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 .
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.
Claims 1-14 and 17-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khoshnevisan et al. (US Pub. 2026/0088961) in view of Zheng et al. (US Pub. 2023/0038936).
Regarding claim 1, 17 and 19, Khoshnevisan teaches a method for determining a frequency domain resource, performed by a terminal, comprising: monitoring at least two physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) candidate resources, wherein the at least two PDCCH candidate resources correspond to at least two search space sets having a link relationship (“PDCCH candidates with the same aggregation level and the same candidate indices for the two linked SS sets are linked” in [0117]), and the at least two PDCCH candidate resources carry downlink control information (DCI) (“receives a DCI in PDCCH candidates that are linked for repetition” in [0121]). Khoshnevisan, however, does not teach the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set and determining a frequency domain resource for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission according to the frequency domain resource assignment information. Zheng teaches the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set (“The frequency domain resource allocation field in the second DCI may indicate a frequency domain resource allocated to the PDSCH in the initial BWP or the CORESET 0” in [0272]) and determining a frequency domain resource for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission according to the frequency domain resource assignment information (“The frequency domain resource allocation field in the second DCI may indicate a frequency domain resource allocated to the PDSCH in the initial BWP or the CORESET 0” in [0272]). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Khoshnevisan to have the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set and determining a frequency domain resource for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission according to the frequency domain resource assignment information as taught by Zheng in order to determine the size of the frequency domain resource allocation field based on bandwidth of a control resource set CORESET [0017].
Regarding claim 2, 9 and 21, Khoshnevisan teaches the at least one control resource set is determined according to at least two control resource sets respectively associated with the at least two search space sets (“a first CORESET (CORESET 1) 802 is associated with a lower SS set ID than a second CORESET (CORESET 2) 804” in [0123]).
Regarding claim 3, 10 and 22, Khoshnevisan teaches the at least one control resource set is a designated control resource set among the at least two control resource sets (“the UE uses the starting CCE of the PDCCH candidate and the number of CCEs of the CORESET associated with the lower SS set ID (e.g., SS set 1)” in [0130]).
Regarding claim 4 and 11, Khoshnevisan teaches the designated control resource set is one of: a control resource set with a smallest control resource set identifier among the at least two control resource sets; a control resource set corresponding to a designated search space set, wherein the designated search space set is a search space set with a smallest search space set identifier among the at least two search space sets; a control resource set corresponding to a physical resource block occupying a lowest frequency domain position among designated physical resource blocks, wherein one designated physical resource block is a physical resource block with a lowest number among physical resource blocks comprised in one of the at least two control resource sets; or the at least two control resource sets (“the UE uses the starting CCE of the PDCCH candidate and the number of CCEs of the CORESET associated with the lower SS set ID (e.g., SS set 1)” in [0130]).
Regarding claim 5 and 12, Khoshnevisan teaches the designated control resource set comprises the at least two control resource sets, the designated bandwidth comprises: a consecutive physical resource block starting from a first physical resource block and ending with a second physical resource block, wherein the first physical resource block is a physical resource block occupying a lowest frequency domain position among physical resource blocks comprised in the at least two control resource sets, and the second physical resource block is a physical resource block occupying a highest frequency domain position among the physical resource blocks comprised in the at least two control resource sets (see plurality of Coresets 404 including a number of sub-carriers in the frequency domain in Figure 4).
Regarding claim 6 and 13, Zheng teaches the at least one control resource set is control resource set 0 (“CORESET 0” in [0250]).
Regarding claim 7 and 14, Zheng teaches a format of the DCI is DCI 1_0 (“DCI 1_0” in [0105]).
Regarding claim 8, 18 and 20, Khoshnevisan teaches a method for determining a frequency domain resource, performed by a network device, comprising: configuring at least two physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) candidate resources, wherein the at least two PDCCH candidate resources correspond to at least two search space sets having a link relationship (“PDCCH candidates with the same aggregation level and the same candidate indices for the two linked SS sets are linked” in [0117]), and the at least two PDCCH candidate resources carry downlink control information (DCI) (“receives a DCI in PDCCH candidates that are linked for repetition” in [0121]). Khoshnevisan, however, does not teach the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set. Zheng teaches the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set (“The frequency domain resource allocation field in the second DCI may indicate a frequency domain resource allocated to the PDSCH in the initial BWP or the CORESET 0” in [0272]). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Khoshnevisan to have the DCI comprises frequency domain resource assignment information, the frequency domain resource assignment information indicates a position of the frequency domain resource within a designated bandwidth, and the designated bandwidth comprises a resource block occupied by at least one control resource set as taught by Zheng in order to determine the size of the frequency domain resource allocation field based on bandwidth of a control resource set CORESET [0017].
Conclusion
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/CLEMENCE S HAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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