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 1-22 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, 3-5, 8-9, 11-13, 16-17, 19-20 are amended
- claims 2, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, and 18 are cancelled
- claims 21 and 22 are new
b. This is a final action on the merits based on Applicant’s claims submitted on 10/14/2025.
Response to Arguments
Regarding Independent claims 1, 9, and 17 previously rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2), Applicant's arguments, see “Without acquiescing to the merits of this allegation, Applicant has amended independent claims 1, 9, and 17 to incorporate features that were previously recited by dependent claims 2 and 6, now cancelled.” on page 13, filed on 10/14/2025, with respect to Nagaraja et al. US Pub 2018/0097556 (hereinafter “Nagaraja”), have been fully considered but are moot, over the limitations of “generating, by the AN, a media access (MAC) control element (CE)” and “transmitting, by the AN, the MAC CE to the UE”, and the addition of new claims 21-22. Said limitations are newly added to the amended Claims 1, 9, and 17 and have been addressed in instant office action, as shown in section 35 USC 103 rejection below, with newly identified prior art teaching from newly found reference Qualcomm NPL “Beam management for NR”, 3GPP R1-1811633, Oct 8-12, 2018 (hereinafter “Qualcomm”), in combination with previously applied reference Nagaraja, thus rendering said Applicant’s arguments moot.
Claim Objections
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: typo error. Claim 17 recites the features “generating a control signal… UEto”. The Examiner suggests that this sentence be changed to: “generating a control signal… UE to”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Claim 17 recites the limitation “the MAC CE” (underlined emphasis). There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The Examiner suggests that this limitation be modified as such to overcome this 112(b) rejection: “…carrying [[the]] a MAC CE”. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagaraja et al. US Pub 2018/0097556 (hereinafter “Nagaraja”), and in view of Qualcomm NPL “Beam management for NR”, 3GPP R1-1811633, Oct 8-12, 2018 (hereinafter “Qualcomm”).
Regarding claim 1 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja discloses a method for beam failure recovery (BFR) (“attempting to communicate with the network entity using one or more of the target beams according to the timing information, in response to a beam failure” [0011]), the method comprising:
configuring, by an access node (AN) (i.e. “network entity” [0011]), a user equipment (UE) (i.e. “UE” [0011]) with a set of candidate beams for the BFR (“receiving configuration information from a network entity indicating a sequence of target beams and timing information to try each target beam in the sequence of target beams” [0011]);
initiating, by the AN in response to detection of a beam failure instance (“in response to a beam failure” [0011]), a beam failure recovery procedure (“Aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques that may help achieve relatively fast beam recovery at the NB and UE.” [0092]) for at least one uplink bandwidth part (BWP) associated with the UE (“OFDM and SC-FDM partition the system bandwidth into multiple (K) orthogonal subcarriers, which are also commonly referred to as tones, bins, etc. Each subcarrier may be modulated with data.” [0045]), the beam failure recovery procedure comprising selecting one or more candidate beams from among the set of candidate beams to be activated or deactivated for the BFR (“using one or more of the target beams according to the timing information, in response to a beam failure” [0011]);
Nagaraja does not specifically teach generating, by the AN, a media access (MAC) control element (CE) to identify the one or more selected candidate beams for the at least one uplink BWP associated with the UE to dynamically update the set of candidate beams for the BFR; transmitting, by the AN, the MAC CE to the UE; and validating, by the AN, the set of candidate beams at predetermined slots in response to receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) from the UE acknowledging a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signal carrying the MAC CE.
