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 .
Disposition of Claims
With the Applicants submission dated 03/06/2023, the status of the claims are: claims 1-2, 4-14, 16-25, 27-28, and 30, are pending; claims 3, 15, 26, and 29, are cancelled; and claims 1, 4, 13, 16, 25, and 28 have been amended.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Applicant’s arguments, see 112 Rejection, filed 03/06/2026, with respect to claims 1-12 and 25-27 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant has amended the claims to recite, “Transmitting, a reservation” but has not discussed in detail, the issues discussed in the 112 rejection filed 03/06/2026. The applicants silence regarding the particular message, and how to make and/or use the claimed invention with undue experimentation are unpersuasive. The claims stand rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §§ 102 and 103
Applicant’s arguments, see 102 and 103 rejections, filed 03/06/2026, with respect to claims 13-14, 17, 19-21, 23-25, and 28, have been fully considered but are unpersuasive. The office appreciates the applicant amending subject matter of claim 15 into the claims, however, the claims describe:
“transmitting, to the first UE, at least one of one or more uncompressed bits corresponding to the one or more second candidate resources, wherein the one or more uncompressed bits correspond to one or more in-phase quadrature (IQ) samples, or one or more decoded bits corresponding to a reservation of the one or more second candidate resources”.
The office notes that the disclosure of Gulati substantially discloses the one or more decoded bits, and the applicants have not discussed the rejection. That is, the claim requires either the uncompressed bits or the decoded bits, in order to meet the limitations of the claims. The claims stand rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim(s) 1-12 and 25-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention.
With regard to dependent claim 1-12 and 25-27, are rejected for lack of enablement. With regard to claim(s) 1 and 25, the claim recite, in part:
“transmitting a reservation at least one of one or more first candidate resources or one or more second candidate resources of a plurality of candidate resources for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) reception; and
receiving, from a base station, an indication of the one or more first candidate resources for the PDCCH reception”.
With regard to the “reservation or the transmission of a reservation” step, at the time of the invention, the customary procedure as it pertains to PDCCH, the network may send PDCCH on resources, and the UE can receive an indication of PDCCH candidates, monitoring occasions, search spaces, and CORESET via RRC signaling. For example, a reference Park et al. (US 2021/0014893 A1) establishes the skill in the art at the time of the filing of the instant application. Park discloses, at par.[0234]:
“The base station may transmit, to the UE, RRC messages comprising configuration parameters of one or more CORESETs and one or more search space sets. The configuration parameters may indicate an association between a search space set and a CORESET. A search space set may comprise a set of PDCCH candidates formed by CCEs at a given aggregation level. The configuration parameters may indicate: a number of PDCCH candidates to be monitored per aggregation level; a PDCCH monitoring periodicity and a PDCCH monitoring pattern; one or more DCI formats to be monitored by the UE; and/or whether a search space set is a common search space set or a UE-specific search space set. A set of CCEs in the common search space set may be predefined and known to the UE.”.
As can be seen at the time of the filing of the invention, it was customary in the art for the UE to receive a reservation or an indication of a reservation of resources, but not explicitly book PDCCH candidates. The question becomes, how then, does the UE perform the booking, what messages are used, which information elements are included in the message to further specify the reservation. None of this is disclosed in the applicants specification as filed. At best the applicant alleges that the UE sends some signaling to the base station which is configured to book PDCCH candidates, with no further teaching as to which particular message, or the content thereof. Since the specification as filed does not clearly inform those skilled in the art how to both make and use the claimed invention without undue experimentation, the claims are rejected for lack of enablement.
The applicants amending the claims to recite, “transmit a reservation” does not overcome the enablement rejection of record. The applicant has not disclose how and or why the UE would need to send to a network a reservation for PDCCH resources, and/or what techniques, messages, or message formats the UE would use to perform the “the PDCCH resource reservation procedure”. What is the purpose of the UE reserving PDCCH resources as the UE receives control information for downlink assignment, etc. on the downlink control channel, which is controlled by the network.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 13-14, 17, 19, 23-24, and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gulati et al. (US 2018/0324842 A1).
