DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to the amendment filed 28 July 2026. Claims 1-12 are pending in this application.
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
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-5 and 7-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nam et al. (US 2017/0201968).
For Claims 1 and 7, Nam teaches a method in a User Equipment (UE) for wireless communication, and a User Equipment (UE) for wireless communication, comprising: a transceiver; a processor, coupled to the transceiver, for executing computer-executable instructions; a non-transitory computer-readable medium, coupled to the processor, for storing the computer-executable instructions (see abstract, paragraphs 77-78, 87); the method comprising:
receiving first information indicating at least one first-type subband (see paragraphs 80, 85);
receiving a configuration signaling comprising at least one first-type information group, each first-type information group comprising information relevant to at least one of a subcarrier spacing, a cyclic prefix, and a bandwidth (see paragraphs 80, 85, abstract);
determining at least one candidate subband, the at least one candidate subband being a subset of the at least one first-type subband (see paragraphs 109, 122, 124, 139);
determining a first information group associated with the at least one candidate subband based on a position of the at least one candidate subband, the first information group being one of the at least one first-type information group (see abstract, paragraphs 5 and 73: determining subcarrier spacing; paragraphs 109, 121-122: FDM of different slices, thus different bands, different numerologies including SCS depending on slice/band; paragraphs 139-142, 205-206: receiving and processing control information for determining parameters of slices depending on band/position); and
transmitting a first radio signal in a first time-frequency resource according to a configuration of the determined first information group, the first time-frequency resource belonging to a first subband in the frequency domain, the first subband being one of the selected at least one candidate subband (see paragraphs 80, 157, 160-161: uplink transmission as configured; paragraphs 121, 139, 202, 253: information about resources).
For Claims 2 and 8, Nam teaches the method, comprising: receiving a first signaling group (see paragraphs 80, 85, abstract),
wherein the first signaling group indicates the at least one candidate subband, the first signaling group comprising at least one physical layer signaling (see paragraphs 5, 80, 85).
For Claims 3 and 9, Nam teaches the method, comprising: detecting at least one first-type reference signal in the at least one first-type subband, each first-type reference signal corresponding to a respective candidate subband (see paragraphs 159, 165, 199).
For Claims 4 and 10, Nam teaches the method, wherein the information relevant to at least one of a subcarrier spacing, a cyclic spacing, and a bandwidth comprises information relevant to the subcarrier spacing included in each of the at least one first-type information group indicates one of 15 kHz, 30 kHz, 60 kHz, 120 kHz, 240 kHz or 480 kHz (see paragraphs 232-234, Table 3: numerology).
For Claims 5 and 11, Nam teaches the method, wherein the first information is generated on the RRC sublayer (see paragraphs 109, 175, 205).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 6 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nam et al. (US 2017/0201968) in view as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Zhang et al. (US 2018/0288746).
For Claims 6 and 12, though Nam does teach candidate subbands (see paragraphs 85, 109, 122), Nam is not explicit as to, but Zhang teaches the method, wherein each of the at least one candidate subband is one BWP (see paragraphs 145-146: BWP allocations).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to employ BWPs as in Zhang when allocating bandwidth resources as in Nam. One of ordinary skill would have been able to do so with the reasonably predictable result of allocating resources in a manner compliant with extant network protocols.
Response to Arguments
The amendment filed 28 July 2026 has been entered.
Previous objections and rejections under 35 USC 112 are withdrawn in light of the amendments.
The previous double patenting rejection is withdrawn in light of the terminal disclaimer filed and approved on 28 July 2026.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to rejections over prior art have been fully considered, but are not persuasive. The claims remain rejected under 35 USC 102 and 103.
With regards to teachings of Nam, please see the newly cited paragraphs which teach the newly claimed scope more explicitly.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Huang et al. (US 2018/0167177) and Jiang et al. (US 2019/0149257) both teach systems in which a UE interprets configuration information to determine numerologies of configured resources.
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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/CASSANDRA L DECKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2466 8/12/2026
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