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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in INDIA on 3/9/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the foreign application application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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 1-6, 9-17, 19-20 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.
- Regarding to claim 1, the term “constant c” fails to clarify the value of c which could be positive integer or 0 or negative. Same rejection for claims 9, 12, 19.
- Claim 20 recites the limitation "the constant c" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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, 7, 12, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khan Beigi et al. (Pub No. 20260051496).
- With respect to claims 1 and 12, Khan teaches a method of wireless communication of a user equipment (UE), comprising: receiving, from a base station, a configuration instruction for enabling a subband full duplex (SBFD) timing alignment (TA) mechanism and a constant c (e.g. steps in Fig. 10 discloses WTRU receives TA in full duplex where constant c consider as c= 0 ); enabling the SBFD TA mechanism according to the configuration instruction (e.g. par. 179 discloses “the WTRU may be configured and/or indicated (e.g., via RRC, MAC-CE, DCI) to apply a first PUSCH resource mapping for one or more PUSCH transmissions”); receiving, from the base station, a timing adjustment command, wherein the timing adjustment command includes a propagation delay δ.sub.i for the UE (e.g. par. 126 discloses WTRU receives that discloses “a timing advance offset indication; an absolute time advance command indication; or a timing advance adjustments command indication. For a timing advance offset indication, the WTRU may receive/determine the timing advance offset (e.g., cell-specific timing advance offset) for the serving cell (e.g., based on duplex mode and/or FR)”); determining whether an uplink (UL) transmission is to be performed in a SBFD slot (par. 81 disclose “A WTRU may receive one or more TAC(s) from a gNB. The TAC(s) may include guard time period configurations, for example, an indication on whether gNB allows for DL symbol(s) (e.g., previous DL symbol(s) to be used as guard time period and/or a priority level for DL and UL SB/slots”); and in response to determining the UL transmission to be performed in the SBFD slot, applying a timing alignment delay to the UL transmission with respect to a start boundary of the SBFD slot estimated from previous downlink (DL) receptions, wherein the timing alignment delay is determined by both the constant c and the propagation delay δ.sub.i (see par. 81 discloses The WTRU may determine the timing advance (TA (e.g., TA(new) based on the received TACs. The WTRU may determine the number of symbols (N) that are used to accommodate a TA based on the determined TA(new). In examples, the WTRU may determine the timing alignment discrepancy (e.g., delta_N) (e.g., due to timing advance and/or switching time) based on the difference between the configured timing (e.g., from gNB) and the determined timing (e.g., at the WTRU). The WTRU may determine the priority level for DL symbol(s) vs. UL symbol(s) in respective SB/slots (e.g., explicitly based on indication from the gNB or implicitly based on scheduled UL and/or DL). Khan implicitly fails to teach a timing alignment delay to the UL transmission with respect to a start boundary of the SBFD slot estimated from previous downlink (DL) receptions. However, Khan teaches WTRU behavior if a UL transmission is scheduled in a SBFD slot with DL reception in the previous slot (e.g. par. 127, 155) would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to understand that the timing alignment delay based on the previous DL to determine for delay in wireless communication.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) 7-8, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a1) as being anticipated by Zhang et al. (Pub. No. 20220078734).
-With respect to claims 7, 18, Zhang teaches a method of wireless communication of a base station, comprising: transmitting, to each of a plurality of user equipments (UEs), a configuration instruction for enabling the UEs with a subband full duplex (SBFD) timing alignment (TA) mechanism (e.g. steps in Fig. 18 step 1808, gNB transmit TA); estimating a propagation delay δ.sub.i for each of the UEs (e.g. par. 206 disclose “the TA range value determination circuitry 1943 may also determine the TA.sub.indicated value in light of the various range boundaries including accounting for the delta value, the delay spread, and the base station's own DL propagation delay”); and transmitting a timing adjustment command to each of the UEs, wherein the timing adjustment command to each of the UEs includes the propagation delay δ.sub.i for each of the UEs (e.g. steps 1814 in Fig. 18).
- With respect to claim 8, Zhang teaches wherein the propagation delay δ.sub.i for each of the UEs indicates a time taken for a wireless signal to traverse from the each of the UEs to the base station or from the base station to the each of the UEs (see par. 5).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6, 9-11, 13-17, 19-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471