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 .
Status
This application claims priority to International Patent Application PCT/CN2022/110682 filed August 5, 2022.
Claims 2, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 19 have been cancelled.
Claim 17 is treated as cancelled due to the absence of claim language.
Claims 21-28 have been added.
Claims pending are 1, 3, 4-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 15-16, 18, and 20-28.
Claim Objections
Claim 17 objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 17 appears to have the wrong parenthetical designation. The claim appears to be “cancelled” because there is no claim language supplied, but the parenthetical designation is “Original” which is inappropriate for a cancelled claim.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3, 4-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 15-16 and 20-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pat. Pub. 20260032689 to Claudio Rosa et al. (hereinafter Rosa) in view of U.S. Pat. Pub. US 20240049200 to Qian Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang).
Regarding claim 1, Rosa teaches A method for wireless communication, the method comprising:
receiving, by a user device, a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration for a downlink (DL) bandwidth part (BWP) and a second PDCCH configuration for a first sub-band within an uplink (UL) BWP or within the DL BWP; (Rosa teaches in paras. [0039]-[0040] and Fig. 4 a user device where there are SBFD slots/symbols assigned with different DL-UL frequency partitioning, receiving multiple PDCCH CORESET configurations.
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As shown, PDCCH CORESETs B-1 and B-2 include several sub-bands wherein for SBFD slots, an UL and DL occur in different sub-bands of the same slot. Rosa further teaches in para. [0040] “overlapping SSs may be configured, with each SS associated with one PDCCH CORESET configuration. As an example, a specific association may be defined between each SS/corresponding CORESET and a specific slot/symbol type (e.g., DL only, SBFD, etc.)”. Rosa further teaches in para. [0029] that there are up to ten SSs per BWP. Examiner interprets a sub-band within a BWP as the “frequency partition”s in SBFD shown in Fig. 4.)
and
receiving, by the user device, a PDCCH in the first sub-band according to the second PDCCH configuration or transmitting, by the user device, an UL transmission in the UL BWP or in a second sub-band. (Rosa teaches in paras. [0045]-[0046] and in Fig. 3 that “In SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-1 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning in 302. In SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-2 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning (if applicable) in 302.” Examiner interprets “PDCCH monitoring” as receiving a PDCCH because they are operationally equivalent.). Examiner notes that the “OR” negates mandating identifying a teaching of “or transmitting, by the user device, an UL transmission in the UL BWP or in a second sub-band.”
Regarding claim 3, Rosa teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the first sub-band comprises a downlink (DL) sub-band or a flexible sub-band, and the second sub-band comprises an uplink (UL) sub-band or a flexible sub-band. (Rosa teaches in Fig. 5, SFBD with UL-DL split in different types:
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Regarding claim 4, Rosa teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the first PDCCH configuration and the second PDCCH configuration are a same PDCCH configuration. (Rosa teaches in Fig. 5, above, that a same PDCCH configuration CORESET relates to varying active CORSETs A, B and C according to slot type. Examiner interprets this as the “same PDCCH configuration”.)
Regarding claim 5, Rosa teaches The method of claim 4, wherein the same PDCCH configuration indicates at least one of:
independent control resource sets (CORESETs)
or
independent search spaces for the first sub-band and the DL BWP. (Rosa teaches in para. [0047] and as shown in Fig. 5 that a same PDCCH configuration indicates different CORESETs that are independent). Examiner notes that the “OR” language negates requiring a teaching of each element of the claim.
Regarding claim 7, Rosa teaches The method of claim 4, wherein the same PDCCH configuration indicates at least one of:
a same control resource set (CORESET) (Rosa teaches in Fig. 5, a same CORESET applies to a same PDCCH configuration.)
or
a same search space for the DL BWP and the first sub-band.
Examiner notes that the “or” negates requiring a teach of each element of the alternative claim elements.
