transmission, a control transmission, or a reference signal transmission 522, having an SNR or signal quality above a threshold within a time window 524, the UE may skip 526 measurement of a reference signal. The skipped reference signal may be, e.g., for RLM, beam recovery, beam management, etc. The data/control/RS transmission received from the base station may comprise any of PDCCH, PDSCH, RS, etc.)
Regarding Claim 3, Nagraj discloses the terminal according to claim 1, wherein the processor performs an action not to assume the reception of at least a part of the reference signal based on a notification received from the network (see FIG. 12. Col 19, lines 39-57, Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may skip transmission of the reference signal … Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may schedule a different user equipment, at 1220, in place of transmitting the reference signal. Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may indicate, at 1222, to the user equipment that the reference signal is skipped).
Regarding Claim 4, Nagraj discloses a base station (see FIG. 3, base station 310, and also see FIG. 5) comprising:
a transmitter (see FIG. 3, Transceiver 318) that transmits a reference signal periodically (see FIG. 5, page 22, lines 34-41, the base station may notify UE to monitor one or more reference signals. The reference signals may include, e.g., any of CSI-RS, DMRS for NR-PDCCH in C-SS, DMRS for NR-PBCH in user search space (U-SS), NR-SSS, and a reference signal for time/frequency tracking. The reference signals may comprise periodic, aperiodic or semi-persistent transmissions … line 49, The base station may transmit reference signals to UE);
a receiver (see FIG. 3, Transceiver 318) that receives a measurement result of the reference signal; and
a processor (see FIG. 3, controller/processor 375) that assumes not to receive at least a part of the measurement result when a specific condition is satisfied (see FIG. 5, as illustrated in FIG. 5, when the UE has received a transmission, e.g., a data transmission, a control transmission, or a reference signal transmission 522, having an SNR or signal quality above a threshold within a time window 524, the UE may skip 526 measurement of a reference signal/i.e., representing skipped measurement result from the terminal).
Regarding Claim 5, Nagraj discloses a radio communication method comprising:
receiving a reference signal periodically transmitted from a network (see FIG. 5, page 22, lines 34-41, the base station may notify UE to monitor one or more reference signals. The reference signals may include, e.g., any of CSI-RS, DMRS for NR-PDCCH in C-SS, DMRS for NR-PBCH in user search space (U-SS), NR-SSS, and a reference signal for time/frequency tracking. The reference signals may comprise periodic, aperiodic or semi-persistent transmissions … line 49, The base station may transmit reference signals to UE);
transmitting a measurement result of the reference signal; and omitting a reception of at least a part of the reference signal when a specific condition is satisfied (Examiners Note: Please refer to the claim interpretation above, based on this interpretation, see FIG. 5, see col 14, lines 12-24, Similar to the conditional transmission of a reference signal performed by the base station, the UE may perform conditional measurement of a reference signal. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 5, when the UE has received a transmission, e.g., a data transmission, a control transmission, or a reference signal transmission 522, having an SNR or signal quality above a threshold within a time window 524, the UE may skip 526 measurement of a reference signal. The skipped reference signal may be, e.g., for RLM, beam recovery, beam management, etc. The data/control/RS transmission received from the base station may comprise any of PDCCH, PDSCH, RS, etc.)
Regarding Claim 6, Nagraj discloses the terminal according to claim 2, wherein the processor performs an action not to assume the reception of at least a part of the reference signal based on a notification received from the network (see FIG. 12. Col 19, lines 39-57, Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may skip transmission of the reference signal … Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may schedule a different user equipment, at 1220, in place of transmitting the reference signal. Upon determining that the transmission was received at the user equipment, the base station may indicate, at 1222, to the user equipment that the reference signal is skipped).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/12/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive as detailed below:
On pages 7-8, regarding the Claim 1 “a processor that control to omit a reception of at least a part of the reference signal when a specific condition is satisfied."; the Applicant argues that: “ … Contrarily, the above-mentioned limitation requires that, in order to reduce power consumption and overhead of the UE, the UE performs an operation of omitting reception of the periodic RS or an operation of omitting measurement related to the periodic RS when a specific condition is satisfied. Nagaraja discloses only that the UE does not receive the reference signal because the base station skips transmission of the reference signal under certain conditions and does not disclose or suggest any operation whereby the UE omits receiving the reference signal transmitted from the base station. Thus, because Nagaraja does not provide this feature required by the above- mentioned limitation, Nagaraja fails to teach the amended independent claim 1.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Based on the new amendments, the above limitation is taught by Nagraj, as mapped using different mappings. Please refer to the rejection of Claim 1 above for details.
Conclusion
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/DEEPA BELUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472