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 . The instant First Office Action on the merits is in response to claims filed on 11/20/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 8 and 15 are the base independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/20/2024 was filed before the mailing of a first Office action on the merits. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97(b). Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged.
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copies of papers required under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) have been filed.
Claim Objections
Claims 13 and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 13, line 7, “the first-type terminal device” and “the second-type terminal device” can be modified according to the terms in claim 6. In claim 20, line 4, “the CCE resource,” “the first-type terminal device” and “the second-type terminal device” can be modified according to the terms in claim 6. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
Claims 1-2, 5-9, 12-16, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papasakellariou (US 2018/0227156) in view of Wu et al (US 2014/0233474) and further in view of Wang et al (CN 110753311 A, hereinafter the citation is using the English transition).
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Papasakellariou discloses a resource allocation method, related apparatus and CRM (par 54; processor and memeory), wherein the method comprises:
determining at least two physical downlink control channel PDCCH resources for at least two terminal devices, wherein the at least two PDCCH resources are in a one-to-one correspondence with the at least two terminal devices (par 96; e.g. PDCCH search space can be UE-specific; for the UE-specific search space S_k_(L) at CCE aggregation level L, the variable Yk is defined by Yk=(A-Yk_1)mod D; also see fig. 11, fig. 12, par 173), and a distance between a frequency domain position of each of the at least two PDCCH resources and a reference frequency domain position meets a preset condition, or (examining note: since the claim shows a limitation in an alternative form, the prior art may teach either or both limitations, and this notice applies to subsequent occurrences of claim limitations that are in the alternative form) a distance between frequency domain positions of two PDCCH resources that are adjacent in frequency domain in the at least two PDCCH resources meets a preset condition (par 173-179; e.g. when CCE indexes for different PDCCH candidates overlap, CCE indexes for each applicable PDCCH candidate after the first one can be shifted by a respective minimum value to avoid overlapping with previous PDCCH candidates for a same CCE aggregation level; wherein the offset reads on a preset condition; also see par 101-102).
The reference dose not explicitly disclose:
respectively sending information to the at least two terminal devices on the at least two PDCCH resources.
However, it is understood by one skilled in the art, because Wu discloses:
respectively sending information to the at least two terminal devices on the at least two PDCCH resources (par 83, par 91, par 103; e.g. the base station sends 3 E-PDCCHs, corresponding to 3 UEs respectively).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Wu with the electronic system of Papasakellariou. One is motivated as such to enhance downlink control channel (Wu, par 57).
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein that a distance between a frequency domain position of each of the at least two PDCCH resources and a reference frequency domain position meets a preset condition comprises:
each of the at least two PDCCH resources is a PDCCH resource, in an allocatable state, that has a minimum distance between a frequency domain position and the reference frequency domain position and that is in one or more candidate PDCCH resources that satisfy a first formula; and
the first formula satisfies the following relationship:
L
⋅
Y
p
,
n
s
,
f
μ
+
m
s
,
n
C
I
⋅
N
C
C
E
,
p
L
⋅
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
+
n
C
I
m
o
d
N
C
C
E
,
p
/
L
+
i
, wherein
L
represents an aggregation level of a terminal device corresponding to the one or more candidate PDCCH resources;
Y
p
,
n
s
,
f
μ
represents a randomization parameter corresponding to the terminal device;
N
C
C
E
,
p
represents a quantity of control channel element CCE resources comprised in a PDCCH time-frequency resource range indicated by a control resource set of which an index is p, and the control resource set of which the index is p is a control resource set configured by a network device for the terminal device;
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
represents a maximum quantity of blind detection times of the terminal device;
m
s
,
n
C
I
represents an index of each candidate PDCCH resource in the one or more candidate PDCCH resources, and
m
s
,
n
C
I
is a value in {0, 1, ...,
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
–1};
n
C
I
represents an index of a cell accessed by the terminal device; and
i
={0, 1, ...,
L
–1} (par 131; for example for P=2 control resource sets, the CCEs corresponding to PDCCH candidate mnCI of the search space for a serving cell corresponding to carrier indicator field value ncI are given by equation 1; also see fig. 17, par 187).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 19, Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein that a distance between frequency domain positions of two PDCCH resources that are adjacent in frequency domain in the at least two PDCCH resources meets a preset condition comprises:
the two adjacent PDCCH resources comprise a first PDCCH resource and a second PDCCH resource, and the second PDCCH resource is a PDCCH resource, in an allocatable state, that has a minimum distance from the first PDCCH resource and that is in one or more candidate PDCCH resources that satisfy the first formula; and
the first formula satisfies the following relationship:
L
⋅
Y
p
,
n
s
,
f
μ
+
m
s
,
n
C
I
⋅
N
C
C
E
,
p
L
⋅
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
+
n
C
I
m
o
d
N
C
C
E
,
p
/
L
+
i
, wherein
L
represents an aggregation level of a terminal device corresponding to the one or more candidate PDCCH resources;
Y
p
,
n
s
,
f
μ
represents a randomization parameter corresponding to the terminal device;
N
C
C
E
,
p
represents a quantity of CCE resources comprised in a PDCCH time-frequency resource range indicated by a control resource set of which an index is p, and the control resource set of which the index is p is a control resource set configured by a network device for the terminal device;
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
represents a maximum quantity of blind detection times of the terminal device;
m
s
,
n
C
I
represents an index of each candidate PDCCH resource in the one or more candidate PDCCH resources, and
m
s
,
n
C
I
is a value in {0, 1, ...,
M
s
,
m
a
x
L
–1};
n
C
I
represents an index of a cell accessed by the terminal device; and
i
={0, 1, ...,
L
–1} (par 131; for example for P=2 control resource sets, the CCEs corresponding to PDCCH candidate mnCI of the search space for a serving cell corresponding to carrier indicator field value ncI are given by equation 1; also see fig. 17, par 187).
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 20, the combination discloses the subject matter in claims 1, 8 and 15, except:
wherein a cell accessed by the at least two terminal devices meets the following condition:
in a target periodicity, utilization of the CCE resource is greater than a first threshold corresponding to the target periodicity; or
in a target periodicity, a ratio of a quantity of first-type terminal devices accessing the cell to a quantity of second-type terminal devices accessing the cell is greater than a third threshold corresponding to the target periodicity, wherein a first-type terminal device in the quantity of the first-type terminal devices is a terminal device to which a PDCCH resource is unsuccessfully allocated and of which an aggregation level is greater than a second threshold, and a second-type terminal device in the quantity of the second-type terminal devices is a terminal device of which an aggregation level is greater than the second threshold and that requests scheduling.
However, Wang discloses:
a cell accessed by the at least two terminal devices meets the following condition: in a target periodicity, utilization of the CCE resource is greater than a first threshold corresponding to the target periodicity (page 8, [0028]; page 19, [0070]; e.g. when the CCE resource utilization rate is not less than the third preset value, determine that the cell's control channel is in an overload state).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Wang with the electronic system of Papasakellariou and Wu. One is motivated as such to schedule service under low bandwidth condition (Wang, [0002]).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, Wang further discloses:
wherein the target periodicity is determined based on a load status corresponding to the cell accessed by the at least two terminal devices (page 19, [0070]; e.g. when the CCE resource utilization rate is not less than the third preset value, determine that the cell's control channel is in an overload state; also [0064], to determine the load status of the cell).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4, 10-11 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Papasakellariou (US 20200021474) and Mu (US 20230247584).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YAOTANG WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4023. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-18:00 ET (M, W, TH & alternate F).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, HADI ARMOUCHE can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409