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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-14 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE (“Consideration on DRX”, R2-1710321, 10/2017) in view of Su et al. (US 2023/0403702) (“Su”).
For claims 1 and 8; ZTE discloses: monitoring a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), wherein the method is performed by a terminal device (Introduction, fig. 1-3: Consideration on DRX, retransmission timer), and the method comprises: monitoring a PDCCH during a reception period (Section 2: retransmission timer) from a first moment to a second moment (Section 2, fig. 3: UE should start to monitor PDCCH delta time later than the first transmission); wherein the first moment is a moment corresponding to a Nth or (N+1)th repeated transmission in a bundle corresponding to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Section 2, fig. 3: case 1, start monitoring is within K repetitions based on delta), , and N is a positive integer greater than 1 (Section 2, fig. 3: start monitoring is within K repetitions based on delta).
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Su from similar fields of endeavor teaches: PDCCH during a discontinuous reception (DRX) activation period (paragraph 208, 212: if there is no ongoing PUSCH transmission and one or more drx-ULRetransmission timers are running, the reception of UL HARQ-ACK feedback on MPDCCH indicates ACKs for all HARQ processes… Early termination of MPDCCH monitoring before going to sleep); the second moment is a moment corresponding to a last repeated transmission in the bundle (paragraph 208, 212: MPDCCH monitoring continues until there are no more retransmissions… Early termination of MPDCCH monitoring before going to sleep). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the early termination of the PDCCH as described by Su in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve power savings.
Claim(s) 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE in view of Su as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Shrestha et al. (US 2022/0225467) (“Shrestha”).
For claims 2 and 9; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Shrestha from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein N is a value obtained by rounding one of the following parameters (paragraph 107: an offset that corresponds to the propagation delay. For example, the UE may determine that a PUSCH transmission was made at least at a (n−K.sub.offset) time slot (e.g., subframe), where n is the time slot of reception of HARQ feedback and K.sub.offset corresponds to the propagation delay): a round trip time (RTT) value between the terminal device and an access network device; a timing advance (TA) value of the terminal device; an RTT between the terminal device and a satellite; a sum of the RTT value between the terminal device and the access network device and a network processing time; a sum of the TA value of the terminal device and the network processing time; and a sum of the RTT between the terminal device and the satellite and the network processing time (paragraph 75-79: Due to the large propagation delay in an NTN … a maximum round trip time (RTT) from the UE to a base station via a satellite in geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) …the UE may use an offset for starting a DRX retransmission timer. The offset may correspond to the propagation delay from the UE to a base station (e.g., gNB) via the NTN entity. The offset may replace or be added to a HARQ RTT timer). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Shrestha in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve timing alignment.
For claims 4 and 11; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Shrestha from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the rounding is rounding up or rounding down (paragraph 107: an offset that corresponds to the propagation delay. For example, the UE may determine that a PUSCH transmission was made at least at a (n−K.sub.offset) time slot (e.g., subframe), where n is the time slot of reception of HARQ feedback and K.sub.offset corresponds to the propagation delay; rounded to subframes). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Shrestha in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve timing alignment.
For claims 6 and 13; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Shrestha from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the moment is in milliseconds or subframes (paragraph 107: an offset that corresponds to the propagation delay. For example, the UE may determine that a PUSCH transmission was made at least at a (n−K.sub.offset) time slot (e.g., subframe), where n is the time slot of reception of HARQ feedback and K.sub.offset corresponds to the propagation delay; rounded to subframes). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Shrestha in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve timing alignment.
For claims 7 and 14; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Shrestha from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the terminal device comprises at least one of the following types: an enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) terminal device, a narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) terminal device, a low-capacity terminal device (paragraph 113: the UE is an eMTC operating in half duplex mode or an NB-IoT device). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Shrestha in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve timing alignment.
Claim(s) 3, 5, 10, and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE in view of Su in view of Shrestha as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Tripathi et al. (US 2022/0070811) (“Tripathi”).
For claims 3 and 10; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 2 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Tripathi from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the network processing time comprises an access network device processing time and/or a satellite processing time (paragraph 113: the gNB transmits ephemeris data that has a relatively longer time relevance in System Information. Such data may be included in an existing SIB from Release 16 or a new SIB in Release 17 and beyond. Such SIB is transmitted at a periodicity known to the UEs in the cell and may be fixed or configurable. In an example embodiment, the gNB specifies NTN-GW coordinates so that the UE can estimate the UE-gNB Round Trip Delay (RTD) or Round Trip Time (RTT). Transmission of NTN-GW coordinates is a better alternative to transmission of the feeder link delay, because of higher accuracy and more efficient signaling. When appropriate, information about more than one NTN-GW is specified (e.g., in support of an anticipated change in the NTN-GW). In another embodiment, in operation F10S1, the gNB specifies the total processing delay between the UE and the gNB and reflects the processing delays in both directions, the UE-to-gNB and the gNB-to-UE. The total processing delay includes one or more of the following: the platform (e.g., satellite) processing time, the NTN-GW processing time, the gNB processing time, and the gNB-NTN-GW transport delay). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the delay calculations as described by Tripathi in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve power savings.
For claim 5 and 12; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 2 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Tripathi from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the network processing time is notified to the terminal device through a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) dedicated signaling (paragraph 113: the gNB transmits ephemeris data that has a relatively longer time relevance in System Information. Such data may be included in an existing SIB from Release 16 or a new SIB in Release 17 and beyond. Such SIB is transmitted at a periodicity known to the UEs in the cell and may be fixed or configurable. In an example embodiment, the gNB specifies NTN-GW coordinates so that the UE can estimate the UE-gNB Round Trip Delay (RTD) or Round Trip Time (RTT). Transmission of NTN-GW coordinates is a better alternative to transmission of the feeder link delay, because of higher accuracy and more efficient signaling. When appropriate, information about more than one NTN-GW is specified (e.g., in support of an anticipated change in the NTN-GW). In another embodiment, in operation F10S1, the gNB specifies the total processing delay between the UE and the gNB and reflects the processing delays in both directions, the UE-to-gNB and the gNB-to-UE. The total processing delay includes one or more of the following: the platform (e.g., satellite) processing time, the NTN-GW processing time, the gNB processing time, and the gNB-NTN-GW transport delay). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the delay calculations as described by Tripathi in the DRX transmission timing as described by ZTE. The motivation is to improve power savings.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Tseng et al. (US 12,245,235); Tseng discloses an SL-DRX off-period may be terminated while at least one of the above exceptional conditions happens, then the UE may wake up to transition to the next SL-DRX On-Duration (e.g., the UE may start the SL-drx-onDurationTimer after SL-drx-SlotOffset (≥0) from the beginning of the corresponding subframe in the associated (LTE/NR) PC5 interface).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN D BLANTON whose telephone number is (571)270-3933. The examiner can normally be reached 7am-6pm EST, Mon-Thu.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Faruk Hamza can be reached at 571-272-7969. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN D BLANTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
