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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 06/30/2026 has been entered.
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 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 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (2022/0322106), hereinafter Huang, in view of Astrom et al. (2023/0134743), hereinafter Astrom.
Re. Claims 6 and 8, Huang teaches a radio communication method in a radio communication node comprising a transceiver and a second transceiver (Fig. 4), comprising: transmitting and receiving, by the first transceiver, a radio signal for a lower node of the radio communication node, using a first resource configured as soft for which availability is controlled for the lower node (¶0166 - transmitting an uplink reference signal (RS) over the UL parent link to the parent node, the uplink RS indicating that the uplink RS is for time-domain resources (e.g., symbols, slots, sub-frames, frames, etc.) where a full-duplex (FD) priority of the UL parent link is primary FD, and/or for time-domain resources where the UL child link is correspondingly in time-domain resources (e.g., symbols, slots, sub-frames, frames, etc.) whose resource types are UL-Soft or Flexible-Soft); transmitting and receiving, by the second transceiver (¶0033-0041 - The IAB node 230 may have six (6) kinds of communication links in which three (3) may be transmission links and three may be reception links: Reception Links: DL parent BH (backhaul) link 225-DP—to receive from the parent IAB node 230-P; UL child BH link 225-UC—to receive from the child IAB node 230-C; UL access link 235-U—to receive from the UE 240; Transmission Links: UL parent BH link 225-UP—to transmit to the parent IAB node 230-P; DL child BH link 225-DC—to transmit to the child IAB node 230-C; DL access link 235-D—to transmit to the UE 240. Examiner interprets that the communication links outlined above are utilized in tandem to assist with the issue of timing (see: ¶0050-0052 discussing dynamic transmission), and as such, the different radio signals sent between the node in the communication network can be transmitted concurrently (i.e. Fig. 1 125-4 & 125-5, showing a node 130-2 sends two different communications to nodes 130-4 and 130-5), a radio signal for a higher node of the radio communication node, using a second resource configured as soft and indicated as not available (¶0045 - transmitting an uplink reference signal (RS) over the UL parent link to the parent node, the uplink RS indicating that the uplink RS is for time-domain resources where a full-duplex (FD) priority of the UL parent link is primary FD, and/or for time-domain resources where the UL child link is correspondingly in time-domain resources whose resource types are UL-Soft or Flexible-Soft. ¶0096-0098 - It should be noted that the UL parent and the UL child links for a radio resource should not both be primary and also should not both be secondary at the same time. Further, the availability types of the resources of the child links (e.g., UL child, UL child, Flexible child) may be one of:… Soft—availability of corresponding time resource may be controlled, explicitly or implicitly, by the parent node), for the lower node, in a time domain same as that of the first resource (¶0049 - The IAB node 230 may be configured with IAB node specific resources in time available for the parent and child links); and causing, by the radio communication node, the first transceiver to transmit and receive a radio signal for the lower node when it is determined that a use of the first resource does not change transmission or reception using the second resource in the time domain (¶0130 - The parent and child time-domain resources may be concurrent, or overlap in time at least partially. Then when the network node uses the parent and child time-domain resources, the network node may concurrently communicate with the parent and child nodes. When the communication is in-band, the parent and child time resources may be resources in a same or adjacent frequency bands & ¶0201 - the network node may concurrently 1) transmit to the parent node the parent traffic carried on the parent time-domain resource over the UL parent link using the UL parent beam).
However Huang does not explicitly teach using a second resource indicated as not available and to not transmit and receive a radio signal for the lower node when the use of the first resource changes the transmission and reception using the second resource in the time domain.
Yet, Astrom expressly teaches using a second resource indicated as not available (¶0012 - When a symbol is configured as unavailable, the IAB-node DU neither transmits nor receives in the symbol) and to not transmit and receive a radio signal for the lower node when the use of the first resource changes the transmission and reception using the second resource in the time domain (¶0012 - When a symbol is configured as unavailable, the IAB-node DU neither transmits nor receives in the symbol).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the teaching of Astrom to the teaching of Huang. The motivation for such would be to improve transmission efficiency via scheduling and preset conditions as Astrom provides that the transmission will not occur when a symbol is configured as unavailable (¶0012, Astrom). All of the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements, as claimed by known methods, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 6 and 8 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection. The previous rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) has been amended to now encompass a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 under references Huang and Astrom. Astrom has been amended to remove Examiner’s previous argument relying on the interpretation of “may” in Huang to further strengthen the argument and show an instance wherein a resource is regarded as unavailable and as such a radio signal is not sent (¶0012 - When a symbol is configured as unavailable, the IAB-node DU neither transmits nor receives in the symbol). This amendment further captures the causal element that Applicant argues for on page 6 of their response as it directly implies that because the symbol is configured as unavailable, it is determined to not transmit the radio signal. As such, Examiner upholds the rejection of the present application and presents these new grounds for Applicant’s consideration.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Jo et al. (2021/0368481) - ¶0413-0447
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/N.J.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2475
/KHALED M KASSIM/supervisory patent examiner, Art Unit 2475
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