DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to the Applicant's arguments and amendments filed on 20 February 2026 in which claims 1, 3-15, 17-20 are currently pending and claims 2, 16 have been cancelled.
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 .
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, 4-15, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abdelghaffar et al. (PG Pub US 2023/0018272 A1 hereafter Abdelghaffar272) in view of Abdelghaffar et al. (PG Pub US 2024/0056283 A1 hereafter Abdelghaffar283) and Lei (PG Pub US 2023/0388092 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 15, Abdelghaffar272 discloses a method and an apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being a user equipment (UE).
a memory; and at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to (fig. 12): receive, from a base station, a carrier time division duplexing (TDD) configuration of time slots and symbols for a component carrier (CC) (“for a set of subbands of a TTI (e.g., a set of symbols of a slot) that are indicated to the UE 115-a as uplink (e.g., by tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationCommon or tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationDedicated) .. For a set of subbands of a TTI that are indicated to the UE 115-a as downlink (e.g., by tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationCommon or tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationDedicated)” [0088], “the UE 115-b may receive, from the base station 105-b, control signaling indicating a first semi-static configuration for transmitting uplink signaling and a second semi-static configuration for transmitting downlink signaling. For example, the UE 115-b may receive RRC signaling or other control signaling indicating the configurations from the base station 105-b” [0121]);
receive, from the base station, one or more subband TDD configurations specific to a subband for the CC (“the subband configuration may include a repeated pattern of an uplink subband, followed by a downlink subband, and followed by three flexible subbands” [0094], [0098]);
determine, according to the carrier TDD configuration and the subband TDD configurations, whether a collision exists between an uplink (UL) transmission and a downlink (DL) reception for each of the time slots and the symbols (“the UE may use priority rules to determine whether a downlink signal or an uplink signal is transmitted if there is a collision between the two signals” [0043], “the UE 115-a may monitor for a collision (e.g., a transmission direction conflict) between the first semi-static configuration and the second semi-static configuration during a TTI. For example, the UE 115-a may monitor the communications link 205 for the collision 215 between the uplink signal 225-a (e.g., corresponding to the first semi-static configuration) and the downlink signal 230-a (e.g., corresponding to the second semi-static configuration) in a TTI 220. In some cases, the TTI 220 may be a flexible subband (e.g., an uplink subband or a downlink subband) or a full-duplex subband” [0091]); and
select one of the UL transmission and the DL reception for one of more of the time slots and the symbols with the collision based on a UE-specific link direction configuration or a plurality of priority rules (“when a conflict occurs between two semi-static uplink signals or channels and downlink signals or channels, the UE 115-a may drop one of the uplink signal (e.g., the uplink transmission) or the downlink signal (e.g., the downlink reception) based on a new priority rule” [0092]).
However, Abdelghaffar272 does not explicitly disclose receive one or more subband TDD configurations.
Nevertheless, Abdelghaffar283 discloses “UEs may be configured with a slot format through a received slot format indicator (SFI) (dynamically through DL control information (DCI), or semi-statically/statically through RRC signaling)” [0068].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to receive one or more subband TDD configurations because “by enabling usage of conflict scenarios that were defined as error cases, the UE and the network entity increase flexibility for network operations” [0021].
In addition, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283 discloses everything claimed as applied above. However, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283 does not explicitly disclose the subband is a frequency partition within the CC specified by a starting common resource block (startCRB) and a number of resource blocks (nrofRBs), the subband comprising a set of contiguous resource blocks (RBs), and receiving, from the base station, a system information block (SIB) including a common subband TDD configuration.
