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 communication is responsive to Application # 18542463 filed 12/15/2023. Claims 1-30 are subject to examination.
Priority
Acknowledgement is made to this application's claim for priority to provisional application 63518042 filed 08/07/2023.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 24 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.
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 1-6, 14, 15-20, 28, and 29-30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MEDINA ACOSTA et al. (MEDINA hereafter) (WO 2024231302 A1) in view of Liu et al. (Liu hereafter) (US 20220240249 A1).
Regarding claim 1 and claim 29, MEDINA teaches, A user equipment (UE) for wireless communication, comprising:
one or more memories (MEDINA; the UE, line 2 pg 26); and
one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories, individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to (MEDINA; the UE, line 2 pg 26):
receive signaling identifying a control resource set (CORESET) puncturing pattern (MEDINA; MIB, indicating an index of the CORESET 0 configuration table, line 3-4 pg 26), the CORESET puncturing pattern being based, at least in part, on a number of resource blocks available before (Fig. 15 element “Number of RBs”) and after a CORESET puncturing process (MEDINA; table of FIGURE 15 shows … other puncturing cases for CORESET 0 as to fit into 20-PRBs, 15-PRBs, and 12-PRBs, line 27-29 pg 29) and a number of symbols of the CORESET (Fig. 15 element “Number of Symbols”); and
decode downlink control in accordance with the CORESET puncturing pattern (MEDINA; Indication to the UE on which subset of PRBs is used for PDCCH transmission in CORESET 0 (aka. CORESET 0 puncturing) is useful for the UE PDCCH decoding, line 16-17 pg 12).
Although MEDINA teaches PDCCH, but failed to explicitly teach that downlink control information is included in PDCCH. However, in the same field of endeavor, Liu teaches in Par. 0048 that “The SSB may indicate a CORESET where the BS may transmit physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) downlink control information (DCI) carrying SIB scheduling information”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of MEDINA to include the use of DCI as taught by Liu in order to carry it on PDCCH (Liu; Par. 0048).
Specifically for claim 29, MEDINA teaches, A method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising (MEDINA; Indication to the UE on which subset of PRBs is used for PDCCH transmission in CORESET 0 (aka. CORESET 0 puncturing) is useful for the UE PDCCH decoding, line 16-17 pg 12).
Regarding claim 15 and claim 30, MEDINA teaches, A network node for wireless communication, comprising:
one or more memories (MEDINA; a network node, line 16 pg 13); and
one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories, individually or collectively configured to cause the network node to (MEDINA; a network node, line 16 pg 13):
output signaling identifying a control resource set (CORESET) puncturing pattern (MEDINA; receiving a first physical channel from a network node, line 16 pg 13 ; MIB, indicating an index of the CORESET 0 configuration table, line 3-4 pg 26), the CORESET puncturing pattern being based, at least in part, on a number of resource blocks available before (Fig. 15 element “Number of RBs”) and after a CORESET puncturing process (MEDINA; table of FIGURE 15 shows … other puncturing cases for CORESET 0 as to fit into 20-PRBs, 15-PRBs, and 12-PRBs, line 27-29 pg 29) and a number of symbols of the CORESET (Fig. 15 element “Number of Symbols”); and
configure a user equipment (UE) to decode downlink control in accordance with the CORESET puncturing pattern (MEDINA; Indication to the UE on which subset of PRBs is used for PDCCH transmission in CORESET 0 (aka. CORESET 0 puncturing) is useful for the UE PDCCH decoding, line 16-17 pg 12).
Although MEDINA teaches PDCCH, but failed to explicitly teach that downlink control information is included in PDCCH. However, in the same field of endeavor, Liu teaches in Par. 0048 that “The SSB may indicate a CORESET where the BS may transmit physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) downlink control information (DCI) carrying SIB scheduling information”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of MEDINA to include the use of DCI as taught by Liu in order to carry it on PDCCH (Liu; Par. 0048).
Specifically for claim 30, MEDINA teaches, A method of wireless communication performed by a network node, comprising (MEDINA; a method performed by a network node, line 5 pg 14).
Regarding claim 2 and claim 16, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 1 and The network node of claim 15 respectively, wherein the CORESET puncturing pattern is further based, at least in part, on a resource block offset between a starting resource block of the CORESET before the CORESET puncturing process and a starting resource block of a synchronization signal block (SSB) communication after the CORESET puncturing process (MEDINA; FIGURE 21A and FIGURE 21B illustrate an example showing permitted configurations of the CORESET 0 such that the first PRB of the 24 PRB CORESET 0 is always within the carrier BW (15 PRB transmission BW). FIGURE 21A corresponds to an example where the Offset (RB) = 1, and FIGURE 21B corresponds to an example where the Offset (RB) = 2, line 1-3 pg 38).
Regarding claim 3 and claim 17, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 1 and The network node of claim 15 respectively, wherein the CORESET puncturing pattern includes puncturing a first number of resource blocks at a first frequency or a second number of resource blocks at a second frequency (MEDINA; a set of RBs punctured at the bottom and top, line 19 pg 29).