In an analogous art, Qualcomm discloses generating, by the AN (i.e. “gNB”), a media access (MAC) control element (CE) to identify the one or more selected candidate beams (e.g. “default beam for PUSCH can also use PRACH beam for BFRQ after receiving BFR response”) for the at least one uplink BWP associated with the UE to dynamically update the set of candidate beams for the BFR (“It would be conservative to use PRACH beam for BFRQ as default beam for all PUCCH resources during that period for best reliability. In addition, the default beam for PUSCH also needs to be specified, since PUSCH may carry beam report to reselect DL/UL beams. For best reliability, default beam for PUSCH can also use PRACH beam for BFRQ after receiving BFR response and till UE receives an activation or reconfiguration of spatial relation info of at least one of configured SRS resources for at least codebook based or non-codebook based PUSCH beam indication.” Section 7);
transmitting, by the AN (i.e. “gNB”), the MAC CE to the UE (“SearchSpace-BFR shall use the same spatial filter as the PRACH transmission until the UE receives a MAC-CE activation” section 7); and
validating, by the AN (i.e. “gNB”), the set of candidate beams at predetermined slots in response to receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) from the UE acknowledging a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signal carrying the MAC CE (“Alt 4: K symbols after successfully receiving BFR gNB response, the transmissions of PUCCH resources for HARQ ACK/NACK feedback of a corresponding DL PDSCH scheduled from SearchSpace-BFR shall use the same spatial filter as the PRACH transmission until the UE receives a MAC-CE activation or reconfiguration of PUCCH-Spatialrelationinfo of at least one of configured PUCCH resources” section 7).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery to include Qualcomm’s method for configuring PUCCH and PUSCH beam during BFR, in order to minimize transmission interruption (Qualcomm, Section 7). Thus, a person of ordinary skill would have appreciated the ability to incorporate Qualcomm’s method for configuring PUCCH and PUSCH beam during BFR into Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 9 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja discloses an Access Node (AN) (“BS 110” in Fig. 4; [0063]) for beam failure recovery (BFR) (“attempting to communicate with the network entity using one or more of the target beams according to the timing information, in response to a beam failure” [0011]), the AN comprising:
radio front end circuitry (“Transmit Processor 420” and “Receive Processor 438” in Fig. 4); and
processor circuitry (“controller/processor 440” in Fig. 4; [0063]) coupled to the radio front end circuitry and configured to:
configure a user equipment (UE) (“UE 120” in Fig. 4; [0063]) with a set of candidate beams for the BFR;
initiate, in response to detection of a beam failure instance, a beam failure recovery procedure for at least one uplink bandwidth part (BWP) associated with the UE, the beam failure recovery procedure comprising selecting one or more candidate beams from among the set of candidate beams to be activated or deactivated for the BFR,
generate a media access (MAC) control element (CE) to identify the one or more selected candidate beams for the at least one uplink BWP associated with the UE to dynamically update the set of candidate beams for the BFR,
transmit, using the radio front end circuitry, the control signal to the UE, and
validate the set of candidate beams at predetermined slots in response to receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) from the UE acknowledging a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signal carrying the MAC CE.
The scope and subject matter of apparatus claim 9 is drawn to the apparatus of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 1. Therefore apparatus claim 9 corresponds to method claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used in claim 1 rejection above.
Regarding claim 17 (Currently Amended)
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions to cause an Access Node (AN), upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the AN, to perform one or more operations, the operations comprising:
configuring a user equipment (UE) with a set of candidate beams for beam failure recovery (BFR);
in response to detection of a beam failure instance, a beam failure recovery procedure for at least one uplink bandwidth part (BWP) associated with the UE, the beam failure recovery procedure comprising selecting one or more candidate beams from among the set of candidate beams to be activated or deactivated for the BFR;
generating a control signal to identify the one or more selected candidate beams for the at least one uplink BWP associated with the UE to dynamically update the set of candidate beams for the BFR;
transmitting the control signal to the UE, and
validating the set of candidate beams at predetermined slots in response to receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) from the UE acknowledging a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signal carrying the MAC CE.
The scope and subject matter of non-transitory computer readable medium claim 17 is drawn to the computer program product of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 1. Therefore computer program product claim 17 corresponds to method claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 1 rejection above.
Claims 3-5, 8, 11-13, 16, and 19-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagaraja, in view of Qualcomm, and further in view of Jeon et al. US Pub 2019/0253986, claiming provisional application 62631332 priority 2018-02-15 (hereinafter “Jeon”).
Regarding claim 3 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja, as modified by Qualcomm, previously discloses the method of claim 1,
Nagaraja and Qualcomm do not specifically teach wherein the one or more selected candidate beams are identified in a media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) subheader with a new logical channel ID (LCID) in the MAC CE.
In an analogous art, Jeon discloses wherein the one or more selected candidate beams are identified in a media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) subheader with a new logical channel ID (LCID) in the MAC CE (“FIG. 23A shows an example of a single entry PHR MAC CE. A single entry PHR MAC CE may be identified by a MAC PDU subheader with an LCID.” [0386]; Fig. 23A).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery, as modified by Qualcomm, to include Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting, in order to minimize transmission interruption (Jeon [0002]). Thus, a person of ordinary skill would have appreciated the ability to incorporate Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting into Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 4 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja, as modified by Qualcomm, previously discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
Nagaraja and Qualcomm do not specifically teach identifying, to the UE, a serving cell identification within the MAC CE for which the MAC CE applies.
In an analogous art, Jeon discloses identifying, to the UE, a serving cell identification within the MAC CE for which the MAC CE applies (“The MAC CE may comprise one or more fields with values indicating beam failure for a cell and one or more fields with values that indicate the cell associated with that beam failure.” [0004] and furthermore “The base station may send (e.g., transmit) a MAC CE indicating activation and/or deactivation of one or more secondary cells.” [0206]; “configured serving cell index” [0375]).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery, as modified by Qualcomm, to include Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting, in order to minimize transmission interruption (Jeon [0002]). Thus, a person of ordinary skill would have appreciated the ability to incorporate Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting into Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 5 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja, as modified by Qualcomm, previously discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
Nagaraja and Qualcomm do not specifically teach identifying, to the UE, a BWP ID indicating the at least one uplink BWP for which the MAC CE applies.
