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.
Claim(s) 37-48 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu (US 20230353305) in view of Luo (US 20190305923).
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim(s) 37/40/43/46, Liu teaches A method performed by a repeater ([Fig.1], relay device), comprising:
...
receiving ([0116], “The host device sends the first information to the relay device.”), from the network device ([0116], host device), control information ([0116], “first information”) used for a link ([0112], “the first information may indicate the relay device to turn on the amplify-and-forward function on the first time domain resource unit.”) between the repeater and a terminal device ([Fig.1], Access link between the relay device and a UE.); and
determining, a resource indicated by the control information, based on the ... time resource for the control information ([0109], “The first information is used to determine whether a relay device turns on an amplify-and-forward function on a first time domain resource unit in a first time domain resource set, the first time domain resource set includes one or more time domain resource units.” And [0119], “The relay device performs relay forwarding based on the first information.”).
However, Liu does not specifically disclose transmitting, to a network device, a capability information of the repeater, wherein the capability information indicates a number of slots, and determining, a resource indicated by the control information, based on the number of slots ... for the control information.
In an analogous art, Luo discloses transmitting, to a network device, a capability information of the repeater, wherein the capability information indicates a number of slots ([0163], “Relay node 610 may transmit an indication of the set of free flexible symbols to parent network node 605.”), and
determining, a resource ... based on the number of slots ([0163], “relay node 610 may schedule communications in the slot of the second subset of resources based at least in part on the first and second resource configurations.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Liu to specify flexible symbols as taught by Luo. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need to indicate set of free flexible symbols for data transmission.
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claim(s) 38/41/44/47, Liu teaches receiving, from the network device, a time division duplexing (TDD) configuration, wherein the TDD configuration indicates uplink symbols and downlink symbols used for transmission and reception of the repeater ([0127], “the relay device may obtain the TDD configuration ... based on the TDD configuration, the time domain resource used for uplink forwarding and the time domain resource used for downlink forwarding in the first time domain resource set.”).
Regarding claim(s) 39/42/45/48, Liu teaches the number of slots is associated with a subcarrier spacing (SCS) of reception of the control information ([0138], “The relay device may determine a period of time corresponding to an uplink transmission resource in the first periodicity based on the SCS. For example, the SCS may be an SCS corresponding to the first time unit indicated by the first information.”).
Conclusion
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/ZHIREN QIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2411