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 § 103
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 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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 2023/0081776 A1), hereinafter “KIM” in view of Liu et al. (US 2024/0322978 A1), hereinafter “LIU”.
Regarding claim 1, KIM teaches, ‘A method performed by a terminal device and comprising:’ (Paragraph [0007]: The disclosure relates to a method of performing communication in a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment of the disclosure, a terminal may receive physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration information):
‘receiving first indication information and second indication information from a network device,’ (Paragraph [0021]: A terminal for performing communication in a wireless communication system… wherein the at least one processor is configured to receive physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration information (second indication information) and rate matching configuration information (first indication information) from a base station),
‘wherein the first indication information indicates a first time-frequency resource,’ (Paragraph [0188]: As a resource which may be configured as a rate matching resource by the NR base station, for example, a 4G LTE CRS pattern may be included; (first indication information) Paragraph [0190]: a base station may configure a rate matching resource (first time-frequency resource) in a UE, and the rate matching resource may overlap a resource for transmitting a control channel; Paragraph [0151]: When time and frequency resources A in which symbol sequences A are to be transmitted overlap time and frequency resources B (first time-frequency resource), a rate matching operation or a puncturing operation may be considered as an operation of transmitting and receiving a channel A considering resources C where the resources A and the resources B overlap),
‘and wherein at least one first resource element (RE) in the first PDCCH candidate overlaps with at least one second RE in the first time-frequency resource;’ (Paragraph [0007]: identify resource elements (REs) overlapping a rate matching resource from among REs included in PDCCH candidates, based on the PDCCH configuration information and the rate matching configuration information; Paragraph [0151]: When time and frequency resources A in which symbol sequences A are to be transmitted (first RE) overlap time and frequency resources B (second RE), a rate matching operation or a puncturing operation may be considered as an operation of transmitting and receiving a channel A considering resources C where the resources A and the resources B overlap);
KIM does not explicitly teach but LIU teaches, ‘wherein the second indication information indicates a first physical downlink control channel PDCCH) candidate,’ (LIU – Paragraphs [0008]-[0009]: monitoring control channel candidates in a first control resource set… herein, the second information block (second indication information) is used to determine a characteristic resource subset; Paragraphs [0108]-[0109]: the second information block comprises all or part of fields in an Information Element (IE) "pdcch-Config" in an RRC layer signaling. In one embodiment, the second information block comprises all or part of fields in an Information Element (IE) "ControlResourceSet" in an RRC layer signaling; Paragraph [0155]: In one embodiment, any control channel candidate monitored in the first control resource set is a PDCCH Candidate),
‘and monitoring a PDCCH on the first PDCCH candidate.’ (LIU – Paragraph [0008]: monitoring control channel candidates in a first control resource set, the first control resource set comprising multiple REs).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have known to combine the teachings of LIU with KIM because both are in the same/similar field of endeavor. The advantage of incorporating the above limitation(s) of LIU into KIM is that LIU provides configuring control channel candidates in a control resource set and monitoring control channel candidates despite the presence of overlapping REs between the control channel candidate and reference signals. Monitoring control channel candidates over overlapping resources without restrictive conditional barriers reduces complexity while ensuring performance of channel estimation and reduces complexity while increasing control channel capacity in spectrum sharing and its commercial deployment environments. (See paragraph [0004], [0010]-[0011], LIU).
Regarding claim 2, 7, 12 and 17, KIM and LIU teach, The method according to claim 1, KIM further teaches, ‘wherein all symbols of the first PDCCH candidate are within a first three symbols of a first new radio (NR) slot’ (Paragraph [0200]: For example, the NR base station may configure a control resource set 703 having a length of 3 symbols to be located on first, second, and third symbols in a slot 710. Accordingly, the NR base station and the UE may transmit and receive a PDCCH without being affected by the LTE CRS in the first, second, and third symbols in the slot 710)
‘or within a first four symbols of a second NR slot.’ (Paragraph [0238]: In detail, in FIG. 7, the base station may configure a control resource set having a length of Y =4 symbols in an NR carrier overlapping the LTE carrier 702 in the UE, and when the control resource set is configured to be monitored beginning from a second symbol in the slot 710, the UE may perform monitoring on { symbol #2, symbol #3, symbol #4, symbol #5} for the control resource set of four symbols).
