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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claims 23-25, 28, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Guo (US Publication 2024/0007990 A1).
Regarding to claim 23, Guo discloses a method (fig. 3A) performed by a network node 110 (fig. 2), the method comprising: obtaining capability information 312 indicating that a wireless device 120 is configured to measure positioning reference signals PRSs without configuration of a measurement gap (page 4 paragraph 0037); generating configuration information 304 including a priority indicator indicating a priority of reception of at least one channel with respect to reception of PRSs (page 4 paragraph 0041); and transmitting, to the wireless device, the configuration information including the priority indicator (page 4 paragraph 00040).
Regarding to claim 24, Guo discloses the priority indicator is transmitted in a Downlink Control Information DCI message (page 4 paragraph 0034).
Regarding to claim 25, Guo discloses the DCI message dynamically schedules the DL channel (page 4 paragraph 0034).
Regarding to claim 28, Guo discloses priority indicator is transmitted in one of: a RRC message (page 5 paragraph 0046), a MAC CE message (page 3 paragraph 0034) and PRS configuration information (page 4 paragraph 00034).
Regarding to claim 30, Guo discloses the DL channel is one of a physical downlink shared channel PDSCH (page 5 paragraph 0046) and a physical downlink control channel PDCCH.
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 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo in view of Cha et al (US Publication 2023/0020648 A1).
Regarding to claim 26, Guo discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 24, except for the DCI message is one of: a DL DCI format 11 or a DL DCI format 1_2. However, Cha discloses for DCI message of various formats including DL DCI format 11 or a DL DCI format 1_2 (page 14 paragraph 0250; Table 7). Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to arrange for the DCI formats as taught by Cha into Guo’s system since such DCI formats are well-known in the art used for downlink control signaling.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 27 and 29 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.
Claims 1-22 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record fails to teach or make obvious for “determining a priority associated with a PRS transmission and an overlapping downlink (DL) channel transmission in accordance with the priority indicator; and responsive to determining that the PRS priority is higher than the DL channel, measuring at least one PRS outside of the measurement gap; responsive to determining that the PRS priority is lower than the DL channel, receiving the DL channel transmission”, when the determining and responsive are considered within the specific combination of steps or structure recited in the method of claim 1 or in the device of claim 12.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Duc T Duong whose telephone number is (571)272-3122. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri; 9am-6pm.
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/DUC T DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467