DETAILED ACTION
This communication is response to the application filed 09/23/2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination. A preliminary amendment submitted 09/23/2024 is acknowledged and entered.
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 09/23/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, and 17 are 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.
Regarding claims 1 and 17, the recites “configure the transceiver to use the first bandwidth part for uplink transmission, in order to reduce leakage of transmit power from the at least one transmitter into the at least one receiver, and to reduce interference with the at least one receiver”. The claim formulation is unclear since the claim attempt to define the subject-matter in terms of the result to be achieved, which merely amounts to statement of the underlying problem, without providing the technical features necessary for achieving this result. The subject matter of the claim needs to be defined in more concrete terms, in terms of how the effect is to be achieved.
Regarding claim 5, the expressions “…...An operational bandwidth that is less than a transmit carrier bandwidth and greater than a first bandwidth part” is vague and unclear, thus renders in doubt as to the meaning of the technical features to which the expressions refer, thereby rendering the definition of the subject-matter of said claim unclear and indefinite. The expressions “a transmit carrier bandwidth” and “a first bandwidth part bandwidth” should be interpreted as “the transmit carrier bandwidth” and “the first bandwidth part bandwidth”, as these features were already defined in claim 1.
Regarding claim 7, The term “reduce a span of resulting intermodulation products” is vague and unclear, and thus renders the claim indefinite. The term “reduce a span of resulting intermodulation products” is unclear and leaves the reader in doubt as to the meaning of the technical features to which it refers and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is not clear what is meant by the expression.
Regarding claims 11 and 15, The term “reduce receiver desensing from interference caused by a transmitter power” is vague and unclear, and thus renders the claim indefinite. The term “reduce a span of resulting intermodulation products” is unclear and leaves the reader in doubt as to the meaning of the technical features to which it refers and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is not clear what is meant by the expression. It is not clear what is meant by the expression.
Regarding claim 13, the claim recites “the first bandwidth part” and “the bandwidth part”. It is unclear from the claim language whether “the first bandwidth part” and “the bandwidth part” refers to the same bandwidth part. Thus, the claim limitation is unclear and renders the claim indefinite.
Regarding claims 2-4, 6, 8-10, 12, 14, 16, and 18-20, they are also rejected since they depend(s) on rejected base claim.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 9, 11, 13-15, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2019/0306861 to LI et al. (hereafter Li) in view of US 2022/0078798 to KUMAR (hereafter Kumar).
Regarding claim 1, Li discloses a user equipment (UE) for wireless communication (see Li, Fig 17, UE 1700; ¶ 0013: a user equipment (UE)), the UE comprising:
a transceiver comprising at least one transmitter, at least one receiver (see Li, Fig 17, communication subsystem 1731 comprising transmitter 1733 and receiver 1735), and more than one transmit filters;
a memory; and a processor communicatively coupled to the memory and to the transceiver (see Li, Fig 17, processor 1701 and memory 1715), and which is configured to cause the UE to:
receive configuration data for configuring a transmit carrier bandwidth into multiple bandwidth parts (see Li, ¶ 0010: a UE can be configured with up to four carrier BWPs in the uplink; ¶ 0032: a UE can be configured with a narrow BWP (e.g., 10 MHz) and a wide BWP (e.g., 100 MHz); ¶ 0041: each of the carrier BWPs can be configured with one of the numerologies listed in Table 1 above);
select a first bandwidth part from among the multiple bandwidth parts for use during uplink transmission (see Li, ¶ 0010: a UE can be configured with up to four carrier BWPs in the uplink, with a single uplink carrier BWP being active at a given time); and
configure the transceiver to use the first bandwidth part for uplink transmission (see Li, ¶ 0010: with a single uplink carrier BWP being active at a given time), Li does not explicitly disclose the UE comprising more than one transmit filters and in order to reduce leakage of transmit power from the at least one transmitter into the at least one receiver, and to reduce interference with the at least one receiver.
