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 .
Priority as a 371 of PCT/CN2022/082886 filed 3/24/2022 is acknowledged.
Preliminary Amendment filed 7/24/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 29 and 30 have been amended.
Claims 16-28 and 31 have been cancelled.
Claims 1-15, 29, and 30 remain pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 9/24/2024 and 2/20/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are 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.
Claims 29 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 29 and 30 are held to be indefinite because the claims recite termainl and network devices, respectively, without limitations defining the structure of the devices.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-15, 29, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tran et al. (US20230284233A1), hereafter Tran, in view of Huang (US20210329677A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 29,
Tran (Title: Multi-TB Scheduling for Single DCI-based Multi-TRP and Panel Transmission) discloses a terminal device (i.e. UE, Fig. 3, 6, 20; paragraph 186) configured to perform a method (i.e. Fig. 9, 18, 19) for communications comprising receiving, at a terminal device from a network device, first DCI comprising a first indication of a first set of cells and scheduling data transmissions in more than one of the cells (Fig. 6, 15-17, Fig. 19, step 1902; paragraph 147, 195-198; UE receiving single DCI including scheduling information for multiple TRPs/cells) and performing, based on the first DCI, the data transmissions in the more than one of the cells in the subset (Fig. 19, step 1904; paragraph 147, 195-198; UE obtains resources for transmission of the multiple TBs using multiple TRPs based on the scheduling information).
While Tran does not expressly disclose receiving a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions, analogous art to Huang (Fig. 9-13; paragraph 40; multi-cell scheduling using a single DCI) discloses receiving a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions (paragraph 647-648, 670-672, 691; first DCI/DCI format indicates dormancy information subset of the cells other than first and second cell scheduled via single DCI).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Tran by receiving a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions, as shown by Huang, thereby reducing power consumption for carrier aggregation by only monitoring non-dormant cells of the plurality of cells.
Regarding claims 15 and 30,
Tran discloses a network device (i.e. gNB, Fig. 3, 6, 20; paragraph 186) configured to perform a method (i.e. Fig. 9, 18, 19) for communications comprising transmitting, from a network device to a terminal device, first DCI comprising a first indication of a first set of cells and scheduling data transmissions in a subset of the first set, the subset comprising more than one of the cells (Fig. 6, 15-17, Fig. 19, step 1902; paragraph 147, 195-198; gNB transmitting single DCI to UE including scheduling information for multiple TRPs/cells) and performing, based on the first DCI, the data transmissions in the more than one of the cells in the subset (Fig. 19, step 1904; paragraph 147, 195-198; UE obtains resources for transmission of the multiple TBs using multiple TRPs based on the scheduling information).
While Tran does not expressly disclose transmitting a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions, analogous art to Huang (Fig. 9-13; paragraph 40; multi-cell scheduling using a single DCI) discloses transmitting a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions (paragraph 647-648, 670-672, 691; first DCI/DCI format indicates dormancy information subset of the cells other than first and second cell scheduled via single DCI).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Tran by transmitting a second indication of a multi-cell subset of cells of the first set for scheduling data transmissions, as shown by Huang, thereby reducing power consumption for carrier aggregation by only monitoring non-dormant cells of the plurality of cells.
