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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action, and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 3-12, and 25-32 responded on February 11, 2026 are pending, claims 1, 3, 5, 11, 26, 27, and 29 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 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. Especially, the first signaling and the second signaling can be optionally received.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 11, filed February 11, 2026, with respect to claim 26 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC § 101 of claim 26 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 11, filed February 11, 2026, with respect to claims 1, 3-10 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC § of claims 1, 3-10 have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 11, filed February 11, 2026, with respect to claims 3 and have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection of claims 3 and has been withdrawn.
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, 3-10 and 25-32 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.
Claim 1 recites the limitations "determining whether first signaling or second signaling is received" in line 3 and "in case that the first signaling or the second signaling is received" in line 8. If the first signal is not received, the second, third and forth steps will not be performed. If the second signal is not received, the third and forth steps will not be performed. In light of specification, Fig. 8 indicated LTE CRS-IM signaling is received by NR UE for the first step. Further clarification and appropriate correction are required. Claims 3-10 and 25-32 are similarly rejected based upon claim dependency to claim 1.
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, 3-12 and 25-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2016/0344487 A1, hereinafter "Lee") in view of Shaheen et al. (US 2018/0092085 A1, hereinafter "Shaheen").
Regarding claim 1, Lee discloses an interference mitigation (IM) method, applied to a user equipment (UE), comprising: determining whether first signaling or second signaling is received, wherein the first signaling is transmitted from a base station to notify the UE that an interference caused by a long term evolution (LTE) cell-specific reference signal (CRS) from a neighboring cell and the second signaling is used to indicate parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0098, 0105, 0113, 0153] in a multi-cell environment wireless communication system in which a plurality of cells (for example, base station, eNB (evolved Node B) or transmission point (TP)) exist… based on the LTE system; base station or eNB (i.e. "neighboring cell") may transmit an RS such as CRS or CSI-RS (S701)(i.e. first signaling), and a UE may determine a dominant interference cell by measuring an RSRP of the RS of the neighboring cell; A base station (BS) can inform a UE of the following parameters through higher layer signaling: CSI-IM (Interference Measurement) S704); in case that the first signaling or the second signaling is received, determining that the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell exists (Lee, [0153] a UE may determine a dominant interference cell by measuring an RSRP of the RS of the neighboring cell);
in case that the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell exists, determining whether the UE is able to perform LTE CRS-IM based on whether the NR UE has a capability for LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0130] The serving cell may configure the same RE position as an enhanced CSI-IM resource for UEs which are reported to have SLIC capability); and
in case that the UE has the capability for LTE CRS-IM, performing LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0130] to measure interference by using one CSI-RS pattern (or configuration) only by allowing the UEs which perform SLIC (i.e. capability) not to UE-specifically configure an RE corresponding to the enhanced CSI-IM resource when calculating the enhanced CQI, thereby minimizing transmission rate loss).
Lee does not explicitly disclose the existence of LTE CRS interference and NR UE.
Shaheen from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the first signaling is signaling transmitted from a base station to notify the NR UE of the existence of LTE CRS interference (Shaheen, table 18 support CRS; Indicates whether the UE supports LTE-NR Aggregation; the UE supports synchronization signal and common channel interference handling), in case that the NR UE has the capability for LTE CRS-IM (Shaheen, abstract A multi-mode capable LTE-5G new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) for receiving LTE radio resource connection (RRC) messages) and NR UE (Shaheen, [0060] A multi-mode capable LTE-5G new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) for receiving LTE radio resource connection (RRC) messages).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified notification disclosed by Lee and determining CRS interference disclosed by Shaheen with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve communication capacity, speed, flexibility and/or efficiency (Shaheen, [0004]).
Regarding claim 3, Lee discloses wherein the first signaling comprises one or more of the followings: radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) signaling and downlink control information (DCI) signaling (Lee, [0098, 0105] A base station (BS) can inform a UE of the following parameters through higher layer signaling: CSI-IM (Interference Measurement) S701); the second signaling comprises RRC signaling (Lee, [0098, 0105] A base station (BS) can inform a UE of the following parameters through higher layer signaling: CSI-IM (Interference Measurement) S704).
Regarding claim 4, Lee discloses wherein the performing LTE CRS-IM comprises:
obtaining parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0009] receiving a signal at a CSI-interference measurement (CSI-IM) resource based on the enhanced CSI process, the signal, which is received at the CSI-IM resource, including a downlink signal from the serving cell and interference signals from one or more interference cells);
reconstructing, based on the parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM,
CRS antenna port signal for each CRS antenna port (Lee, [0110] a symbol
Level interference cancellation (SLIC) technique has been discussed, in which a UE cancels a transmission signal of a neighboring cell at a symbol-level to mitigate an effect of a downlink interference signal of the neighboring cell); and
cancelling an interference caused by each CRS antenna port signal from a
received physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) based on a time domain position and a frequency domain position of each CRS antenna port and the CRS antenna port signal (Lee, [0110] The UE may receive data at a high SINR as much as the cancelled interference. This means that the UE may quickly receive
data at a more enhanced transmission rate than the conventional
transmission rate).
