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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action, and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
The Examiner contacted applicant’s representative Hao Tan (No. 73,711) with incorporating claim 9 into claims 1, 13 and 28 in order to allow the application. Hao Tan (No. 73,711) informed the Examiner that applicant does not agree to the proposed amendment on February 5, 2026.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-15, 17-18, 23, 28 and 32 responded on December 10, 2025 are pending, claims 1, 3, 7-9, 28 and 32 are amended, claims 5-6 are canceled, and claims 13-15, 17-18 and 23 are withdrawn where withdrawn claims 13, 15 and 18 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claims 1 and 28 incorporated the scope of withdrawn claim 13. Applicant should incorporate allowable subject matter from elected group into claim 13 for potential rejoinder of non-elected group of claims. See MPEP 1893.03(d).
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 1-3, 7-8, 11-12, 28 and 32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (US 2018/0367205 A1. hereinafter "Liu") in view of Yuan et al. (US 2023/0224125 A1, hereinafter "Yuan").
Regarding claim 1, Liu discloses a method for indicating a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), comprising:
sending, by a base station and for a terminal one or more sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets for uplink data transmission scheduling, wherein SRS resources in the SRS resource sets are associated with beam related information (Liu, [0028] the TRP 120 allocates sounding reference signal (SRS) resources to the subset (preferred) UE transmission beams for UL channel state information (CSI) acquisition. For example, the TRP allocation may comprise sending a SRS configuration to the UE 110);
receiving, by the base station, an SRS sent by the terminal based on the SRS resource (Liu, [0029] the UE 110 can then use two analog beams, each analog beam associated with two antenna ports to transmit the SRSs); and
sending, by the base station and to the terminal, indication information corresponding to each of a plurality of beams for uplink cooperative transmission determined by the base station according to the SRS received (Liu, [0015, 40] the transmission and reception point (TRP) determines the user equipment (UE) uplink beam combination based on UE input of UE selected precoders and rank(s); The TRP 120 can determine the precoders and the rank by detecting the SRS transmitted in each UE Tx beam); and
wherein the indication information indicates the terminal to determine the beam related information corresponding to a beam for the uplink cooperative transmission (Liu, [0045] wherein the selection may include co-phasing between the selected beams and the rank for each selected beam; UE 110 is configured to send a 2-port SRS. The UE 110 selects a precoder for each port. After the TRP 120 receives this SRS the TRP 120 may find that it would be better to apply a co-phasing across those two ports on top of the precoders), and to send the PUSCH based on the beam corresponding to the beam related information determined (Liu, [0045] the UE 110 receives a selection of UL beams for UL PUSCH transmission from the TRP 120).
Liu discloses uplink indication but does not explicitly disclose wherein each of the plurality of beams corresponds to a different transmission and reception point (TRP) in the base station and wherein the indication information comprises an uplink transmission configuration indication (UL TCI) state index, and a UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with at least one of a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or the SRS as a source reference signal, and the UL TCI state is further configured to indicate a pathloss reference signal (pathloss RS) resource of a beam corresponding to the UL TCI state index.
Yuan from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein each of the plurality of beams corresponds to a different transmission and reception point (TRP) in the base station (Yuan, [0105, 0109] Beam IDs and/or beam group IDs may also implicitly indicate a panel index or TRP index, where some beam ID or beam group ID may be associated with a UE pane; include UEs 115 and base stations 105 that support multi-panel/multi-TRP communications scheme) and wherein the indication information comprises an uplink transmission configuration indication (UL TCI) state index, and a UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with at least one of a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or the SRS as a source reference signal (Yuan, [0099] a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state configuration may include one or more parameters associated with a QCL relationship between transmitted signals…for example, that provides a
mapping between a reference signal and antenna ports of another signal…a CSI RS antenna port for CSI-RS, or the like)), and the UL TCI state is further configured to indicate a pathloss reference signal (pathloss RS) resource of a beam corresponding to the UL TCI state index (Yuan, [0024] scheduling the first transmission and the second transmission of the uplink signal, identifying, from the set of transmission configuration indicator states, transmission configuration identifiers associated with the respective TRP index values, and selecting the default PLRS resources based on the transmission configuration identifiers).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SRS configuration disclosed by Liu and SRS indication information disclosed by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve network efficiency and decrease latency (Yuan, [0132]).
