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 Objections
2. Claims 4 and 14 are objected to because of the following informalities: Regarding claim 4, Applicant is requested to change conditional language “when” at line 4 to “in response to” for a positive claiming limitation, since when the condition for performing a contingent step is not satisfied, the performance recited by the step need not be carried out in order for the claimed method to be performed, see MPEP 2111.04. The same remark applies to claim 14.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
4. Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 is confusing. Since there’s only “one TCI state” at line 3; thus, the language “wherein each TCI state” at lines 4 and 7, is not a positive claiming recitation. The same remark applies to claims 11 and 20.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
5. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
6. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
7. Claims 1, 3-8, 11, 13-16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by He et al. (US 2022/0224479 – IDS CN 110535617 A), hereinafter referred to as He.
Regarding claim 1, He discloses a base station indicates (activates) a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for it through an activation command, such as media access control-control element (MAC-CE) signaling, the TCI state includes a quasi co-location (QCL) type D, i.e., a QCL-Type D downlink reference signal, see par. 0016-0017, wherein “the TCI state comprises a quasi co-location (QCL) type D”, satisfies the claim language of “one or more of:” (equivalent to a method for transmission configuration indicator, TCI, state configuration, comprising: receiving, by a terminal device, configuration of one TCI state from a network device; wherein the TCI state comprises one or more of: quasi co-location, QCL, information for downlink reception).
Regarding claim 3, He teaches: (1) the base station activates a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state for receiving the PDCCH, and a QCL reference signal of a QCL-Type D in the TCI state is a CSI-RS, see 0048 (equivalent to the reference signal configured for QCL-TypeD quasi co-location type is a synchronization signal/ physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) block, a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource, or a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource); (2) the receiving spatial filter of the reference signal is used as the transmission spatial filter of the uplink signal or the transmission spatial filter of the uplink channel, and the reference signal is used as the path loss reference signal of the uplink signal or the path loss reference signal of the uplink channel, wherein, the uplink signal includes an SRS, see 0040-0041 (equivalent to the reference signal for determining a spatial filter for uplink transmission is an SS/PBCH block, a CSI- RS resource or an SRS resource).
Regarding claim 4, a DCI on a PDCCH located in a serving cell schedules a PUCCH transmission; the base station activates a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state for receiving the PDCCH, where a QCL reference signal of a QCL-Type D in the TCI state is a CSI-RS. In addition, the UE is not provided with spatial relationship (first TCI does not include configuration of a spatial filter) information of the PUCCH. In the above case, the UE may determine a transmission spatial filter for transmitting the PUCCH according to a receiving spatial filter of a QCL reference signal (i.e., CSI-RS) of a QCL-Type D associated with a scheduled PDCCH, that is, the UE may determine a transmission beam of the PUCCH according to a receiving beam of the CSI-RS, see 0092.
Regarding claim 5, the UE may determine a transmission beam of the PUCCH according to a receiving beam of the CSI-RS, see 0092.
Regarding claim 6, He teaches: (1) for a beam indication of the PDCCH, a base station indicates (activates) a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for it through an activation command, such as media access control-control element (MAC-CE) signaling, the TCI state includes a quasi co-location (QCL) type D, i.e., a QCL-Type D downlink reference signal; for the PUCCH, the base station indicates spatial relationship information including an uplink or downlink reference signal for the PUCCH through the MAC-CE signaling, see 0016 (equivalent to receiving, by the terminal device from the network device, indication of a TCI state for common TCI state operation, through downlink control information (DCI) or a media access control (MAC) control element (CE)); (2) the base station may configure a same downlink reference signal for the TCI state (QCL- Type D) and the spatial relationship information, for example, the base station activates the TCI state for the PDCCH through the MAC-CE signaling, the TCI state includes a QCL-Type D downlink reference signal, and the base station indicates spatial relationship information with a same downlink reference signal for the PUCCH through MAC-CE signaling [...] when a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) is scheduled by a downlink control information (DCI) format 0_0, i.e., format 0_0, the UE may determine a spatial relationship of the PUSCH according to a spatial relationship corresponding to the PUCCH"), and "a DCI on a PDCCH located in a serving cell schedules a PUSCH transmission, and the DCI format is DCI format 0_0. The base station activates a TCI state set for receiving the PDSCH in the serving cell through MAC-CE signaling, where the TCI state set includes a TCI state 1, a TCI state 2 and a TCI state 3, and QCL reference signals of a QCL-Type D in the 3 TCI states are a CSI-RS 1, a CSI-RS 2 and a CSI-RS 3 respectively. In addition, the serving cell where the PUSCH is located is not configured with the PUCCH resource. In the above case, the UE may determine a transmission spatial filter for transmitting the PUSCH according to a receiving spatial filter of the QCL reference signal (i.e., CSI-RS 1) of the QCL-Type D associated with the activated TCI state (i.e., TCI state 1), where the activated TCI state is applied to a PDSCH and has a minimum TCI state identifier, i.e., ID, that is, the UE may determine the transmission beam of the PUSCH according to a receiving beam of the CSI-RS 1. In this example, the method provided in this application may be considered as a PUSCH path loss reference signal determination method. This method includes, in a case where the preset condition is satisfied, the UE determines the reference signal; and the UE determines a path loss reference signal of the PUSCH according to the reference signal. The reference signal may be a quasi co-location reference signal of a first quasi co-location type associated with an activated TCI state, where the activated TCI state is applied to a PDSCH and has a minimum TCI state identifier, i.e., ID; where the TCI state is used for indicating a quasi co-location assumption of the PDSCH. The quasi co-location reference signal includes a periodic downlink reference signal. That is, in the case where the path loss reference signal of the uplink signal or the path loss reference signal of the uplink channel is determined, the quasi co- location reference signal includes the periodic downlink reference signal.", see 0058-0061 (equivalent to applying, by the terminal device, the QCL information in the TCI state to reception on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), and applying, by the terminal device, the information for determining a spatial filter and/or a path loss reference signal in the TCI state to transmission on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) and a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH)).
