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 .
Response to Amendment
This is in response to an amendment/response filed 6/12/2026.
No claims have been cancelled.
No claims have been added.
Claims 1-16 are now pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to independent claims (pages 12-16) in a reply filed 6/12/2026 have been considered but are moot because the arguments are based on newly changed limitations in the amendment and new ground of rejections using newly introduced references or a newly introduced portion of an existing reference are applied in the current rejection.
Claim Objections
Claim 3, 7, 11, and 15 are objected to because of the following informalities: “…the first power control set or the second power control set are associated…” should be “…the first power control set or the second power control set is associated…”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1, 5, 9, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As amended, claim 1 recites:
… transmitting, to the base station via the first TRP, a second PUCCH on the first PUCCH resource that is activated with the first power control set; and transmitting, to the base station via the second TRP, a third PUCCH on the second PUCCH resource that is activated with the second power control set.
After carefully examining the instant disclosure, the examiner respectfully submits that support for this amendment is lacking and the addition of said limitation is new matter. The specification does not disclose:
transmitting, to the base station via the first TRP, a second PUCCH on the first PUCCH resource that is activated with the first power control set; and transmitting, to the base station via the second TRP, a third PUCCH on the second PUCCH resource that is activated with the second power control set.
Specifically, the specification does not disclose transmitting “a second PUCCH on the first PUCCH resource” and “third PUCCH on the second PUCCH resource”. These mappings are not mentioned in the specification (especially in paragraphs [0284]-[0298] as mentioned by the applicant).
Claim 5, 9, and 13 were amended in a similar manner. Claim 2-4, 6-8, 10-12, and 14-16 are rejected because they carry the same limitations as the rejected claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 5-6, 9-10, and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling et al. US 20230156626 (hereinafter “Ling”) in view of Sun et al. US 20240205834 (hereinafter “Sun”)
As to claim 1 and 9 (claim 1 is the method claim for the UE in claim 9):
Ling discloses:
A method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: (“The method may be implemented by a UE (e.g., UE 104 as illustrated and shown in FIG. 1)”, Ling [0038])
receiving, from a base station, a radio resource control (RRC) message including first information configuring one or more power control sets for a repetition of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission in a frequency range 1 (FR 1), second information configuring one or more PUCCH resources, (“Considering that a PUCCH repetition with one or more beams or multiple TRPs may be supported both in FR1 (low carrier frequency range) and FR2 (high carrier frequency range) and one PUCCH transmission will not be configured with spatial relation information especially in FR1”, Ling [0049]) (“For example, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, if a UE is configured by RRC to maintain M (M>=1) closed power control loops for a PUCCH transmission with one or more beams, and if the UE is configured by RRC signaling to transmit a PUCCH transmission repeatedly in multiple slots, 2 M bits are included in the TPC command field for PUCCH transmission in DCI format 1_0/1_1.”, Ling [0054])
and third information configuring indexes of initial power control sets among the one or more power control sets; (“According to the embodiments of FIG. 3, assuming that a UE is configured to maintain 2 closed power control loops by RRC signalling and the PUCCH transmission is scheduled by DCI 1_0/1_1 to provide HARQ-ACK feedback corresponding to the scheduled PDSCH, there are 4 bits in the TPC command field of the corresponding DCI, as shown in FIG. 3. Within these 4 bits, the first 2 bits in the TPC command field of DCI format 1_0/1_1 is the TPC command of closed loop index 0, and the second 2 bits in the TPC command field of DCI format 1_0/1_1 is the TPC command of closed loop index 1. The first 2 bits of the TPC command are associated with power control parameter set 0, because power control parameter set 0 includes closed loop index 0 as shown in FIG. 3. The second 2 bits of the TPC command are associated with power control parameter set 1, because power control parameter set 1 includes closed loop index 1 as shown in FIG. 3.”, Ling [0062]) (Examiner’s Note: there are multiple indices for identifying each power control set)
transmitting, to the base station, a first PUCCH based on the initial power control sets; (“In step 504, the BS receives each PUCCH repetition of the plurality of PUCCH repetitions in a time interval of a plurality of time intervals. The power for each PUCCH repetition may be determined according to the configuration information and a mapping relationship between the each PUCCH repetition and a power control parameter set of the plurality of power control parameter sets.”, Ling [0085]) (“FIG. 5 illustrates a flow chart of a method for wireless communications in accordance with some embodiments of the present application. The embodiments of FIG. 5 may be performed by a BS (e.g., BS 102 as illustrated and shown in FIG. 1).”, Ling [0080])
Ling as described above does not explicitly teach:
receiving, from the base station, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) for updating a power control set for a multiple transmission reception point (TRP) PUCCH repetition, wherein the MAC CE includes: a first power control set for a first TRP including an identifier (ID) of the first TRP, an ID of a first PUCCH resource for the first TRP, and an ID of the first power control set among the one or more power control sets, and a second power control set for a second TRP including an ID of the second TRP, and ID of a second PUCCH resource for the second TRP, and an ID of the second power control set among the one or more power control sets; and wherein the first power control set and the second power control set are activated for multiple TRPs including the first TRP and the second TRP; transmitting, to the base station via the first TRP, a second PUCCH on the first PUCCH resource that is activated with the first power control set; and transmitting, to the base station via the second TRP, a third PUCCH on the second PUCCH resource that is activated with the second power control set.