Regarding claim 9, Rosa teaches The method of claim 4, wherein a same downlink control information (DCI) format is used for DL transmissions in the DL BWP and the first sub-band. (Rosa teaches in para. [0042] that the UE receives signaling via DCI “enhanced slot format indicator in DCI format 2_0” indicating traffic needs as tow whether data needs to be transmitted in UL-only slot/symbol or SBFD slot/symbol. Therefore, conventional DCI is used and applies to the first sub-band as well as the DL BWP.)
Regarding claim 11, Rosa teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the first PDCCH configuration and the second PDCCH configuration are different configurations. (Rosa teaches, as shown in Fig. 5, above that a first and second PDCCH configuration can be different configurations. Examiner notes that a PDCCH CORESET is a PDCCH “configuration” in Rosa. Fig. 5 shows CORESETs associated with different SBFD types.)
Regarding claim 12, Rosa teaches The method of claim 11, wherein the second PDCCH configuration determines one or more fields in a downlink control information (DCI) format used for scheduling a DL transmission in the first sub-band. (Rosa teaches in Fig. 5 that a second PDCCH configuration shown as CORESET C is associated with SBFD of different types:
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As noted, Rosa teaches that the CORESET IDs are associated with PDCCH CORESET configurations. (see e.g. para. [0038] “The UE may be configured with at least 2 PDCCH CORESET configurations, with one of the PDCCH CORESET configurations being associated with DL-only slots/symbols (CORESET #A), and another one of the PDCCH CORESET configurations being associated with SBFD slots/symbols (CORESET #B)”).
Regarding claim 15, Rosa teaches The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of:
a search space budget for the user device comprises at least one of: more than 10 search spaces per BWP or more than 40 search spaces per cell; (Rosa para. [0029] teaches that a UE may be configured with up to three CORESETs, up to ten SSs per BWP....”)
a CORESET budget for the user device comprises at least one of: more than 5 CORESETs per BWP or more than 16 CORESETs per cell;
a search space budget comprises a first part for the DL BWP and a second part for the DL sub-band; or a CORESET budget comprises a first part for the DL BWP and a second part for the DL sub-band.
Examiner notes that the “at least one” languages of the claim negates a requirement of teaching the alternative elements of the claim.
Regarding claim 16, Rosa teaches The method of claim 11, wherein a blind decode budget or a control channel element (CCE) budget are the same for the DL BWP and the DL sub-band when the DL BWP and the DL sub-band are time-division multiplexed. (Rosa para. [0073] teaches with reference to Fig. 5, above “The association granularity in time domain may also be in symbols, and the CORESET associated with one slot type in two different SSs may be different. In slots where the UE is supposed to perform PDCCH monitoring based on SS configuration, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring on the corresponding CORESET derived from the current slot type and SS and CORESET ID association. In embodiments with multiple overlapping SSs, the UE may prioritize one SS over others in order to avoid exceeding a BD budget (e.g., a lower configuration index of the SS may correlate with a higher priority of the SS).” As shown in Fig. 5 above, the “slot” type in time division multiplex with a budget requires prioritization within the BWP.)
Regarding claim 20, Rosa teaches The method of claim 11, wherein the user device performs dropping per slot for the DL BWP and the DL sub-band, (Rosa teaches in para. [0047] that a UE may prioritize on search space over others to avoid exceeding a blind decoding budget.) wherein the dropping per slot comprises one of:
dropping per slot in a unified manner when a subcarrier spacing (SCS) and a user equipment-specific search space (USS) is shared between the DL BWP and the DL sub- band;
dropping per slot for the DL BWP and the DL sub-band independent of each other;
dropping per slot for the DL BWP and not for the DL sub-band;
or
dropping per slot for the DL BWP and the DL sub-band in a unified manner and according to a predetermined order when the DL BWP and the DL sub-band have independent user equipment (UE)-specific search spaces (USS). (Rosa para. [0048] teaches that rules may define how a UE determines which CORESET(s) are valid for a specific set of slots depending on the PRB split, and that an SS configuration (and association between SS and CORSET) may define which CORESETs to use for PDCCH monitoring. Rosa para. [0048] also recites using a configuration index and refers to Fig. 6:
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Examiner notes that the “OR” in claim 20 negates requiring a teaching of each alternative element of the claim.
