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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 28th August 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Cheng et al (US 2024/0155491 A1).
Claim 1 (similarly Claim 9). Cheng shows an apparatus for monitoring radio resources in a multi-network environment (fig. 3: communication apparatus 310), comprising: one or more processors (fig. 3: processor 322); and memory in which at least one program executed by the one or more processors is stored (fig. 3: memory 324), wherein the at least one program receives a Low-Power Wake-up Signal (LP-WUS) based on predefined configuration information within coverage of multiple radio resources ([0071]: the UE may monitor LP-WUS in SSSG #0 via the LP-WUR and monitor PDCCH in SSSG #1 via the MR), wakes up a main radio corresponding to an available resource, among the multiple radio resources, based on the configuration information ([0071]: the UE may switch from SSSG #0 to SSSG #1 if the LP-WUR detects a wake-up indication), and performs Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) monitoring using the woken up main radio ([0071]: in SSSG #1, the MR may perform PDCCH monitoring (and physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) processing); [0073]: the MR may monitors during SSSG #1).
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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 2, 3, 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng et al in view of Shiek et al (US 2024/0080773 A1).
Claim 2 (similarly claim 10). Cheng shows the apparatus of claim 1; Cheng does not expressly describe wherein the configuration information includes information in which a priority order of the multiple radio resources is defined by a base station based on signal quality of the multiple radio resources.Shiek teaches feature of implementing a priority order of multiple radio resources is defined by a base station based on signal quality of the multiple radio resources (fig. 7A, [0120] and [0148]: after the WUS is detected, the base station may leave a gap time to allow the UE to re-synchronize to the base station and eventually switch over from the low-power wake-up receiver to main baseband circuitry in order to be ready to decode the PDCCH… a cell having the largest number of enabled power-saving features may be assigned the highest priority (e.g. ranked first) while cells having lower numbers of enabled power-saving features may be assigned correspondingly lower priorities (e.g. ranked second, third, etc.)).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the priority order feature as taught by Shiek in the configuration information process of Cheng to facilitate power-saving.
Claim 3 (similarly claim 11). Cheng, modified by Shiek, shows the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the at least one program wakes up a main radio corresponding to a radio resource having a second-highest priority based on the configuration information in an event of disconnection from a service of a radio resource having a highest priority (Shiek, [0108]: if the UE cannot acquire service from the highest ranked cell, the UE then proceeds to attempt to acquire service from the next cell in the priority order until the UE is successful in acquiring service).
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Claims 4 – 7 and 12 – 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng et al in view of Song et al (US 2011/0065448 A1).
Claim 4 (similarly claim 12). Cheng shows the apparatus of claim 1; Cheng does not expressly describe wherein the at least one program sets a duty cycle ratio for a radio signal of an available radio resource based on signal quality of the multiple radio resources.Song teaches feature of setting a duty cycle ratio for a radio signal of an available radio resource based on signal quality of multiple radio resources ([0061]: presence of mobile stations within a particular geographic region, channel conditions (e.g. conditions of wireless links), QoS requirements of applications involved in wireless communications, loading of channels, and so forth… beam duty cycle, which specifies the amount of time that a beam is activated, or turned on, within the beam duration wherein the duty cycle of a beam refers to the ratio of the time that a beam is activated (or turned “on”) versus the amount of time that a beam is deactivated (or turned “off”) for a given beam position and during a given time interval).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the duty cycle ratio setting feature as taught by Song in the apparatus of Cheng to achieve highly efficient power delivery without energy loss, thermal management for hardware longevity and precise electrical control.
Claim 5 (similarly claim 13). Cheng, modified by Song, shows the apparatus of claim 4, wherein the configuration information includes information about a duty cycle period and a reception ratio between reception periods of main radios corresponding to the multiple radio resources, which are allocated by a base station depending on the signal quality of the multiple radio resources ([0060] – [0061]: to enable dynamic sweep pattern and dynamic beam duration, pre-flash messages can be sent by the base station to allow mobiles stations to report measurements back to the base station… the dynamic variation of one or more characteristics (e.g. 1, 5 sweep pattern and/or beam duration) can be based on… presence of mobile stations within a particular geographic region, channel conditions (e.g. conditions of wireless links), QoS requirements of applications involved in wireless communications, loading of channels, and so forth… the duty cycle of a beam refers to the ratio of the time that a beam is activated (or turned “on”) versus the amount of time that a beam is deactivated (or turned “off”) for a given beam position and during a given time interval).
Claim 6 (similarly claim 14). Cheng, modified by Song, shows the apparatus of claim 5, wherein the at least one program receives the LP-WUS by performing WUS monitoring according to the reception periods of the main radios based on the configuration information (fig. 13 and [0077]: a low-power beam, such as the low-power beam in time interval 800B, can be used to transmit user data and control signals, as represented by 822).
Claim 7 (similarly claim 15). Cheng, modified by Song, shows the apparatus of claim 6, wherein the at least one program wakes up a main radio corresponding to an available resource that receives the LP-WUS in the duty cycle period ([0061]: the duty cycle of a particular beam in beam position 1 can be 70%, which means that the beam will be activated (or turned “on”) for 70% of the time interval and deactivated (or turned “off”) for 30% of the time interval – the “on” period is the wake-up period).
Claim 8 (similarly claim 16). Cheng, modified by Song, shows the apparatus of claim 7, wherein the at least one program performs PDCCH monitoring using the woken up main radio during active time corresponding to the duty cycle period ([0077]: when the LP-WUR monitors LP-WUS for a serving cell according to search space sets with group index 1, for the serving cell, the MR may start monitoring PDCCH for the serving cell according to search space sets with group index 0).
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Conclusion
The prior art made of record is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
1. Wei et al, US 2026/0006552 A1: a method of wireless communication performed by a network node, comprising transmitting, to a user equipment (UE) comprising a low-power (LP) wake-up-radio (LP-WUR), configuration information indicative of an LP monitoring configuration corresponding to a monitoring operation associated with at least one of an LP-wake-up-signal (LP-WUS) occasion or an LP-synchronization-signal (LP-SS) occasion; and transmitting at least one of an LP-WUS or an LP-SS during at least one monitoring occasion, wherein the at least one monitoring occasion corresponds to a collision, in a time domain, between the LP-WUS occasion and the LP-SS occasion.
2. Jan, US 2025/0344155 A1: a method of low power wake up signal (LP-WUS) procedure, comprising waking up a main radio of the UE, by a low power wake up receiver (LP-WUR) of a user equipment (UE), using an LP-WUS received from a base station, wherein a signal design of the LP-WUS comprises a sequence based signal design with a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) and/or a UE specific/UEs group specific based sequence signal design of the LP-WUS.
3. Cheng et al, US 2024/0015655 A1: a method, comprising receiving, by a processor of an apparatus, a wake-up signal (WUS) configuration from a network node; and monitoring, by the processor, a wake-up signal based on the WUS configuration, wherein the wake-up signal is modulated based on one-off keying (OOK) and generated by a multi-carrier amplitude shift-keying (MC-ASK) waveform generation, wherein a parameter K is a size of inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) of cyclic-prefix orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (CP-OFDMA).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Xavier Szewai Wong whose telephone number is 571.270.1780. The examiner can normally be reached on 11:30 am - 8:30 pm Mon to Fri.
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/XAVIER S WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415 6th July 2026
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