Regarding claim 7, He teaches there is a PUCCH transmission in a serving cell; a base station activates a TCI state set for receiving a PDSCH in this serving cell through MAC-CE signaling, where the TCI state set includes a TCI state 1, a TCI state 2 and a TCI state 3, and QCL reference signals of the QCL-Type D in the 3 TCI states are CSI-RS 1, CSI-RS 2 and CSI-RS 3 (parameters), respectively. In addition, the UE is not provided with spatial relationship information of the PUCCH. In the above case, the UE may determine a transmission spatial filter for transmitting the PUSCH according to a receiving spatial filter of the QCL reference signal (i.e., CSI-RS 1) of the QCL-Type D associated with an activated TCI state (i.e., TCI state 1), where the activated TCI state is applied to a PDSCH and has a minimum TCI state identifier, that is, the UE may determine the transmission beam of the PUSCH according to a receiving beam of the CSI- RS 1, see 0098.
Regarding claim 8, He teaches: (1) path loss reference signal in the TCI state, see 0063; (2), the UE is configured with 2 SRS resource sets, i.e., an SRS resource set 1 and an SRS resource set 2; at a given time (such as slot n), there is an SRS 1 transmission and an SRS 2 transmission, where an SRS 1 belongs to the SRS resource set 1 and an SRS 2 belongs to the SRS resource set 2; in addition, the UE is configured with 2 CORESET, i.e., a CORESET 0 and a CORESET 1, and is located on the slot n, where the base station receives source reference signals in the QCL-Type D in a TCI state where the CORESET 0 and the CORESET 1 are activated through MAC-CE signaling, where the source reference signals in the QCL-Type D are a CSI-RS 1 and a CSI-RS 2, respectively, namely the QCL reference signals of the QCL-Type D associated with the CORESET 0 and the CORESET 1 are the CSI-RS 1 and the CSI-RS 2, respectively. If the UE is not provided with spatial relationship information of the SRS 1 and the SRS 2; it is assumed that m=1, n=1, in the above case, the UE may determine the transmission spatial filter for transmitting the SRS 1 according to a receiving spatial filter of the QCL reference signal (i.e., CSI-RS 1) of the QCL-Type D associated with a first CORESET (i.e., CORESET 0) in a nearest slot (i.e., slot n); it is assumed that m=2, n=2, in the above case, the UE may determine the transmission spatial filter for transmitting the SRS 2 according to a receiving spatial filter of the QCL reference signal (i.e., CSI-RS 2) of the QCL-Type D associated with a second CORESET (i.e., CORESET 1) in a nearest slot (i.e., slot n), see 0135.
Regarding claim 11, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 1. Therefore, it is rejected under He for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 13, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 3. Therefore, it is rejected under He for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 3.
Regarding claim 14, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 4. Therefore, it is rejected under He for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 4.
Regarding claim 15, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 5. Therefore, it is rejected under He for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 5.
Regarding claim 16, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 6. Therefore, it is rejected under He for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 6.
Regarding claim 20, please see the rejection of claim 1. The rejection of claim 1 is for a method for transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state configuration received by the terminal, and it should be noted that a network device being configured to send configuration of TCI state to a terminal device can be performed in a similar manner.
Allowable subject matter
8. Claims 9-10 and 17-19 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUC C HO whose telephone number is (571)272-3147. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8am-4pm.
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/DUC C HO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465