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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/11/2025 has been entered.
In view of applicant’s amendment and arguments regarding objections to the claims, the objection is hereby withdrawn.
The applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of new ground(s) of rejections necessitated by the applicant’s amendment.
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.
Claims 1, 15, 18, 28 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230030144 (Ibrahim) in view of US 20160128027 (Gulati) and US 20210392686 (Aboul-Magd).
Regarding claims 1, 15 and 18, Ibrahim in FIG 18 with corresponding description teaches “A computer-implemented method comprising:
determining that a downlink transmission from an access point (AP) to a first client station is subject to an amount of adjacent channel interference from a peer-to-peer transmission from a second client station to a third client station (paragraph 0120: a method 1800 for wireless communications may be performed by the base station 105 of the wireless communication network 100. Paragraph 0157: the techniques described may be used for various wireless communication networks such as OFDMA. An OFDMA system may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi). Therefore, when the method is implemented in IEEE 802.11 system, the base station 105 becomes “an access point (AP)”, and the user equipment (UE) attached to the base station becomes “a first client station”. Paragraph 0121: At block 1802, the method 1800 may include receiving, from a first UE, an interference report indicating sidelink communication interference. Paragraph 0122: an interference report indicating sidelink communication interference based on interference from the sidelink communication 904 of FIG. 9A. Referring to FIG 9A and paragraph 0087, sidelink transmissions in subchannels adjacent to DL resources may cause interference to DL-receiving transmission at nearby UEs (“adjacent channel interference”). The sidelink communication 904 interferes with the DL reception at the first UE 110a. As illustrated by FIG. 9C, a sidelink resource 920 for the sidelink communication 904 from the second UE 110b may cause CLI 910 with an adjacent DL resource 922 for the DL transmissions 902 of the first UE 110a. The base station 105 corresponds to “an access point (AP)” of instant claim, “a first client station” of instant claim corresponds to the first UE 110a, and “a peer-to-peer transmission from a second client station to a third client station” corresponds to transmission 904 from UE 110b to the UE 110c), wherein the downlink transmission and the peer-to-peer transmission are concurrent transmissions (FIG 9C and paragraphs 0087 – 0088: downlink transmission DL 922 to UE 110a occupies the same time slot as sidelink transmission SL 920 from UE 110b) that occupy a same bandwidth (as may be seen from FIG 9C, both transmissions occupy the entirety of the bandwidth extending in the vertical direction, similar to the Applicant’s FIG 2)…”
“…determining a set of mitigation actions to reduce the amount of adjacent channel interference to the downlink transmission comprising: determining a number of resource units to omit from the bandwidth…” “…based at least in part on the amount of adjacent channel interference (paragraphs 0123 – 0124: At block 1804, the method 1800 may include selecting a resource pool according to the interference report. The resource pool may include at least one supplementary sidelink subchannel 1020 of FIG. 10A reserved for receiving sidelink communications and conditionally reserved for transmitting sidelink communications based on the interference report. Paragraph 0108: the base station 105 may send a DCI message to the sidelink UEs (e.g., UE 110b of FIG. 9A) with an indication to not use the supplementary sidelink subchannels. The indication may explicitly indicate the slots in which supplementary sidelink subchannels should not be used or may provide a time duration for not using the supplementary sidelink subchannels. Here, supplementary sidelink subchannels represent “a number of resource units to omit from the bandwidth”, and sending an indication to not use these subchannels represent the result of “determination”)…”
“…performing the set of mitigation actions (paragraph 0125: At block 1806, the method 1800 may include transmitting, to the first UE or a second UE causing the sidelink communication interference, configuration information indicating the resource pool.), comprises omitting the number of resource units from the bandwidth (paragraphs 0088 – 0089: the sidelink transmission interferes with the DL reception. To prevent the interference, guard bands between DL resources and SL resources can be used to prevent interference. Paragraph 0108: the base station 105 may send a DCI message to the sidelink UEs (e.g., UE 110b of FIG. 9A) with an indication to not use the supplementary sidelink subchannels. The indication may explicitly indicate the slots in which supplementary sidelink subchannels should not be used or may provide a time duration for not using the supplementary sidelink subchannels. Thus, Ibrahim teaches at least not using the supplementary sidelink subchannels to separate downlink transmissions from the sidelink transmissions. As explained above, supplementary sidelink subchannels represent “the number of resource units from the bandwidth” and not using them represents “omitting the number of resource units from the bandwidth”.)…”
Ibrahim does not teach “determining at least one transmit power control scheme for the downlink transmission based at least in part on the number of resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth” “and transmitting the downlink transmission in accordance with the at least one transmit power control scheme.”
