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 .
Summary
This action is in reply to Applicant’s Amendments and Remarks filed on 01/07/2026.
Claims 11, 14 and 21-23 are pending.
Claims 1-10, 12-13 and 15-20 are cancelled.
Claim 23 is added new.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, with respect to claims 11, 14 and 21-23, filed on 01/07/2026 have been considered fully but they are moot as they are not applicable to the combinations of prior arts used in this office action.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 11, 14, 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CATT (R1-1906325 “PRACH design and UL timing advance”, hereinafter ‘CATT’) in view of Li; H. (WO 2021159449 A1 Machine Translation, hereinafter ‘LI’) and with further in view of Cheng et al. (US 20210105761 A1, of record, ‘CHENG’).
Regarding claim 11, CATT teaches a terminal (Page 3, Figure 3: UE), comprising:
a receiver (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) UE) that acquires, in a random access response, timing advance information indicating a first timing advance which is a part of a terminal- specific timing advance (Page 3, Open-Loop random access
Step 4: UE sends the PRACH signal to gNB.
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15. (TAC == TA Command).
(Construed that UE of Figure 3 performing Open Loop random access and using SCS 15 kHz receive a RAR (random access response) with TAC indicating a first TA value =< 2 ms specific for the UE in a NTN cell of radius =< 300km) ); and
a processor (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) UE) that determines a timing offset based on a location of the terminal and satellite data (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3: Common reference TA and UE specific TA calculation,
Case a: TA calculation for regenerative payload
Case b: TA calculation for bent-pipe payload
Step 1: UE gets the ephemeris information and position information, and perform DL synchronization
(Construed UE gets Satellite data)
Step 2: After DL synchronization, UE calculates the distance between the UE and the satellite. Based on broadcast signaling or proprietary information, UE gets a common reference distance for service link and gets a common reference distance for feeder link in case of bent-pipe payload mode.
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3.
(UE specific TA is construed as a timing offset based on a location of the terminal and satellite data)
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Figure 3: Common reference TA and UE specific TA calculation
), and determines the terminal-specific timing advance based at least on the first timing advance and the timing offset (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3, Case a:
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15…..
When UE position information and ephemeris information is acquired in UE side, the open-loop TA compensation can be used. In this case, UE can calculate the real TA based on the distance between UE and satellite. When UL transmission is performed, the autonomous TA compensation can be implemented.
(Construed determining by UE of Figure 3 an autonomous UE specific TA maintenance using UE specific TA of up to 2 ms in TAC for the NTN cell or the first timing advance and the UE calculated, in step 3, UE specific timing based on UE location in the NTN Cell or the timing offset)),
wherein the processor determines a timing advance for uplink transmission based on the terminal-specific timing advance and a cell-specific timing advance (
Page 1, Section 1 Introduction
In this contribution, we further analyzed PRACH and UL timing advance issues in NTN system. Potential problems and solutions are presented.
Page 3, Figure 3, Case a:
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3. ….
Based on above procedure, we can derive:
Common reference distance in service link=a distance between reference point to satellite, used to calculate UE specific TA.
UE specific TA= 2*(Propagation time from UE position to satellite –Propagation time of common reference distance in the service link).
Common reference TA= (associated with the common reference distance, which is cell specific)
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15…..
When UE position information and ephemeris information is acquired in UE side, the open-loop TA compensation can be used. In this case, UE can calculate the real TA based on the distance between UE and satellite. When UL transmission is performed, the autonomous TA compensation can be implemented.
(Construed that UE of Figure 3 performing open loop random access determines a timing advance for TA maintenance for subsequent uplink transmission using the terminal-specific timing advance based received first UE specific timing advance in a TAC in RAR and computed UE specific timing advance based on UE location in the NTN cell, the computed UE specific timing advance also include Common reference TA or a cell-specific timing advance)).
CATT does not explicitly disclose wherein the satellite data is received via higher layer signaling, and wherein the terminal-specific timing advance is a sum of the first timing advance and the timing offset
(Although CATT discloses in Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance that the TA value received in RAR and UE position information and ephemeris information is acquired in UE side for the open-loop TA compensation can be used for TA maintenance or update).
