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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 9/17/25, with respect to the amendment in response to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-2 and 11-12 under 35 USC 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the 102 rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Jung et al in view of Xiao et al (CN 102917375 A). Xiao et al teaches the newly added limitations to claims 1 and 11.
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-2 and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jung et al (WO 2017/095467 A1) (hereinafter referred to as Jung) in view of Xiao et al (CN 102917375 A) (hereinafter referred to as Xiao).
Regarding claims 1 and 11, Jung teaches a system where cooperating APs can avoid scheduling interfering UEs and UE transmit beams on overlapped time-frequency radio resources and cooperating APs can negotiate restricted time-frequency resources for potential interfering UEs and/or UE Tx beams (see par [34]). Specifically, Jung a method performed by a network-side control node (centralized scheduler) in mobile communication system, the method comprising: acquiring information (UE’s beam measurement report) related to cooperative scheduling corresponding to a base station; determining configuration information for cooperative scheduling on traffics in overlapped beam coverage areas associated with a plurality of base stations including the base station, based on the information related to cooperative scheduling; and transmitting, to the base station, the configuration information (interfering beam info/scheduling info/restricted time-frequency resources) (see par[35-37, 39]). Jung does not teach determining predicted physical resource block (PRB) utilization information of cells based on the base station status info and the UE info and use that info to determine a cell to perform scheduling traffic in the overlapped area. However, such feature is known in the art. Xiao teaches in par [0082] that the estimation unit 810 of base station 800 estimate the PRB utilization in the overlapped area. The base station (BS) 800 then uses that PRB utilization to instruct and coordinate with the neighboring BS so that the adjacent BS does not schedule the beams in the overlapped area so that the BS is the only BS that schedule traffic in the overlapped area to avoid interference. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply Xiao’s teaching of estimating PRB utilization in the overlapped area and use that info to coordinate with the neighboring BS so that the current BS is the only BS to schedule traffic in the overlapped area with the motivation being to reduce interferences and enhance communications reliability.
Regarding claims 2 & 12, Jung et al teaches wherein the information related to cooperative scheduling comprises user equipment (UE) status information of a UE serviced by the base station, and wherein the UE status information comprises UE measurement information (see par [31,32]). Allowable Subject Matter Claims 3-10 and 13-20 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: none of the prior art of record teaches determining a cell type of the cell based on the scheduling status information, wherein the cell type comprises one of a first type which needs cooperative scheduling, a second type with cooperative scheduling capability, and a third type which does not need cooperative scheduling or has no cooperative capability and determining a beam coverage area to be serviced by the cell based on the cell type.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10 and 13-20 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
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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HUY D. VU
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2461
/HUY D VU/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2461