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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the amendment and remarks filed on 05/06/2026.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Claims 7-10, 17-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim.
Claims 1-2, 5, 10-12, 15 are currently amended.
Claims 1-6, 11-16 are rejected.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 1-6, 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nazli Khan Beigi et al (US 20260031964 A1) in view of Marco Caretti et al (US 20200178267 A1) & Haipeng Lei (US 20240340149 A1).
For Claim 1, Beigi discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0037, lines 1-3, FIG. 1B is a system diagram illustrating an example WTRU 102. As shown in FIG. 1B, the WTRU 102 may include a processor 118, a transceiver 120, a transmit/receive element 122), comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories, individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to:
receive an indication (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0090, lines 4-6, that The WTRU may receive subband non-overlapping full duplex (SBFD) configuration information. Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0125, lines 1-5, the SBFD configuration may include a flag signal (e.g., enabled/disabled), in which for example one value (e.g., the value of zero (0)) may indicate no SBFD configuration (e.g., SBFD not enabled)) of whether the UE is a full-duplex (FD) aware UE (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0124, lines 1-4, a WTRU (e.g., a SBFD-enabled WTRU) may receive and/or be configured with one or more SBFD UL and/or DL subbands) or a mix of FD-aware UE and half-duplex (HD) UE (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0046, lines 10-12, that the WRTU 102 may include a half-duplex radio for which transmission and reception).
Beigi also teaches, in ¶ 0090, that The WTRU may transmit a first PUSCH transmission of the plurality of PUSCH transmissions using a first frequency resource determined based on the first FDRA.
Beigi fails to expressly disclose that a UE belongs to a group; and performing an action according to which group the UE belongs.
However, Caretti, in analogous art, discloses that a UE belongs to a group (Caretti teaches, in ¶ 0047, a module for grouping a plurality of user equipment served by said base stations to form corresponding user groups, each user group comprising a group of user equipment which are close to each other by an extent such to cause potential user equipment to user equipment interference); and performing an action according to which group the UE belongs (Caretti explain in ¶ 0082, in case a user group UG(i) comprises one or more full-duplex capable UEs UE(k), the scheduler process module SCP(i) may concurrently allocate for one of these full-duplex capable UEs UE(k) the same resources both for downlink and uplink transmission).
Caretti also teaches in ¶ 0071, that instead of using a FD allocation, different radio resources are allocated for the downlink and uplink transmissions, as in the networks based on the standard half duplex radio resource allocation.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system taught in Beigi with the coordination unit taught in Caretti. The motivation is so that base station serving a plurality of user equipment will easily manage said plurality of user equipment as a single group.
Beigi & Caretti fail to expressly disclose wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs to receive a same message.
However, Lei, in analogous art, discloses wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs to receive a same message (Lei teaches, in ¶ 0005, that receiving configuration information of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource pool for a group of UEs receiving a multicast transmission, wherein the group of UEs comprises the UE).
Examiner notes that multicast transmission means that the group of UEs interested in receiving a message from a single sender receive the same message.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system taught in Beigi with the group-common PDCCH/PDSCH taught in Lei. The motivation is so that the PDCCH/PDSCH can be identified by all the UEs in the same MBS group [Lei: ¶ 0032].
For Claim 2, Beigi discloses that a set of frequency resources that has a size that is based at least in part on the indication (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0082, lines 18-21, that The WTRU may receive PUCCH configuration information. The WTRU may determine the first FDRA and second FDRA for non-SBFD slots and SBFD slots. Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0080, lines 20-25, that The WTRU may determine a number of slots as available … determining non-SBFD uplink transmission slots as available, determining SBFD slots as available).
Beigi & Caretti fail to expressly disclose the UE to receive the same message, wherein the same message is a multicast or broadcast communication.
However, Lei, in analogous art, discloses the UE to receive the same message, wherein the same message is a multicast or broadcast communication (Lei teaches, in ¶ 0005, that receiving configuration information of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource pool for a group of UEs receiving a multicast transmission, wherein the group of UEs comprises the UE).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system taught in Beigi with the group-common PDCCH/PDSCH taught in Lei. The motivation is so that the PDCCH/PDSCH can be identified by all the UEs in the same MBS group [Lei: ¶ 0032].
