DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The instant First Office Action on the merits is in response to claims filed on 9/10/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 14 and 20 are the base independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted was filed before the mailing of a first Office action on the merits. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97(b). Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
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, 5-9, 11, 13-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Herath et al (US 2026/0040216) in view of Bagheri et al (US 2026/0095975).
Regarding claims 1, 14 and 20, Herath discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), a method / computer readable medium related to the UE, comprising:
one or more processors (par 212; processor); and one or more memories (par 212; memory / computer readable medium) coupled with the one or more processors and storing processor-executable code that, when executed by the one or more processors, is configured to cause the UE to:
monitor for a low-power wake-up signal (LP-WUS) (par 86; the WTRU 200 may monitor and/or receive the WUS via a first radio) during one or more LP-WUS periods (fig. 3, fig. 4 or par 155; the WTRU may determine the LP-WUS Mos and/or the LO for monitoring and/or receiving the LP-WUS based on the time duration since starting and/or resuming to monitor the LP-WUS) of a group of LP-WUS periods (par 167; e.g. group based LP-WUS), the one or more LP-WUS periods configured in accordance with an LP-WUS periodicity (par 143; e.g. WTRU may receive the configuration associated with the periodicity of the LP-WUS), the one or more LP-WUS periods of the group of LP-WUS periods associated with a respective physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring window (par 156-157; e.g. WTRU may receive the plurality of offsets (e.g., time offsets and/or the LP-WUS offsets etc. in terms of the slots, the symbols, the frames, and/or ms etc.) for the LP-WUS MOs and/or the LOs with respect to the PDCCH MOs)
monitor for a PDCCH during a first PDCCH monitoring window par 161; e.g. the WTRU may determine the one or more LP-WUS MOs and/or the LOs from the set of LP-WUS MOs and/or the set of LOs associated with each PDCCH MO); and
receive the PDCCH during the first PDCCH monitoring window in accordance with monitoring for the PDCCH (par 164; if the WTRU receives the LP-WUS indicating to wake-up, the WTRU may monitor for and/or receive the one or more PDCCHs in the PDCCH MO associated with the LP-WUS MO and/or LO at which the WTRU receives the LP-WUS).
The reference does not explicitly disclose:
a group of PDCCH monitoring windows.
However, Bagheri discloses:
In par 96; e.g. there may be a WUS for indicating search space set group (SSSG)…wherein SSSG0 and SSG1 may respectively contain a sparser and a senser search space set group for PDCCH monitoring.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Bagheri with the electronic system of Herath. One is motivated as such to reduce possible delay (Bagheri, par 53).
Regarding claims 2 and 15, Herath discloses:
the group of PDCCH monitoring windows includes a first set of PDCCH monitoring windows and a second set of PDCCH monitoring windows (par 123; e.g. the WTRU may monitor for and/or receive the PDCCHs in the one or more SS sets);
one or more PDCCH monitoring windows of the first set of PDCCH monitoring windows (par 124; e.g. the WTRU may monitor for and/or receive the PDCCHs by using the first SS set) are associated with a respective connected-mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) active window of a group of C-DRX active windows (par 179; e.g. the first set of timers may be associated with monitoring and/or receiving the PDCCHs and transmitting during the DRX active time); and
wherein execution of the processor-executable code further causes the UE to monitor for the PDCCH during one or more PDCCH monitoring windows of the first set of PDCCH monitoring windows in accordance with a C-DRX cycle and a discontinuous reception (drx) on-duration timer (par 174, 179; e.g. DRX cycle and on duration timer).
Regarding claims 3 and 16, Bagheri discloses:
receive, from a network node, a message indicating a quantity of LP-WUS periods between a pair of C-DRX active windows and a corresponding quantity of offsets (par 41, e.g. a remote unit 102 may receive a DRX configuration for a set of non-uniform DRX cycles; par 85-87, for monitoring WUS, a UE may be configured with a DCP configuration. The configuration includes: ps-Offset in which the start of the search-time of DCI format 2-6 with CRC scrambled by PS-RNTI relative to the start of the drx-onDurationTimer of long DRX with a value in multiples of 0.125 milliseconds ("ms"); also see par 98); and
determine one or more LP-WUS periods of the group of LP-WUS periods based on the corresponding quantity of offsets in relation to a location of one C-DRX active window of the pair of C-DRX active windows (fig. 5, fig. 6, fig. 9 & par 105; e.g. a simple solution for determining a WUS monitoring window for non-uniform DRX cycles is to configure a long duration for the search space set carrying the WUS ( e.g., the search space set has a duration that is PS_Offset+Delta (wherein Delta>0)) such that for all DRX cycles within a set of DRX cycles the same window of PS_offset can be monitored prior to the start of DRX on duration).