Gulati teaches a similar system (see FIG 7 with corresponding description) in which wireless devices UEs 702 and 703 may communicate together in device-to-device communication. The wireless device UE 702 may also communicate with the serving base station the eNB 705. Particularly, Gulati teaches “determining a set of mitigation actions to reduce the amount of adjacent channel interference to the downlink transmission (FIG 7 and paragraph 0052: the UE 702 may communicate with the neighboring UE 703 through D2D communication 721 on a first radio-frequency channel 801 (FIG 8) as the operating spectrum. One or more neighboring base stations (e.g., the eNB 704) are using one or both of adjacent radio-frequency channels 802 and 803, the D2D transmission 721 by the UE 702 may interfere with communications occurring on the adjacent radio-frequency channels 802 and 803. Paragraph 0064: a transmission 741 of a base station eNB 704 on downlink on a second radio-frequency channel 802, 902 (FIG 9)), comprising: determining a number of resource units to omit from the bandwidth …, based at least in part on the amount of adjacent channel interference (FIG 8 and paragraph 0057: the neighboring base station eNB 704 is communicating on adjacent radio-frequency channel 902 (e.g., a second radio-frequency channel 902 that is adjacent the first radio-frequency channel 901). Accordingly, based on the UE's analysis (“based at least in part on the amount of adjacent channel interference”), the UE selects 716 a set of resources 904 of the radio-frequency channel 901 for the D2D transmission 721 to achieve separation from the adjacent radio-frequency channel 902, such that the UE 702 engaging in the D2D communication 721 with the neighboring UE 703 using the selected set of resources 904 is less likely to cause interference on the adjacent radio-frequency channel 902 used by the neighboring base station eNB 704. The UE 702 has decided to operate on a lower portion of the radio-frequency channel 901 (e.g., decided to operating using the lower 5 MHz of a 10 MHz channel). Because the lower portion of the radio-frequency channel 901 is further away from the adjacent bandwidth 902 used by the neighboring base station the eNB 704, the chance that the UE 702 will interfere with the adjacent radio-frequency channel 902 is reduced, as the separation decreases the chance that the UE's D2D communications will “leak” into the adjacent radio-frequency channel 902. Therefore, “a number of resource units to omit from the bandwidth” represent all the resource units located in the upper 5 MHz of the channel 901); and determining at least one transmit power control scheme for the downlink transmission based at least in part on the number of resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth (paragraph 0056: the eNB 704, may use one or more SIBs to instruct the UE 702 what power parameters to use in the D2D transmission 721 to the neighboring UE 703. The 704, may broadcast power parameters to the UE 702 in one or more SIBs to effectively tell the UE 702 to transmit 721 at a particular power, to transmit 721 using a particular set of resources, or to transmit 721 according to a particular set of power control parameters. Whether and to what degree the UE 702 adjusts its transmit power may be based on the physical channels of the D2D transmission. Since the number of physical channels when using only the lower 5 MHz of the channel 901 is less than the number of physical channels when using the full 10 MHz channel 901, it means that the power for D2D transmission is “based at least in part on the number of resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth”. Also paragraph 0065: The transmit power may be adjusted based on physical channels of the D2D communication. Although in this embodiment it is the power for D2D transmission which is adjusted, it still falls under claimed “transmit power control scheme for the downlink transmission” as may be seen from Applicant’s claims 7 and 9)…; and performing the set of mitigation actions, comprising omitting the number of resource units from the bandwidth … and transmitting the downlink transmission in accordance with the at least one transmit power control scheme (implicit. Also paragraph 0067: At block 1218, a communication through D2D using the determined D2D transmission parameters may occur.).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Gulati power and frequency control scheme to minimize mutual interference in various types of concurrent communications, including basing power for D2D transmissions on the amount of resources actually allocated for this type of transmission, in the system of Ibrahim. Doing so would have allowed to combine different types of interference mitigation actions as well as increased separation between the operating radio-frequency channel and the adjacent radio-frequency channel, to reduce interference to the adjacent radio-frequency channel that may be caused by the D2D transmissions (see Gulati, paragraph 0007).