Regarding claim 2, Liu discloses determining, by the base station, precoding information applicable to each of the plurality of beams (Liu, [0049] The rank can be
signaled and the precoder can be indicated by an uplink grant. The precoders and the rank(s) are determined by the TRP from the UE selected precoders and rank(s). By determining the precoders and the rank(s) the TRP selects a
proper uplink beam combination); and sending, by the base station, the precoding information to the terminal (Liu, [0049] the UE receives an indication of the
precoders and the rank(s) from the TRP).
Regarding claim 3, Liu discloses wherein the indication information comprises at least one of following parameters: an SRS resource indication identifier (SRI) (Liu, [0027] the TRP 120 indicates to the UE 110 the selected beams, i.e., the subset of UE Tx beams (preferred or selected beams) from step 140 with associated TRP beam information, e.g., reference resource indicator (CRI), SRS resource indicator (SRI)) or an uplink transmission configuration indication (UL TCI) state index (Liu, [0047] the UE receives an indication of preferred UL Tx beams (based on the set of DL TRP Tx beams) with associated TRP beam information from the TRP).
Regarding claim 7, Liu does no explicitly disclose wherein in response to an uplink transmission of the terminal supporting a beam consistency, the UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with the CSI-RS as the source reference signal, or is configured with the SRS as the source reference signal.
Yuan from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein in response to an uplink transmission of the terminal supporting a beam consistency, the UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with the CSI-RS as the source reference signal, or is configured with the SRS as the source reference signal (Yuan, [0099] a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state configuration may include one or more parameters associated with a QCL relationship between transmitted signals…for example, that provides a mapping between a reference signal and antenna ports of another signal…a CSI RS antenna port for CSI-RS, or the like)).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SRS configuration disclosed by Liu and SRS indication information disclosed by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve network efficiency and decrease latency (Yuan, [0132]).
Regarding claim 8, Liu does no explicitly disclose wherein in response to an uplink transmission of the terminal not supporting a beam consistency, the UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with the SRS as the source reference signal.
Yuan from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein in response to an uplink transmission of the terminal not supporting a beam consistency, the UL TCI state indicated by the UL TCI state index is configured with the SRS as the source reference signal (Yuan, [0130] The UE 115 may determine default PLRS resources 220 for SRS transmissions to multiple TRPs 215; the active PDSCH TCI state associated with the TRP index in a TCI codepoint with a lowest ID among the TCI codepoints with a pair of TCI State).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SRS configuration disclosed by Liu and SRS indication information disclosed by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve network efficiency and decrease latency (Yuan, [0132]).
Regarding claim 11, Liu does not explicitly disclose wherein the UL TCI state
index is in one-to-one correspondence with the beam related information.
Yuan from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the UL TCI state index is in one-to-one correspondence with the beam related information (Yuan, [0105] the beam may be associated with a TCI state or spatial relation information).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SRS configuration disclosed by Liu and SRS indication information disclosed by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve network efficiency and decrease latency (Yuan, [0132]).
Regarding claim 12, Liu does not explicitly disclose wherein the UL TCI state
index corresponds to a single piece of beam related information or a plurality of pieces of beam related information (not given patentable weight due to not selected option).
Yuan from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the UL TCI state index corresponds to a single piece of beam related information (Yuan, [0105] the beam may be associated with a TCI state or spatial relation information (e.g., where transmission and reception beams may have a correspondence or reciprocity).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SRS configuration disclosed by Liu and SRS indication information disclosed by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve network efficiency and decrease latency (Yuan, [0132]).
