DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
2. 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 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.
Status of Claims
1. The following is a final office action in response to the applicant’s arguments/remarks received 05/11/2026.
2. Claims 14, 21 and 28 have been amended.
3. Claims 1 - 13 has been cancelled.
4. Claims 1 – 33 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments to the independent claims filed on 05/11/2026 necessitated a new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. The newly amended limitations to the independent claims, changed the scope of the claims and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is being made. 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).
Claim interpretation
1. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim should not be read into the claim. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369, 67 USPQ2d 1947, 1950 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (claims must be interpreted "in view of the specification" without importing limitations from the specification into the claims unnecessarily) [MPEP 2106 Sec I, C]. “Though understanding the claim language may be aided by explanations contained in the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment.” Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875, 69 USPQ2d 1865, 1868 (Fed. Cir. 2004). [MPEP 2111.01 Sec II]. Thus, the Examiner interprets Applicant’s claims "in view of the specification" and does not “import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim”.
2. When multiple limitations are connected with “OR”, one of the limitations does not have any patentable weight since both of the limitations are optional.
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) 14, 21 and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (US 2022/0352962 A1) in view of Moon et al. (US 2021/0385826 A1).
Regarding claim 14, Huang discloses: A base station for wireless communication: [105-m of figure 9, ¶ 0032]
at least one memory; [¶0032]
and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the base station [¶ 0032] apparatus to:
configure a user equipment (UE), via higher layer signaling, with first information comprising time domain positions of a first set of transmitted synchronization signal and physical broadcast channel blocks (SSBs)in a first SSB burst; [¶ 0167 - ¶ 0168, the base station sends control information to the UE, this control information is with regards to respective time intervals/periodicity of an SSB period. In step 915 an SSB is sent over a set of beams, signifying a burst of SSBs to UE 115-k. SSB (¶0069) = synchronization Signal and a physical broadcasting channel Blocks.]
change a time domain position of at least one SSB; and [¶ 0170, the base station can adjust the SSB beam pattern, this will directly alter the time domain position. That is, sending the SSB at 935 using the transmission beam during a different (e.g., second) time interval]
transmit, via dynamic signaling, (last two sentence of ¶ 0071/¶0147/¶0150, the base station can detect emerging obstacle, movement, blockage and can dynamically send a second message (dynamic signaling) to change the pattern of the SSB transmission) second information comprising time domain positions of a second set of transmitted SSBs in a second SSB burst, [¶ 0171, a transmission beam adjustment message is sent to the UE. “...the transmission beam adjustment message may indicate that UE 115-k is to change from the first time interval to the second time interval in which the transmission beam will be utilized by base station 105-m to transmit the SSB at 935.”]
wherein the first information is different from the second information and wherein the second information indicates the changed time domain position of the at least one SSB. [as seen in figure 9, the first information is at 910 which is different from the second information that is at 930. the information at 930 is: “the transmission beam adjustment message may indicate that UE 115-k is to change from the first time interval to the second time interval in which the transmission beam will be utilized by base station 105-m to transmit the SSB at 935.”].
Huang discloses every aspect of claim 1, except “…wherein the higher layer signaling comprises a Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling message;”, It should be noted in the reference of Huang the term higher layer signal is being used to configuring the UE, see Huang ¶ 0129 in view of figure 3 (320 and 305) discloses in another situation: MIB can also indicates the pattern/periodicity/time interval of the SSBs to the UE. MIB are higher layer signal well known in the art (see claim 19 of this application whereby the first information can be sent via a SIB (system information)). Also, in the last sentence of ¶ 0161 the adjustment message can be sent via DCI, DCI in the art is used for dynamic signaling. However, in the same field of endeavor, Moon discloses: “…wherein the higher layer signaling comprises a Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling message; see ¶ 0198, the RRC can be used to signal information indicating the actual transmission position of the SS/PBCH block (“ss-PositionsInBurst”), it is well known in the art “ss-PositionsInBurst” indicates the time domain as well as the frequence domain position of the SSB burst (see last sentence of ¶ 0191). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Huang’s system in view of Moon. The motivation for making the above modification would have been to informs the UE which SSBs (and thereby the time domain positions of the SSBs) are being transmitted.
Claims 21 and 28 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 1.
Claim(s) 15 – 17, 19, 22 – 24, 26, 29 – 31 and 33 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (US 2022/0352962 A1) in view of Moon et al. (US 2021/0385826 A1) and Sun et al. (US 2020/0154341 A1).
Claim 15, Huang in view of Moon further discloses: The base station apparatus of claim 14 (see rejected claim 14), Huang further discloses: wherein the transceiver further transmits at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to transmit information corresponding to comprising a plurality of SSB periodicities, each SSB periodicity applicable to a subset of SSB indexes within a SSB transmission window. [see figure 3, SSB period 305-a – 305-d withing MIB Window label 320, for SSB index see ¶ 0160].
Huang in view of Moon does not explicitly disclose a subset of SSB index, however, such difference is seen in the reference of Sun: ¶ 0058. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Huang’s system in view of Moon and Sun. The motivation for making the above modification would have been to provide rate matching operations for the UE [¶ 0058 of Sun].
Claims 22 and 29 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 15.
Claim 16, Sun further discloses: The base station of claim 15, wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to determine a number of subsets of SSB indexes within the SSB transmission window based on a maximum number of SSB indexes within the SSB transmission window. [¶ 0058 and ¶ 0007 of Sun].
Claims 23 and 30 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 16.
Claim 17, Sun further discloses: The base station of claim 14, wherein the first information comprises a first bitmap, wherein each bit of the first bitmap corresponds to a SSB index, and wherein a value of each bit of the first bitmap indicates whether a corresponding SSB is transmitted. [¶ 0058, ¶ 0116 and ¶ 0135].
Claims 24 and 31 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 17.
Claim 19, Huang in view of Sun further discloses: The base station of claim 14, wherein to configure the UE with the first information, the at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to transmit system information comprising the first information, and wherein to transmit the second information, the at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to transmit a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmission. [¶ 0129 of Huang: figure 3 (320 and 305) discloses in another situation MIB can also indicates the pattern/periodicity/time interval of the SSBs to the UE, Sun: ¶ 0056 discloses PDCCH is being transmitted with regards to the SSBs].
Claims 26 and 33 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 19.
Claim(s) 20 and 27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (US 2022/0352962 A1) in view of Moon et al. (US 2021/0385826 A1), Sun et al. (US 2020/0154341 A1) and Lin et al. (US 2020/0404601 A1).
Claim 20, Huang in view of Moon and Sun discloses: The base station of claim 14 (see rejected claim 14),
Huang in view of Moon and Sun does not disclose: wherein the PDCCH transmission comprises a downlink control information (DCI) format for a paging early indication or a DCI format that has a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled with a paging radio network temporary identifier (P-RNTI) associated with the UE. However, in the same field of endeavor discloses the above missing feature see: ¶ 0081.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Huang’s system in view of Moon, Sun and Lin. The motivation for making the above modification would have been for the scheduling of PDSCH or a PUSCH to a single UE [¶ 0058 of Lin].
Claim 27 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 20.
Allowable Subject Matter
1. Claims 18, 25 and 32 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 as well as overcoming all rejection(s)/objection(s) set forth in this office action.
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 MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR whose telephone number is (571)270-7909. The examiner can normally be reached 6:00 AM - 3:00 PM.
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MAHARISHI V. KHIRODHAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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