Lastly, neither Ibrahim nor Gulati explicitly teach usage of “an aggregated physical layer protocol data unit (APPDU)” so that Ibrahim’s FIG 9C and Gulati’s FIG 8 – 11 actually represent an APPDU.
Aboul-Magd in FIG 1 and paragraph 0036 teaches that Aggregated Physical Layer (PHY) Protocol Data Unit (A-PPDU) has been proposed as part of the IEEE 802.11 group of protocols to enable multiple wireless devices to concurrently use different frequency segments within a larger frequency BW. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an A-PPDU 150 that includes three respective concurrent data units (DUs) that each occupy a respective non-overlapping frequency segment within a 320 MHz BW. In FIG. 1, a first DU 210 (P1 DU) is within a primary 80 MHz (P80) BW, a second DU 212 (P2DU) is within a secondary 80 MHz (S80) BW and a third DU 214 is within a secondary 160 MHz (S160) BW. In other words, Aboul-Magd teaches that the transmissions from multiple devices “occupy a same bandwidth of an aggregated physical layer protocol data unit (APPDU)” shown as combination of P80, S80 and S160.
Comparing FIG 9C of Ibrahim or Gulati’s FIG 8 – 11 with FIG 1 of Aboul-Magd, a similarity may immediately be seen. Just like in FIG 1 of Aboul-Magd, in FIG 9C of Ibrahim and Gulati’s FIG 8 – 11, multiple devices concurrently use different frequency segments within a larger frequency bandwidth.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Aboul-Magd Aggregated Physical Layer (PHY) Protocol Data Unit (A-PPDU) in the system of combined Ibrahim and Gulati’s disclosures and specifically for the communication between devices shown in Ibrahim’s FIG 9A, so that transmissions from different devices would “occupy a same bandwidth of an aggregated physical layer protocol data unit (APPDU)” in Ibrahim’s FIG 9C or Gulati’s FIG 8 – 11 where the “bandwidth of an aggregated physical layer protocol data unit (APPDU)” would be the total height along the frequency direction. Doing so would have simply conformed to the applicable standards.
Regarding claim 28, Ibrahim in combination with Gulati and Aboul-Magd teaches or fairly suggests “the downlink transmission (shown in Ibrahim’s FIG 9C as downlink transmission DL 922 to UE 110a, or as Gulati’s transmission of a base station eNB 704 on downlink on a second radio-frequency channel 802, 902 in FIG 8 and 9 (see paragraph 0064)) comprises a first physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) (shown as P1 DU 210 in Aboul-Magd’s FIG 1) that occupies a first set of resource units of the bandwidth of the APPDU (in Ibrahim’s FIG 9C the downlink transmission DL 922 to UE 110a is shown occupying upper block of frequencies in the total bandwidth, and in Gulati’s FIG 8 and 9 the downlink transmission is shown occupying upper block of frequencies (802, 902) in the total bandwidth; when combined with the teaching of Aboul-Magd regarding APPDU, it would correspond to P1 DU 210 in Aboul-Magd’s FIG 1);
the peer-to-peer transmission (shown in Ibrahim’s FIG 9C as sidelink transmission SL 920 from UE 110b or as Gulati’s D2D transmission 801 or 904) comprises a second PPDU (shown, for example, as P2 DU 212 in Aboul-Magd’s FIG 1) that occupies a second set of resource units of the bandwidth of the APPDU (in Ibrahim’s FIG 9C the sidelink transmission SL 920 from UE 110b is shown occupying second from the top block of frequencies in the total bandwidth, and in Gulati’s FIG 8 and 9 the D2D transmission is shown occupying second from the top block of frequencies (801, 904) in the total bandwidth; when combined with the teaching of Aboul-Magd regarding APPDU, it would correspond to P2 DU 212 in Aboul-Magd’s FIG 1); and
the number of resource units are omitted from at least one of the first set of resource units or the second set of resource units (in Gulati, as shown in FIG 9, “the number of resource units are omitted from” from the second from the top block of frequencies (801 or 901) representing “the second set of resource units”).”
