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 .
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on 2/25/26 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Patent No. US 11438048 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 2/25/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
For claim 1, Applicant argues that “Tandra has not been shown to disclose a ‘BFRQ indicates whether a new beam has been identified for the first CC, wherein the BFRQ includes a field having a value that indicates whether the new beam has been identified for the first CC,’ as in claim 1” because [0076] of Tandra does not disclose “a field having a value that indicates whether the new beam has been identified for the first CC,’ as in claim 1” because Tandra “merely includes a ‘field indicating the number of frequency tones,’ allocated to "a plurality of users." in [0076].
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. Tandra in [0076] recites “The AP 104 may allocate the second subset of the plurality of bits to a field indicating a number of frequency tones allocated to each of a plurality of users when the value indicates the OFDMA packet, as previously described in connection with FIG. 6. In such implementations, the AP 104 may sequentially include in each of the second subset of the plurality of bits of the field indicating the number of frequency tones, a value of 1 for each frequency tone allocated to a particular user of the plurality of users for each of the plurality of users, and a value of 0 indicating a separation of frequency tone allocations between each of the plurality of users.”. In other words, for each user a field is used to indicate tones/beams for the user comprising a plurality of bits, each bit corresponding to a tone/ beam with bit value 1 indicating the tone/beam is used and bit value 0 indicating the tone/CC is NOT used. Therefore, the cited claim limitation is clearly disclosed. There are no hindsight issues exist.
For dependent claim 38, Applicant argues Even that even if the statement in D2 that a "MAC CE ... can ... report the new beam ID ... by explicit bit information," is considered to correspond to "MAC-CE has a format for carrying new beam information (NBI)," D2 does not disclose or suggest that "the value of the field indicates that no new beam has been identified for the first CC," as in claim 38.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees.
For dependent claim 39, Applicant argues declares beam failure and identifies a new candidate beam," which directly contradicts claim 39 that states "the value of the field indicates that no new beam has been identified for the first CC". Therefore, Applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. As explained in claim 1, each tone/beam has a corresponding bit in the field, with bit value 1 indicating the tone/beam is present and bit value 0 indicating the tone/beam is NOT present. Therefore, Applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
For dependent claim 40, Applicant argues that D2 “fails to disclose or suggest ‘receiving, prior to the BFRQ, a candidate beam list for the secondary cell, wherein the value of the field indicates that the UE has not identified the new beam for the secondary cell,’ as in claim 40”.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. As explained above, each bit in the field corresponding to a beam in the secondary cell, with the bit value 1 indicating the beam being identified/used for the UE, and the bit value 0 indicating the beam NOT being identified/used for the UE. Therefore, Applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
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.
Claims 1-8,10-20 and 22-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2 (3GPP R1- 1902813, NPL dated 7/15/22, 22 Pages) in view of Tandra (US 20150163028 A1).
For claim 1, D2 discloses a method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (Figure 2.1, (a) shows a wireless communication system including gNB and UE), comprising:
detecting a beam failure on a first component carrier (CC) that is associated with a secondary cell (Figure 2-1: both (a) and (b) show “BFR is detected” on a first CC of SCell that is associated with a secondary cell PCell); and
transmitting a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) to a base station on a second CC (Section 2.3, 1st para “When BFR on SCell is detected by UE, UE should transmit BFR request to gNB” in view of FIG. 2-1, wherein BFRQ is transmitted on a second CC PCell/FR1), wherein the BFRQ include a field in BFRQ indicating the NBI (and Section 1, 3rd Agreement, Alt 1: “For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure and identifies a new candidate beam. o UE reports new beam information by or after BFRQ”, suggesting BFRQ include an NBI, which implies that there must be a field in BFRQ for the NBI).
D2 does not specifically state that the BFRQ field for NBI having a value that indicates whether new beam information (NBI) has been present in the BFRQ. However, it is a common practice in the art to use a list of bits (a field) to present an element list, with each bit associated with an element of the element list. Each bit has two values 1 and 0, with value 1 indicating one feature of the associated element (e.g. present) while value 0 indicating the opposite feature (e.g., absent). Tandra, for example, teaches this practice by disclosing a field with a plurality of bits with each bit indicating a beam/tone of a beam/tone list, with value 1 of each bit indicating that the beam/tone of the bit is used as a new beam and value 0 indicating the beam/tone is not used as a new beam (“[0076] The AP 104 may allocate the second subset of the plurality of bits to a field indicating a number of frequency tones allocated to each of a plurality of users when the value indicates the OFDMA packet, as previously described in connection with FIG. 6. In such implementations, the AP 104 may sequentially include in each of the second subset of the plurality of bits of the field indicating the number of frequency tones, a value of 1 for each frequency tone allocated to a particular user of the plurality of users for each of the plurality of users, and a value of 0 indicating a separation of frequency tone allocations between each of the plurality of users.”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply this common practice as disclosed by Tandra above to the BFRQ field for NBI disclosed by D2, with each bit of the field is related to a candidate beam, value 1 of the bit indicates that the associated candidate beam is used as the New Beam and value 0 indicates that the candidate beam is NOT used as the New Beam. The value of the field (the bit list) is 0 if none of the candidate beams are used as the new beam because every bit in the field having a value of 0. Therefore, the BFRQ field for NBI as constructed above is a BFRQ field having a value that indicates whether new beam information (NBI) has been present.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 and Tandra by applying the teaching of Tandra to the BFRQ field for NBI by D2 for the benefit of carrying desired information in a communication message.