In an analogous art, LI teaches wherein the satellite data is received via higher layer signaling (
[0072]
The ephemeris information may be acquired in a manner that: the network device of the serving cell sends the ephemeris information to the terminal device ......
For example, the ephemeris information may be carried in MAC CE or RRC signaling.
[0073]
Specifically, the ephemeris information may be ephemeris data, also known as an ephemeris table, which is a table of stellar orbital parameters, that is, a table of data describing the expected position of a celestial body at regular intervals, or the expected position of a satellite at regular intervals.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to take the technique of sending satellite ephemeris or data of LI to the system of PRACH design and UL timing advance to support Non-Terrestrial network (NTN) in New Radio (NR) of CATT in order to take the advantage of a method for timing advance update to ensuring that network equipment can keep up with the changes in the TA value of terminal equipment so that network equipment can be closer to the TA value of terminal equipment during scheduling instead of always using the maximum TA value supported by the system to avoid greater service transmission delay (LI: [0001-0002]).
CATT and LI do not explicitly disclose wherein the terminal-specific timing advance is a sum of the first timing advance and the timing offset.
In an analogous art. CHENG teaches wherein the terminal-specific timing advance is a sum of the first timing advance and the timing offset (
[0283] As shown in FIG. 3, the RAR related procedure 320 includes the Random-Access Response (RAR) message (Msg2), Msg3, and Msg4. A UE may receive a TA command in Msg2, a.k.a. the TA command carried in RAR MAC CE. The UE then applies the TA to transmit Msg3.
[0284] Therefore, the TA for Msg3 can be written by:
NTA=NMsg1+NUE_correct+NNW_correct
where
[0285] NMsg1 is the TA value used to transmit Msg1, which may include common TA and/or NUE_correct in Section 2.3.1;
[0286] NNW_correct refers to the TA by NW measuring the received random access preamble and sends the value to UE via the Timing Advance Command field in MAC RAR;
[0287] NUE_correct is derived by UE from information indicated from NW related to a reference point, satellite ephemeris, Satellite orbit, satellite types (transparent or regenerative), and ground station position (if the satellite is transparent). Also, UE may acquire information on altitude, latitude based on GNSS signal…...
(It is obvious from [0284-0287] that NMsg1 providing a Cell specific TA, NUE_correct is based on location of the UE and satellite, and therefore NMsg1+ NUE_correct = timing offset, NNW_correct = the first timing advance,
then the terminal-specific timing advance NTA or NTA = (NMsg1+ NUE_correct) or the timing offset + NNW_correct or the first timing advance).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to take the technique of determining a terminal specific TA for msg3 or UL transmission of CHENG to the system of PRACH design and UL timing advance to support Non-Terrestrial network (NTN) in New Radio (NR) of CATT and LI in order to take the advantage of a method for transmission timing enhancement for different numerologies in NTNs (CHENG: [0006]).
Regarding claim 14, the claim is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 11 and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 11.
Regarding claim 21, CATT teaches a base station (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite), comprising:
a transmitter (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite) that transmits, in a random access response (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3,
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15. (TAC == TA Command).), and
a receiver that receives uplink transmission (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite) (
Page 1, Section 1 Introduction
In this contribution, we further analyzed PRACH and UL timing advance issues in NTN system. Potential problems and solutions are presented.
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3,
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
).
Further the claim 21 is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 11 and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 11.
Regarding claim 22, CATT teaches a system comprising a terminal and a base station (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a): UE and Satellite as base station), wherein the terminal (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) UE), comprising:
a receiver of the terminal (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) UE) that acquires, in a random access response, timing advance information indicating a first timing advance which is a part of a terminal- specific timing advance (Page 3, Open-Loop random access
Step 4: UE sends the PRACH signal to gNB.
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15. (TAC == TA Command).
(Construed that UE of Figure 3 performing Open Loop random access and using SCS 15 kHz receive a RAR (random access response) with TAC indicating a first TA value =< 2 ms specific for the UE in a NTN cell of radius =< 300km) ); and
a processor (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) UE) that determines a timing offset based on a location of the terminal (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3: Common reference TA and UE specific TA calculation, Case a: TA calculation for regenerative payload
Step 1: UE gets the ephemeris information and position information, and perform DL synchronization
Step 2: After DL synchronization, UE calculates the distance between the UE and the satellite. Based on broadcast signaling or proprietary information, UE gets a common reference distance for service link and gets a common reference distance for feeder link in case of bent-pipe payload mode.
