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 § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-9, 11-19 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 13 and 22 recite “transmitting, to the wireless network, information identifying one or more capabilities including a capability of the UE to perform independent beam management of multiple Component Carriers (CC) for inter-band CA, wherein the capability to perform independent beam management indicates the UE can transmit or receive simultaneously on multiple CC using arbitrary beams for each CC for inter-band CA operation based on a beam search on each band.”
Applicants original Specification does not disclose that the capability message includes information that the UE’s ability to transmit or receive simultaneously on multiple CC using arbitrary beams for each CC for inter-band CA operation is based on a beam search on each band. Applicant’s original Specification discloses that the UE may determine a second beam based on a beam search performed to determine a first beam. However, there is no disclosure of information regarding being “based on a beam search” being present in a UE capability information transmitted to the network.
Claims 2-9, 11-12 and 14-19 are rejected because they depend from independent claims 1, 13 and 22.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-9, 11-19 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SAMSUNG: "Remaining details on QCL", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-1717634-QCL V2, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE ; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES ; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX ; FRANCE, vol. RAN WG1, no. Prague, Czech Republic; 20171009 - 20171013 8 October 2017 (2017-10-08), XP051340820 (cited in Applicant’s IDS filed on July 5, ,2022) (Hereafter, R1-1717634) in view of APPLE INC: "Remaining Issues on Multi-beam operation", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-1912824, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE ; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX ; FRANCE, vol. RAN WG1, no. Reno, USA; 20191118 - 20191122 9 November 2019 (2019-11-09), XP051823624 (cited in Applicant’s IDS filed on July 5, ,2022) (Hereafter, R1-1912824), and further in view of Shaheen et al (US 2018/0092085).
Regarding claim 1, R1-1717634 discloses a method carried out in a User Equipment (UE), for establishing communication with a wireless network using inter-band Carrier Aggregation (CA) (R1-1717634, pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, first paragraph, aggregation of CCs in different bands(inter-band CA) for a UE), comprising:
transmitting, to the wireless network, information identifying one or more capabilities including a capability of the UE to perform independent beam management of multiple Component Carriers (CC) for inter-band CA, wherein the capability to perform independent beam management indicates the UE can transmit or receive simultaneously on multiple CC using arbitrary beams for each CC for inter-band CA operation (R1-1717634, page 5, Section 5 Inter-carrier/BWL QCL, first paragraph, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report; page 6, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph of page 7, for inter-band CA, NR should support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs; UE should report its capability of simultaneous beamforming across CCs which can be included in UE capability information) based on a beam search on each band (R1-1717634, pages 5-6, Section 4.1, second paragraph, UE can monitor QCL references by monitoring SS blocks to find its best Rx beam), and
wherein the information includes specific frequency bands or combination of frequency bands within which CCs are supported during CA (R1-1717634, second paragraph of page 7, indication of CC by index, for inter-band CA, NR should support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs; UE should report its capability of simultaneous beamforming across CCs which can be included in UE capability information);
receiving, from a base station of the wireless network and based on the one or more capabilities, configuration information indicative of co-location properties of a first CC in a first band and a second CC in a second band (R1-1717634, page 1, QCL parameters, Case 3, all the TRPs corresponding to a cell; page 4, Section 4.1, gNB configures TCI fields to support transmission from other TRPs; page 6, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier/BWL QCL, first paragraph, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report; page 7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph of page 7, for inter-band CA, NR should support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs, RF implementation type of a device effects capability of simultaneous beamforming across CCs which should be taken into account by gNB before choosing beam management option), the configuration information includes an indication that a downlink transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for the first and second CCs is quasi co-located to indicate that a beam search on one CC is applicable to another CC (R1-1717634, page 4. Section 4.1, signaling of QCL via TCI field; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph, selected beam of one CC can be re-used for the other CCs by assuming spatial QCL; proposal 10, result of beam management of CC1 is also applied to CC2); and
establishing communication between the UE and the wireless network using the first and the second CC (R1-1717634, pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, first paragraph, aggregation of CCs in different bands(inter-band CA) for a UE).
R1-1717634 does not explicitly disclose that the UE capability report includes inter-carrier capabilities, but it would have been obvious, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, in view of the disclosures in R1-1717634 (1717634 , page 6, Section 5 Inter-carrier/BWP QCL, for same or different CCs, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report; page 7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph of page 7), for intra-band and inter-band CA, support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs; UE should report its capability of simultaneous beamforming across CCs which can be included in UE capability information) to include inter-band capabilities in the UE capability report. The motivation would have been to inform the network whether scheduling inter-band CA would be permissible.