Regarding claim 21, Rosa in view of Zhang teaches A wireless communications apparatus (Rosa Fig. 9, UE 920) comprising:
a memory storing a plurality of instructions; (Rosa Fig. 9, memory 912,922)
and
at least one processor configured to execute the plurality of instructions, (Rosa Fig. 9, processors 911, 921) wherein upon execution of the plurality of instructions, the at least one processor is configured to cause the wireless communications apparatus to:
receive a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration for a downlink (DL) bandwidth part (BWP) and a second PDCCH configuration for a first sub-band within an uplink (UL) BWP or within the DL BWP; (Rosa teaches in paras. [0039]-[0040] and Fig. 4 that a user device may be scheduled with sub-band full duplex (SBFD) slots/symbols assigned with different DL-UL frequency partitioning, according to received multiple PDCCH CORESET configurations.
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As shown, PDCCH CORESETs B-1 and B-2 are in sub-bands. Rosa further teaches in para. [0040] “overlapping SSs may be configured, with each SS associated with one PDCCH CORESET configuration. As an example, a specific association may be defined between each SS/corresponding CORESET and a specific slot/symbol type (e.g., DL only, SBFD, etc.)”. Rosa further teaches in para. [0029] that there are up to ten SSs per BWP. Examiner interprets a sub-band within a BWP as the “frequency partition”s in SBFD shown in Fig. 4.)
and
receive a PDCCH in the first sub-band according to the second PDCCH configuration or transmit an UL transmission in the UL BWP or in a second sub- band. (Rosa teaches in paras. [0045]-[0046] and in Fig. 3 that “In SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-1 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning in 302. In SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-2 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning (if applicable) in 302.” Examiner interprets “PDCCH monitoring” as receiving a PDCCH because they are operationally equivalent.
Although Rosa teaches “PDCCH monitoring” which is operationally equivalent and assumes the UE will receive a monitored PDCCH, Rosa is NOT explicit in the “receiving” of a PDCCH.
In the same field of endeavor, Zhang makes clear that a UE receives monitored PDCCH. (Zhang para. [0101] teaches that a UE 704 does not expect to receive a DL signal for example a PDCCH in an UL sub-band configured with a SBFD symbol and therefore does not need to monitor the PDCCH in the UL sub-band.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of the invention to have combined Zhang with Rosa to teach that the UE receives a PDCCH in the first sub-band according to the second PDCCH configuration. Each of Zhang and Rosa are in the field of wireless communications and the field of SBFD and address which PDDCH the UE will monitor and receive. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Zhang and Rosa in order to reduce UE power and resources as taught in Zhang para. [0102].
Regarding claim 22, Rosa in view of Zhang teaches A method for wireless communication, the method comprising:
determining, by a network device, (Rosa Fig. 7, network entity 702) a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration for a downlink (DL) bandwidth part (BWP) and a second PDCCH configuration for a first sub-band within an uplink (UL) BWP or within the DL BWP; (Rosa teaches in paras. [0039]-[0040] and Fig. 4 that a user device may be scheduled with sub-band full duplex (SBFD) slots/symbols assigned with different DL-UL frequency partitioning, according to received multiple PDCCH CORESET configurations.
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As shown, PDCCH CORESETs B-1 and B-2 are sub-bands. Rosa further teaches in para. [0040] “overlapping SSs may be configured, with each SS associated with one PDCCH CORESET configuration. As an example, a specific association may be defined between each SS/corresponding CORESET and a specific slot/symbol type (e.g., DL only, SBFD, etc.)”. Rosa further teaches in para. [0029] that there are up to ten SSs per BWP. Examiner interprets a sub-band within a BWP as the “frequency partition”s in SBFD shown in Fig. 4.)
and
transmitting, by the network device, a PDCCH in the first sub-band according to the second configuration or receiving, by the network device, an UL transmission in the UL BWP or in a second sub-band. (Rosa teaches in paras. [0045]-[0046] and in Fig. 3 that “In SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-1 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with first DL-UL frequency partitioning in 302. In SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning, the UE may perform PDCCH monitoring based on CORESET #B-2 if the corresponding slots/symbols were determined as SBFD slots/symbols with second DL-UL frequency partitioning (if applicable) in 302.” Examiner interprets “PDCCH monitoring” as receiving a PDCCH because they are operationally equivalent.