Regarding claim 29, Ibrahim in combination with Gulati and Aboul-Magd teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the at least one transmit power control scheme is determined based at least in part on a width of the resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth of the APPDU (as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above, and based on Gulati’s paragraph 0056 and/or 0065, whether and to what degree the UE 702 adjusts its transmit power may be based on the physical channels of the D2D transmission. Paragraph 0057: The UE 702 has decided to operate on a lower portion of the radio-frequency channel 901 (e.g., decided to operate using the lower 5 MHz of a 10 MHz channel). Thus, upper 5 MHz of the 10 MHz channel is not being used for D2D communications (“a width of the resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth of the APPDU”). Since the UE adjusts its transmission power based on the physical channels, the transmission power would be based on the number of physical channels within the lower 5 MHz of a 10 MHz channel. The wider the width of the unused portion of the channel, the narrower is the width of the used portion of the channel and thus fewer number of physical channels could fit into the used portion. So the power would be adjusted appropriately. In other words, the power depends on the actual number of used physical channels within the total width of 10 MHz, which in turn depends on the width of the unused portion of the 10 MHz channel. Thus, the width of the unused portion of the 10 MHz channel (“a width of the resource units to be omitted from the bandwidth of the APPDU”) affects the width of the used portion of the 10 MHz channel and thus affects the transmission power for D2D communication, as is required by the claim.).”
Claims 7, 9, 11, 12, 22, 23, 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230030144 (Ibrahim) in view of US 20160128027 (Gulati) and US 20210392686 (Aboul-Magd) as applied to claims 1, 15 and 18 above, and further in view of US 20210409993 (Fakoorian).
Regarding claim 7, although Ibrahim in combination with Gulati teaches adjusting the UE transmit power for D2D communications based on the physical channels of the D2D transmission, neither of them teaches “wherein the at least one transmit power control schemes comprises at least one of (i) a maximum transmit power setting for the second client station or (ii) an allowed increase in a transmit power for the AP.”
Fakoorian in FIG 3 with corresponding description in paragraphs 0075 – 0078 teaches similar interference scenario 300. When the sidelink transmitting UE 315a shares a DL resource of the direct link 310, the sidelink transmitting UE 315a can cause interference to a DL reception in the DL resource at the direct link receiving UE 315c as shown by the dashed arrow 330. FIG 4 with corresponding description describes a method of interference management. Paragraph 0103: At action 460, upon receiving the sidelink interference measurement report, the BS 305 determines sidelink interference handling based on the received report. The BS 305 may handle the sidelink interference in a variety of ways. For instance, the BS 305 may determine to reduce a transmission power of the sidelink transmission. This corresponds to the claimed “wherein the one or more transmit power control schemes comprises at least one of (i) a maximum transmit power setting for the second client station.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Fakoorian power control for the sidelink transmission, in the system of Ibrahim and Gulati. Doing so would have allowed more flexibility in controlling interference, so that in addition to the frequency control disclosed by Ibrahim, a power control for the sidelink communication could also be utilized.
With respect to “an allowed increase in a transmit power for the AP”, since the claim is written in the alternative form (“at least one of A or B”), it is sufficient to meet at least one of the limitations “A” or “B” in the claim to meet the limitations of the whole claim. In this case the limitation “A” is met.