Additionally, the Examiner includes the R1-1912824 reference, which also discloses that the UE capability report includes inter-carrier capabilities.
R1-1912824 discloses transmitting, to the wireless network, information identifying a capability of the UE to perform independent beam management of multiple Component Carriers (CC) for inter-band CA, wherein the capability to perform independent beam management indicates the UE can transmit or receive simultaneously on multiple CC using arbitrary beams for each CC for inter-band CA operation based on a beam search on each band, and wherein the information includes specific frequency bands or combination of frequency bands within which CCs are supported during CA (R1-1912824, page 6, section 2.1, first paragraph, with regard to inter-band CA, … UE can report which bands belong to band group via UE capability reporting; R1-1912824 discloses “With regard to inter-band CA, the bands that are closed may be QCLed with regard to QCL-TypeD. Thus, to save the signaling overhead, it should be supported that a MAC CE can be used to update the TCI states for CORESETs/PDSCH for a group of CCs within a band(s) group. UE can report which bands belong to a band(s) group via UE capability reporting.” Accordingly, R1-1717634 discloses that the UE should report its capability with regard to the specific bands belonging to a bands group. A UE’s indication, in its capability reporting, of specific bands which are inter-band carrier-aggregated, would indicate to the network that inter-band CA is supported);
receiving, from a base station of the wireless network and based on the one or more capabilities, configuration information indicative of co-location properties of a first CC in a first band and a second CC in a second band, the configuration information includes an indication that a downlink transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for the first and second CCs is quasi co-located to indicate that a beam search on one CC is applicable to another CC (R1-1912824, page 6, section 2.1, first paragraph, with regard to inter-band CA, MAC CE can be used to update TCI states for a group of CCs within a bands group, UE can report which bands belong to band group via UE capability reporting).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that the UE capability report includes inter-carrier capabilities, in the invention of R1-1717634. The motivation to combine the references would have been to determine whether to configure inter-band QCL based on UE capabilities.
Additionally, in order to facilitate prosecution, the Examiner includes the Shaheen reference, which more explicitly discloses that a UE capability report includes particular capabilities and features regarding inter-band Carrier Aggregation, and wherein the information includes specific frequency bands or combination of frequency bands within which CCs are supported during CA (Shaheen, Table 18: UE-EUTRA-Capability field descriptions: bandCombinationListEUTRA - One entry corresponding to each supported band combination listed in the same order as in supportedBandCombination; BandCombinationParameters-v1090 - If included, the UE shall include the same number of entries, and listed in the same order, as in BandCombinationPararneters-rl0; BandCombinationParameters-v1130 The field is applicable to each supported CA bandwidth class combination (i.e. CA configuration in TS 36.101 [42, Section 5.6A.1]) indicated in the corresponding band combination. If included, the UE shall include the same number of entries, and listed in the same order, as in BandCombinationParameters-rl0; interBandTDD-CA-WithDifferentConfig - Indicates whether the UE supports inter-band TDD carrier aggregation with different UL/DL configuration combinations. The first bit indicates UE supports the configuration combination of SCell DL subframes are a subset of PCell and PSCell by SIB1 configuration and the configuration).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that the UE capability report includes particular capabilities and features regarding inter-band Carrier Aggregation, in the invention of R1-1717634. The motivation to combine the references would have been for the network to determine whether to configure inter-band QCL based on UE capabilities.
Regarding claim 2, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the information indicative of co- location properties is received based on the capabilities indicating affirmative capability to perform independent beam management on the first and the second band (R1-1717634, page 4, Section 4.1, gNB configures TCI fields to support transmission from other TRPs; page 6, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier/BWL QCL, first paragraph, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report; page 7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph of page 7, support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs).
Regarding claim 3, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the information indicative of co- location properties is received based on the capabilities indicating affirmative capability to perform independent beam management within a common spherical region on the first and the second band (R1-1717634, page 1, QCL parameters, Case 3, all the TRPs corresponding to a cell; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, first paragraph, aggregation of CCs in different bands(inter-band CA) for a UE; page 7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph of page 7, support independent beam management for each of CCs where spatial QCL is not assumed between different CCs).
R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824 does not explicitly disclose that a coverage area of a cell may be a spherical region. However, the Examiner takes official notice that it is well known in the art of cellular wireless communications a coverage area of a cell may be a spherical region, as disclosed in Applicant’s Prior Art Fig. 1.
