DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references listed in the Information Disclosure Statement filed on 04/26/25 have been considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449 form or PTO/SB/08A and 08B).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 6, 11 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lin (U.S. 20240172207).
For claim 1, Lin discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station (BS), subband frequency information related to frequency domain resource allocation for an uplink (UL) subband (at least [0047]. The UE could receive information of an UL subband, e.g., frequency location and/or size (bandwidth) of an UL subband.);
receiving, from the BS, downlink control information (DCI) related to frequency domain resource allocation for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (at least [0091] and claim 10. The CPU 308 could execute program code 312 to: (i) receiving, from a base station, a DCI indicating the UE to receive a PDSCH, wherein the DCI indicates a precoding RBG is allocated to the UE, and wherein at least one or more first PRBs of the precoding RBG are within a DL subband and at least one or more second PRBs of the precoding RBG are outside the DL subband);
identifying a precoding resource block group (PRG) including at least one physical resource block (PRB) for the PDSCH based on the subband frequency information and the DCI; and receiving, from the BS, the PDSCH based on the PRG (at least [0091], claim 10 and claim 13. The processor is configured to execute a program code to: receive, from a base station, a Downlink Control Information (DCI) indicating the UE to receive a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), wherein the DCI indicates a Resource Block Group (RBG) is allocated to the UE, and wherein at least one or more first Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) of the RBG are within a Downlink (DL) subband and at least one or more second PRBs of the RBG are outside the DL subband; receive PDSCH on the one or more first PRBs; and not receive PDSCH on the one or more second PRBs. The one or more second PRBs are within a guard band; or the one or more second PRBs are within an Uplink (UL) subband.)
For claims 6, 11 and 15, the claims have features similar to claim 1. Therefore, the claims are also rejected for the same reason in claim 1.
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 of this title, 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 4-5, 9-10, 14-15 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin (U.S. 20240172207) in view Lee et al. (U.S. 20220141857).
For claim 4, Lin does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: identifying a number of scheduled PRBs for the PDSCH based on the subband frequency information; and identifying the number of the at least one PRB based on the number of the scheduled PRBs for the PDSCH.
In the same field of endeavor, Lee et al. disclose identifying a number of scheduled PRBs for the PDSCH based on the subband frequency information; and identifying the number of the at least one PRB based on the number of the scheduled PRBs for the PDSCH ([0014], [0018]-[0019], [0224], [0319], [0330]-[0333], [0357], [0375]-[0380] and [0441]-[0445]. Multiple PDSCHs are scheduled by one PDCCH may be referred to as one PDCCH system or one PDCCH operation. If the PDSCH is scheduled by DCI format 1_0, the UE may assume that P′.sub.BWP,i is identical to 2 PRB(s).)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the invention of Lin as taught by Lee et al. for purpose of allowing the user equipment (UE) to receive the data signal the PDSCH.
For claim 5, Lin does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the BS, information configuring a size of the PRG for the PDSCH; and based on the information, applying a first precoding to a first part of the PDSCH and a second precoding to a second part of the PDSCH, wherein the first precoding and the second precoding are different
In the same field of endeavor, Lee et al. disclose receiving, from the BS, information configuring a size of the PRG for the PDSCH; and based on the information, applying a first precoding to a first part of the PDSCH and a second precoding to a second part of the PDSCH, wherein the first precoding and the second precoding are different ([0014], [0018]-[0019], [0224], [0319], [0330]-[0333], [0357], [0375]-[0380] and [0441]-[0445]. Based on the RBG size that is equal to 2 and is used for the first PDSCH, the UE can expect that candidate values each having the PRG size for the first PDSCH include 2 PRBs, 4 PRBs, and wideband (WB). Based on the RBG size (for the first PDSCH) equal to or greater than 4, the UE can expect that candidate values each having the PRG size for the first PDSCH include 4 PRBs and wideband (WB).)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the invention of Lin as taught by Lee et al. for purpose of allowing the user equipment (UE) to receive the data signal the PDSCH.
For claims 9, 14 and 19, the claims have features similar to claim 4. Therefore, the claims are also rejected for the same reason in claim 4.
For claims 10, 15 and 20, the claims have features similar to claim 5. Therefore, the claims are also rejected for the same reason in claim 5.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3, 7-8, 12-13 and 17-18 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAI PHUONG whose telephone number is 571-272-7896. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm.
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/DAI PHUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644