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3.
(UE specific TA is construed as a timing offset)
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Figure 3: Common reference TA and UE specific TA calculation
), and determines the terminal-specific timing advance based the first timing advance and the timing offset (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3, Case a:
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15…..
When UE position information and ephemeris information is acquired in UE side, the open-loop TA compensation can be used. In this case, UE can calculate the real TA based on the distance between UE and satellite. When UL transmission is performed, the autonomous TA compensation can be implemented.
(Construed determining by UE of Figure 3 an autonomous UE specific TA maintenance using UE specific TA of up to 2 ms in TAC for the NTN cell or the first timing advance and the UE calculated, in step 3, UE specific timing based on UE location in the NTN Cell or the timing offset)),
wherein the processor determines a timing advance for uplink transmission based on the terminal-specific timing advance and a cell-specific timing advance (
Page 1, Section 1 Introduction
In this contribution, we further analyzed PRACH and UL timing advance issues in NTN system. Potential problems and solutions are presented.
Page 3, Figure 3, Case a:
Step 3: UE calculates its UE specific TA and common TA based on the reference distance and its position information, shown in the figure 3. ….
Based on above procedure, we can derive:
Common reference distance in service link=a distance between reference point to satellite, used to calculate UE specific TA.
UE specific TA= 2*(Propagation time from UE position to satellite –Propagation time of common reference distance in the service link).
Common reference TA= (associated with the common reference distance, which is cell specific)
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15…..
When UE position information and ephemeris information is acquired in UE side, the open-loop TA compensation can be used. In this case, UE can calculate the real TA based on the distance between UE and satellite. When UL transmission is performed, the autonomous TA compensation can be implemented.
(Construed that UE of Figure 3 performing open loop random access determines a timing advance for TA maintenance for subsequent uplink transmission using the terminal-specific timing advance based received first UE specific timing advance in a TAC in RAR and computed UE specific timing advance based on UE location in the NTN cell, the computed UE specific timing advance also include Common reference TA or a cell-specific timing advance)), and
a base station (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite), comprising:
a transmitter (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite) that transmits, in the random access response (
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3,
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
Page 5, Section 2.3 TA maintenance
... the TA command from RAR should address the whole cell size. In the NR Rel-15, the TAC indicates the maximum index value of TA=3846, if the SCS is equal to 15khz, up to 2ms timing advance can be indicated and it supports 300km cell radius .... if open-loop random access is used and positioning information is available in UE side, TAC range can be kept as same as Rel-15. (TAC == TA Command).), and
a receiver of the base station that receives uplink transmission (Page 3, Figure 3 Case (a) Satellite) (
Page 1, Section 1 Introduction
In this contribution, we further analyzed PRACH and UL timing advance issues in NTN system. Potential problems and solutions are presented.
Page 3, Open-Loop random access, Figure 3,
Step 5: gNB detects the PRACH signal and response to UE with RAR message.
).
Further the claim 22 is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 11 and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 11.
Regarding claim 23, CATT, in view of LI, teaches a system comprising the terminal of claim 11.
CATT and LI do not explicitly disclose wherein the cell-specific timing advance is included in a System Information Block (SIB).
CHENG teaches wherein the cell-specific timing advance is included in a System Information Block (SIB) (
[0237] More specifically, the 3GPP has made the following agreement.
Agreement in RAN1#98
Following options can be considered to support TA adjustment for UL transmission:
Option 2
Indication of common TA to all users within the coverage of the same beam with broadcasting as a baseline for signaling,
e.g., via SIB/MIB
Supported by US 62910587 Page 2)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to take the technique of sending cell specific common timing advance of CHENG to the system of PRACH design and UL timing advance to support Non-Terrestrial network (NTN) in New Radio (NR) of CATT in order to take the advantage of a method for transmission timing enhancement reducing signaling overhead in NTN (CHENG: [0002, 0077]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Liberg et al. (US 20230113042 A1), describing SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SUPPORTING COHERENT TRANSMISSIONS IN A NON-TERRESTRIAL NETWORK
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.
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/SHAH M RAHMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413