Although Rosa teaches “PDCCH monitoring” which is operationally equivalent and assumes the UE will receive a monitored PDCCH, Rosa is NOT explicit in the “transmitting ” of a PDCCH.
In the same field of endeavor, Zhang makes clear that a network transmits the monitored PDCCH. (Zhang teaches in Fig. 7 and para. [0101] teaches that a UE 704 does not expect to receive, such as a transmitted, DL signal for example a PDCCH in an UL sub-band configured with a SBFD symbol and therefore does not need to monitor the PDCCH in the UL sub-band. Zhang further teaches in para. [0124] that a network entity transmits SBFD configuration using DCI.
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of the invention to have combined Zhang with Rosa to teach that the UE receives a PDCCH in the first sub-band according to the second PDCCH configuration. Each of Zhang and Rosa are in the field of wireless communications and the field of SBFD and address which PDDCH the UE will monitor and receive. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Zhang and Rosa in order to reduce UE power and resources as taught in Zhang para. [0102].
Regarding claim 23, Rosa teaches The method of claim 22, wherein the first sub-band comprises a downlink (DL) sub-band or a flexible sub-band, and the second sub-band comprises an uplink (UL) sub-band or a flexible sub-band. (Rosa Fig. 4 and para. [0052]-[0056] teaches sub-bands shown as search spaces according to SBFD wherein CORESET IDs are associated with different types of SBFD symbols and DL-UL partitions including first and second sub-bands with UL and DL:
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As shown, for example, CORESET #B-1 and CORESET #B-2 is associated with SBFD sub-bands which have uplink and downlink sub-bands, shown as X hashing and slant hashing within the SBFD spaces.)
Regarding claim 24 Rosa teaches The method of claim 22, wherein the first PDCCH configuration and the second PDCCH configuration are a same PDCCH configuration. (Rosa teaches in Fig. 5, above, that a same SS1 references multiple CORESETs, thus a single search space with the same PDCCH configuration may have varying active CORSETs according to slot type. Examiner interprets this as the “same PDCCH configuration”.)
Regarding claim 25, Rosa teaches The method of claim 24, wherein the same PDCCH configuration indicates at least one of:
independent control resource sets (CORESETs) (Rosa teaches in para. [0074] that a same PDCCH CORESET interpreted as a PDCCH configuration may associated with independent CORESETs that are valid, and only the CORESET with the lowest configuration index is considered for PDCCH monitoring as shown in Fig. 6.)
or
independent search spaces for the first sub-band and the DL BWP, wherein a CORESET used for the PDCCH in the DL sub-band is configured within the DL BWP, the UL BWP or the first sub-band.
Examiner notes that the use of the word “OR” in the claim negates requiring a teaching of both elements of claim 25.
Regarding claim 26, Rosa teaches The method of claim 24, wherein the same PDCCH configuration indicates at least one of:
a same control resource set (CORESET) or a same search space for the DL BWP and the first sub-band, wherein a collision between a monitoring occasion (MO) and UL resources of the UL BWP cause the user device to override one of the MO and the UL resources in favor of the other of the MO and the UL resources. (Rosa para. [0032] teaches that when a PDCCH CORESET overlaps with the UL subband during a SBFD symbol allocated for both DL and UL, the PDCCH candidates may be on the UL subband and unusable causing power consumption increase. To avoid that issue, Rosa teaches in para. [0043] that the for invalid/inactive CORESETs, the UE may not monitor PDCCH on that CORESET, and examples include collisions such as taught in para. [0048] wherein CORESETs partly or fully overlapping with UL PRBs may be defined as “invalid” (not used for monitoring PDCCH assignments).
