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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Liao et al. (US Pub. 2021/0410128).
Regarding claims 1, 5 and 6, Liao teaches a terminal comprising: a communication unit configured to perform uplink or downlink communication in a frequency band aggregated by carrier aggregation (“Under carrier aggregation (CA), each UE per serving cell can be configured by the network with several DL BWPs and UL BWPs” in [0021]); and a control unit configured to, when scheduling is performed with respect to a unit including a plurality of component carriers in the aggregated frequency band, switch bandwidth parts that are set with respect to respective component carriers in the plurality of component carriers, separately or together, or switch a bandwidth part that is set across component carriers in the plurality of component carriers (see “multiple active BWP switching over different component carriers (CCs) having different BWP switching delays” in [0031] and “scheduled active BWP change for a second cell (CC2) in a slot other than the first slot of a set of slots of CC2 that overlaps with a time duration where the UE is not required to receive or transmit for an active BWP change in the first cell (CC1)” in [0037])).
Regarding claim 2, Liao teaches a reception unit configured to receive an indication of bandwidth part switching in downlink (“by dedicated RRC signaling, by DCI scheduling with explicit indication, or by a timer for a UE to switch is active DL BWP to a default DL BWP, e.g., the initial active DL BWP” in [0023]).
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 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao et al. in view of Yoshioka et al. (US Pub. 2022/0279543).
Regarding claim 3, Liao teaches the limitations in claim 1 as shown above. Liao, however, does not teach the control unit assumes that a bandwidth part switching delay varies for each of the plurality of component carriers. Yoshioka teaches the control unit assumes that a bandwidth part switching delay varies for each of the plurality of component carriers (BWP switching delays vary depending on slot length (see Figure 4 and “μ=0, 1, 2, and 3 correspond to the SCS=15, 30, 60, and 120 kHz, respectively. Since one slot corresponds to 14 symbols, μ=0, 1, 2, and 3 corresponds to the slot length=1 ms, 0.5 ms, 0.25 ms, and 0.125 ms, respectively” in [0049]) and BWP switching delays vary for each of the CCs if the CC1 and CC2 have different SCSs, i.e., different slot lengths). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Liao to have the control unit assumes that a bandwidth part switching delay varies for each of the plurality of component carriers as taught by Yoshioka in order to provide time necessary from a UE/base station to switch communication from a BWP to another BWP [0048].
Regarding claim 4, Yoshioka teaches the control unit assumes that a bandwidth part switching delay is common in the unit including the plurality of component carriers (BWP switching delays vary depending on slot length (see Figure 4 and “μ=0, 1, 2, and 3 correspond to the SCS=15, 30, 60, and 120 kHz, respectively. Since one slot corresponds to 14 symbols, μ=0, 1, 2, and 3 corresponds to the slot length=1 ms, 0.5 ms, 0.25 ms, and 0.125 ms, respectively” in [0049]) and BWP switching delays is common for each of the CCs if the CC1 and CC2 have same SCSs, i.e., same slot lengths).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CLEMENCE S HAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3158. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM EST.
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/CLEMENCE S HAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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