DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(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, 9, and 19-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable by Lei et al. (US 2025/0007665, “Lei”).
Regarding claim 1, Lei discloses a measurement method, performed by a network device, comprising:
- determining measurement configuration information (See ¶.138, the network entity may configure serving cell measurements for one or more downlink BWPs. For example, the network entity may output a configuration that is received by the UE. The configuration may indicate that a downlink BWP configured for the UE including a CD-SSB and/or an NCD-SSB); and
- transmitting the measurement configuration information to user equipment (See 1022 Fig.10, the network entity transmits measurement configuration
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- wherein the measurement configuration information comprises measurement object information and measurement gap configuration information (See ¶.139, the UE may perform a monitoring procedure to monitor a measurement object based on the configuration. The UE may monitor for a CD-SSB and/or an NCD-SSB in a downlink BWP; See Fig.9 for measurement gap,
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See ¶.146, the UE may determine, based on the configuration. UE may then perform the measurement procedure to measure an SSB in the different BWP. A BWP switch delay associated with switching to the different BWP to measure the CD-SSB or the NCD-SSB may be included in a time gap consideration with respect to collision occasions; See ¶.161, the uplink transmission may overlap in time, or a switching gap may overlap in time, with measurement of an SSB. The UE may receive a measurement object configuration defined for the SSB of the serving cell, where the SSBs have an insufficient switching gap associated with the scheduled uplink transmission. An insufficient switching gap may correspond to one or more of SSBs that overlap with the UL transmission or the SSBs do not overlap with UL transmission. The UE may measure a measurement object defined SSB, the SSB having an overlap in a time domain with one or more of the uplink transmission or a switching gap associated with the uplink transmission), and
- the measurement object information indicates that a reference signal to be measured by the user equipment comprises a cell defining synchronization signal block (CD-SSB) and a non-cell defining synchronization signal block (NCD-SSB) (See ¶.129, for example, for intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements, a configuration of a measurement object may indicate the frequency and/or time resources and subcarrier spacing of reference signals to be measurements. The reference signals may include CD-SSB, NCD-SSB, or CSI-RS provided by serving cells and/or neighboring cells. A UE may be configured with multiple reference signals for measurement. Although a configuration for a measurement object may indicate or define a reference signal, the configuration may not indicate and/or may not define all reference signals configured for the UE. Thus, in some examples, the configuration for the measurement may define an SSB burst including CD-SSBs and/or NCD-SSBs. In other examples, the configuration for the measurement object may not define or indicate an SSB burst; See 1034 & 1036 Fig.10,
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Regarding claim 9, it is a method claim performed by user equipment corresponding to the method claim performed by a network device and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 19, it is an apparatus claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitation “one or more processors and a memory (See Fig.16)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 20, it is an apparatus claim corresponding to the method claim 9, except the limitation “one or more processors and a memory (See Fig.16)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 21, it is a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim corresponding to the method claim 1 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 22, it is a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim corresponding to the method claim 9 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the 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 of this title, 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 2, 3, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lei in view of LEI et al. (US 2023/0379848, hereinafter “Lei’848”, the provisional application, 63/364,993, contains the same specification contents).
Regarding claim 2, Lei discloses “the measurement gap configuration information indicates a measurement gap length, and the measurement gap length is determined based on a transmission time difference between the CD-SSB and the NCD-SSB (See Fig.9 as shown above; See ¶.146, In some examples, a BWP switch delay associated with switching to the different BWP to measure the CD-SSB or the NCD-SSB may be included in a time gap consideration with respect to collision occasions; See ¶.165, the UE may operate, at 1203, in a TDD mode or a HD-FDD mode, and a BWP switch delay associated with switching to the different BWP to measure the CD-SSB or the NCD-SSB may be included in a time gap consideration for at least measurement object configuration and collision handling between SSB measurement and uplink transmission. Aspects of 1203 may be performed by the prioritization component 198 of the apparatus 1304 of FIG. 13; See ¶.176, where a BWP switch delay associated with switching to the different BWP to measure the CD-SSB or the NCD-SSB is included in a time gap consideration for at least a measurement object configuration and collision handling between SSB measurement and uplink transmission; See ¶.129, a UE may be configured with multiple reference signals for measurement. Although a configuration for a measurement object may indicate or define a reference signal, the configuration may not indicate and/or may not define all reference signals configured for the UE. Thus, in some examples, the configuration for the measurement may define an SSB burst including CD-SSBs and/or NCD-SSBs; Examiner’s Note: Lei’848 further discloses the limitation “a measurement gap length”).”
Lei discloses the method of a transmission time difference between the CD-SSB and the NCD-SSB (Lei, See Fig.9), but does not explicitly disclose the limitations “a measurement gap. However, Lei’848 discloses “a measurement gap length between CD-SSB and NCD-SSB” (Lei’848, See ¶.79, a non-zero time offset between NCD-SSB and CD-SSB may be configured).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply “a measurement gap length between CD-SSB and NCD-SSB” as taught by Lei’848 into the system of Lei, so that it provides a way of facilitating the scheduling flexibility of the network (Lei’848, See ¶.79).
Regarding claim 3, Lei discloses “the determining measurement configuration information comprises: in response to determining that the transmission time difference is less than or equal to a set threshold, determining that the measurement gap configuration information comprises first measurement gap configuration; wherein the first measurement gap configuration is configured for the user equipment to measure the CD-SSB and the NCD-SSB (See ¶.100, the SSB subcarrier offset field 602 corresponds to an SSB-type indicator (KSSB) that signals the frequency domain offset between SSB and the overall resource block grid in number of subcarriers. For example, in FR1, the KSSB may be a 5-bit value, and in FR2, the KSSB may be a 4-bit value. Referring to FR1, when the value of the KSSB is greater than or equal to 0 and less than 24 (e.g., 0≤KSSB <24), the UE may determine that the SSB is a CD-SSB, and when the value of the KSSB is greater than or equal to 24 and less than 32 (e.g., 24≤ KSSB <32), the UE may determine that the SSB is an NCD-SSB. With respect to FR2, when the value of the KSSB is greater than or equal to 0 and less than 12 (e.g., 0≤ KSSB <12), the UE may determine that the SSB is a CD-SSB, and when the value of the KSSB is greater than or equal to 12 and less than 16 (e.g., 12≤ KSSB <16), the UE may determine that the SSB is an NCD-SSB).”
Regarding claims 10 and 11, they are claims corresponding to claims 2 & 3, respectively and are therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-8 and 12-16 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung H Park whose telephone number is 571-272-8565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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/JUNG H PARK/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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