However, Kumar discloses a transceiver comprising at least one transmitter, at least one receiver, and more than one transmit filters (see Kumar, Fig 4; ¶ 0058: Each modulator may further process (e.g., convert to analog, amplify, filter, and upconvert) the output sample stream to obtain a downlink signal; ¶ 0059: Each demodulator 454 may condition (e.g., filter, amplify, downconvert, and digitize) a respective received signal to obtain input samples);
receive configuration data for configuring a transmit carrier bandwidth into multiple bandwidth parts (see Kumar, ¶ 0073: receiving signaling that configures the UE with a number of BWPs from a network entity);
select a first bandwidth part from among the multiple bandwidth parts for use during uplink transmission (see Kumar, ¶ 0007: determine, from the plurality of BWPs, a preferred BWP based on an amount of radio frequency (RF) performance degradation associated with one or more of the configured plurality of BWPs; ¶ 0028: techniques for a user equipment (UE) to select preferred bandwidth parts (BWPs) based on radio frequency (RF) considerations; ¶ 0073: The UE may determine a preferred BWP based on an amount of RF performance degradation associated with one or more of the number of BWPs); and
configure the transceiver to use the first bandwidth part for uplink transmission in order to reduce leakage of transmit power from the at least one transmitter into the at least one receiver, and to reduce interference with the at least one receiver (see Kumar, ¶ 0029: The concept of active BWP improves energy efficiency; ¶ 0072: One or more of the four BWPs may be preferred in terms of efficiency, reliability, and other aspects of hardware configurations. This disclosure provides various techniques to select one or more preferred BWPs based on the RF performance degradations, in order to avoid self-interference, to avoid voltage controlled oscillator pulling, to avoid thermal throttling; ¶ 0077: determining the preferred BWP may include evaluating impact (or expected impact) of self-interference on the number of configured BWPs and selecting the preferred BWP based on the evaluation; ¶ 0078: self-interference or self-jamming may be caused by high power transmission (e.g., up to 23 dBm) that leaks into the receiver band, despite the isolation between the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) paths…… The BWP not impacted (or impacted the least) by self-interference is identified and selected as the preferred BWP for the carrier; ¶ 0081: a BWP that would result in a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) frequency that eliminates or reduces an impact of VCO pulling may be selected).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 9, Li in view of Kumar discloses the UE of claim 1, Li does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor further causes the UE to: transmit device capability data to a base node to which the device is communicatively connected via the transceiver, the device capability data identifying a capability to configure the transmit carrier of the device into the more than one bandwidth part; and
receive the configuration data within a control signal from the base node, the configuration data comprising bandwidth size and relative location of each of the more than one bandwidth part.
However, Kumar discloses wherein the processor further causes the UE to: transmit device capability data to a base node to which the device is communicatively connected via the transceiver, the device capability data identifying a capability to configure the transmit carrier of the device into the more than one bandwidth part (see Kumar, ¶ 0090: determining the preferred BWP may include considerations for MSIM configurations. Such considerations may relate to capability of the UE to support different MSIM communication modes); and
receive the configuration data within a control signal from the base node, the configuration data comprising bandwidth size and relative location of each of the more than one bandwidth part (see Kumar, ¶ 0073: include receiving signaling that configures the UE with a number of BWPs from a network entity; ¶ 0075: by receiving signaling that configures the UE with a number of BWPs. At 704, the UE determines, from the configured BWPs, a preferred BWP based on an amount of RF performance degradation associated with one or more of the BWPs; ¶ 0083: Based on the active receivers, the frequency distance from other active receivers can be calculated. The maximum frequency distance of the four center frequencies in the four BWPs can be identified, and corresponds to the least VCO pulling. As such, the preferred BWP is selected based on the maximum frequency distance for avoiding VCO pulling).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 11, it is rejected or the same reasons as set forth in claim 1 with exception of encode a configuration signal with an assignment of bandwidth parts to the UE in order to reduce receiver desensing from interference caused by a transmitter power.
However, Kumar discloses the idea of encode a configuration signal with an assignment of bandwidth parts to the UE in order to reduce receiver desensing from interference caused by a transmitter power (see Kumar, ¶ 0079: FIG. 8 illustrates example preference of BWP based on avoiding self-interference, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 8, there are two BWPs (BWP #0 and BWP #1) in the active carrier. An active transmitter sends transmissions degrading or desensing the receiver. As a result, BWP #0 is interfered by the transmission, while BWP #1 is interference free. The UE therefore selects BWP #1 as a preferred BWP of the active carrier; ¶ 0079: signal to noise ratio (SNR) may be monitored in real time to identify if degradation or a trend of degradation is taking place. The SNR degradation provides a dynamic benchmark for identifying self-interference. Other types of measurements/metrics may also be used to identify self-interference, such as an increase of power adjustment due to a decrease in SNR).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 13, Li in view of Kumar discloses the base node of claim 11, Li does not explicitly disclose wherein the scheduler causes the base node to: identify that the capability data includes a capability of the UE to place a local oscillator within the first bandwidth part; and encode, within the configuration signal, commands to configure the UE to place the local oscillator within the bandwidth part.
However, Kumar discloses wherein the scheduler causes the base node to: identify that the capability data includes a capability of the UE to place a local oscillator within the first bandwidth part; and encode, within the configuration signal, commands to configure the UE to place the local oscillator within the bandwidth part (see Kumar, ¶ 0083: To minimize or avoid VCO pulling, the VCO or local oscillator may be tuned to the center of each BWP such that the center of the local oscillator changes in frequency with the center frequency of the receiver. For example, all possible sets of local oscillator or carrier frequency, as needed to operate in each of the four BWPs, may first be identified. Based on the active receivers, the frequency distance from other active receivers can be calculated. The maximum frequency distance of the four center frequencies in the four BWPs can be identified, and corresponds to the least VCO pulling. As such, the preferred BWP is selected based on the maximum frequency distance for avoiding VCO pulling).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 14, Li in view of Kumar discloses the base node of claim 11, Li does not explicitly disclose wherein the scheduler causes the base node to: select, as the first bandwidth part, a bandwidth part having a bandwidth and a location within the transmit carrier bandwidth for which an interference from the transmitter of the UE into the receiver of the UE is minimal, in order to protect the receiver when the UE is transmitting at full power.