Regarding claims 13 and 28, Gulati discloses:
an apparatus for wireless communication (fig.4 depicts a wireless communications network) at a second user equipment (UE) (fig.4 depicts a relay-UE), comprising:
a memory (fig.12 element 1206); and
at least one processor (fig.12 element 1204) coupled to the memory (fig.12 element 1206 the memory coupled to the processor) and configured to:
establish a communication link with a first UE (fig.4 element 430);
receive, from a base station (fig.4 element 462), an indication of one or more second candidate resources of a plurality of candidate resources for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) reception (par.[0044] which recites, in part, “A UE may be configured with a UE-specific enhanced PDCCH (ePDCCH) that also carries DCI. The ePDCCH may have 2, 4, or 8 RB pairs (FIG. 2B shows two RB pairs, each subset including one RB pair).” That is, the UE is configured with a plurality of resource blocks where it may receive PDCCH); and
transmitting, to the first UE, at least one of one or more uncompressed bits corresponding to the one or more second candidate resources, wherein the one or more uncompressed bits correspond to one or more in-phase quadrature (IQ) samples, or one or more decoded bits corresponding to a reservation of the one or more second candidate resources s(par.[0061] which recites, in part, “Specifically, for the RNTI of the UE relay 464, the relay UE 464 may decode the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) to determine whether there a downlink and/or uplink grant has been allocated by the base station 462. Similarly, for the RNTI of the remote UE 466, the relay UE 464 may decode the PDCCH to determine whether a grant of sidelink resources has been allocated for the remote UE 466. Based on determining that a grant of sidelink resources has been provided for the remote UE 466, the relay UE 464 may forward the grant or associated RNTI to the remote UE 466 to facilitate bi-directional communication on the sidelink.”).
Regarding claim 14, Gulati discloses:
wherein the communication link is a UE-to-UE link (fig.4 depicts a sidelink).
Regarding claim 17, Gulati discloses:
wherein at least one of the one or more uncompressed bits or the one or more decoded bits corresponds to a downlink control information (DCI) related information exchange (par.[0061] describes the forwarding of a grant to the remote UE, wherein the relay-UE decodes the PDCCH for the remote-UE).
Regarding claim 19, Gulati discloses:
receive, from the base station, a PDCCH via one or more first candidate resources or the one or more second candidate resources (par.[0061] describes reception of the PDCCH on the candidate resources).
Regarding claim 23, Gulati discloses:
wherein the one or more uncompressed bits are associated with downlink control information (DCI), and wherein the DCI is associated with a transmission reception point (TRP) of the first UE (fig.4 depicts the TRP which sends the PDCCH comprising the DCI to the mobile-relay which is then forwarded to the remote-UE).
Regarding claim 24, Gulati discloses:
comprising a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor (fig.12 depicts the memory coupled with the processor).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gulati as applied to claims 13 and 25, in view of Kim et al. (US 2014/0092792 A1).
Regarding claim 20, the disclosure of Gulati teaches:
Reception of the PDCCH to acquire own DCI or DCI for a remote device, but does not disclose:
blindly decode the PDCCH.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Kim teaches:
blindly decode the PDCCH (par.[0077] which recites, in part, “Specifically, the relay blind-decodes a plurality of R-PDCCH candidates within the search space.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings Gulati for forwarding a PDCCH with the disclosure of Kim for blind decoding. The motivation/suggestion would have been the blind decoding on a search space alleviates the need for the UE blind decode the entire control channel, saving battery power of the UE.
Claim(s) 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gulati as applied to claims 13 and 25, in view of Lu et al. (US 2015/0055532 A1).
Regarding claim 21, Gulati discloses:
wherein the first UE is associated with a first PDCCH blind detection limit and the second UE is associated with a second PDCCH blind detection limit (par.[0253] which recites, in part, “Further, monitoring of cellular scheduling information and of D2D scheduling information would cost two times of PDCCH blind decoding attempts, if for example different format of the DCI is used for the cellular scheduling and the D2D scheduling. Thus, a single DRX configuration used for both the cellular communication link and the D2D communication link may cause the wireless device to always try to simultaneously decode both types of scheduling information.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings of Gulati, with the disclosure of Lu. The motivation/suggestion would have been to prevent excessive power consumption at the UE depending on the type and communications the UE performs.
Claim(s) 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gulati as applied to claims 13 and 25, in view of Tseng et al. (US 2019/0305867 A1).
Regarding claim 23, Gulati discloses claim 1 and 13, but does not disclose:
wherein the one or more first candidate resources include X number of candidate resources and the one or more second candidate resources include Y number of candidate resources.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Tseng teaches:
wherein the one or more first candidate resources include X number of candidate resources and the one or more second candidate resources include Y number of candidate resources (par.[0003] which describes the search spaces, which are the candidate resources, wherein a search space comprises a plurality of candidate resources).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings of Gulati with the disclosure of Tseng. The motivation/suggestion would have been to reduce the blind decoding burden on the UE.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16, 18 and 30, 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.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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JAMAAL HENSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2411
/JAMAAL HENSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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