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 application filed on 01/30/2024.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Claims 7-10, 17-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim.
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, 3-4, 6, 11, 13-14, 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).
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.
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 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 Claim 11, please refer to the rejection of Claim 1, above.
For Claim 13-14, 16, please refer to the rejection of Claims 3-4, 6, above.
Claims 2, 5, 12, 15 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) as applied to claim 1, 4 or 11, 14 above, and further in view of Haipeng Lei (US 20240340149 A1).
For Claims 2, 12, 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 a UE to receive a multicast or broadcast communication.
However, Lei, in analogous art, discloses a UE to receive 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 Claims 5, 15, Beigi & Caretti disclose all of the claimed subject matter with the exception that the UE to receive 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 that the UE to receive 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].
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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: GAO (US 20260025804 A1) is pertinent to a network device, methods, apparatuses and a computer readable storage medium for a solution of multi-slot scheduling in context of subband non-overlapping full duplex (SBFD).
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