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
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 1-2, 4-5, 8-9, 11-15, 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alriksson et al (2022/0200773) in view of Hakola et al (2024/0195602).
Regarding claims 1 and 14, Alriksson discloses a base station (BS) (see the base station in figure 2) comprising: a processor; and a transceiver operably coupled to the processor (see paragraph 0067), the transceiver configured to transmit, in a synchronization signal block (SSB) burst, a first SSB signal and one or more repetitions of the first SSB signal (see SS Burst Set. Another reason for using multiple SSBs is when repetitions of the SS/PBCH block transmissions are needed to allow a User Equipment (UE) to accumulate enough energy from multiple SS/PBCH block transmissions (i.e., soft combining) to decode the SS/PBCH block when the UE is located at the edge of the intended coverage area. Such a set of beam swept or repeated SS/PBCH block transmissions is referred to as a SS Burst Set in paragraph 0003). Alriksson doesn't specifically disclose the first SSB signal and the one or more repetitions of the first SSB signal are distinguished based on an indicative signal. However, Hakola discloses this feature (see The UE may determine the value of kSSB bits, which may indicate the position of the SSB in the group. From the SSB index, the UE may determine to which group in the second positions the SSB index belongs and then the UE may determine the slot timing from the kSSB parameter bits that indicate the position within the group of size l (e.g., the position within a group in the additional positions associated with the determined SSB index) in paragraph 0041). The claim would have been obvious because a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp. If this leads to the anticipated success, it is likely the product not of innovation but of ordinary skill and common sense.
Regarding claims 2 and 15, Hakola discloses wherein the indicative signal is a kSSB parameter included in the first SSB signal and the one or more repetitions of the first SSB signal (see the kSSB parameter in paragraph 0041).
Regarding claims 4 and 17, Hakola discloses the indicative signal is transmitted in a master information block (MIB) or a system information block (SIB) (see the UE may determine the slot timing from the kSSB parameter bits that indicate the position within the group of size l (e.g., the position within a group in the additional positions associated with the determined SSB index in paragraph 0041 and one or more bits may be used to signal this information. For example, a common subcarrier spacing (subCarrierSpacingCommon) field of a master information block (MIB) signaled in PBCH payload as part of the SSB can be reused or reinterpreted to indicate the position of the SSB in paragraph 0055).
Regarding claims 5 and 18, Alriksson discloses wherein the first SSB signal and the one or more repetitions of the first SSB signal are interleaved with at least a second SSB signal and one or more repetitions of the second SSB signal within the SSB burst (see figures 1 and 7-12 where SSBs are arranged in time domain where SSBs are interleaved).
Regarding claims 8-9 and 11-12, claims 8-9 and 11-12 claim a user equipment (see figure 2) that is in communication with the base station claimed in claims 1-2 and 4-5. Claims 8-9 and 11-12 are, therefore, subject to the same rejection.
Regarding claims 13, Alriksson discloses wherein: the one or more SSB signals include the original SSB signal and the repetition of the original SSB signal, and the processor is further configured to: combine the original SSB signal and the repetition of the original SSB signal (see combining in paragraph 0003); and decode the combined SSB signals (see decode in paragraph 0003).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 6-7, 10, 16, and 19-20 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.
Conclusion
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/BRIAN D NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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