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 1-30 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS filed 3/7/25 has been considered by the examiner.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5, 7, 17, 19-21, 27, and 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al., US 2023/0239841, (“Zhou”), in view of Abotabl et al., US 2024/0032042, (“Abotabl”).
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Zhou teaches “A user equipment (UE) (Fig. 5, UE 115-c), comprising:
one or more memories storing processor-executable code (Fig. 9, memory 930); and
one or more processors (Fig. 9, processor 940) coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
receive a grant indicating a plurality of resources allocated to the UE for uplink transmission (Fig. 5, step 505; paragraph no. 0122, “At 505, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, control signaling indicating a periodic switching pattern for a BWP of a carrier bandwidth for communications between the base station 105-c and the UE 115-c. The periodic switching pattern may include a first set of slots associated with a half-duplex communications mode and a second set of slots associated with a full-duplex communications mode”; the control signaling would appear to implicitly include a ”grant”; however, see below for an explicit teaching of a grant),
wherein the plurality of resources comprise one or more half duplex slots and one or more full duplex slots (paragraph no. 0122, “At 505, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, control signaling indicating a periodic switching pattern … The periodic switching pattern may include a first set of slots associated with a half-duplex communications mode and a second set of slots associated with a full-duplex communications mode”; see also, Fig. 3 which shows the HD slots and the FD slots);
receive control signaling indicating at least one configuration associated with the one or more half duplex slots, the one or more full duplex slots, or both (Fig. 5, step 505; paragraph no. 0122, “In some examples, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, with the control signaling, an indication of a first set of parameters associated with the half-duplex communications mode and a second set of parameters associated with the full-duplex communications mode. In some examples, the first and second set of parameters may include a beam identifier, a power control parameter, a transmission power, a rank index, a channel quality indicator, an MCS, or a combination thereof”),
wherein the at least one configuration indicates one or more parameters corresponding to the one or more half duplex slots, the one or more full duplex slots, or both (paragraph no. 0122, “In some examples, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, with the control signaling, an indication of a first set of parameters associated with the half-duplex communications mode and a second set of parameters associated with the full-duplex communications mode … the first and second set of parameters may include a beam identifier, a power control parameter, a transmission power, a rank index, a channel quality indicator, an MCS, or a combination thereof”); and
transmit one or more uplink messages in accordance with the grant and the control signaling” (Fig. 5, steps 515, 505; paragraph nos. 0126, 0127).
While Zhou would appear to implicitly teach that the UE receives a “grant” in the control signaling as recited in claim 1, Abotabl explicitly teaches this claimed feature, see paragraph no. 0069, “Accordingly, the base station may, based at least in part on the scheduling request, provide a grant of one or more resources that the UE may use to transmit the data.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Zhou by incorporating the teachings of Abotabl since the transmission of a grant of resources by a base station to a UE is well known in the art for scheduling uplink transmissions from the UE to the base station.
Regarding independent claim 27, this independent claim is a corresponding method claim of the apparatus claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to this independent claim.
Regarding independent claim 17, Zhou teaches “A network entity (Fig. 5, base station 105-c), comprising:
one or more memories storing processor-executable code (Fig. 13); and
one or more processors (Fig. 13) coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the network entity to:
transmit, to a user equipment (UE), a grant indicating a plurality of resources allocated to the UE for uplink transmission (Fig. 5, step 505; paragraph no. 0122, “At 505, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, control signaling indicating a periodic switching pattern for a BWP of a carrier bandwidth for communications between the base station 105-c and the UE 115-c. The periodic switching pattern may include a first set of slots associated with a half-duplex communications mode and a second set of slots associated with a full-duplex communications mode”; the control signaling would appear to implicitly include a ”grant”; however, see below for an explicit teaching of a grant),
wherein the plurality of resources comprise one or more half duplex slots and one or more full duplex slots (paragraph no. 0122, “At 505, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, control signaling indicating a periodic switching pattern … The periodic switching pattern may include a first set of slots associated with a half-duplex communications mode and a second set of slots associated with a full-duplex communications mode”; see also, Fig. 3 which shows the HD slots and the FD slots);
transmit, to the UE, control signaling indicating at least one configuration associated with the one or more half duplex slots, the one or more full duplex slots, or both (Fig. 5, step 505; paragraph no. 0122, “In some examples, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, with the control signaling, an indication of a first set of parameters associated with the half-duplex communications mode and a second set of parameters associated with the full-duplex communications mode. In some examples, the first and second set of parameters may include a beam identifier, a power control parameter, a transmission power, a rank index, a channel quality indicator, an MCS, or a combination thereof”),
wherein the at least one configuration comprise one or more parameters corresponding to the one or more half duplex slots, the one or more full duplex slots, or both (paragraph no. 0122, “In some examples, the base station 105-c may transmit to the UE 115-c, with the control signaling, an indication of a first set of parameters associated with the half-duplex communications mode and a second set of parameters associated with the full-duplex communications mode … the first and second set of parameters may include a beam identifier, a power control parameter, a transmission power, a rank index, a channel quality indicator, an MCS, or a combination thereof”); and
monitor for one or more uplink messages according to the grant and the control signaling” (Fig. 5, steps 515, 505; paragraph nos. 0126, 0127).