For Claim 3, Beigi discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication includes a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration for the group of all FD-aware UEs and a second PDCCH configuration for the group of the mix of FD-aware UEs and HD UEs (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0181, lines 1-3, that a WTRU may monitor, detect, and/or receive a PDCCH scheduling 504 a new grant. Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0182, lines 7-10, that In a TDD framework with SBFD configurations enabled, the multi-slot UL transmission and/or DL receptions may span SBFD slots/symbols/time instances, as well as legacy UL-only and DL-only time instances [i.e., half duplex] respectively).
For Claim 4, Beigi discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication includes a configuration of a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) for the group of all FD-aware UEs and a second RNTI for the group of the mix of FD-aware UEs and HD UEs (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0151, that the WTRU may receive an indication from a field of a DCI of whether to use first and/or second PUCCH configuration. In another example, the WTRU may determine the PUCCH configuration based on the Coreset, search space and/or RNTI used for decoding a corresponding PDCCH 504).
For Claim 5, Beigi & Caretti disclose all of the claimed subject matter with the exception of the UE to receive the same message, wherein the same message is a multicast or broadcast communication associated with the RNTI, wherein the RNTI is a group RNTI (G-RNTI) or a group cell-specific RNTI (G-CS-RNTI).
However, Lei, in analogous art, discloses the UE to receive the same message, wherein the same message is a multicast or broadcast communication associated with the RNTI, wherein the RNTI is a group RNTI (G-RNTI) or a group cell-specific RNTI (G-CS-RNTI) (Lei teaches, in ¶ 0033, that a group-common RNTI (e.g., group-RNTI (G-RNTI)) is introduced for an MBS so that a UE can differentiate a downlink control information (DCI) format scheduling an MBS PDSCH from a DCI format scheduling a unicast PDSCH. For example, the CRC of the DCI scheduling an MBS PDSCH may be scrambled by the G-RNTI and the scheduled group-common PDSCH carrying the MBS may also be scrambled by the G-RNTI).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system taught in Beigi with the group-common PDCCH/PDSCH taught in Lei. The motivation is so that the PDCCH/PDSCH can be identified by all the UEs in the same MBS group [Lei: ¶ 0032].
For Claim 6, Beigi discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication includes a reserved bit in a scheduling downlink control indication (DCI), an activation DCI, or a deactivation DCI (Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0148, lines 4-6, that The WTRU may be configured and/or receive a PUCCH resource indicator (PRI), as part of scheduling and/or activating DCI, that may indicate the PUCCH resource to be used for PUCCH transmission).
For Claims 11-12, please refer to the rejection of Claims 1-2, above.
For Claims 13-14, please refer to the rejection of Claims 3-4, above.
For Claim 15, please refer to the rejection of Claim 5, above.
For Claim 16, please refer to the rejection of Claim 6, above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-10, 17-20 are objected to as being dependent upon rejected base claims, 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:
Claims 7-10, 17-20 are considered allowable because the prior art does not teach limitations including:
“wherein the indication includes a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) in a scheduling downlink control indication (DCI) for a physical downlink shared channel with a frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) that spans outside of a frequency region of downlink subbands in a subband FD slot or a semi-persistent scheduling message with an FDRA that spans outside of the frequency region of the downlink subbands, and wherein the indication indicates that the UE belongs to the group of all FD-aware UEs,” in addition to other claim limitations as recited in dependent claims 7, 17.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 05/06/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Examiner will respond in the rebuttal that follows:
Rejection under 35 USC 103
Claims 1-6, 11-16
Examiner respectfully disagrees with Applicant’s argument that the applied art fails to disclose, teach or suggest “‘receive an indication of whether a group the UE belongs to is a group of all full-duplex (FD) aware UEs or a group of a mix of FD-aware UEs and half-duplex (HD) UEs, wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs to receive a same message,’ as recited in amended claim 1” (see remarks, pages 8-10).
As an initial matter, Examiner would like to mention that MPEP 2145 admonishes Applicant to beware that “one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).”
