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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 11/25/2024 and 12/18/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it contains international publication data and is on two pages. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a single, separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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 31-34, 37-40, and 42-46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Discussion on time and frequency synchronization enhancement for IoT in NTN”, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #106bis-e, R1-2108750, Agenda: 8.15.1, Huawei, October 11-19, 2021, 10 pages cited by the applicant, hereinafter referred to as Huawei, in view of Chu et al. (US 2019/0098664 A1), hereinafter referred to as Chu.
Regarding claim 31, Huawei teaches a first device (Huawei – Page 2, Section 2.1.1, note UE (user equipment)), comprising:
at least one processor (Huawei – Page 2, Section 2.1.1, note UE, which has a processor as conventional in the art); and
at least one memory including computer program code (Huawei – Page 2, Section 2.1.1, note UE, which has non-transitory memory comprising program code as conventional in the art);
the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the first device to:
receive, from a second device, a configuration of a plurality of segment durations for transmission from the first device to the second device (Huawei – Page 5, Section 2.1.2.1, note the eNB (second device) configures a set of K segment durations based on the numerology and indicate one of the K values to the UE; Page 7, lines 1-11, note the eNB indicates one of the K candidate values via k-bit field; Page 8, Proposal 10, note network configures one of K values for the UL transmission segment duration of each PRACH preamble format in a k-bit field in the system information);
and determine a segment duration of the plurality of segment durations (Huawei – Page 5, Section 2.1.2.1, note the eNB (second device) configures a set of K segment durations based on the numerology and indicate one of the K values to the UE based on the elevation angle, the UL segment duration X should be a number of N PUSCH repetition units which does not exceed the maximum allowed continuous transmission time Tseg_max based on the elevation angle and the timing error Te).
Huawei does not teach determining a transmission scheme based on the determined segment duration.
In an analogous art, Chu teaches determining a transmission scheme based on the determined segment duration (Chu – Fig. 9A; Paragraph [0135], note the first communication device selects a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for the acknowledgment packet 912 such that the acknowledgment packet 912 has the duration at least approximately equal to the duration of the acknowledgment packet 916).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Chu into Huawei in order for the UE to select a modulation and coding scheme based on segment duration instead of packet duration, facilitating duplex communication and improving system efficiency for satellite communication networks (Chu – Paragraphs [0028], [0065], and [0135]).
Regarding claim 32, Huawei does not teach wherein the transmission scheme is associated with at least one of below parameters to be used for the transmission: a location of a first subcarrier; a transmission occasion; a sequence indication of a preamble; a sequence indication of a reference signal; or a timing offset to reference timing or a frequency offset to a reference frequency of at least one transmission repetition of a segment.
In an analogous art, Chu teaches wherein the transmission scheme is associated with at least one of below parameters to be used for the transmission: a location of a first subcarrier; a transmission occasion; a sequence indication of a preamble; a sequence indication of a reference signal; or a timing offset to reference timing or a frequency offset to a reference frequency of at least one transmission repetition of a segment (Chu – Fig. 9A; Paragraph [0135], note the first communication device selects a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for the acknowledgment packet 912 such that the acknowledgment packet 912 has the duration at least approximately equal to the duration of the acknowledgment packet 916; Paragraph [0136], note duplex transmission to a TXOP initiator are not permitted to request immediate acknowledgments).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Chu into Huawei for the same reason as claim 31 above.
Regarding claim 33, the combination of Huawei and Chu, specifically Huawei teaches wherein the first device is further caused to determine a time drift during the transmission (Huawei – Page 3, Section 2.1.2, note UE autonomous TA adjustment (which involves UE determining time drift) should be applied during the long preamble transmission duration to compensate the large timing drift), and
wherein the segment duration of the plurality of segment durations is determined based on the time drift (Huawei – Page 7, lines 3-11, note NPUSCH segmentation duration X (refer to Table 2 on Page 6) is dependent on the delay drift rate which is essentially coupled with the elevation angle).
Regarding claim 34, the combination of Huawei and Chu, specifically Huawei teaches wherein the segment duration of the plurality of segment duration is determined based on an elevation angle between the first device and a satellite (Huawei – Page 5, Section 2.1.2.1, note the eNB (second device) configures a set of K segment durations based on the numerology and indicate one of the K values to the UE based on the elevation angle; Page 6, note the eNB can determine the UL segment duration X for UL pre-compensation during long UL transmissions, the UL segment durations X for NPUSCH during long transmissions are evaluated for different elevation angles covering all numerology cases).
Regarding claim 37, the combination of Huawei and Chu, specifically Huawei teaches wherein the plurality of segment durations is received in a system information broadcast or a radio resource control signaling (Huawei – Page 2, note the UL transmission segment duration is provided by UE-specific RRC signaling or by signaling in SIB (system information block); Page 3, Proposal 2, note the length of segmentation and the UL gap duration for TA maintenance can be indicated in the system information according to the worst case of TA drift at the UE side; Page 8, Proposal 10, note network configures one of K values for the UL transmission segment duration of each PRACH preamble format in a k-bit field in the system information).
Regarding claim 38, the combination of Huawei and Chu, specifically Huawei teaches wherein the first device is a terminal device and the second device is a network device (Huawei – Page 5, Section 2.1.2.1, note the eNB (second device) configures a set of K segment durations based on the numerology and indicate one of the K values to the UE (first device)).
Regarding claim 39, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 31 above, except the claim is written from the perspective of the second device.
Regarding claim 40, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 32 above.
Regarding claim 42, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 37 above.
Regarding claim 43, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 38 above.
Regarding claim 44, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 31 above, except the claim is written in a method claim format.
Regarding claim 45, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 32 above.
Regarding claim 46, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as claim 31 above, except the claim is written in a method claim format and from the perspective of the second device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 35-36 and 41 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Applicant’s dependent claims recite wherein the configuration of the plurality of segment durations at least comprises the plurality of segment durations available to the transmission and mappings between the plurality of segment durations and transmission schemes (as disclosed in Paragraphs [0047] and [0054]-[0058] of applicant’s specification, filed 08/09/2024), which is neither taught nor suggested by the prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Garrett et al. (US 2015/0236770 A1) discloses considering frame length when determining whether to lower MCS level.
Waheed et al. (US 2016/0142175 A1) discloses mapping subcarriers using an MCS map to impose a limit on a frame size of packets.
Elmasry et al. (US 2022/0086956 A1) discloses selecting an optimal coding scheme based on packet size.
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/BAILOR C HSU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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