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 § 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) 16-21 and 23-36 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cirik et al. (US 2020/0137821) in view of Awadin et al. (US 2022/0039158), and further in view of Wang et al. (US 2022/0394763).
Regarding claim 16, Cirik discloses a User Equipment ("UE") (Cirik, Fig. 3, wireless device, base station; paragraph [0004], wireless device) comprising:
at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory, and configured to cause the UE (Cirik, Fig. 3; paragraph [0072], memory and processor) to:
receive a configuration for a serving cell in a Radio Access Network ("RAN"), wherein the serving cell is configured with multiple Bandwidth Parts ("BWPs") (Cirik, Fig; Fig. 28B, step 2800B, receive configuration parameters for BFR; paragraph [0361], plurality of simultaneous active BWPs; paragraph [0377], wireless device may receive configuration parameters for BFR), wherein a plurality of the multiple BWPs are activated (Cirik, paragraph [0317], activate downlink BWP1 and UL BWP 1 and downlink BWP2 and uplink BWP2; paragraph [0361], plurality of BWPs may be active simultaneously in a cell, UL-BWP1 and UL-BWP may be active BWPs, DL-BWP1 and DL-BWP3 may be active BWPs);
detect beam failure for at least one of the multiple active BWPs (Cirik, Fig. 28B, step 2802B detect at least one beam failure according to BFR parameters; paragraph [0377], step 2802B detect a beam failure of the second downlink BWP of the second cell) comprising a downlink (“DL”) BWP having a linked uplink (“UL”) BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0362], BFR for DL-BWP-3 configured to be performed on UL-BWP-3 if the UL BWP-3 and the DL-BWP-3 are linked), wherein the linked UL BWP is deactivated when the beam failure is detected (Cirik, paragraph [0342], BFR procedure for the second downlink BWP, the wireless device may switch the active uplink BWP from the first uplink BWP to the second uplink BWP during the BFR procedure);
transmit a signaling message to an entity in the RAN in response to detecting the beam failure, the signaling message identifying a serving cell identity ("ID") and active BWPs experiencing beam failure (Cirik, Fig. 28A, step 2808A BFR MAC CE transmission; Fig. 28B, steps 2812B, 2814B; paragraph [0385], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index; paragraph [0393], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index);
autonomously activate the linked UL BWP for a random-access procedure in response to detecting beam failure for the DL BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0251], wireless device may autonomously select resource for transmitting BFR signal; paragraph [0340], random access procedure for the BFR procedure; paragraph [0342], BFR procedure for the second downlink BWP, the wireless device may switch the active uplink BWP from the first uplink BWP to the second uplink BWP during the BFR procedure; paragraph [0362], BFR for DL-BWP-3 configured to be performed on UL-BWP-3 if the UL BWP-3 and the DL-BWP-3 are linked); and
after autonomously activating the linked UL BWP, initiate a random-access procedure for beam failure recovery for the DL BWP using the linked UL BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0340], random access procedure for the BFR procedure; paragraph [0362], BFR for DL-BWP-3 configured to be performed on UL-BWP-3 if the UL BWP-3 and the DL-BWP-3 are linked).
Although Cirik discloses first and/or second UL and DL DWPs may be activated, Awadin more clearly discloses that multiple BWPs may be activated at the same time.
Awadin discloses a User Equipment ("UE") (Awadin, paragraph [0001], UE) comprising:
at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory, and configured to cause the UE (Awadin, Fig. 27B, memory ad processor) to:
receive a configuration for a serving cell in a Radio Access Network ("RAN"), wherein the serving cell is configured with multiple Bandwidth Parts ("BWPs"), wherein a plurality of the multiple BWPs are activated (Awadin, paragraph [0062], configuring the UE with BWPs and telling the UE which BWPs are active; paragraph [0133], UE is configured with multiple DL BWPs and multiple of those DL BPWs are activated at one time);
detect beam failure for at least one of the multiple active BWPs (Awadin, paragraph [0079], beam failure recovery procedure with beam failure recovery request that supports UL BWP; paragraph [0233], UE transmits BFRQ); and
transmit a signaling message to an entity in the RAN in response to detecting the beam failure (Awadin, paragraph [0079], beam failure recovery procedure with beam failure recovery request that supports UL BWP; paragraph [0233], UE transmits BFRQ).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to multiple BWPs are activated at the same time, in the invention of Cirik. The motivation to combine the references would have been to provide more channels for communication in order to increase reliability and/or communication speed.