More importantly, Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0090, lines 4-6, that The WTRU may receive subband non-overlapping full duplex (SBFD) configuration information. Beigi teaches, in ¶ 0125, lines 1-5, the SBFD configuration may include a flag signal (e.g., enabled/disabled), in which for example one value (e.g., the value of zero (0)) may indicate no SBFD configuration (e.g., SBFD not enabled)).
Clearly, Beigi teaches that the SBFD configuration that the UE receives includes a flag signal to indicate that SBFD is enabled (or not enabled), wherein the flag signal is interpreted by the Examiner as the indicator/indication.
Therefore, Examiner believes Beigi teaches to receive an indication of whether a group the UE belongs to is a group of all full-duplex (FD) aware UEs or a group of a mix of FD-aware UEs and half-duplex (HD) UEs -- even if Beigi’s UE belongs to a group that comprises a single member.
Nevertheless, the rejection states that Beigi fails to expressly disclose that the UE belongs to a group that comprises a plurality of UEs.
However, Caretti, in analogous art, discloses in ¶ 0082, that a user group UG(i) comprises one or more full-duplex capable UEs UE(k).
Accordingly, Examiner believes that the combination of Beigi and Caretti discloses to “receive an indication of whether a group the UE belongs to is a group of all full-duplex (FD) aware UEs or a group of a mix of FD-aware UEs and half-duplex (HD) UEs, wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs”.
Further, the rejection indicates that Beigi & Caretti fail to expressly disclose wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs to receive a same message.
However, Lei, in ¶ 0005, teaches receiving configuration information of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource pool for a group of UEs receiving a multicast transmission, wherein the group of UEs comprises the UE). Examiner notes that multicast transmission means that a group of UEs interested in receiving a message receive the same [copy of the] message from a single sender.
Consequently, Examiner believes that the combination of Beigi, Caretti and Lei discloses to “‘receive an indication of whether a group the UE belongs to is a group of all full-duplex (FD) aware UEs or a group of a mix of FD-aware UEs and half-duplex (HD) UEs, wherein the group comprises a plurality of UEs to receive a same message,’ as recited in amended claim 1”
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner notes that MPEP 2143 (G) states that “the courts have made clear that the teaching, suggestion, or motivation test is flexible and an explicit suggestion to combine the prior art is not necessary. The motivation to combine may be implicit and may be found in the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, or, in some cases, from the nature of the problem to be solved. Id. at 1366, 80 USPQ2d at 1649. "[A]n implicit motivation to combine exists not only when a suggestion may be gleaned from the prior art as a whole, but when the ‘improvement’ is technology-independent and the combination of references results in a product or process that is more desirable, for example because it is stronger, cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter, smaller, more durable, or more efficient.”
Additionally, Examiner recognizes that Beigi teaches that the SBFD configuration that the UE receives includes a flag signal to indicate that SBFD is enabled (or not enabled), while Caretti, in analogous art, discloses in ¶ 0082, that a user group UG(i) comprises one or more full-duplex capable UEs UE(k). In other words, both Beigi and Caretti are analogous art concerned with the same SBFD concept.
Thus, Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system taught in Beigi with the coordination unit taught in Caretti. The motivation is so that base station serving a plurality of user equipment will easily manage said plurality of user equipment as a single group.
Clearly, this motivation to combine is consistent with the MPEP’s “the combination of references results in a product or process that is more desirable, for example because it is stronger, cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter, smaller, more durable, or more efficient.”
For at least the foregoing reasons, Examiner submits that amended claim 1 is not yet patentable over the combination of applied art.
Independent claim 11, as amended, recites similar features. Therefore, independent
claims 1 and 11, and the claims that depend thereon, are not yet patentable over the art of record.
Accordingly, Examiner respectfully requests that the rejection of claims 1-6, and 11-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 be maintained as proper.
In light of the above rebuttal and rejection, Examiner believes that this instant rejection should be made final.
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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: ZHANG (US 20240049200 A1) is pertinent to techniques for wireless communication using sub-band full duplex (SBFD). A network entity can inform a user equipment (UE) on the allocation of communication resources for SBFD operations using sub-bands.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED A KAMARA whose telephone number is (571)270-5629. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-4PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, CHARLES JIANG can be reached at 5712707191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMED A KAMARA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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