Regarding claim 4, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the information indicative of co- location properties is received based on the capabilities indicating affirmative capability to perform aligned non-independent beam management on the first and the second band (R1-1717634, page 1, QCL parameters, Case 3, all the TRPs corresponding to a cell; page 6, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier/BWL QCL, first paragraph, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, first paragraph, aggregation of CCs in different bands(inter-band CA) for a UE).
Regarding claim 5, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the received information indicates that the first and second CC are co-located (R1-1717634, page 1, QCL parameters, Case 3, all the TRPs corresponding to a cell; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, first paragraph, aggregation of CCs in different bands(inter-band CA) for a UE).
Regarding claim 6, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein establishing comprises
determining a first beam in the first band by performing a beam search (R1-1717634, pages 6-7, Section 4.1, second paragraph, UE can monitor QCL references by monitoring SS blocks to find its best Rx beam);
determining a second beam the second band based on said beam search and said information (R1-1717634, pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph, selected beam of one CC can be re-used for the other CCs by assuming spatial QCL; proposal 10, result of beam management of CC1 is also applied to CC2).
Regarding claim 7, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the received information indicates co-location of a first transmission point (TRP)
Regarding claim 8, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 1, comprising obtaining an instruction to use a common downlink (DL) (TCI)
Regarding claim 9, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 8, wherein said instruction is provided in the received information (R1-1717634, page 4. Section 4.1, signaling of QCL via TCI field; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph, selected beam of one CC can be re-used for the other CCs by assuming spatial QCL; proposal 10, result of beam management of CC1 is also applied to CC2).
Regarding claim 11, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 8, wherein obtaining an instruction comprises
transmitting, to the base station, a request to use a common DL TCI state for all CCs (R1-1717634, page 6, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier/BWL QCL, first paragraph, restriction on using QCL configuration of CCs based on UE capability report); and
receiving the instruction, which instruction identifies approval to use the common DL TCI state (R1-1717634, page 4. Section 4.1, signaling of QCL via TCI field; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph, selected beam of one CC can be re-used for the other CCs by assuming spatial QCL; proposal 10, result of beam management of CC1 is also applied to CC2).
Regarding claim 12, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the first CC and the second CC are obtained with the same DL TCI state (R1-1717634, page 4. Section 4.1, signaling of QCL via TCI field; pages 6-7, Section 4.2 Inter-carrier QCL, second paragraph, selected beam of one CC can be re-used for the other CCs by assuming spatial QCL; proposal 10, result of beam management of CC1 is also applied to CC2).
Claims 13-19 are rejected under substantially the same rationale as claims 1-4 and 7-9.
Claim 22 is rejected under substantially the same rationale as claim 1.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed November 13, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant asserts that the claims are patentable because the R1-1717634 and R1-1912824 do not disclose the amended claim language, but Applicant does not include any analysis or reasoning of why the cited portions of the references do not disclose the claim language. Applicant is incorrect. As discussed in the claim rejections, R1-1717634 in view of R1-1912824, and further in view of Shaheen discloses all of the claim limitations.
In order to facilitate prosecution, the Examiner includes the Shaheen reference, which more explicitly discloses that a UE capability report includes particular capabilities and features regarding inter-band Carrier Aggregation, and wherein the information includes specific frequency bands or combination of frequency bands within which CCs are supported during CA (Shaheen, Table 18: UE-EUTRA-Capability field descriptions: bandCombinationListEUTRA - One entry corresponding to each supported band combination listed in the same order as in supportedBandCombination; BandCombinationParameters-v1090 - If included, the UE shall include the same number of entries, and listed in the same order, as in BandCombinationPararneters-rl0; BandCombinationParameters-v1130 The field is applicable to each supported CA bandwidth class combination (i.e. CA configuration in TS 36.101 [42, Section 5.6A.1]) indicated in the corresponding band combination. If included, the UE shall include the same number of entries, and listed in the same order, as in BandCombinationParameters-rl0; interBandTDD-CA-WithDifferentConfig - Indicates whether the UE supports inter-band TDD carrier aggregation with different UL/DL configuration combinations. The first bit indicates UE supports the configuration combination of SCell DL subframes are a subset of PCell and PSCell by SIB1 configuration and the configuration).
Conclusion
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/ALAN L LINDENBAUM/ Examiner, Art Unit 2466
/Nishant Divecha/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2419