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
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, 6-8, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Deenoo et al. (US 20200052803).
Regarding claims 1 and 10, Deenoo teaches calculating an occupancy threshold value based on received power for a transmission-limited resource ([0175] The load threshold for the serving cell may be a serving channel occupancy threshold. The load threshold for the serving cell may be a number of failed Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) procedures associated with the serving cell and [0176] A measurement configuration comprising a cell strength of a serving cell and a load threshold for the serving cell may be received. It may be determined whether a measurement condition exists. The measurement condition may indicate whether a reference signal received power (RSRP) of the serving cell may be less than the cell strength of the serving cell); and
based on a reference signal correlation power value for a specific resource block and the occupancy threshold value, determining whether the specific resource block is occupied (Fig. 4 and [0296] a trigger to start neighbor measurement may be when a serving cell channel occupancy (CO) is greater than a S_occupancy… an RSRP of a neighbor cell may be included in a measurement report when a CO is lower than a threshold. The granularity of CO may vary according to a quality of a cell (e.g. RSRP)).
Regarding claim 6, Deenoo teaches when the reference signal correlation power value for the specific resource block exceeds the occupancy threshold value, the specific resource block is determined as being occupied, when the reference signal correlation power value for the specific resource block is less than or equal to the occupancy threshold value, the specific resource block is determined as being unoccupied (Fig. 4 and [0296] a trigger to start neighbor measurement may be when a serving cell channel occupancy (CO) is greater than a S_occupancy).
Regarding claim 7, Deenoo teaches wherein: the specific resource block includes at least one physical resource block (PRB) on one orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol (Fig. 1A and [0120] OFDMA and [0180] The measurement report may comprise at least one of a set of physical resource blocks), the reference signal is a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Fig. 5B PDSCH, [0098] In addition to PDCCH, each REG contains demodulation reference signals (DM-RS) to aid in the estimation of the radio channel over which that REG was transmitted).
Regarding claim 8, Deenoo teaches, based on a result of the occupancy determination for each of at least one resource block within an available frequency resource, a frequency utilization rate is calculated (Fig. 3, [0207] The WTRU may perform the channel occupancy or channel availability measurement on a configurable time and/or frequency resource, and [0209] The WTRU may transmit the sub-band with the measured RSSI, such as the highest measured RSSI (e.g., sub-band ID or an indication of the frequency band), to assist the network in the frequency allocation).
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deenoo et al. (US 20200052803) in view of Duan (US 20120142364).
Regarding claim 2, Deenoo does not expressly teach: the occupancy threshold value is calculated based on a maximum thermal noise power value for the transmission-limited resource. Duan discloses ([0073] the maximum measurement value of the measured reception power of the reference signals is identified, and the interference power (uplink interference power (IP) or interference over thermal noise (IoT)) included in the maximum measurement value is detected). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Duan in order to reduce downlink cross interference applied from the femto base station to the macro terminal or downlink cross interference applied from the macro base station to the femto terminal by performing the transmission power control ([0006], Duan).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 9, and 11-19 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Takiguchi et al. (US 20140350879) discloses [0088] The maximum value of the thermal noise level in the frequency range between 1 Hz and 1 GHz is 14.1 .mu.V as shown in FIG. 6.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EUNSOOK CHOI whose telephone number is (571)270-1822. The examiner can normally be reached on 8am-4:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan Phillips can be reached on 5712723940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/EUNSOOK CHOI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