While Zhou would appear to implicitly teach that the base station transmits a “grant” in the control signaling as recited in claim 17, Abotabl explicitly teaches this claimed feature, see paragraph no. 0069, “Accordingly, the base station may, based at least in part on the scheduling request, provide a grant of one or more resources that the UE may use to transmit the data.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Zhou by incorporating the teachings of Abotabl since the transmission of a grant of resources by a base station to a UE is well known in the art for scheduling uplink transmissions from the UE to the base station.
Regarding independent claim 29, this independent claim is a corresponding method claim of the apparatus claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 17 applies with equal force to this independent claim.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claims 3 and 19, Zhou teaches “wherein, to transmit the one or more uplink messages, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit the one or more uplink messages using the one or more half duplex slots in accordance with the at least one configuration” (Fig. 5, steps 505, 515; paragraph nos. 0122, 0126; see also, Fig. 3).
Regarding claims 5 and 20, Zhou teaches “wherein, to transmit the one or more uplink messages, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit the one or more uplink messages using the one or more full duplex slots in accordance with the at least one configuration” (Fig. 5, steps 505 and 505 (communicate during Full-Duplex Slots); paragraph nos. 0122, 0127; see also, Fig. 3).
Regarding claims 7 and 21, Zhou teaches “wherein, to receive the control signaling indicating that the at least one configuration, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
receive the control signaling indicating a first configuration that applies to the one or more half duplex slots and a second configuration that applies to the one or more full duplex slots (Fig. 5, step 505 and paragraph no. 0122),
wherein, to transmit the one or more uplink messages, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit a first set of uplink messages using the one or more half duplex slots in accordance with the grant and the first configuration (Fig. 5, step 515 and paragraph no. 0126; again the claimed “the grant” is implicit in Zhou, see above, re claim 1 – however, see below for an explicit teaching); and
transmit a second set of uplink messages using the one or more full duplex slots in accordance with the grant and the second configuration” (Fig. 5, step 505 (communicate during full-duplex slots) and paragraph no. 0127; again the claimed “the grant” is implicit in Zhou, see above, re claim 1 – however, see below for an explicit teaching) as recited in claim 7 and similarly recited in claim 21.
While Zhou would appear to implicitly teach the claimed feature “the grant” in the control signaling, Abotabl explicitly teaches this claimed feature, see paragraph no. 0069, “Accordingly, the base station may, based at least in part on the scheduling request, provide a grant of one or more resources that the UE may use to transmit the data.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Zhou and Abotabl by incorporating the additional teachings of Abotabl since the transmission of a grant of resources by a base station to a UE is well known in the art for scheduling uplink transmissions from the UE to the base station.
Claim(s) 2, 18, 28, and 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou and Abotabl as applied to claims 1, 17, 27, 29 above, and further in view of Fakoorian et al., US 2021/0321409, (“Fakoorian”).
Regarding claims 2, 18, 28, and 30, Zhou does not teach but Fakoorian teaches “transmit an indication of a full duplexing capability associated with the UE, wherein the control signaling is based at least in part on the indication” (see the Abstract, “A user equipment (UE) may transmit, to a base station, a control message indicating a capability of the UE to operate in a full duplex mode on a single carrier in an unpaired radio frequency spectrum. The UE may receive, from the base station, control signaling indicating a default bandwidth part associated with the full duplex mode or a half-duplex mode based at least in part on the control message”) as recited in claim 2 and similarly recited in claims 18, 28, and 30.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Zhou and Abotabl by incorporating the teachings of Fakoorian to enable the base station to tailor the communication parameters sent to the UE based on the full duplexing mode capability of the UE.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6, 8-13, 14-16, and 22-26 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.
Regarding claim 4, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: refrain from transmission during the one or more full duplex slots based at least in part on the at least one configuration only applying to the one or more half duplex slots.
Regarding claim 6, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: refrain from transmission during the one or more half duplex slots based at least in part on the at least one configuration only applying to the one or more full duplex slots.”
Regarding claim 8 and 22, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein: the one or more parameters comprises a first beam direction and a first beam width associated with the one or more half duplex slots, and the one or more parameters comprises a second beam direction and a second beam width associated with the one or more full duplex slot” as recited in claim 8 and similarly recited in claim 22. Dependent claims 9-13 and 23-26 depend from claims 8 and 22, respectively.
Regarding claim 14, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: receive an activation control signaling indicating a beam direction and a beam width, wherein the at least one configuration indicates that the beam direction and the beam width apply to the one or more full duplex slots, the one or more half duplex slots, or both.”
Regarding claim 15, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein: the at least one configuration comprises a bit value that indicates the one or more parameters, the one or more parameters comprising a first beam direction and a first beam width for the one or more half duplex slots; and the bit value maps to a second beam direction and a second beam width for the one or more full duplex slots.”
Regarding claim 16, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein: the at least one configuration comprises a bit value that indicates the one or more parameters, the one or more parameters comprising a first beam direction and a first beam width for the one or more full duplex slots; and the bit value maps to a second beam direction and a second beam width associated with the one or more parameters corresponding to the one or more half duplex slots.”
Conclusion
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/WON TAE C KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2414