DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2/9/24 and 3/18/25 are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8-10, 13-15 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lee et al. (US 2022/0132341 A1).
Consider claim 1, Lee teaches a method (abstract) comprising:
receiving, at a terminal side from a network side, first signaling indicating one search space, the search space comprising a plurality of monitoring locations in a frequency domain, and the plurality of monitoring locations being used to monitor a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH); and monitoring, at the terminal side, the PDCCH in the search space (Fig. 6, step 510-620 and paragraph 2 and 91, the WTRU receives configuration information for a search space).
Consider claim 13 and 20, claims 13 and 20 having similar limitations as claim 1, therefore, claims 13 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons claim 1 is rejected.
Consider claims 8 and 19, Lee teaches a method (abstract) comprising:
configuring, at a second apparatus at a network side, one search space for a first apparatus at a terminal side; and sending to the first apparatus, first signaling indicating the search space, wherein the search space comprises a plurality of monitoring locations in frequency domain, the plurality of monitoring locations are used to monitor a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (Fig. 6, step 610, the network sends a configuration information for a search space to the WTRU).
Consider claims 2, 9 and 14, Lee also teaches receiving second signaling indicating a control resource set (CORESET) associated with the search space, wherein the CORESET comprises information to configure bandwidth of the monitoring locations, and bandwidth of one of the monitoring locations is less than or equal to a bandwidth of a subband (step 650 and paragraph 111).
Consider claims 3, 10 and 15, Lee also teaches where the first signaling comprises first information indicating a quantity of PDCCH candidates at each monitoring location corresponding to different aggregation levels (paragraph 91).
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.
Claim(s) 4, 11, 12 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2022/0132341 A1) in view of Cirik et al. (US 2020/0106573 A1).
Consider claims 4, 11, 12 and 16, Lee also teaches where the first signaling further comprises second information indicating a quantity of PDCCH candidates corresponding to downlink control information (DCI) format at each monitoring location in one monitoring occasion (paragraph 95 and 117).
Lee does not teach the DCI format 2_0.
Cirik further teaches DCI format 2_0 (paragraph 404).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify and utilize the above teachings for the purposes of improve transmission efficiency of a wireless network (paragraph 303).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 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 JUSTIN YE LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-5258. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30-8:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kathy Wang-Hurst can be reached at 5712705371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUSTIN Y LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644 1/21/26