Regarding claim 9, Ibrahim in combination with Fakoorian teaches “wherein transmitting the downlink transmission actions comprises transmitting, by the second client station, the peer-to-peer transmission based on the maximum transmit power setting for the second client station (Fakoorian, paragraph 0103: the BS 305 may determine to reduce a transmission power of the sidelink transmission. “transmitting, by the second client station, the peer-to-peer transmission” at the reduced transmission power is implicit. Also see paragraph 0135).”
Regarding claims 11, 22 and 26, Ibrahim teaches “determining that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises receiving an indication (see explanation in the rejection of claim 1 above)…”
While teaching performing interference measurements and reporting in paragraphs 0095 – 0098, Ibrahim does not teach that the indication is “of a signal strength of the second client station from the first client station.”
Fakoorian in FIG 3 with corresponding description in paragraphs 0075 – 0078 teaches similar interference scenario 300. When the sidelink transmitting UE 315a shares a DL resource of the direct link 310, the sidelink transmitting UE 315a can cause interference to a DL reception in the DL resource at the direct link receiving UE 315c as shown by the dashed arrow 330. FIG 4 with corresponding description describes a method of interference management. Paragraph 0094: At action 420, the BS 305 transmits a second configuration and a second instruction to the direct link receiving UE 315c. The second instruction may instruct the direct link receiving UE 315c to measure an interference in the one or more sidelink interference measurement resources as indicated by the second configuration. Paragraph 0098: At action 440, the direct link receiving UE 315c determines a sidelink interference measurement as configured by the second sidelink interference measurement resource and configuration and the second instruction. Depending on the report type indicated by the second configuration, the direct link receiving UE 315c may compute an RSRP or an RSSI for a reference signal received in sidelink interference measurement resource. Paragraph 0100: At action 450, the direct link receiving UE 315c transmits a sidelink interference measurement report to the BS 305. The report may indicate an RSRP or an RSSI. In other words, Fakoorian teaches “receiving an indication of a signal strength of the second client station from the first client station.”
Therefore, since Ibrahim does not explicitly teach what kind of measurements are to be performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Fakoorian measurement of the strength of the interfering signal, in the system of Ibrahim and Gulati simply to fill in where he is silent and since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Regarding claims 12, 23 and 27, Ibrahim in combination with Fakoorian teaches “wherein determining that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises, prior to receiving the indication, transmitting a request to the first client station to measure the signal strength of the second client station (Fakoorian, paragraph 0094: At action 420, the BS 305 transmits a second configuration and a second instruction to the direct link receiving UE 315c. The second instruction may instruct the direct link receiving UE 315c to measure an interference in the one or more sidelink interference measurement resources as indicated by the second configuration. This step precedes the step 440 of actually measuring the interference).”
Claims 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230030144 (Ibrahim) in view of US 20160128027 (Gulati) and US 20210392686 (Aboul-Magd) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20240137754 (BALASUBRAMANIAN).
Regarding claim 7, Ibrahim does not teach “wherein the at least one transmit power control schemes comprises at least one of (i) a maximum transmit power setting for the second client station or (ii) an allowed increase in a transmit power for the AP.”
BALASUBRAMANIAN in FIG 6B with corresponding description in paragraphs 0091 – 0093 teaches a similar arrangement in which sidelink transmissions interfere with downlink transmissions from the base station. Similar to Ibrahim, at 625, the first UE 120-1 may measure SL-to-DL interference and DL-to-SL interference caused by the concurrent downlink and sidelink transmissions. At 640, the first UE 120-1 may transmit, to the base station 110 information that indicates the SL-to-DL interference caused by the sidelink transmission. At 645, the base station 110 may reconfigure one or more downlink transmission parameters to overcome the SL-to-DL interference and/or to mitigate the DL-to-SL interference. The base station 110 may increase an energy per resource element (EPRE) to increase a transmit power on a downlink to compensate for the SL-to-DL interference. This corresponds to the claimed “wherein the one or more transmit power control schemes comprises at least one of … (ii) an allowed increase in a transmit power for the AP.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by BALASUBRAMANIAN power control for the downlink transmission, in the system of Ibrahim and Gulati. Doing so would have allowed more flexibility in controlling interference, so that in addition to the frequency control disclosed by Ibrahim, a power control for the downlink communication could also be utilized.