Regarding claim 5, Lee discloses obtaining, by using blind detection, the
parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM from an LTE broadcast signal from the neighboring cell (Lee, [0122] Therefore, the UE performs blind detection for the signal of the serving cell transmitted to the enhanced CSI-IM RE at the RB which is not scheduled); or
obtaining the parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM from lte-CRS-PatternList1 and/or lte-CRS-PatternList2 in ServingCellConfig signaling (not given patentable weight due to not selected option); or
obtaining the parameters for LTE CRS-IM from the LTE CRS-IM signaling (not given patentable weight due to not selected option).
Regarding claim 6, Lee discloses wherein the parameters required for performing LTE CRS-IM comprise one or more of the followings: an LTE downlink carrier bandwidth, an LTE carrier center frequency, a physical cell ID of a neighboring interfering cell, a number of CRS antenna ports, a multicast/broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) configuration, a v-shift (Lee, [0073, 0078] The downlink reference signal includes:… a multimedia broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) reference signal transmitted for coherent demodulation of a signal transmitted in MBSFN mode).
Regarding claim 7, Lee discloses wherein after the performing LTE CRS-IM, the method further comprises: receiving a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Lee, [0121] The serving cell transmits the PDSCH of the corresponding RB at the subframe where the enhanced CSI-IM resource is configured).
Regarding claim 8, Lee discloses receiving a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in case that the NR UE is unable to perform LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0131] the serving cell does not schedule the subframe having an enhanced CSI-IM resource to a pre-release-10 UE having no SLIC capability).
Regarding claim 9, Lee discloses receiving a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in case that the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell does not exist (Lee, [0121] The serving cell transmits the PDSCH of the corresponding RB at the subframe where the enhanced CSI-IM resource is configured).
Regarding claim 10, Lee discloses reporting to a base station that whether the NR UE has the capability for LTE CRS-IM (Lee, [0130] The serving cell may configure the same RE position as an enhanced CSI-IM resource for UEs which are reported to have SLIC capability).
Regarding claim 11, Lee discloses an interference mitigation (IM) method, applied to a base station, comprising:
determining whether an interference caused by a long term evolution (LTE) cell specific reference signal (CRS) from a neighboring cell to a user equipment (UE) (Lee, [0153] base station or eNB (i.e. "neighboring cell") may transmit an RS such as CRS or CSI-RS (S701)(i.e. first signaling), and a UE may determine a dominant interference cell by measuring an RSRP of the RS of the neighboring cell); and
in case that the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell to the UE, transmitting first signaling or second signaling to the NR UE, wherein the first
signaling is used to notify the UE that the interference caused by the LTE CRS to the UE (Lee, [0129] The serving cell may use a flag signal to notify the UE that the enhanced CSI process is a CSI process for the enhanced CQI).
Lee does not explicitly disclose an interference caused by a long term evolution (LTE) cell specific reference signal (CRS) from a neighboring cell to a new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) exists; and the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell to the NR UE exists.
Shaheen from the same field of endeavor discloses an interference caused by a long term evolution (LTE) cell specific reference signal (CRS) from a neighboring cell to a new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) exists; and the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell to the NR UE exists (Shaheen, table 18 support CRS; Indicates whether the UE supports LTE-NR Aggregation; the UE supports synchronization signal and common channel interference handling) and NR UE (Shaheen, [0060] A multi-mode capable LTE-5G new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) for receiving LTE radio resource connection (RRC) messages).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified notification disclosed by Lee and determining CRS interference disclosed by Shaheen with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve communication capacity, speed, flexibility and/or efficiency (Shaheen, [0004]).
Regarding claim 12, Lee discloses wherein the determining whether the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell to the UE comprises: but does not explicitly disclose determining whether the NR UE meets any one of the following three conditions, and in case that the NR UE meets any one of the following three conditions, determining that the interference caused by the LTE CRS from the neighboring cell to the NR UE exists:
condition 1: a serving cell of the NR UE is a dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) cell, and a neighboring cell of the NR UE is a DSS cell (not given patentable weight due to not selected option);
condition 2: a serving cell of the NR UE is a DSS cell, and a neighboring cell of the NR UE is an LTE cell (not given patentable weight due to not selected option); and
condition 3: a serving cell of the NR UE is an NR cell, and a neighboring cell of the NR UE is an LTE cell.
Shaheen from the same field of endeavor discloses determining whether the NR UE meets any one of the following three conditions, and in case that the NR UE meets any one of the following three conditions: condition 3: a serving cell of the NR UE is an NR cell, and a neighboring cell of the NR UE is an LTE cell (Shaheen, [0055] the eNB sends CRS Assistance signaling, and the UE performs CRS-IM using the detected cell-ID and CRS-AP information, and the information related to MBSFN subframe patterns provided in the CRS Assistance signaling, UE is able to communicate eNB and NR in Fig. 21A) and NR UE (Shaheen, [0060] A multi-mode capable LTE-5G new radio (NR) user equipment (UE) for receiving LTE radio resource connection (RRC) messages).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified notification disclosed by Lee and determining CRS interference disclosed by Shaheen with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve communication capacity, speed, flexibility and/or efficiency (Shaheen, [0004])
Regarding claims 25-32, these claims recite "an electronic device" and "a processor readable storage medium", that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 1, and 3-8, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1, and 3-8 as presented above.
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 LUNA WEISSBERGER whose telephone number is (571)272-3315. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:30pm.
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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