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 .
DETAILED ACTION
a. Claims 1, 6, and 21 in the present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA :
- claims 1 and 6 are amended
b. This is a final action on the merits based on Applicant’s claims submitted on 01/12/2026.
Response to Arguments
Regarding claim 6 previously rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b), claim 6 has been amended according to the examiner's recommendation and thus the previous rejection has been withdrawn.
Regarding Independent claim 1 previously rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2), Applicant's arguments, see “However, Shih fails to disclose that the PDCCH is received on the cell where the beam failure recovery request is transmitted. That is, Shih fails to disclose that the cell where the random access preamble is transmitted is identical to the cell where the first notification is received.” on page 5, filed on 01/12/2026, with respect to Shih et al. US Pub 2019/0182870, claiming provisional application 62598078 priority 2017-12-13 (hereinafter “Shih”), have been fully considered but are moot, over the limitations of “a receiver configured to receive a first notification, the first notification is a notification of reception of a downlink control channel transmission and is received from a lower layer of the terminal equipment”. Said limitations are newly added to the amended Claim 1 and has been addressed in instant office action, as shown in section 35 USC 102 rejection below, with newly identified disclosures in previously applied reference Shih, thus rendering said Applicant’s arguments moot.
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, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Shih et al. US Pub 2019/0182870, claiming provisional application 62598078 priority 2017-12-13 (hereinafter “Shih”).
Regarding claim 1 (Currently Amended)
Shih discloses a random access apparatus (“a receiver system 250 (also known as access terminal (AT) or user equipment (UE)” [0021]; Fig. 2) configured with a first cell (“the UE initiates a RA procedure on a first Serving Cell” [0655]) and a second cell different from the first cell (“for the RA procedure, in the event a Msg1 transmission and a Msg2 reception are performed on different Serving Cells, namely the first Serving Cell and a second Serving Cell” [0656]), comprising:
a transmitter (“TX data processor 238” in Fig. 2; [0029]) configured to transmit a random access preamble on the first cell for beam failure recovery request (“the set of Random Access Preambles for beam failure recovery request and corresponding PRACH resource(s)” [0480]) to a network device (“a transmitter system 210 (also known as the access network)” in Fig. 2; [0021]);
a receiver (“RX data processor 260” in Fig. 2; [0027]) configured to receive a first notification (i.e. “Random Access Response message”), the first notification is a notification of reception of a downlink control channel transmission (i.e. “PDCCH”) and is received from a lower layer of the terminal equipment (“if notification of a reception of a PDCCH transmission is received from lower layers” [0418]); and
processor circuitry (“processor 270” in Fig. 2; [0028]) configured to determine whether the downlink control channel transmission is received on the first cell (“the UE initiates a Random Access (RA) procedure on a first Serving Cell, and the UE does not start or restart the BWP timer for the first Serving Cell when successfully decoding a PDCCH on the first Serving Cell during the RA procedure” [0661]) and determine that a random access procedure corresponding to the random access preamble is successfully completed (“consider the Random Access procedure successfully completed. the UL grant provided in the Random Access Response message is valid only for the configured carrier.” [0376-0377]) for a multi-carrier scenario (“when multiple carriers provide PRACH resources for the same enhanced coverage level, the UE will randomly select one of them using the following selection probabilities” [0281]) when the downlink control channel transmission is received on the first cell (“the UE initiates a RA procedure on a first Serving Cell. The UE states a first BWP timer for the first Serving Cell when successfully decoding a PDCCH on the first Serving Cell at the first time during the RA procedure.” [0655]).
Regarding claim 6 (Currently Amended)
Shih previously discloses the random access apparatus according to claim 1,
Shih further discloses wherein the downlink control channel transmission (i.e. “PDCCH”) is addressed to a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) (“wherein the UE considers the contention-based RA procedure successfully completed if a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) addressed to a Cell Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) of the UE is received and the PDCCH contains an uplink grant for a new transmission.” [0005]) or a random access radio network temporary identifier (RA-RNTI) (“the MAC entity shall monitor the PDCCH of the SpCell for Random Access Response(s) identified by the RA-RNTI defined below, in the RA Response window which starts at the subframe that contains the end of the preamble transmission” [0363]).
Regarding claim 21
Shih previously discloses the random access apparatus according to claim 1,
Shih further discloses wherein a plurality of cells (“For a UE, the PCell, PSCell and each SCell has a single associated SSB in frequency (RAN1 terminology is the is the ‘cell defining SSB’)” Table 1) including the first cell are configured to communicate (“for the RA procedure, in the event a Msg1 transmission and a Msg2 reception are performed on different Serving Cells, namely the first Serving Cell and a second Serving Cell” [0656]) with the random access apparatus (“a receiver system 250 (also known as access terminal (AT) or user equipment (UE)” [0021]; Fig. 2).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHUONG M NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-8184. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00am - 6:30pm.
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/CHUONG M NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411