DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to application number 18/060,443 filed on November 30th, 2022. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements (IDS), submitted on March 3rd, 2026, November 25th, 2025, July 25th, 2025, January 30th, 2025, January 27th, 2025, November 1st, 2024, and February 2nd, 2024, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/21/2026 has been entered.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1,8,15,22 and 29-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.103 as being unpatentable over Yuan et al. (US 20230007681 A1) further in view of Kim (US 20240237125 A1).
Regarding claims 1,8,15 and 22, Yuan et al. discloses a method for wireless communication, comprising: receiving, by a first node, a downlink control information (DCI) command scheduling a transmission of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (US 20230007681 AI Paragraph 0068 discloses “The DCI 630 may also schedule a PDSCH 640 having a HARQ ID with a value of y.”); determining, by the first node the beam state for the uplink SRS based on the DCI command, wherein the beam state is determined after one or more symbols after transmission of a response signal by the first node in response to the DCI command, and wherein the response signal comprises a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)signal for the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI command; (US 20230007681 AI Paragraph 0068 discloses “FIG. 6 is a diagram 600 showing example communications between a base station (e.g., gNB 402) and a UE 404 for activating a new beam based on an acknowledgment of a downlink transmission scheduled by a DCI. The gNB 402 may transmit an RRC message 610 that configures a TCI list, for example, by adding or removing TCI states from the TCI list. Each TCI in the TCI list may refer to a reference signal, such as CSI-RS, or SSB, or SRS. The configured TCI list may indicate parameters of TCI states that may be selected. The gNB 402 may optionally transmit a MAC-CE 620 that includes a TCI subset selection. The TCI subset selection may identify a number of TCI states that may be activated with a DCI. A TCI field in the DCI may be used to indicate the TCI. Each codepoint in the TCI field of the DCI corresponding to one of the TCI states in the subset. In particular, one codepoint may be reserved as not to indicate the new TCI. The TCI subset selection may define an identifier (ID) or index for each TCI state. The use of an index may minimize the number of bits, i.e., the length of the field in the DCI for TCI indication. The gNB 402 may transmit a DCI 630 having format 1_1 that includes a field for indicating a TCI for a control beam. The indicated TCI may be a TCI ID having a value of x that identifies one of the TCIs on the TCI list. The DCI 630 may also schedule a PDSCH 640 having a HARQ ID with a value of y. The gNB 402 may transmit the scheduled transmission of the PDSCH 640 that may or may not use a data beam based on the TCI x. Similarly, the UE 404 may receive the scheduled transmission of the PDSCH 640 that may or may not use a data beam based on the TCI x. The UE 404 may transmit an ACK 650 for the PDSCH 640 having the HARQ ID y. For example, the ACK 650 may be a UCI carried on the PUCCH. After a time offset 652, both the gNB 402 and the UE 404 may switch a respective beam for the applicable channels based on the TCI x. For example, the TCI list including the TCI x may be higher-layer configured applicable to a CORESET. In other words, the gNB 402 and the UE 404 may update the TCI used to transmit/receive the CORESET with the TCI ID x. Accordingly, the new control beam may be activated. For instance, the gNB 402 may transmit a DCI 660 using the new control beam, and the UE 404 may receive the DCI 660 using the new control beam. In an aspect, because the TCI activation is indicated using layer 1 indication in the DCI, the time offset 652 may be relatively shorter than the activation time 432. For instance, the time offset 652 may be a number of symbols sufficient to allow transmission of a DCI scheduling a retransmission of the PDSCH 640 in case the is indicated as NACK or is not received correctly.” Additionally, Paragraphs 29-30); and communicating, by the first node, the uplink SRS to a second node according to the beam state, wherein the beam state comprises a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state and is indicated by at least one TCI field. (US 20230007681 AI Paragraph 0068 discloses “The gNB 402 may transmit an RRC message 610 that configures a TCI list, for example, by adding or removing TCI states from the TCI list. Each TCI in the TCI list may refer to a reference signal, such as CSI-RS, or SSB, or SRS.” Additionally, Paragraph 0068 discloses “A TCI field in the DCI may be used to indicate the TCI.”)
Yuan et al. fails to explicitly disclose in response to a transmission parameter from a radio resource control (RRC) signaling indicating to the first node whether to determine a beam state for transmitting an uplink sounding reference signal (SRS) based on information included in the DCI command, and in response to the transmission parameter being configured as enabled based on a value included in the transmission parameter.
However, in an analogous art Kim teaches in response to a transmission parameter from a radio resource control (RRC) signaling indicating to the first node whether to determine a beam state for transmitting an uplink sounding reference signal (SRS) based on information included in the DCI command, and in response to the transmission parameter being configured as enabled based on a value included in the transmission parameter (US 20240237125 A1 Paragraph 0549 discloses “The followUnifiedTCIstateSRS may be enumerated with a single value. If this field is present (or set to enabled) for a SRS resource set, the UE may apply to the SRS resource set (or SRS resource of the SRS resource set) associated with one or more TCI states indicated in a PDSCH-config.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Yuan et al. to incorporate the teachings of Kim, in response to a transmission parameter from a radio resource control (RRC) signaling indicating to the first node whether to determine a beam state for transmitting an uplink sounding reference signal (SRS) based on information included in the DCI command, and in response to the transmission parameter being configured as enabled based on a value included in the transmission parameter., in order to allow the network to dynamically adjust the uplink connection quality in an efficient manner.
Claims 15 and 22 are rejected on same grounds of rejection as claim 1 from the perspective of the transmitter;
Regarding claims 29,30,31 and 32 Yuan et al. disclose the method of claim 1,
wherein the information included in the DCI comprises the beam state for transmitting the uplink SRS (US 20230007681 AI Paragraph 0068 discloses “The UE 404 may transmit the scheduled uplink transmission 740, which may be a PUSCH. The uplink transmission may be transmitted based on the TCI indicated by the DCI 730. Other possible uplink transmissions may include PRACH, SRS, or CSI report.”).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1,8,15 and 22 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached on 571-272-8586.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