Regarding claim 27, Rosa teaches The method of claim 24, wherein a same downlink control information (DCI) format is used for DL transmissions in the DL BWP and the first sub-band, wherein the same DCI format comprises a bandwidth part indicator that indicates whether to switch the DL BWP or the UL BWP, or that the field is reserved for sub-band scheduling. (Rosa teaches in para. [0068] “UE 820 may receive signaling via any of SIB, dedicated RRC, and/or DCI (e.g., enhanced slot format indicator in DCI format 2_0). UE 820 may receive indications from NE 810 indicating whether the slot/symbol is a DL-only slot/symbol, an UL-only slot/symbol, or a SBFD slot/symbol. In particular, for SBFD slots/symbols, UE 820 may receive indications from the base station of actual UL-DL frequency partitioning of the SBFD slot/symbol (for example, which frequency resources within the slot/symbol are DL, and which are UL).” Rosa further teaches in para. [0033] that no additional field in DCI may be needed to perform dynamic switching in SBFD slots wherein a UE is “SBFD-aware”. )
Regarding claim 28, Rosa teaches The method of claim 22, wherein the first PDCCH configuration and the second PDCCH configuration are different configurations. . (Rosa teaches, as shown in Fig. 5, above that a first and second PDCCH configuration can be different configurations. Examiner notes that a PDCCH CORESET is a PDCCH “configuration” in Rosa. Fig. 5 shows CORESETs associated with different SBFD types.)
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rosa in view of Zhang, further in view of US Pat. Pub. 20210153177 to Seyedkianoush Hosseini et al. (hereinafter Hosseini).
Regarding claim 18, Rosa in view of Zhang teaches The method of claim 11 as heretofore stated.
Rosa teaches wherein a blind decode budget or a control channel element (CCE) budget comprises a first part for the DL BWP and a second part for the DL sub-band. (Rosa teaches in para. [0047] and para. [0073] that that the blind decode budget for the BWP including multiple SSs may be applied to the individual SS’s as shown in para. [0073] “the UE may prioritize one SS over others in order to avoid exceeding a BD budget (e.g., a lower configuration index of the SS may correlate with a higher priority of the SS).”
Although Rosa teaches applying a sub-budget to the search spaces, it is not clear that there is a “second part for the sub-band”.
In the analogous field of 3GPP LTE and NR wireless communications, Zhang teaches defining a blind decode over a search space, but does NOT specifically teach sharing over a “second part for the sub-band”. (Zhang teaches in para. [0029] that an SS configuration may define the actual blind decode candidates for a given aggregation level for a corresponding SS and in para. [0033] that the number of PDCCH blind decodes may not need to be increased compared with the configuration of two or more overlapping SS. This teaches a shared blind decode over an SS.)
In the analogous field of 3GPP LTE and NR wireless communications, Hossein teaches blind decoding applying to a first part for the DL BWP and a second part for the DL sub-band. (Hosseini teaches in para. [0075] that a base station may allocate a resource budget per a span of symbols or slots according to type of DCI where the resource budget includes a number of BDs and a number of CCEs supported by the UE 120. Further, a resource budget may be on a per slot basis, which would mandate that a same blind decode budget is allocated to apply to a “second part for the sub-band”.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the part prior to the effective date of the invention to have combined Rosa with Zhang and Hosseini. Each of Zhang and Rosa are in the field of wireless communications and the field of SBFD and address which PDDCH the UE will monitor. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Zhang and Rosa in order to reduce UE power and resources as taught in Zhang para. [0102].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of the invention to further have combined Rosa with Hosseini. Each of Rosa and Hosseini are in the field of wireless communications and address blind decoding. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Rosa and Hosseini in order to enable a UE to prioritize the blind decoding of PDCCH candidates in accordance with BD/CCE limits as taught in para. [0029].
Conclusion
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/MARGARET MARIE ANDERSON/Examiner, Art Unit 2412 /CHARLES C JIANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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