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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-12 have been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
Priority
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e).
Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Applicant cannot rely upon the certified copy of the foreign priority application to overcome this rejection because a translation of said application has not been made of record in accordance with 37 CFR 1.55. When an English language translation of a non-English language foreign application is required, the translation must be that of the certified copy (of the foreign application as filed) submitted together with a statement that the translation of the certified copy is accurate. See MPEP §§ 215 and 216.
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.
Claim(s) 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ma et al. (US 2023/0098013 A1) in view of Ma et al. (US 2022/0369231 A1).
Claim(s) 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by
Regarding claims 1, 5 & 9, Ma discloses a communication apparatus, base station and method comprising:
A transmitter configured to
a receiver configured to receive/ transmit from a base station (in both cases “see transceiver fig. 12”), to a communication apparatus (see transceiver fig. 12), a radio resource control (RRC) message (see RRC introduced received [0013]) including information configuring a duration in unit of slots for skipping of physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring (see [0018], “PDCCH skipping duration”), and
receive/transmit, from the base station/to the communication apparatus, a downlink control information (DCI) format including an information field related to the skipping of the PDCCH monitoring (see [0013], Downlink control information),
a controller configured to start the skipping of PDCCH monitoring for the duration (see [0038] “start and duration of a PDCCH skipping time”) on a downlink bandwidth part (BWP) of a serving cell in a case where the duration is configured and a value (see [0052], “The PDCCH skipping period can be indicated by at least one of the following: a high layer signaling, a DCI, a predefined value”) indicating the skipping of the PDCCH monitoring for the duration is set in the information field (see [0086], “a field in the DCI can indicate a PDCCH skipping indication information of the new activated DL BWP. In some embodiments, the new activated DL BWP can be the active DL BWP”), and
a transmitter (see transceiver fig. 12) configured to transmit/a receiver configured to receive, to the base station, a random-access preamble in a random access procedure (see random access preamble, [0027]), wherein
the controller (see processor electronics fig. 12) is configured to, after receiving the DCI format including the information field in which the predetermined value is set (see [0052], “The PDCCH skipping period can be indicated by at least one of the following: a high layer signaling, a DCI, a predefined value”), in a case where the random access procedure is completed, resume the PDCCH monitoring (see [0058], “ a start and duration of PDCCH skipping time, a skipping indicator value, a PDCCH skipping pattern”, therefore this infers to resume skipping where applicable).
Ma et al. (US 2023/0098013 A1) does not explicitly disclose however Ma (US 2022/0369231 A1) explicitly discloses wherein the controller is configured to resume the PDCCH monitoring in a case where the random access procedure ([0057] 1) Trigger a physical random access procedure, e.g., triggered by higher layers or by a PDCCH order, or due to Beam failure recovery) is completed after receiving the DCI format (SEE DCI FORAMT [0033]) including the information field in which the value indicating the skipping of the PDCCH (SEE PDCCH MONITORING SKIPPING [0033] ) monitoring for the duration is set (see SEE DURATION [0033]);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the teachings of Ma with that of Ma (US 2022/0369231 A1). Doing so would conform to well-known standards in the field of invention.
Regarding claims 2, 6 & 10; Ma discloses a communication apparatus, base station & method according to claims 1, 5 & 9, wherein
the receiver is further configured to receive, from the base station, the RRC message (“[0171] A gNB can send a RRC signaling to UE, the RRC signaling can configure Tb available PDCCH skipping periods, and each PDCCH skipping period”) including information configuring a plurality of cell groups (see [0105] 1) the timer is configured per cell [0108] 4) the timer is configured per serving cell group), and
the controller is configured to perform the PDCCH monitoring on a serving cell of a cell group corresponding to the transmission of the random access preamble (see [0104] In some embodiments, the timer can be configured by a higher layer parameter and applied to at least one of the following methods:[0105] 1) the timer is configured per cell;).
Regarding claims 3, 7 & 11; Ma discloses a communication apparatus, base station and method according to claims 2, 6 & 10, wherein
the random access preamble is transmitted in a case where the communication apparatus has no physical uplink control channel resource for scheduling request (SR) (see [0029] “a Scheduling Request is sent on PUCCH and is pending; or [0030] a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) of the medium access control (MAC) entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble” therefore, no physical uplink control channel resource for scheduling request).
Regarding claims 4, 8 & 12; Ma discloses a communication apparatus and base station according to claims 1, 5 & 9, wherein,
the DCI format is used for scheduling of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (see PUSCH [0061]) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), and
a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) (see CRC, [0075]) scrambled by one of a cell-radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) (see C-RNTI, [0075]), a modulation and coding scheme-C-RNTI (MCS-C- RNTI) (see [0075], “MCS-C-RNTI”) and a configured scheduling radio network temporary identifier (CS-RNTI) (see [0075], “CS-RNTI”) is attached to the DCI format (see DCI format [0076]).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to K. WILFORD SHAHEED whose telephone number is (469) 295-9175. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9 am-6pm; CST; ALT Friday. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. The examiner’s Supervisor, Jinsong Hu, can be reached at (571)272-3965, where attempts to reach the examiner are unsuccessful.
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/KHALID W SHAHEED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643