Nevertheless, Lei discloses “the RRC signaling may indicate the starting RB (hereinafter, “RB start.”) and the number of contiguous RBs (hereinafter, “L”) in the frequency domain .. The number of bits of the FDRA indicator in the group-common DCI may be based on the number of contiguous RBs of the common frequency region. For the group-common PDSCH scheduled by the group-common DCI, the RB numbering may start from the configured starting RB” [0051], “a common CORESET may be configured by RRC signaling (e.g., MIB, SIB signaling” [0068].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the subband is a frequency partition within the CC specified by a starting common resource block and a number of resource blocks, the subband comprising a set of contiguous resource blocks, receiving, from the base station, a system information block (SIB) including a common subband TDD configuration because it will “provide solutions to facilitate DL transmissions, especially, MBS PDSCH transmissions” [0049].
Regarding claims 4, 18, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses each of the one or more subband TDD configurations is a dedicated TDD configuration, a cell-specific TDD configuration, or a dynamic TDD configuration indicated by a Slot Format Indicator (SFI) table (“UEs may be configured with a slot format through a received slot format indicator (SFI) (dynamically through DL control information (DCI), or semi-statically/statically through RRC signaling)” [0068], “a dedicated configuration” [0133]).
Regarding claims 5, 19, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses measurements are not confined within the DL reception on the CC and DL reception on the subband (“some of the REs carry DMRSs (indicated as R for one particular configuration, but other DMRS configurations are possible) for channel estimation at the base station. The UE may transmit DMRSs for the PUCCH and DMRSs for the PUSCH. The PUSCH DMRSs may be transmitted, for example, in the first one or two symbols of the PUSCH. The PUCCH DMRSs may be transmitted in different configurations depending on whether short or long PUCCHs are transmitted and depending on the particular PUCCH format used. UE 120 may transmit SRSs. The SRSs may be transmitted, for example, in the last symbol of a subframe. The SRSs may have a comb structure, and a UE may transmit SRSs on one of the combs. The SRSs may be used by a base station for channel quality estimation to enable frequency-dependent scheduling on the UL” [0076]).
Regarding claims 6, 20, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Abdelghaffar272 discloses the collision is determined to exist between the UL transmission and the DL reception when: a time overlap exists between the UL transmission and the DL reception; or a requirement of a transmission-reception or reception-transmission turn around time between the UL transmission and the DL reception is not met (‘the uplink signal and the downlink signal may be non-overlapping, partially overlapping, or fully overlapping in frequency resources” [0090]).
Regarding claim 7, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Abdelghaffar272 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a cell-specific semi-static UL transmission and the DL reception being a dynamic DL reception, prioritizing one of the UL transmission and the DL reception according to a UE implementation rule (“there may be particular rules to handle a collision between a dynamic grant (DG) and a semi-static configured uplink or downlink signal or channel. In some cases, the UE 115-a may select whether to follow a dynamic configuration (e.g., via downlink control information (DCI)) or a semi-static configuration” [0084], “The UE may prioritize the direction of the dynamically configured signal (e.g., the DG PDSCH 520) over the direction of the semi-statically configured signal (e.g., the uplink signal 505-a or the downlink signal 510-a)” [0110]).
Regarding claim 8, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses when the dynamic DL reception is a PDSCH reception with repetitions and the UE implementation rule indicates prioritizing the UL transmission, allowing non-overlapping PDSCH repetitions in other ones of the time slots (“the UE 704 may resolve, using a directional collision handling rule, a collision between the first DCI and the second DCI based at least in part on a repetition factor. For example, the UE 704 may prioritize the first communication, which has a first quantity of scheduled repetitions, over a second communication, which has a second quantity of scheduled repetitions. As shown in FIG. 8, and by diagram 815, a first DCI, which schedules a PDSCH, is received in a first symbol and a second DCI, which schedules a set of PUSCHs, is received in the first symbol. The PDSCH is associated with (e.g., is scheduled for) a single repetition and the PUS CH is associated with (e.g., is scheduled for) a plurality of repetitions (e.g., in a third symbol, a fourth symbol, and a fifth symbol). In this case, the UE 704 and the network entity 702 may prioritize the PUSCH over the PDSCH based at least in part on the PUSCH being scheduled for more repetitions (3) than the PDSCH (1)” [0100]).