Claim 13 is rejected because it is the corresponding apparatus claim that performs the method of claim 1 and has the same subject matter as claim 1.
Claim 26 is rejected because it is the corresponding method that performed at the base station of the same wireless system of the claim 1 and has the same subject matter.
Claim 29 is rejected because it is the corresponding apparatus claim that performs the method of claim 26 and has the same subject matter as claim 26.
As to claims 2, 14, 27 and 30, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1, 13, 26 and 29, D2 further disclose wherein the BFRQ is transmitted in at least one of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Page 6, the para under subtitle UL channel of BFR request, “… Following are possible options: BFR request is transmitted by Alt. 1: PRACH Alt. 2: PUCCH (PUCCH SR based transmission) Alt. 3: MAC CE on PUSCH …”).
As to claims 3 and 15, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 2 and 14, D2 further disclose wherein transmitting the BFRQ includes: transmitting a scheduling request on the PUCCH in response to detecting the beam failure on the first CC (Page 6, the para under subtitle UL channel of BFR request, “… Following are possible options: BFR request is transmitted by Alt. 1: PRACH Alt. 2: PUCCH (PUCCH SR based transmission) Alt. 3: MAC CE on PUSCH …”); receiving an uplink grant in response to the scheduling request (page 5, Proposal 2-6: “When UE detects BFR on SCell, UE receives BFR response from the BFR detected SCell.”; note that the response includes uplink grant, Examiner takes an official notice on this statement); and transmitting the MAC-CE comprising the NBI (Page 6, the para under subtitle UL channel of BFR request, “… Following are possible options: BFR request is transmitted by Alt. 1: PRACH Alt. 2: PUCCH (PUCCH SR based transmission) Alt. 3: MAC CE on PUSCH …” in view of the parent claims, wherein the NBI is included in BFRQ).
As to claims 4 and 16, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose wherein the BFRQ is transmitted in resources configured in the second CC to indicate the BFRQ for the first CC (Section 2.1, 1st para “We believe the important use case of BFR on SCell is for FR1-FR2 CA. In case of FR2-FR2 intra-band CA and SCell is co-located with P/PSCell, BFR on SCell is not essential because gNB can be aware of BFR on SCell when UE declares BFR on P/PSCell by assuming that common beam pair is used between SCell(s) and P/PSCell …” in view of the parent claims and Figure 2-1, wherein BFRQ is transmitted in the second CC Pcell to indicate the BFRQ for the first CC SCell).
As to claims 5 and 17, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 4 and 16, D2 further disclose: receiving a configuration of the resources in the second CC for transmission of the BFRQ for the first CC (page 3, Agreement box, 2nd bullet, 3rd sub-bullet, “Alt 3: SCell BFD RS can be in current CC or another CC for both explicit and implicit configuration” and Section 1, 3rd Agreement, Alt 1: “For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure” and Section 2.1, 1st para “We believe the important use case of BFR on SCell is for FR1-FR2 CA. In case of FR2-FR2 intra-band CA and SCell is co-located with P/PSCell, BFR on SCell is not essential because gNB can be aware of BFR on SCell when UE declares BFR on P/PSCell by assuming that common beam pair is used between SCell(s) and P/PSCell” in view of Figure 2-1 and the parent claims).
As to claims 6 and 18, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose: determining whether to include NBI in the BFRQ based on a determination to transmit the BFRQ to the base station on the first CC or the second CC (page 6, Proposal 2-8, “UE transmits SR based PUCCH to SCell to inform BFR request if UE is configured PUCCH on SCell” and “UE transmits SR based PUCCH to PCell to inform BFR request if UE is not configured PUCCH on SCell” in view of FIG 2-3, wherein (a) shows on the first CC SCell and (b) shows BFRQ to second CC PCell).
As to claims 7 and 19, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose: wherein the BFRQ including the field having a value indicating that NBI is present in the BFRQ (“Alt 1: For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure and identifies a new candidate beam. * UE reports new beam information by or after BFRQ” in view of the parent claims that teach a value indicating whether NBI is present in the BFRQ).