Regarding claim 5, Bagheri discloses:
wherein the PDCCH is monitored at one or more PDCCH monitoring windows of the group of PDCCH monitoring windows irrespective of a connected-mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle and a discontinuous reception (drx) on-duration (par 122; e.g. the UE is indicated (such as via RRC configuration) to whether a full PDCCH monitoring window of PS_offsetl duration irrespective of the PDCCH monitoring window boundaries outside active time needs to be monitored for a set of DRX cycles).
Regarding claim 6, Bagheri discloses:
wherein a location of the one or more LP-WUS periods of the group of LP-WUS periods are quantized to an integer based periodicity or a slot boundary in accordance with the LP-WUS periodicity being a non-integer based periodicity (par 91; For instance, a DRX pattern may include short DRX cycles (e.g., 16 ms, 17 ms, 17 ms); also par 94).
Regarding claim 7, Bagheri discloses:
wherein a location of the one or more LP-WUS periods of the group of LP-WUS periods are based on an integer based offset from a preceding LP-WUS period in accordance with the LP-WUS periodicity being a non-integer based periodicity (par 91, par 94, par 97; e.g. wherein the UE monitors PDCCH over a time window prior to a start of a DRX on-duration).
Regarding claims 8 and 19, Bagheri discloses:
each LP-WUS period of the group of LP-WUS periods is associated with one periodicity of a group of periodicities; and each one of the group of periodicities has a different starting offset (par 91; e.g. a DRX pattern may include short DRX cycles (e.g., 16 ms, 17 ms, 17 ms), or a long DRX pattern (e.g., 33 ms, 33 ms, and 34 ms); also see par 78).
Regarding claim 9, Bagheri discloses:
wherein each periodicity of the group of periodicities is associated with a connected-mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle (par 91; e.g. a DRX pattern may include short DRX cycles (e.g., 16 ms, 17 ms, 17 ms), or a long DRX pattern (e.g., 33 ms, 33 ms, and 34 ms)).
Regarding claim 11, Herath discloses:
each PDCCH monitoring window of the group of PDCCH monitoring windows is associated with one periodicity of a group of periodicities (par 156; e.g. the WTRU may receive a set of (e.g., periodic) PDCCH monitoring occasions associated with the LP-WUS monitoring); and
wherein execution of the processor-executable code further causes the UE to determine a first location of each LP-WUS period based on a second location of a corresponding PDCCH monitoring window of the group of PDCCH monitoring windows (par 156-157; e.g. the WTRU may receive the configuration of (e.g., periodic) starting locations for the DRX on duration timer (e.g., the DRX on duration timer LP-WUS etc.)).
Regarding claims 13 and 18, Herath discloses:
wherein execution of the processor-executable code further causes the UE to:
determine a location of one or more PDCCH monitoring windows of the group of PDCCH monitoring windows (par 156; in an example, the WTRU may receive the configuration of (e.g., periodic) starting locations for the DRX on duration timer (e.g., the DRX on duration timer LP-WUS etc.)); and
determine a respective location of the one or more LP-WUS periods based on the location of the PDCCH monitoring window corresponding to a respective LP-WUS period of the one or more LP-WUS periods (par 156-157; in an example, the WTRU may receive the first LP-WUS offset, the second LP-WUS offset with respect to the locations of PDCCH MOs).
Claims 10 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Herath et al (US 2026/0040216) in view of Bagheri et al (US 2026/0095975), further in view of LEE et al (US 2023/0051778).
Regarding claim 10, the combination does not specifically disclose:
wherein each periodicity of the group of periodicities is associated with an LP-WUS leap cycle.
However, LEE discloses:
In par 77; e.g. and the third DRX cycle may be a leap cycle 625 that has a longer cycle duration than the initial two DRX cycles.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of LEE with the electronic system of Herath and Bagheri. One is motivated as such to address timing mismatch (LEE, par 69).
Regarding claim 12, Bagheri discloses:
wherein each periodicity of the group of periodicities is associated with a connected-mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle (par 91; e.g. a DRX pattern may include short DRX cycles (e.g., 16 ms, 17 ms, 17 ms), or a long DRX pattern (e.g., 33 ms, 33 ms, and 34 ms)).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 17 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YAOTANG WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4023. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-18:00 ET (M, W, TH & alternate F).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, HADI ARMOUCHE can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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