Cirik does not explicitly disclose indicating, via a bitmap, whether each BWP of at least two BWPs is experiencing beam failure.
Wang discloses to transmit a signaling message to an entity in the RAN in response to detecting the beam failure, the signaling message identifying a serving cell identity ("ID") and at least two BWPs of the multiple active BWPs and indicate, via a bitmap, whether each BWP of the at least two BWPs is experiencing beam failure (Wang, paragraph [0220], UE can report failure using MAC CE; paragraph [0242], fields to indicate identity of serving cell, the identify of BWP; paragraph [0245], more fields to indicate identities of BWPs in the MAC CE, the UE can report failure events for multiple BWPs belonging to the same serving cell; paragraph [0247], bitmap field defined in the MAC CE to indicate trigger event for BWPs, each position in the bitmap corresponds to a BWP; paragraph [0248], bitmap field, each bit represents a specific BWP, the bit takes the value of “1” indicating a failure event, while the value of “0” indicating no failure event for the corresponding BWP).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to use a bitmap to indicate failure states for multiple BWPs that are activated at the same time, in the invention of Cirik. The motivation to combine the references would have been to efficiently provide failure information to the network.
Regarding claim 17, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 16, wherein at least one of the multiple active BWPs does not experience beam failure (Awadin, paragraph [0062], configuring the UE with BWPs and telling the UE which BWPs are active; paragraph [0133], UE is configured with multiple DL BWPs and multiple of those DL BPWs are activated at one time), wherein to transmit the signaling message, the processor is configured to cause the UE to transmit a Medium Access Control ("MAC") Control Element ("CE"), wherein the MAC CE indicates a BWP index for each active BWP experiencing beam failure (Cirik, Fig. 28A, step 2808A BFR MAC CE transmission; Fig. 28B, Fig. 28B, step 2802B detect at least one beam failure according to BFR parameters, steps 2812B, 2814B; paragraph [0385], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index; paragraph [0393], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index).
Regarding claim 18, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 16, wherein the signaling message additionally contains candidate beam information for each active BWP experiencing beam failure (Cirik, paragraph [0378], wireless device may indicate candidate beam selection).
Regarding claim 19, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 16, wherein the serving cell is a special cell, the special cell being one of a Primary Cell ("PCell") and a Primary Secondary Cell (" PSCell") (Cirik, paragraph [0294], wireless device may perform BFR for an SpCell (e.g., PCell or PSCell)).
Regarding claim 20, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 19, wherein all the multiple active BWPs experience beam failure (Cirik, Fig. 28B, step 2802B detect at least one beam failure according to BFR parameters; paragraph [0377], step 2802B detect a beam failure of the second downlink BWP of the second cell), wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to perform beam failure recovery by performing the random-access procedure (Cirik, paragraph [0340], random access procedure for the BFR procedure).
Regarding claim 21, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 19, the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to perform beam failure recovery for the DL BWP by performing the random-access procedure for beam failure recovery using the linked UL BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0340], random access procedure for the BFR procedure; paragraph [0362], BFR for DL-BWP-3 configured to be performed on UL-BWP-3 if the UL BWP-3 and the DL-BWP-3 are linked).
Regarding claim 23, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 21, wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to:
autonomously clear a configured grant on the linked UL BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0245], clear one or more configured uplink grants if SR-counter indicates a number greater than the maximum) in response to detecting beam failure for the linked DL BWP (Cirik, paragraph [0350], increment the sr-counter for a BFR response).
Regarding claim 24, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 16, wherein the serving cell is a secondary cell ("SCell") (Cirik, paragraph [0294], BFR for an SCell).
Regarding claim 25, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 24, wherein all of the multiple active BWPs experience beam failure, wherein to transmit the signaling message, the processor is configured to cause the UE to transmit a Beam Failure Recovery ("BFR") Medium Access Control ("MAC") Control Element ("CE"), wherein the BFR MAC CE indicates beam failure on the serving cell (Cirik, Fig. 28A, step 2808A BFR MAC CE transmission; Fig. 28B, steps 2812B, 2814B; paragraph [0385], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index; paragraph [0393], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index).
