17DETAILED 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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 4-8, 10-15 and 18-25 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.
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.
Claims 1, 6-7, 22 and 24-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh (US 2023/0247648) in view of Lei (US 2021/0105808).
Regarding claim 1, Oh describes an apparatus, comprising: a processor, and a memory having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor (fig. 3 & para. 68, UE (apparatus) with controller 330 (processor) & storage unit 320 (memory) for executing its method), cause the apparatus to:
receive first downlink control information (DCI) from a network device, wherein the first DCI is usable for scheduling M data channels in M cells, each of the M data channels corresponds to one of the M cells, and M is an integer greater than 1 (para. 62 & 64, UE receives the DCI from base station (network device) for allocating/scheduling data channels (PDSCH) to cells, see also abstract. The first data channel is for first cell; the second data is for second cell (M data channels in M cells), claim 5 or 10); and receive the M data channels (para. 64 or abstract, UE receiving the PDSCHs (data channels) based on the configuration transmitted on the DCI).
wherein the first DCI comprises at least on common field, information carried in each of the at least common field is common information of the M data channels (abstract or para. 12, the one piece (first) DCI comprises a carrier indicator field (CIF), etc. applicable for the 1+ PDSCHs (M data channels).
Oh fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the first DCI [also] comprises at least one independent field, each of the at least one independent field comprises M subfields, and the M subfields are in a one-to-one correspondence with the M data channels.
Lei also describes wireless physical resource (PDSCH) configuration (title), further describing:
wherein the first DCI [also] comprises at least one independent field, each of the at least one independent field comprises M subfields, and the M subfields are in a one-to-one correspondence with the M data channels (fig. 4 & para. 87, group-common (first) DCI includes multiple DCI sub-fields, each including scheduling information for a corresponding PDSCH).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that first DCI of Oh to also comprises an independent field of M subfields with one-to-one correspondence with M data channels as in Lei.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this enables a base station may have access to sufficient resources to provide suitable configurations to a UE (Lei, abstract).
Regarding claim 6, Oh and Lei combined describe:
wherein the apparatus is further caused to: monitor a second DCI from the network device, wherein the second DCI is usable for scheduling one data channel in one cell (Oh, para. 62 & 64, UE receives the DCI from base station (network device) for allocating/scheduling data channels (PDSCH) to cells, see also abstract. The first data channel is for first cell; the second data is for second cell (M data channels in M cells), claim 5 or 10).
Regarding claim 7, Oh and Lei combined describe:
wherein a format of the second DCI is DCI format 0_0, DCI format 0_1, DCI format 0_2, DCI format 1_0, DCI format 1_1, or DCI format 1_2 (Oh, para. 142, DCI formats may be 0_0, 0_1, or 1_0).
Regarding claim 22, Oh and Lei combined describe:
wherein the at least one common field comprises a frequency domain resource assignment field, and the at least one independent field comprises a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field (Oh abstract or para. 12, common field comprising frequency domain allocation (assignment) field, and independent field comprising multiple MCS fields).
Regarding claims 24-25, Oh and Lei combined describe:
where the apparatus/method comprises:
receive a first signaling where the first signaling is usable to: determine that a first field is one or more field of the at least one common field (Oh abstract or para. 12, UE receives [first] signaling which indicates (determines) the CIF or GIF applicable for the scheduling of the PDSCHs),
wherein the first signaling is RRC signaling (Oh para. 103, [first] signaling being RRC).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh in view of Lei as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of He (US 2019/0223160).
Regarding claim 4, Oh and Lei combined already describes: first DCI is usable for scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), but fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein a format of the first DCI is DCI format 1_3; or the format of the first DCI is DCI format 0_3.
He also describing transmission of DCI between network RAN node to UE (title), further describing:
wherein a format of the first DCI is DCI format 1_3 (para. 78 & 99, use of DCI format 1_3 for PDSCH scheduling).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the DCI format used in Oh and Lei to have format 1_3 as in He.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this enables direct indication without resulting in a large overhead for scheduling with the PDSCH transmission (para. 99).
Claim 8 is an apparatus claims comprising sending steps that mirrored limitations of apparatus claim 1’s receiving steps. Hence, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 9, 11 and 13-14 recite same limitations as that of claims 2, 4 and 6-7 respectively. Hence, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 10 and 12 recite mirrored limitations of that in claims 3 and 5 respectively. Hence it is objected under the same rationale.
Claims 15-20 are method claims reciting same limitations as that of claims 8-12 and 13+14 respectively. Hence, they are rejected/objected to under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 10, 12, 19, 21 and 23 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.
Regarding claims 21 and 23, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the M sub-fields correspond to M pieces of carrier configuration, and wherein a bit length of the common field is a longest bit length in the big lengths indicated by the M pieces of carrier configuration information
The closest prior art, Lei as used in above 103 art rejection, and Xiao (WO 2023206286) describing receiving DCI, wherein the DCI includes at least one sub-field; determining whether at least one sub-field is used to control more than one component carriers; and transmitting data by a plurality of PUSCHs or receiving data by a plurality of PDSCHs on a plurality of component carriers based on whether the at least one sub-field is used to control more than one component carriers (abstract), in combination with Oh, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Conclusion
The 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.
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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