Regarding claims 3, 8, 13 and 18, KIM and LIU teach, The method according to claim 1, KIM further teaches, ‘wherein the first PDCCH candidate belongs to a user equipment-specific search space’ (Paragraph [0101]: A search space may be classified into a common search space and a UE-specific search space… The UE may receive UE-specific PDSCH or PUSCH scheduling allocation information by investigating a UE-specific search space of a PDCCH. The UE-specific search space may be UE-specifically defined through a function of various system parameters and an identity of the UE)
‘or a type 3 common search space.’ (Paragraph [0302]: a Type3-PDCCH CSS set configured by SearchSpace in PDCCH-Config with searchSpaceType=common for DCI formats with CRC scrambled by INT-RNTI, SFI-RNTI, TPC-PVSCHRNTI, TPC-PVCCH-RNTI, or TPC-SRS-RNTI and, only for the primary cell, C-RNTI, MCS-C-RNTI, or CS-RNTI(s)).
Regarding claims 4, 9, 14 and 19, KIM and LIU teach, The method according to claim 1, KIM further teaches, ‘wherein the first PDCCH candidate comprises an RE set on a symbol, wherein the RE set comprises at least one third RE,’ (Paragraph [0100]: The basic unit of the downlink control channel shown in FIG. 5, i.e., the REG 503, may include both REs (first REs and Third REs) to which DCI is mapped and regions to which a DMRS 505 that is a reference signal for decoding is mapped. As shown in FIG. 5, three DMRSs 505 may be transmitted in one REG 503; Paragraph [0151]: When time and frequency resources A in which symbol sequences A are to be transmitted overlap time and frequency resources B (rate-matching pattern REs / second REs), a rate matching operation or a puncturing operation may be considered as an operation of transmitting and receiving a channel A considering resources C where the resources A and the resources B overlap (first RE)),
‘and wherein the at least one second RE does not overlap with the at least one third RE.’ (Paragraph [0153]: the base station may sequentially map the symbol sequences A to {resource #1, resource #2, resource #4} (remaining resources in A / Third REs) which are resources other than (does not overlap) {resource #3} corresponding to a resource C (resource #3: within resource B / Second RE);
Regarding claims 5, 10, 15 and 20, KIM and LIU teach, The method according to claim 1, further comprising, KIM further teaches, ‘sending capability information to the network device, wherein the capability information indicates a capability of monitoring the PDCCH on the first PDCCH candidate’ (Paragraphs [0205]-[0206]: In operation 803, the UE may determine whether one or more REs to which a PDCCH candidate group in the search space is mapped overlap REs corresponding to the LTE CRS pattern based on the configuration information of the base station. When it is determined in operation 803 that the REs do not overlap, the UE may perform a "first PDCCH monitoring operation" in operation 804. The "first PDCCH monitoring operation" may include an operation of monitoring the PDCCH candidate group; Paragraph [0209]: X may be a value received from the base station, a value reported by the UE as capability to the base station, or a pre-defined fixed value)
‘when at least one of the following conditions is met: the at least one first RE overlaps with the at least one second RE, and all symbols in the first PDCCH candidate are within a first three symbols of a first new radio (NR)slot or within a first four symbols of a second NR slot;’ (Paragraph [0007]: identify resource elements (REs) overlapping a rate matching resource from among REs included in PDCCH candidates, based on the PDCCH configuration information and the rate matching configuration information; Paragraph [0200]: For example, the NR base station may configure a control resource set 703 having a length of 3 symbols to be located on first, second, and third symbols in a slot 710. Accordingly, the NR base station and the UE may transmit and receive a PDCCH without being affected by the LTE CRS in the first, second, and third symbols in the slot 710; Paragraph [0205]: In operation 803, the UE may determine whether one or more REs (first RE) to which a PDCCH candidate group in the search space is mapped overlap REs corresponding to the LTE CRS pattern (Second RE) based on the configuration information of the base station; Paragraph [0209]: X may be a value received from the base station, a value reported by the UE as capability to the base station, or a pre-defined fixed value);