Regarding claims 28-32, these claims recite "an electronic device" that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 1-2, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1-2 as presented above.
Claims 4 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (US 2018/0367205 A1. hereinafter "Liu") in view of Yuan et al. (US 2023/0224125 A1, hereinafter "Yuan") as applied to claim above, and further in view of Yuan et al. (US 2023/0027791 A1, hereinafter "Yuan2").
Regarding claim 4, Liu discloses UE may report the capability to a TRP but does not explicitly disclose wherein in response to the terminal being capable of supporting an uplink UL TCI state, the indication information comprises the SRI or the UL TCI state index; or in response to the terminal being incapable of supporting the uplink UL TCI state, the indication information comprises the SRI.
Yuan2 from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein in response to the terminal being capable of supporting an uplink UL TCI state, the indication information comprises the SRI or the UL TCI state index (Yuan2, [0045] n cases where a UE is able to communicate with a base station, a TRP, and/or the like on an uplink using an uplink TCI state, configuring an uplink transmit beam according to SRI may be a legacy uplink beamforming configuration); or in response to the terminal being incapable of supporting the uplink UL TCI state, the indication information comprises the SRI (Yuan2, [0048] fallback mechanism to ensure compatibility for UEs that support only legacy beamforming techniques…whether the UE 120 supports (or lacks support for) an SRI-based uplink beam indication).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Yuan2’s system for SRS indication information into Liu’s SRS configuration as modified by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve spectral efficiency, lowering costs, services (Yuan2, [0004]).
Regarding claim 10, Liu discloses sending beam configuration information to the terminal to configure a plurality of pieces of candidate beam related information for the terminal (Liu, [0027] the TRP 120 indicates to the UE 110 the selected beams with associated TRP beam information, e.g., reference resource indicator (CRI),
SRS resource indicator (SRI)) but does not explicitly disclose sending beam activation information to the terminal to instruct the terminal to activate a plurality of pieces of available beam related information in the plurality of pieces of candidate beam related information; wherein the UL TCI state index is configured to instruct the terminal to determine the beam related information corresponding to the beam for the uplink cooperative transmission in the plurality of pieces of available beam related information.
Yuan2 from the same field of endeavor discloses sending beam activation information to the terminal to instruct the terminal to activate a plurality of pieces of available beam related information in the plurality of pieces of candidate beam related information (Yuan2, [0045] a base station may support uplink beam management to configure, activate, deactivate, or otherwise update uplink SRI (e.g., which may include indications of beam and/or base station co-location parameters, QCL parameters, and/or the like), such as PUCCH spatial relations, PUSCH spatial relations, SRS spatial relations, and/or the like); wherein the UL TCI state index is configured to instruct the terminal to determine the beam related information corresponding to the beam for the uplink cooperative transmission in the plurality of pieces of available beam related information (Yuan2, [0047] the UE 120 may generally support beamformed uplink communication using uplink TCI states, and signaling between the UE 120 and the base station 110 may be used to further indicate whether the UE 120 supports SRI-based uplink beam indications to enable the base station 110 to select the appropriate uplink beam management technique to be used (e.g., uplink TCI states or SRI) for the UE).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Yuan2’s system for SRS indication information into Liu’s SRS configuration as modified by Yuan with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve spectral efficiency, lowering costs, services (Yuan2, [0004]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 9 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 9 is potentially allowable over the prior art of record Liu et al. (US 2018/0367205 A1. hereinafter "Liu") in view of Yuan et al. (US 2023/0224125 A1, hereinafter "Yuan") and Yuan et al. (US 2023/0027791 A1, hereinafter "Yuan2") as applied to the claim above.
Liu in view of Yuan and Yuan2 fails to teach alone or in combination "wherein in response to the UL TCI state being not configured to indicate a pathloss RS resource of a beam corresponding to the UL TCI state index, the method further comprises:
sending resource configuration information to the terminal to configure a pathloss RS resource associated with each of the plurality of beams".
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.
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415