Regarding claim 9, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Abdelghaffar272 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a dynamic UL transmission and the DL reception being a cell-specific semi-static DL reception, prioritizing the dynamic UL transmission (“The UE may prioritize the direction of the dynamically configured signal (e.g., the DG PDSCH 520) over the direction of the semi-statically configured signal (e.g., the uplink signal 505-a or the downlink signal 510-a)” [0110]; Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses “a collision between a first configuration, which is semi-statically configured (e.g., via a MAC CE message scheduling a downlink or uplink symbol), and a second configuration, which is dynamically configured (e.g., via DCI scheduling a downlink or uplink communication). As an example, as shown in FIG. 9, and by diagrams 905 and 910, DCI may schedule an uplink communication (e.g., a PUSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured downlink symbol or a downlink communication (e.g., a PDSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured uplink symbol, respectively. In some aspects, in accordance with a directional collision handling rule, the UE 704 may prioritize a first configuration that is dynamically scheduled (e.g., via DCI) over a second configuration that is semi-statically configured. For example, the UE 704 may prioritize the PUSCH or the PDSCH over the semi-static downlink symbol or the semi-static uplink symbol, respectively” [0102]).
Regarding claim 10, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a dynamic UL transmission and the DL reception being a dedicated semi-static DL reception, prioritizing the dynamic UL transmission; and in response to the UL transmission being a dedicated semi-static UL transmission and the DL reception being a dynamic DL reception, prioritizing the dynamic DL reception (“a collision between a first configuration, which is semi-statically configured (e.g., via a MAC CE message scheduling a downlink or uplink symbol), and a second configuration, which is dynamically configured (e.g., via DCI scheduling a downlink or uplink communication). As an example, as shown in FIG. 9, and by diagrams 905 and 910, DCI may schedule an uplink communication (e.g., a PUSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured downlink symbol or a downlink communication (e.g., a PDSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured uplink symbol, respectively. In some aspects, in accordance with a directional collision handling rule, the UE 704 may prioritize a first configuration that is dynamically scheduled (e.g., via DCI) over a second configuration that is semi-statically configured. For example, the UE 704 may prioritize the PUSCH or the PDSCH over the semi-static downlink symbol or the semi-static uplink symbol, respectively” [0102]).
Regarding claim 11, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Abdelghaffar272 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a dynamic UL transmission and the DL reception being a dynamic DL reception, and one of the dynamic UL transmission and the dynamic DL reception has a higher priority than the other thereof, prioritizing the one of the dynamic UL transmission and the dynamic DL reception having the higher priority (“the UE 115-b may communicate a higher priority signal, a signal with higher priority data, a signal with higher priority time domain behavior” [0124]; Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses “the UE 704 may prioritize a first communication that is associated with a first priority that is higher than a second priority of a second communication” [0103]).
Regarding claim 12, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a cell-specific semi-static UL transmission and the DL reception being a dedicated or cell-specific semi-static DL reception, prioritizing one of the UL transmission and the DL reception according to a UE implementation rule (“the UE 704 may receive a dedicated configuration or a common configuration to indicate a direction for communication on a carrier or cell in a symbol. For example, the UE 704 may receive first configuration information that conveys a tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationCommon or a tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationDedicated information element (IE) for a reference cell to indicate that a symbol has a first direction (e.g., an uplink symbol or a downlink symbol). In this case, a collision scenario may occur when the UE 704 also receives second configuration information to indicate that the symbol has a second direction (e.g., a downlink symbol or an uplink symbol) for another cell (other than the reference cell). In this case, the network entity 702 may convey the second configuration information via DCI. For example, the network entity 702 may transmit, and the UE 704 may detect and receive, DCI with a particular DCI format. In this case, the UE 704 may interpret the DCI as scheduling a communication on the other cell with the second direction (e.g., a downlink communication or an uplink communication) that is different from the first direction indicated for the symbol in the first configuration information” [0091]).
