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) 1-20 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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15; the claim language discloses a first moment at N or N+1 repeated transmission and a second moment at the last repeated transmission. When N is the last repeated transmission, the monitoring of PDCCH during moment 1 and moment 2 are the same; even more unclear, when moment 1 is N+1 then moment 1 is after moment 2.
Claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 are rejected as claims dependent on the above claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 8, 15, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by ZTE (“Consideration on DRX”, R2-1710321, 10/2017).
For claims 1, 8, and 15; 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 discontinuous reception (DRX) activation 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), the second moment is a moment corresponding to a last repeated transmission in the bundle (Section 2, fig. 3: retransmission timer begins UL RTT timer ends, delta, and continues the duration on the DRX active period), and N is a positive integer greater than 1 (Section 2, fig. 3: start monitoring is within K repetitions based on delta).
For claim 18; ZTE discloses: wherein a running duration of the DRX uplink retransmission timer is a sum of a maximum retransmission duration corresponding to the bundle and a configured duration of the DRX uplink retransmission timer (section 2.2: Case 1; retransmission timer starts as soon as RTT timer of first transmission expires).
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) 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE in view of Shrestha et al. (US 2022/0225467) (“Shrestha”).
For claims 2, 9, and16; 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.
For claim 19; 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: in a case of receiving an uplink HARQ-ACK feedback of a first asynchronous hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process, stop a DRX uplink retransmission timer corresponding to the first asynchronous HARQ process, or stop DRX uplink retransmission timers corresponding to all asynchronous HARQ processes of a terminal device (paragraph 106-107: PDCCH-based HARQ feedback to include an indication of whether the HARQ feedback corresponds to all HARQ processes or only a first HARQ process that has a DRX retransmission timer running…The UE may stop the DRX retransmission timer for that HARQ process if the DRX retransmission timer is running). 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, 12, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE 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, 10, and 17; 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.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZTE in view of Su et al. (US 2023/0403702) (“Su”).
For claim 20; ZTE discloses the subject matter in claim 15 as described above in the office action.
ZTE does not expressly disclose, but Su from similar fields of endeavor teaches: cancel a remaining repeated transmission in the bundle in a case of receiving an uplink HARQ-ACK feedback of a first asynchronous HARQ process (paragraph 346: If the gNB 220 starts decoding after receiving some of all repetitions and successfully decodes the TB, a way to improve spectrum efficiency is for gNB 220 to early terminate ongoing repetitions. This can be done by an acknowledgement or indication of successful receiving of that TB). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the scheduling as described by Su 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).
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.
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