Regarding claim 4 and claim 18, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 3 and The network node of claim 17 respectively, wherein the CORESET puncturing pattern includes partial puncturing of a single control channel element (CCE) (Liu; In FIGS. 4A-4C, 6A-6C, and 8A-8C, CCEs that are fully within the channel bandwidth are shown as pattern-filled boxes, and CCEs that are at least partially outside the channel bandwidth are shown as empty-filled boxes, Par. 0077).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of MEDINA to include the use of partial CCE as taught by Liu in order to puncture coreset (Liu; Fig. 4, 8).
Regarding claim 5 and claim 19, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 4 and The network node of claim 18 respectively, wherein the partial puncturing of the single CCE occurs with respect to resource blocks associated with the first frequency or resource blocks associated with the second frequency (Liu; element 401 Fig. 4A).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Liu is the same as for Claim 4.
Regarding claim 6 and claim 20, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 1 and The network node of claim 15 respectively, wherein the CORESET puncturing pattern is based, at least in part, on a resource element group (REG) bundle size (MEDINA; the indication of a starting PRB index for the subset of PRBs of the CORESET 0 in which the UE is expected to receive a PDCCH is such that the resulting CORESET 0 puncturing is done on a REG-bundle granularity, line 2-4 pg 27).
Regarding claim 14 and claim 28, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 1 and The network node of claim 15 respectively, wherein the CORESET is CORESET0 (MEDINA; MIB, indicating an index of the CORESET 0 configuration table, line 3-4 pg 26).
Claim 7-9, 11-13, 21-23, and 25-27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MEDINA-Liu and in further view of Si et al. (Si hereafter) (US 20240146457 A1).
Regarding claim 7 and claim 21, MEDINA-Liu teaches, The UE of claim 1 and The network node of claim 15 respectively, wherein the one or more processors are further individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to determine, based, at least in part, on signaling identifying the CORESET (MEDINA; the indication of a starting PRB and a length of the subset of PRBs of the CORESET 0 in which the UE is expected to receive a PDCCH is provided by a parameter controlResourceSetZero in pdcch-ConfigSIB1 information element in MIB, indicating an index of the CORESET 0 configuration table, line 1-4 pg 26), a control channel element (CCE)-to-resource element group (REG) mapping associated with the CORESET puncturing pattern (MEDINA; For CORESET 0 ... For interleaved CCE-to-REG mapping ... interleaver is defined by f(x), pg 8; The CORESET 0 puncturing is done on a REG-bundle granularity, line 10 pg 27 [Note that REG bundle size is determined from the CORESET 0 parameters as shown in pg 8]).
Although MEDINA teaches puncturing is done on a REG-bundle granularity, but MEDINA-Liu failed to explicitly teach the mapping pictorially. However, in the same field of endeavor, Si teaches CCE-REG mapping in Fig. 11.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of MEDINA to include the use of CCE-to-REG mapping as taught by Si in order to determine truncated REG to CCE (Si; Fig. 11).
Regarding claim 8 and claim 22, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 7 and The network node of claim 21 respectively, wherein an aggregation level is based, at least in part, on the CORESET puncturing pattern and the CCE-to-REG mapping (MEDINA; the highest "Aggregation level" that can be used depends on the resource blocks in the frequency domain according with "N-RB-CORESET" and symbols "N-sym-CORESET" in the time domain configured for a CORESET, line 1-3 pg 8 & Liu; Fig. 4C).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of MEDINA to include the use of number of CCE as taught by Liu in order to determine aggregation level (Liu; Fig. 4C).
Regarding claim 9 and claim 23, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 7 and The network node of claim 21 respectively, wherein the CCE-to-REG mapping is based, at least in part, on a CCE shift (Si; FIG. 12 illustrates an example 1200 of reordering of CCES after truncation ... the truncated bandwidth to determine the mapping pattern between CCE and REG bundle, Par. 0335-0336).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Si is the same as for Claim 7.
Regarding claim 11 and claim 25, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 9 and The network node of claim 23 respectively, wherein the CCE shift for the CCE-to-REG mapping is based, at least in part, on a number of CCEs associated with the CORESET before puncturing (8 CCEs) and a number of CCEs to be punctured in a first frequency (Si; Fig. 12, 2 CCEs CCE #5 and 7; # FIG. 12 illustrates an example 1200 of reordering of CCES after truncation ... the truncated bandwidth to determine the mapping pattern between CCE and REG bundle, Par. 0335-0336).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Si is the same as for Claim 7.
Regarding claim 12 and claim 26, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 11 and The network node of claim 25 respectively, wherein the CCE shift is based, at least in part, on a number of resource blocks associated with the CORESET after puncturing, or on a number of symbols associated with the CORESET (Si; Fig. 12).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Si is the same as for Claim 7.
Regarding claim 13 and claim 27, MEDINA-Liu-Si teaches, The UE of claim 11 and The network node of claim 25 respectively, wherein the CCE shift is based, at least in part, on whether REG-bundles for the CORESET are interleaved (Si; Fig. 11, 12).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Si is the same as for Claim 7.
Conclusion
Pertinent art US 20240284358 A1 teaches in Par. 0063 that “As illustrated in the tables of FIGS. 13(a) and 13(b), the offset column indicates the RB offset between the lowest RB of CORESET #0 and the lowest RB of the SSB”.
Pertinent art US 20230379123 A1 teaches in Par. 0189 that “FIGS. 10a, 10b and 10c show another example. In this example, the positions of interleaved CCEs for each PDCCH candidate relate to another cell-ID, cell ID=3 in a CORESET”.
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/SHARMIN CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2416
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