In an analogous art, Jeon discloses identifying, to the UE, a BWP ID (i.e. “bandwidth part indicator”) indicating the at least one uplink BWP for which the MAC CE applies (“bandwidth part indicator (e.g., 0, 1, or 2 bits the bit width for this field may be determined based on the higher layer parameter BandwidthPart-Config for the PUSCH)” [0409]).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery, as modified by Qualcomm, to include Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting, in order to minimize transmission interruption (Jeon [0002]). Thus, a person of ordinary skill would have appreciated the ability to incorporate Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting into Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 8 (Currently Amended)
Nagaraja, as modified by Qualcomm, previously discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
Nagaraja and Qualcomm do not specifically teach configuring, for the at least one uplink BWP, a set of cell-specific candidate beams by including indices associated with the set of candidate beams in a cell-specific uplink configuration message.
In an analogous art, Jeon discloses configuring, for the at least one uplink BWP, a set of cell-specific candidate beams (i.e. “second set of RSs (beams) for candidate beam selection”) by including indices associated with the set of candidate beams (“The one or more configuration parameters of the BFR procedure may indicate a first set of RSs for beam failure detection. Additionally, or alternatively, the one or more configuration parameters of the BFR procedure may indicate one or more PRACH resources associated with a second set of RSs (beams) for candidate beam selection.” [0352]) in a cell-specific uplink configuration message (“A base station may send (e.g., transmit) one or more messages comprising configuration parameters of an uplink physical channel, or signal, for transmitting a beam failure recovery request. The uplink physical channel or signal may be based on one of: a contention-free PRACH (e.g., BFR-PRACH), which may be a resource orthogonal to resources of other PRACH transmissions; a PUCCH (e.g., BFR-PUCCH); and/or a contention-based PRACH resource (e.g., CF-PRACH).” [0344]).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery, as modified by Qualcomm, to include Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting, in order to minimize transmission interruption (Jeon [0002]). Thus, a person of ordinary skill would have appreciated the ability to incorporate Jeon’s method for beam failure reporting into Nagaraja’s method for beam recovery since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 11 (Currently Amended)
The AN of claim 9, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to:
identify the one or more selected candidate beams in a media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) subheader with a new logical channel ID (LCID) in the MAC CE.
The scope and subject matter of apparatus claim 11 is drawn to the apparatus of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 3. Therefore apparatus claim 11 corresponds to method claim 3 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 3 rejection above.
Regarding claim 12 (Currently Amended)
The AN of claim 9, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to: identify, to the UE, a serving cell identification within the MAC CE for which the MAC CE applies.
The scope and subject matter of apparatus claim 12 is drawn to the apparatus of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 4. Therefore apparatus claim 12 corresponds to method claim 4 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 4 rejection above.
Regarding claim 13 (Currently Amended)
The AN of claim 9, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to:
identify, to the UE, a BWP ID indicating the at least one uplink BWP for which the MAC CE applies.
The scope and subject matter of apparatus claim 13 is drawn to the apparatus of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 5. Therefore apparatus claim 13 corresponds to method claim 5 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 5 rejection above.
Regarding claim 16 (Currently Amended)
The AN of claim 9, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to:
configure, for the at least one uplink BWP, a subset of cell-specific candidate beams by including indices associated with the set of candidate beams in a cell-specific uplink configuration message.
The scope and subject matter of apparatus claim 16 is drawn to the apparatus of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 8. Therefore apparatus claim 16 corresponds to method claim 8 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 8 rejection above.
Regarding claim 19 (Currently Amended)
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more operations further comprise:
identifying the one or more selected candidate beams in a media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) subheader with a new logical channel ID (LCID) in the MAC CE.
The scope and subject matter of non-transitory computer readable medium claim 19 is drawn to the computer program product of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 3. Therefore computer program product claim 19 corresponds to method claim 3 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 3 rejection above.
Regarding claim 20 (Currently Amended)
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more operations further comprise:
identifying, to the UE, a serving cell identification within the MAC CE for which the MAC CE applies.
The scope and subject matter of non-transitory computer readable medium claim 20 is drawn to the computer program product of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 4. Therefore computer program product claim 20 corresponds to method claim 4 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 4 rejection above.
Regarding claim 21 (New)
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more operations further comprise: identifying, to the UE, a BWP ID indicating the at least one uplink BWP for which the MAC CE applies.
The scope and subject matter of non-transitory computer readable medium claim 21 is drawn to the computer program product of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 5. Therefore computer program product claim 21 corresponds to method claim 5 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 5 rejection above.
Regarding claim 22 (New)
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more operations further comprise: configuring, for the at least one uplink BWP, a set of cell-specific candidate beams by including indices associated with the set of candidate beams in a cell-specific uplink configuration message.
The scope and subject matter of non-transitory computer readable medium claim 22 is drawn to the computer program product of using the corresponding method claimed in claim 8. Therefore computer program product claim 22 corresponds to method claim 8 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used in claim 8 rejection above.
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.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Derrick Ferris can be reached at 571-272-3123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/CHUONG M NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411