With respect to “a maximum transmit power setting for the second client station”, since the claim is written in the alternative form (“at least one of A or B”), it is sufficient to meet at least one of the limitations “A” or “B” in the claim to meet the limitations of the whole claim. In this case the limitation “B” is met.
Regarding claim 8, Ibrahim in combination with BALASUBRAMANIAN teaches “wherein transmitting the downlink transmission comprises transmitting, by the AP, the downlink transmission based on the allowed increase in the transmit power for the AP (BALASUBRAMANIAN, paragraph 0093: At 645, The base station 110 increase an energy per resource element (EPRE) to increase a transmit power on a downlink to compensate for the SL-to-DL interference.).”
Claims 10, 21 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230030144 (Ibrahim) in view of US 20160128027 (Gulati) and US 20210392686 (Aboul-Magd) as applied to claims 1, 15 and 18 above, and further in view of US 20200313824 (Barbu).
Regarding claims 10, 21 and 25, Ibrahim does not teach “wherein determining that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises measuring at least one of a leakage power or a power spectral density of the second client station.”
Barbu in FIG 4A and paragraph 0044 teaches adjacent channel interference scenario in which the transmission by the UL UE 100 on frequency band 400 may cause interference to DL UE 102 due to leakage of transmission from the first frequency band 400 to the second frequency band 402. This interference is shown with arrow 496 and can be referred to as Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI) caused by the transmission, by the UL UE 100, on the band 400. The interference 496 may be experienced by the DL UE 102 that is receiving data from network node 104 at band 402. Further, as disclosed in paragraph 0036, a method in an UE is provided, the method comprising: receiving (block 310), from network node, a request to perform at least one measurement to obtain adjacent channel leakage ratio information; performing (block 320) the at least one measurement; and transmitting (block 330), to the network node, the adjacent channel leakage ratio information obtained based on the at least one measurement. Additionally, paragraph 0077 teaches determination of interference value associated with the downlink UE 102 based on the adjacent channel leakage ratio.
In other words, Barbu teaches “determining that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises measuring … a leakage power.”
Therefore, since Ibrahim does not explicitly teach what kind of measurements are to be performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Barbu measurement of the adjacent channel leakage ratio, in the system of Ibrahim simply to fill in where he is silent and since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claims 13, 14 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230030144 (Ibrahim) in view of US 20160128027 (Gulati) and US 20210392686 (Aboul-Magd) and as applied to claims 1 and 18 above, and further in view of US 20240072841 (Kala).
Regarding claims 13, 14 and 24, Ibrahim does not teach “wherein determining that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises implicitly measuring the amount of adjacent channel interference, based on one or more previous downlink transmissions” (as in claims 13 and 24) and “wherein implicitly measuring the amount of adjacent channel interference comprises receiving an indication of one or more packet error rates for the one or more previous downlink transmissions” (as in claim 14).
Kala teaches in paragraph 0029 the primary mode (read: node) 302 determining that channels with a higher packet error rate, either uplink or downlink, than a threshold packet error rate may not be used for wireless communications by the network due to, for example, interference by another wireless network, thus at least suggesting using this type of measurement to infer presence of interference. It is implicit that the determination is made using “one or more previous downlink transmissions” on which the measurements were performed.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Kala method of indirect determination of interference by using packet error rate being above the threshold in downlink transmissions, in the system of Ibrahim, for example, in addition to the method disclosed by Ibrahim. Doing so would have provided redundancy in determination thus increasing its reliability.
As shown in FIG 9C and explained in paragraph 0087 of Ibrahim, the interference 910 in the downlink in a particular slot 922 comes from adjacent channels in the sidelink transmissions 920. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that when the method of Kala is used in the system of Ibrahim, increase in the packet error rate above the threshold would have likely indicated “that the downlink transmission is subject to the amount of adjacent channel interference.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GENNADIY TSVEY whose telephone number is (571)270-3198. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5:30.
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, Wesley Kim can be reached at 571-272-7867. 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.
/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648