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 .
2. 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. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Status of Claims
1. The following is a non-final office action in response to the applicant’s submission received on 12/23/2024.
2. Claims 1 – 20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Foreign Priority/Domestic benefit
There is no claim to foreign priority according to filing receipt and application data sheet.
Domestic benefit is claimed with regards to U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Application No. 17/764,083, filed March 25, 2022, which is the U.S. National Stage Application under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application PCT/US2020/053466, filed September 30, 2020, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/908,809, filed October 1, 2019.
Oath/Declaration
1. The applicant’s oath/declaration filed on 10/11/2024 has been reviewed by the examiner and is found to conform to the requirements prescribed in 37 C.F.R. 1.63.
Information Disclosure Statement
1. The information disclosure statements filed on 10/11/2024 and 04/27/2026 are in compliance with the provision of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. It has been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Drawings
1. The applicant’s drawings submitted on 10/11/2024 are acceptable for examination purposes.
Claim interpretation
1. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim should not be read into the claim. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369, 67 USPQ2d 1947, 1950 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (claims must be interpreted "in view of the specification" without importing limitations from the specification into the claims unnecessarily) [MPEP 2106 Sec I, C]. “Though understanding the claim language may be aided by explanations contained in the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment.” Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875, 69 USPQ2d 1865, 1868 (Fed. Cir. 2004). [MPEP 2111.01 Sec II]. Thus, the Examiner interprets Applicant’s claims "in view of the specification" and does not “import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim”.
2. When multiple limitations are connected with “OR”, one of the limitations does not have any patentable weight since both of the limitations are optional.
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.
1. Claim(s) 1, 3 – 12 and 14 - 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kundu et al. (US 2020/0351668 A1) in view of Liu et al. (US 2022/0304057 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Kundo disclose: A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) [see figure 2, label 106] comprising:
a processor configured to: [see figure 3, label 302]
receive configuration information indicating a guard band associated with a plurality of subbands; [see the latter half of ¶ 0167: PUSCH are uplink transmission of data, the UE will receive an indication of the subbands over which the PUSCH must be transmitted; see ¶ 0168 for contiguous and non-contiguous transmission; ¶ 0172 suggests between the subbands a guard band is present]
receive an indication that the WTRU is scheduled for transmission on the plurality of subbands; [¶ 0172: the UE is being scheduled over which subbands for the transmission of PUSCH (UL data transmission)]
determine that listen-before-talk (LBT) is successful for the plurality of subbands, wherein the guard band is in-between the plurality of subbands: and
send a transmission on the guard band based on the indication and the determination that LBT was successful. (¶0172: “…frequency domain resource allocation on a set of physical resource blocks within a single wideband carrier with nLBT sub-bands may include PRBs mapped on guard bands in between the adjacent LBT subbands.” In this case, UE may only perform PUSCH transmission (= an uplink transmission) on the allocated frequency domain set of resource blocks (including subband and adjacent guard band) when LBT succeeds on all n scheduled LBT subbands.).
Although the reference of Kundo discloses PUSCH (UL transmission) may be transmitted on the guard band between the subbands, to better clarify that the guard band is definitely used for UL transmission the secondary reference of Liu is relied on, see ¶ 0113.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kundo’s system in view of Liu. The motivation for making the above modification would have been for configured grant that indicates resources occupying at least a guard band. The method may further comprise performing an uplink transmission to the network node using at least the guard band. [see ¶ 0012 of Liu].
Claim 12 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 1.
Claim 3, Kundo further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the plurality of subbands are associated with unlicensed spectrum. [Abstract, ¶ 002 and claim 1].
Claim 14 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 3.
Claim 4, Liu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine the guard band dynamically via downlink control information (DCI) or medium access channel (MAC) control element (CE). [¶ 0122].
Claim 15 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 4.
Claim 5, Liu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine the guard band as a function of resource allocation of a scheduling assignment. [¶ 0122 in view of the last sentence of ¶ 0106, there is an association of the GB and subbands available for COT sharing, the COT is the scheduled time for UL transmission from the UE]. [see also Kundu: ¶ 0167 - ¶ 0169].
Claim 16 recites similar features using respective languages and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 5.
Claim 6, Kundu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein LBT comprises a clear channel assessment (CCA) procedure using at least energy detection. [¶ 0238: “ LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs 1101 RAN nodes 1111, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specific channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine the presence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear].
Claim 17 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 6.
Claim 7, Kundu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 6, wherein LBT is unsuccessful if the subband is occupied, and wherein LBT is successful if the subband is clear. [¶ 0238: [¶ 0238: “ LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs 1101 RAN nodes 1111, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specific channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine the presence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear].
Claim 18 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 7.
Claim 8, Kundu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the subband is 20MHz. [¶ 0148 and ¶ 0165 -¶ 0166].
Claim 19 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 8.
Claim 9, Liu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the configuration information is received via radio resource control (RRC) message. [¶ 0122].
Claim 20 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 9.
Claim 10, Kunda further disclose: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the transmission is sent on the guard band and the plurality of subbands. (¶0172: frequency domain resource allocation on a set of physical resource blocks within a single wideband carrier with nLBT sub-bands may include PRBs mapped on guard bands in between the adjacent LBT subbands. In this case, UE may only perform PUSCH transmission (= an uplink transmission) on the allocated frequency domain set of resource blocks (including subband and adjacent guard band) when LBT succeeds on all n scheduled LBT subbands;]). [see also ¶ 0114 of Liu].
Claim 11, Liu further discloses: The WTRU of claim 1, wherein the guard band in-between the plurality of subbands comprises a guard band located at the juncture of the plurality of subbands. [see figure 2]. [see also ¶ 0172 of Kunda].
2. Claim(s) 2 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kundu et al. (US 2020/0351668 A1) in view of Liu et al. (US 2022/0304057 A1) and Moon et al. (US 2020/0383095 A1, support is found in the foreign application).
Regarding claim 1, Kundo in view of Liu disclosed: The WTRU of claim 1 (see rejected claim 1).
Kundo in view of Liu further discloses wherein the guard band associated with the plurality of subbands comprises an in-carrier guard band [¶ 0173 - ¶ 0174]. [see also ¶ 0101 of Liu].
Kundo in view of Liu does not disclose: and wherein the plurality of subbands comprises two resource block sets that are adjacent to the in-carrier guard band.
In the same field of endeavor, Moon discloses the above missing feature, see figure 9, the first RB set is to the left of the guard band, and the second RB set is right of the guard band [see ¶ 0010]. [support is found in the foreign application KR-10-2019-0080334, se figure 7]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kundo’s system in view of Liu and Moon. The motivation for making the above modification would have been to implement a technique for transmitting and receiving uplink signals in an unlicensed band. [see ¶ 0002 of Moon].
Claim 13 recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 2.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR whose telephone number is (571)270-7909. The examiner can normally be reached 6:00 AM - 3:00 PM.
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MAHARISHI V. KHIRODHAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
Prosecution Insights