However, Kumar discloses wherein the scheduler causes the base node to: select, as the first bandwidth part, a bandwidth part having a bandwidth and a location within the transmit carrier bandwidth for which an interference from the transmitter of the UE into the receiver of the UE is minimal, in order to protect the receiver when the UE is transmitting at full power (see Kumar, ¶ 0077: determining the preferred BWP may include evaluating impact (or expected impact) of self-interference on the number of configured BWPs and selecting the preferred BWP based on the evaluation. For example, the UE may select a BWP with less impact of self-interference than one or more other BWPs as the preferred BWP).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 15, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 1 with exception of select a first bandwidth part and a transmit filter for transmissions via the first bandwidth part in order to reduce receiver desensing at the UE; and select a location of one or both of a local oscillator and the transmit filter if the UE supports modification of the location.
However, Kumar discloses select a first bandwidth part and a transmit filter for transmissions via the first bandwidth part (see Kumar, Fig 4; ¶ 0058: Each modulator may further process (e.g., convert to analog, amplify, filter, and upconvert) the output sample stream to obtain a downlink signal; ¶ 0059: Each demodulator 454 may condition (e.g., filter, amplify, downconvert, and digitize) a respective received signal to obtain input samples) in order to reduce receiver desensing at the UE (see Kumar, ¶ 0079: FIG. 8 illustrates example preference of BWP based on avoiding self-interference, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 8, there are two BWPs (BWP #0 and BWP #1) in the active carrier. An active transmitter sends transmissions degrading or desensing the receiver. As a result, BWP #0 is interfered by the transmission, while BWP #1 is interference free. The UE therefore selects BWP #1 as a preferred BWP of the active carrier); and
select a location of one or both of a local oscillator and the transmit filter if the UE supports modification of the location (see Kumra, ¶ 0083: To minimize or avoid VCO pulling, the VCO or local oscillator may be tuned to the center of each BWP such that the center of the local oscillator changes in frequency with the center frequency of the receiver. For example, all possible sets of local oscillator or carrier frequency, as needed to operate in each of the four BWPs, may first be identified. Based on the active receivers, the frequency distance from other active receivers can be calculated. The maximum frequency distance of the four center frequencies in the four BWPs can be identified, and corresponds to the least VCO pulling).
Thus, 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 above teaching as taught by Kumar and incorporate it into the system of Li to improve the use of multiple SIM cards in the communication system (see Kumar, ¶ 0072).
Regarding claim 17, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 1. Although phrased as a method claim, the claim is nevertheless simple repetitions of the subject matter of claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8, 10, 12, 16, and 18-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2022/0166594 to ZHANG et al. discloses a terminal device sends first indication information to a network device, where the first indication information indicates that a switching delay between a first bandwidth part BWP and a second BWP is first duration, where the first BWP and the second BWP are uplink BWPs or downlink BWPs used by the terminal device to send and receive data. In this application, the terminal device can indicate to the network device a specific switching delay between two BWPs in a serving cell, so that a BWP switching delay determining method is more flexible and a result is more accurate.
US 2020/0053613 to Cirik et al. discloses a UE, configured for operation in one or more BWPs of a cell, may be configured by one or more higher layers (e.g. RRC layer) for a cell a set of one or more BWPs (e.g., at most four BWPs) for receptions by the UE (DL BWP set) in a DL bandwidth by at least one parameter DL-BWP and a set of one or more BWPs (e.g., at most four BWPs) for transmissions by a UE (UL BWP set) in an UL bandwidth by at least one parameter UL-BWP for a cell. This enhanced process reduces latency/delay of the beam failure recovery procedure, reduces declaring RLF, reduces uplink interference to other cells/devices, and/or reduces battery power consumption.
US 2019/0357292 to Cirik et al. discloses a wireless device, configured for operation in one or more BWPs of a cell, may be configured by one or more higher layers (e.g., RRC layer). The wireless device may be configured for a cell with: a set of one or more BWPs (e.g., at most four BWPs) for reception (e.g., a DL BWP set) in a DL bandwidth by at least one parameter DL-BWP; and a set of one or more BWPs (e.g., at most four BWPs) for transmissions (e.g., UL BWP set) in an UL bandwidth by at least one parameter UL-BWP. A wireless device may reduce power consumption and/or reduce interference, for example, by performing BFD on one active BWP of one or more active BWPs, such as using a rule (e.g., a predefined rule) applied by both the wireless device and a base station, for example, to select the active BWP for BFD.
US 2019/0208548 to Shih et al. discloses a method and apparatus are disclosed from the perspective of a UE (User Equipment). In one embodiment, the method includes the UE initiating a Random Access (RA) procedure on a Serving Cell, wherein the UE has multiple active uplink bandwidth parts (UL BWP) for the Serving Cell. The method further includes the UE selecting a UL BWP from the multiple active UL BWPs for an Msg1 transmission, based on a first rule. The method also includes the UE transmitting the Msg1 on the selected UL BWP.
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/RASHEED GIDADO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2464