Regarding claim 2,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses receiving the second indication of the subset of the first set via one of the following: the first DCI, second DCI, MAC CE, or RRC signaling (Tran: paragraph 192-194; Huang: paragraph 173-184). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 3,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the first DCI comprises a first field associated with a first cell/reference cell in the subset of the first set (Tran: paragraph 123, 193; reference signal; Huang: Table 7; PCell/SpCell is the timing reference). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 4,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the first field comprises at least one of the following: a Bandwidth Part Indicator field (Tran: paragraph 180; Huang: paragraph 64-66, 74-76; BWP indicator) or a Transmit Power Control command field (Tran: paragraph 112, power consumption; Huang: paragraph 61, 292; TPC command). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 6,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the second indication of the subset comprises a list (i.e. bitmap) of cells in the subset, and the reference cell is a starting cell in the list (Huang: paragraph 53-58, 68, 117, 127-129, 324, 342-354, 379-381, 424; Tables 3-8; ascending order bitmaps corresponding to cell groups). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 7,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses receiving the second indication of the subset of the first set comprises receiving the first DCI which comprises the second indication (Huang: paragraph 647-648, 670-672, 691; first DCI/DCI format indicates dormancy information subset of the cells other than first and second cell scheduled via single DCI). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 8,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the first DCI comprises a MCS field and a RV field, each of the MCS field and the RV field being associated with a second cell among the cells in the first set (Huang: paragraph 354; MCS and RV field for each number of configured SCells), the second indication comprises a combination of a first predefined value of the MCS field and a second predefined value of the RV field, the combination indicating that the second cell is disabled (Huang: paragraph 424; combination of DCI fields including MCS/RV indicate dormancy status of a particular SCell) and determining the subset of the first set by excluding the second cell from the first set (Huang: paragraph 424, 480; excluding dormant SCell from the cell group). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 9,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the first DCI comprises a FDRA field associated with a third cell among the cells in the first set (Tran: paragraph 141-147, 194; DCI indicates entry in a FDRA table for multi-cell indication), the second indication comprises a third predefined value of the FDRA field which indicates that the third cell is disabled; and determining the subset of the first set by excluding the third cell from the first set (Huang: paragraphs 349-354; combination of DCI fields including FDRA indicating dormancy/exclusion of cell from cell group). See motivation above.
Regarding claims 10 and 11,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the first DCI comprises a FDRA indicating a first starting position of frequency domain resources and a first length (i.e. number) of the frequency domain resources for a fourth cell in the subset of the first set (Tran: paragraph 141-147, 194; DCI indicates entry in a FDRA table define a start and number of resource blocks) and determining a second starting position of frequency domain resources for a fifth cell in the subset of the first set based on the starting position and an offset for the fifth cell (Tran: paragraph 113-116, 120-126, 133-138, 181; use of slot offset for multi-cell scheduling) and determining the first length as a second length of frequency domain resources for the fifth cell (Tran: paragraphs 126-131; different offset values; deriving starting symbol and length within slot from DCI), a size of the FDRA field is determined based on a resource block size of the fourth cell (Tran: paragraph 141-147, 194; FDRA size/bitmap based on serving cell).
Regarding claim 12,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the subset of the first set comprises a plurality of scheduling cell groups (Tran: Fig. 16; paragraph 129, 141-146, 162, 194; Huang: paragraph 68, 105, 226, 326, 342-346, 354; SCell groups), each of the groups comprises at least one of cells in the subset, and the number of the groups is less than the number of the cells in the subset (Huang: dormant/non-dormant groups (2) < active PCell + SCells (3)). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 13,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses a second field in the first DCI is shared (i.e. re-purposed) by a first scheduling cell group among the scheduling cell groups (Huang: paragraph 68, 105, 226, 326, 342-346, 354; SCell groups re-purposes fields in the PDCCH/DCI for dormancy indication). See motivation above.
Regarding claim 14,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses the second field comprises at least one of the following: a transmission configuration indication (Tran: Fig. 8, 9, 18; paragraphs 118, 129; TCI state per group), a sounding reference signal resource indication (Huang: paragraph 179, 233, 292; SRS indication), or an antenna port indication (Huang: paragraph 356; antenna ports). See motivation above.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tran and Huang as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of MolavianJazi et al. (US20230057605A1), hereafter Molavian.
Regarding claim 5,
The combination of Tran and Huang discloses does not expressly disclose the first DCI comprises a third indication of the reference cell.
Molavian discloses analogous art (Title: PDCCH Monitoring for Multi-Cell Scheduling) in which the first DCI comprises a third indication of the reference cell (paragraph 96, 342-344; claim 6; carrier indicator field for the reference cell).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to modify Tran and Huang in which the first DCI comprises a third indication of the reference cell, as shown by Molavian, thereby enabling linked search space sets for both single-cell and multi-cell scheduling.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Takeda et al. (US20210321440A1); Downlink Control Information (DCI) Design for Multi-Component Carrier Scheduling.
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/GREGORY B SEFCHECK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477
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