Claims 26-28 are rejected under substantially the same rationale as claims 16-18, respectively.
Claims 29, 31 and 33-35 are rejected under substantially the same rationale as claims 16, 17, 17, 25 and 21, respectively.
Regarding claim 30, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the base station of claim 29, wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to transmit, to the UE, at least one of: a separate active Transmission Configuration Indicator ("TCI") per active DL BWP, a separate set of beam failure detection reference signals ("BFD-RS") per active DL BWP, a separate set of DL reference signal ("RS") resources corresponding to candidate beams per active BWP, separate one or more Sounding Reference Signals ("SRS") resource sets per active UL BWP, or a combination thereof (Cirik, paragraph [0482], configuration parameters comprise candidate RSs for candidate beam selection and parameters of an uplink BWP and a downlink BWP).
Regarding claim 32, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the base station of claim 31, wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the base station to transmit, to the UE, a scheduling request ("SR") resource configuration for the MAC CE, wherein the signaling message is received on configured SR resources (Cirik, Fig. 28A, step 2808A BFR MAC CE transmission; Fig. 28B, steps 2812B, 2814B; paragraph [0385], wireless device may send a BFR MAC CE to the base station comprising the second cell index and the second downlink BWP index; paragraph [0237] SR configurations; paragraph [0252], BFR signal may be a scheduling request).
Regarding claim 32, Cirik in view of Awadin, and further in view of Wang discloses the UE of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to detect candidate beam information for each active BWP experiencing beam failure (Cirik, paragraph [0378], wireless device configured with candidate beam list; paragraph [0379], wireless device may asses radio link quality of the candidate RSs, candidate RSs may have quality better than a threshold; paragraph [0482], configuration parameters comprise candidate RSs for candidate beam selection and parameters of an uplink BWP and a downlink BWP).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed October 20, 2025 have been fully considered but they not persuasive.
Applicant asserts that Cirik appears to disclose that only one BWP of a serving cell may be active at a given time. However, this is incorrect. Cirik discloses, for example in paragraph [0317], activate downlink BWP1 and UL BWP 1 and downlink BWP2 and uplink BWP2; and in paragraph [0361], plurality of BWPs may be active simultaneously in a cell, UL-BWP1 and UL-BWP may be active BWPs, DL-BWP1 and DL-BWP3 may be active BWPs. Additionally, Awadin discloses, for example in paragraph [0062], configuring the UE with BWPs and telling the UE which BWPs are active; and in paragraph [0133], UE is configured with multiple DL BWPs and multiple of those DL BPWs are activated at one time.
Applicant further asserts that Cirik does not disclose “after autonomously activating the linked UL BWP, initiate a random-access procedure for beam failure recovery for the DL BWP using the linked UL BWP.” However, this is incorrect. Cirik discloses for example, in paragraph [0251], wireless device may autonomously select resource for transmitting BFR signal; and in paragraph [0270], that BWP switching may be used to activate an inactive BWP; and in paragraph [0340], random access procedure for the BFR procedure; and in paragraph [0342], that in a BFR procedure for the second downlink BWP, the wireless device may switch the active uplink BWP from the first uplink BWP to the second uplink BWP during the BFR procedure; and in paragraph [0362], BFR for DL-BWP-3 configured to be performed on UL-BWP-3 if the UL BWP-3 and the DL-BWP-3 are linked.
Applicant further asserts that the statement, in Cirik, that “The wireless device may switch the active BWP of the first cell from the first uplink BWP to the second uplink BWP during the BFR process” means that the BFR procedure of Cirik is initiated before the autonomous activating of the linked UL BWP. However, this is incorrect. Firstly, any subset of the set of steps disclosed as part of beam failure recovery may be interpreted to be the claimed “a random-access procedure.” Accordingly, steps that come after the autonomous activation in Cirik may be interpreted as the claimed “a random access procedure.” Secondly, the terminology “during the BFR process” does not exclude a step from being the first step of the BFR process. Accordingly, autonomously activating a BWP as the first step of a random access procedure could be referred to as “during” the procedure or “prior” to the procedure, depending on what steps are interpreted as being part of the procedure, when the same sequence of steps are being performed.
Conclusion
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/ALAN L LINDENBAUM/Examiner, Art Unit 2466
/Nishant Divecha/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2419