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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the application filed on 08/28/2024 has a total of 20 claims pending in the application; there are 3 independent claims and 17 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18 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 or amend these claims into their base claims, respectively.
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 1-20 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.
In claims 1, 9 and 17, applicant recites the phrase “…transport blocks at at least two…” which makes the claim indefinite. Examiner suggest amending the phrase in the claims to recite “transport blocks at least two”.
Claim Objections
Claims 6 and 14 are objected to because of the following informality:
The claims recites limitation for performing certain step(s) only if a specific condition is satisfied (IF Statement), the limitations followed this statement are considered as optional limitations since they are not performed until specific conditions are met. Applicant should change the word “if’ to “responsive to determining that.....” in order to alter an optional limitation to a required limitation. For the purpose of examination, claimed limitations will be considered as optional limitations since they are not performed until the specific conditions are met.
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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cirik et al. Publication No. (US 2020/0314885 A1) in view of Harada et al. Publication No. (US 2024/0430841 A1)
Regarding claim 1, Cirik teaches a communication method, comprising:
receiving first information (the base station may transmit a DCI comprising the time domain resource assignment field providing/indicating the slot offset value larger than the panel change delay [0657] FIG.31);
determining N modes from M modes based on the first information, wherein N is an integer greater than 0, and M is an integer greater than or equal to N; the M modes comprise one or more of a first mode, a second mode, and a third mode (the DCI contains mapping restrictions in a logical channel prioritization may control which numerology and/or transmission timing a logical channel may use, an RLC sublayer may supports transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM) and acknowledged mode (AM) transmission modes. The RLC configuration may be per logical channel with no dependency on numerologies and/or Transmission Time Interval (TTI) durations. In an example, Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) may operate on any of the numerologies and/or TTI durations the logical channel is configured with [0193-194] the base station may determine to activate an antenna panel for transmission of a transport block. At 3120, the base station may determine, for a time domain resource assignment field in a downlink control information (DCI), a slot offset value based on an activation delay of the antenna panel such that the slot offset value is larger than the activation delay. At 3130, the base station may transmit the DCI scheduling the transmission of the transport block [0658-660] FIG.32);
the first mode is sending a transport block via one antenna panel (the wireless device may receive the DC with a time domain resource assignment field. The DCI may indicate activation of an antenna panel to determine a slot offset value, for a transmission of the transport block, indicated by the time domain resource assignment field is smaller than a delay for the activation of the antenna panel, the transport block may comprise a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) [corresponding to the first mode] [0659-662] FIG.32);
the second mode is sending same transport blocks at at least two moments via at least one antenna panel, and the transport block is sent at each of the at least two moments via one antenna panel (the DCI may indicate activation of an antenna panel to determine a slot offset value, for a transmission of the transport block, the transport block may comprise a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) [corresponding to first mode] or the transport block may comprise a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) [corresponding to the second mode] [0659-662] FIG.32); and
the third mode is sending a same transport block via at least two antenna panels, and different antenna panels send different parts of the transport block, or the third mode is sending one transport block simultaneously via each of at least two antenna panels (the DCI may indicate activation of an antenna panel to determine a slot offset value, for a transmission of the transport block, the DCI scheduling the transmission of the transport block may comprise that the DCI schedules a reception [corresponding to the same transport block ] of the PUSCH by the base station [0659-662] FIG.32); and
sending a transport block in one of the N modes (transmitting the transport block in the PDSCH or PUSCH based on the transmission schemes of the DCI [0659-662] FIG.30).
Cirik does not explicitly teach simultaneously sending the same transport block with two antenna panels.
Harada teaches simultaneously sending the same transport block with two antenna panels (Harada: the gNB 100 A, the gNB 100 B, and the UE 200 can support Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) for generating a beam BM having a higher directivity, carrier aggregation (CA) for bundling a plurality of component carriers (CC), and dual connectivity (DC) for communicating with two or more transport blocks simultaneously between the UE and each of the two NG-RAN Nodes [0027] FIG.4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Cirik by the teaching of Harada to simultaneously sending the same transport block with two antenna panels in order to reduce the overhead of the gNB 100 (Harada: [0082-84] FIG.6).
Claim 2. (contains allowable subject matter), however, its rejected since it depends on a rejected base claim.
Regarding claim 3, Cirik teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein N=2, and the method further comprises: receiving second information that indicates one of the N modes; wherein the sending the transport block in the N modes comprises: sending the transport block in the mode indicated by the second information (a wireless device may receive a second DCI. The second DCI may comprise a second time domain resource assignment field. The second DCI may indicate activation of a second antenna panel. The wireless device may determine that a second slot offset value, for transmission of a second transport block, indicated by the second time domain resource assignment field is smaller than a delay for the activation of the second antenna panel. The wireless device may ignore the second DCI by not transmitting the second transport block based on the determining that the second slot offset value is smaller than the delay [0667-670] FIG.31).
Regarding claim 4, Cirik teaches the method according to claim 3, wherein the second information is at least one bit in radio resource control (RRC), a media access control control element (MAC CE), or downlink control information (DCI) (the wireless device may receive a downlink signal (e.g., hibernation MAC CE, DCI, RRC, etc.) for the second cell. Based on the receiving the downlink signal, the wireless device may trigger transition of the second cell into a dormant state. In an example, the second cell may be in active mode (e.g., activated) when the wireless device receives the downlink signal [0551] FIG.28).
Regarding claim 5, Cirik teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the first information is one bit in radio resource control (RRC), a media access control control element (MAC CE), or downlink control information (DCI) (the wireless device may receive a downlink signal (e.g., hibernation MAC CE, DCI, RRC, etc.) for the second cell. Based on the receiving the downlink signal, the wireless device may trigger transition of the second cell into a dormant state. In an example, the second cell may be in active mode (e.g., activated) when the wireless device receives the downlink signal [0551] FIG.28).
Claim 6. (contains allowable subject matter), however, its rejected since it depends on a rejected base claim.
Regarding claim 7, Cirik teaches the method according to claim 6, wherein the first information is at least two bits in radio resource control (RRC), a media access control control element (MAC CE), or downlink control information (DCI) (the wireless device may receive a downlink signal (e.g., hibernation MAC CE, DCI, RRC, etc.) for the second cell. Based on the receiving the downlink signal, the wireless device may trigger transition of the second cell into a dormant state. In an example, the second cell may be in active mode (e.g., activated) when the wireless device receives the downlink signal [0551] FIG.28).
Regarding claim 8, Cirik teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein before the receiving the first information, the method further comprises: receiving third information that indicates whether the M modes comprise the third mode (the second MAC CE with four octets may be associated with a third LCID different from the second LCID for the second MAC CE with a single octet, and/or the first LCID for activation/deactivation MAC CE [0442]).
Regarding claims 9-16, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-5, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “sending” side and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claims 17-20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-5, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from an “apparatus” side with processors and memory and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDELNABI O MUSA whose telephone number is (571)270-1901, and email address is abdelnabi.musa@uspto.gov ‘preferred’. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Bates, can be reached on 571-2723980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system? Contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
Prosecution Insights