‘the first PDCCH candidate belongs to a user equipment-specific search space or a type 3 common search space;’ (Paragraph [0101]: A search space may be classified into a common search space and a VE-specific search space… The UE may receive UE-specific PDSCH or PUSCH scheduling allocation information by investigating a UE-specific search space of a PDCCH. The UE-specific search space may be UE-specifically defined through a function of various system parameters and an identity of the UE; Paragraph [0302]: a Type3-PDCCH CSS set configured by SearchSpace in PDCCH-Config with searchSpaceType=common for DCI formats with CRC scrambled by INT-RNTI, SFI-RNTI, TPC-PVSCHRNTI, TPC-PVCCH-RNTI, or TPC-SRS-RNTI and, only for the primary cell, C-RNTI, MCS-C-RNTI, or CS-RNTI(s); Paragraph [0209]: X may be a value received from the base station, a value reported by the UE as capability to the base station, or a pre-defined fixed value);
‘the at least one first RE overlaps with the at least one second RE and any RE in an RE set on at least one of another symbol in the first PDCCH candidate does not overlap with any RE in the first time- frequency resource;’ (Paragraphs [0153]-[0154]: the base station may sequentially map the symbol sequences A to {resource #1, resource #2, resource #4} which are resources other than {resource #3} corresponding to a resource C… the UE may receive the symbol sequences A by assuming that the symbol sequences A are sequentially mapped to {resource #1, resource #2, resource #4} which are resources other than {resource #3} corresponding to a resource C from among the resources A; Paragraphs [0211]-[0212]: [Operation 1) The UE may perform monitoring by assuming that REs overlapping the LTE CRS from among REs to which the PDCCH candidate group is mapped are rate matched; Paragraph [[0209]: X may be a value received from the base station, a value reported by the UE as capability to the base station, or a pre-defined fixed value);
‘or the at least one first RE overlaps with the at least one second RE, there are a maximum of Q sets of first time- frequency resource-related configurations, and the at least one second RE indicated by any one of the Q sets of the first time-frequency resource- related configurations overlaps with the at least one first RE.’ (Paragraph [0188]: As a resource which may be configured as a rate matching resource by the NR base station, for example, a 4G LTE CRS pattern may be included; Paragraph [0245]: a PDCCH monitoring method of a UE when a rate matching resource corresponding to one or more LTE CRS patterns is configured for the UE, and REs to which a PDCCH candidate group in a control resource set to be monitored by the UE is mapped overlap REs corresponding to the one or more LTE CRS patterns; Paragraph [0251]: X may be a value received from the base station, a value reported by the UE as capability to the base station, or a pre-defined fixed value).
Regarding claim 6, the claim includes features identical to the subject matter mentioned in the rejection to claim 1. The claim is mere reformulation of claim 1 in order to define the corresponding by a network device, and the rejection to claim 1 is applied hereto.
KIM teaches, ‘A method performed by a network device and comprising:’ (Paragraph [0028]: base station for performing communication in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the disclosure includes: a transceiver; and at least one processor):
Regarding claim 11, the claim includes features identical to the subject matter mentioned in the rejection to claim 1. The claim is mere reformulation of claim 1 in order to define the corresponding apparatus, and the rejection to claim 1 is applied hereto.
KIM teaches, ‘An apparatus, comprising: a memory configured to store instructions; and at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to’ (Paragraph [0311]: Referring to FIG. 11, a VE may include a transceiver 1101, a memory 1102, and a processor 1103. However, elements of the UE are not limited thereto)
Regarding claim 16, the claim includes features identical to the subject matter mentioned in the rejection to claim 6. The claim is mere reformulation of claim 6 in order to define the corresponding apparatus, and the rejection to claim 6 is applied hereto.
KIM teaches, ‘An apparatus, comprising: a memory configured to store instructions; and at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to’ (Paragraph [0311]: Referring to FIG. 11, a VE may include a transceiver 1101, a memory 1102, and a processor 1103. However, elements of the UE are not limited thereto)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HAESHIL J CHOI whose telephone number is (703)756-5409. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday ET.
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/HAESHIL JESSICA CHOI/Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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