Regarding claim 13, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a dedicated semi-static UL transmission and the DL reception being a cell-specific semi-static DL reception, when the dedicated semi-static UL transmission does not have a higher priority than the cell-specific semi-static DL reception, prioritizing the cell-specific semi-static DL reception and canceling the dedicated semi-static UL transmission; and when the dedicated semi-static UL transmission has a higher priority than the cell-specific semi-static DL reception, prioritizing the dedicated semi-static UL transmission having the higher priority (“a collision between a first configuration, which is semi-statically configured (e.g., via a MAC CE message scheduling a downlink or uplink symbol), and a second configuration, which is dynamically configured (e.g., via DCI scheduling a downlink or uplink communication). As an example, as shown in FIG. 9, and by diagrams 905 and 910, DCI may schedule an uplink communication (e.g., a PUSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured downlink symbol or a downlink communication (e.g., a PDSCH) that conflicts with a semi-statically configured uplink symbol, respectively. In some aspects, in accordance with a directional collision handling rule, the UE 704 may prioritize a first configuration that is dynamically scheduled (e.g., via DCI) over a second configuration that is semi-statically configured. For example, the UE 704 may prioritize the PUSCH or the PDSCH over the semi-static downlink symbol or the semi-static uplink symbol, respectively” [0102], “the UE 704 may prioritize a first communication that is associated with a first priority that is higher than a second priority of a second communication. For example, when a scheduled downlink communication on the semi-statically configured downlink symbol has a higher priority than a higher-layer configured communication (e.g., an SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH), among other examples, the UE 704 may drop the higher-layer configured communication. Similarly, when a scheduled uplink communication on the semi-statically configured uplink symbol has a higher priority than a higher-layer configured communication (e.g., a PDCCH, a PDSCH, or a CSI-RS), the UE 704 may drop the higher-layer configured communication. Additionally, or alternatively, the UE 704 may prioritize a communication scheduled on the reference cell, as described above. For example, when the DCI is received on a reference cell and the semi-static configuration is received on another cell, the UE 704 may prioritize a communication scheduled by the DCI. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 9, when the semi-statically configured symbol is on the reference cell, the UE 704 may prioritize communications scheduled for the semi-statically configured symbol in the reference cell over communications scheduled in another cell by the DCI” [0103]).
Regarding claim 14, Abdelghaffar272, Abdelghaffar283, Lei discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Abdelghaffar283 discloses the prioritization rules include: in response to the UL transmission being a dedicated semi-static UL transmission and the DL reception being a dedicated semi-static DL reception, and one of the dedicated semi-static UL transmission and the dedicated semi-static DL reception has a higher priority than the other thereof, prioritizing the one of the dedicated semi-static UL transmission and the dedicated semi-static DL reception having the higher priority (“the UE 704 may prioritize a first communication that is associated with a first priority that is higher than a second priority of a second communication. For example, when a scheduled downlink communication on the semi-statically configured downlink symbol has a higher priority than a higher-layer configured communication (e.g., an SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH), among other examples, the UE 704 may drop the higher-layer configured communication. Similarly, when a scheduled uplink communication on the semi-statically configured uplink symbol has a higher priority than a higher-layer configured communication (e.g., a PDCCH, a PDSCH, or a CSI-RS), the UE 704 may drop the higher-layer configured communication. Additionally, or alternatively, the UE 704 may prioritize a communication scheduled on the reference cell, as described above. For example, when the DCI is received on a reference cell and the semi-static configuration is received on another cell, the UE 704 may prioritize a communication scheduled by the DCI. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 9, when the semi-statically configured symbol is on the reference cell, the UE 704 may prioritize communications scheduled for the semi-statically configured symbol in the reference cell over communications scheduled in another cell by the DCI” [0103]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 17 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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CHRISTINE DUONG FUQUA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2462
/CHRISTINE T DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462 04/20/2026
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