As to claims 8 and 20, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose: wherein the BFRQ without the NBI is transmitted to the base station on the first CC (), wherein a new beam is indicated based on one or more resources of BFRQ (Observation 2-3, second bullet “PUCCH SR based or PRACH based can also report the new beam ID in addition to BFRQ implicitly (by the resource selection)” in view of the parent claims).
As to claims 10 and 22, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose: identifying the new beam for the first CC, wherein the BFRQ is transmitted to the base station on the first CC using a random access channel (RACH) procedure when the new beam for the first CC is identified (Observation 2-3, second bullet “PUCCH SR based or PRACH based can also report the new beam ID in addition to BFRQ implicitly (by the resource selection)”).
As to claims 11 and 23, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 10 and 22, D2 further discloses: wherein a resource configuration for the first CC is indicated using a contention free RACH (CFRA) procedure, wherein the BFRQ is transmitted on the first CC based on an indicated resource configuration (Observation 2-3, second bullet “PUCCH SR based or PRACH based can also report the new beam ID in addition to BFRQ implicitly (by the resource selection)”).
As to claims 12 and 24, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further disclose: measuring a beam failure detection (BFD) RS on the first CC, wherein the beam failure is detected on the first CC by measuring the BFD RS (Section 1, 2nd Agreement “Alt 3: SCell BFD RS can be in current CC or another CC for both explicit and implicit configuration”).
As to claim 25, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claim 13, D2 further disclose: a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor (the transceiver of gNB in view of the parent claim).
As to claim 28, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claim 27, D2 further disclose: transmitting a configuration of resources in the second CC for transmission of the BFRQ for the first CC, wherein the BFRQ is received in the resources configured in the second CC (Section 1, 2nd Agreement “Alt 3: SCell BFD RS can be in current CC or another CC” and Section 1, 3rd Agreement, Alt 1: “For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure” and in view of the parent claim).
As to claims 31 and 34, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1 and 13, D2 further discloses: wherein a first value of the field indicates that NBI is included in the BFRQ and a second value of the field indicates that the NBI is not identified for the first CC (Section 2.3, 1st para “When BFR on SCell is detected by UE, UE should transmit BFR request to gNB” and Section 1, 3rd Agreement, Alt 1: “For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure and identifies a new candidate beam” in view of Figure 2-1; or Section 2.2, Proposal 2-3: For BFRQ, support Alt. 3 of RAN1 AH_1901: Alt 3: For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure * UE may report new beam information during BFR procedure …”; note “may” suggests there are two values for two cases).
As to claims 32 and 35, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 31 and 34, D2 further discloses: wherein the field comprises the second value that indicates that the NBI is not included in the BFRQ (p2, Alt1: “UE reports new beam information by or after BFRQ” and Proposal 2-3: For BFRQ, support Alt. 3 of RAN1 AH_1901: Alt 3: For SCell BFR, BFRQ can be transmitted if UE declares beam failure * UE may report new beam information during BFR procedure …” in view of the parent claims; note “may” suggests there is an option that NBI is not included).
As to claims 33 and 36, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 31 and 34, wherein a zero value for the field indicates that the NBI is not included in the BFRQ (as explained by the parent claims).
As to claim 37, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claims 1, D2 further discloses: wherein the second CC is associated with a primary cell (Figure 2-1, particularly Figure 2-1 (b)).
As to claim 38, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: wherein transmitting the BFRQ includes transmitting a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) including the BFRQ, wherein the MAC-CE has a format for carrying new beam information (NBI) (p2, Alt1: “UE reports new beam information by or after BFRQ”; and Page 4, the para above Observation 2-3 “… PUCCH UCI based or MAC CE based (especially for configured grant PUSCH) can easily report the new beam ID in addition to BFRQ by explicit bit information …”), and the value of the field indicates that no new beam is identified for the first CC (as explained in the parent claim).
As to claim 39, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claim 1, wherein the value of the field indicates that no new beam is identified for the first CC (as explained in the parent claim, wherein D1 discloses each tone/beam has a corresponding bit in the field, with bit value 1 indicating the tone/beam is present and vit value 0 indicating the tone/beam is NOT present).
As to claim 40, D2 in view of Tandra discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses receiving, prior to the BFRQ, a candidate beam list for the secondary cell (Figure 2-2 shows a list of candidate beam list, comprising two SCell beams), wherein the value of the field indicates that the UE has not identified the new beam for the secondary cell (as explained in the parent claim, wherein D1 discloses each tone/beam has a corresponding bit in the field, with bit value 1 indicating the tone/beam is present and vit value 0 indicating the tone/beam is NOT present).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 JIANYE WU whose telephone number is (571)270-1665. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 8am-6pm.
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/JIANYE WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462