However, Sun further teaches updating power control set using MAC-CE which includes:
receiving, from the base station, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) for updating a power control set for a multiple transmission reception point (TRP) PUCCH repetition, wherein the MAC CE includes: a first power control set for a first TRP including an identifier (ID) of the first TRP, an ID of a first PUCCH resource for the first TRP, and an ID of the first power control set among the one or more power control sets, and a second power control set for a second TRP including an ID of the second TRP, and ID of a second PUCCH resource for the second TRP, and an ID of the second power control set among the one or more power control sets; and wherein the first power control set and the second power control set are activated for multiple TRPs including the first TRP and the second TRP; (“In a fifth aspect, there is provided a processor of a base station (BS). The processor of the BS configured to perform operations comprising: generating a first message for configuring a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource to be used by the UE to perform a PUCCH transmission with the BS associated with a first transmission and reception point (TRP) and a second TRP, the first message indicating: a first configuration corresponding to the first TRP, the first configuration comprising at least one power control parameter associated with the first TRP, and a second configuration corresponding to the second TRP, the second configuration comprising at least one power control parameter associated with the second TRP; and transmitting the first message to the UE.”, Sun [0008]) (“In the specific example of FIG. 2, in the signaling flow 200, the BS 110 transmits 210 a first message (such as, a RRC or MAC CE message) for configuring a PUCCH resource to be used by the UE to perform a PUCCH transmission with the BS via the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 to the UE 110. The first message indicates a first configuration corresponding to the first TRP 130-1. The first configuration comprises at least one power control parameter associated with the first TRP 130-1. The first message further comprises a second configuration corresponding to the second TRP 130-2. The second configuration comprises at least one power control parameter associated with the second TRP 130-2.”, Sun [0052]) (Table 1 indicates PUCCH resource and power control identifier, Sun) (“Specifically, the first configuration may comprise a first beam identification. The first beam identification indicates the beam associated with the first TRP. Accordingly, the second configuration may comprise a second beam identification. The second beam identification indicates the beam associated with the second TRP. In this way, the PUCCH resource may be assigned to the specific TRP. As one example, the first configuration is comprised in the PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfo, the beam identification is servingCellId and referenceSignal.”, Sun [0063])
transmitting, to the base station via the first TRP, a second PUCCH on the first PUCCH resource that is activated with the first power control set; and transmitting, to the base station via the second TRP, a third PUCCH on the second PUCCH resource that is activated with the second power control set. (“After receiving the first message, the UE 110 may determine the configuration information associated with the configured PUCCH resources. Then the UE 110 performs 220 the PUCCH transmission with the BS 120 via the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 based on the received first message.”, Sun [0065])
Ling and Sun are analogous because they both pertain to updating power control parameters for PUCCH.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include updating power control set using MAC-CE as described in Sun into Ling. By modifying the method to include updating power control set using MAC-CE as taught by Gao, the benefits of improved reliability (Sun [0034] and Ling [0036]) are achieved.
As to claim 2 and 10 (claim 2 is the method claim for the UE in claim 10):
Ling discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein the first information configuring the one or more power control sets includes at least one of an ID of a reference signal for estimating a PUCCH path loss, a value of transmission power (PO) of the UE, or an index of a closed loop for a power control of the PUCCH transmission. (“If the UE is provided pathlossReferenceRSs and is not provided PUCCH-SpatialRelationlnfo, the UE obtains the referenceSignal value in PUCCH-PathlossReferenceRS from the pucch-PathlossReferenceRS-Id with index 0 in PUCCH-PathlossReferenceRS where the RS resource is either on a same serving cell or, if provided, on a serving cell indicated by a value of pathlossReferenceLinking.”, Ling [0034])
As to claim 5 and 13 (claim 5 is the method claim for the base station in claim 13):
Claim 5 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 1 from the perspective of the base station.
As to claim 6 and 14 (claim 6 is the method claim for the base station in claim 14):
Claim 6 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 2 from the perspective of the base station.
Claim(s) 3, 7, 11, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling in view of Sun, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Chen et al. US 20240267901 (hereinafter “Chen”)
As to claim 3 and 11 (claim 3 is the method claim for the UE in claim 11):
The combination of Sun and Ling as described above does not explicitly teach:
The method of claim 1, wherein the RRC message further includes fourth information configuring a PUCCH resource group, and wherein, in case that the ID of the first PUCCH resource or the ID of the second PUCCH resource is included in the PUCCH resource group, the first power control set or the second power control set are associated with all of PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource group.
However, Chen further teaches RRC message that includes information on a PUCCH resource group which includes:
The method of claim 1, wherein the RRC message further includes fourth information configuring a PUCCH resource group, and wherein, in case that the ID of the first PUCCH resource or the ID of the second PUCCH resource is included in the PUCCH resource group, the first power control set or the second power control set are associated with all of PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource group.(“The base station may use RRC signaling to configure spatial relation information for a group of PUCCH resources (e.g., via PUCCH-ResourceGroup-r16). The IE PUCCH-ResourceGroup-r16 may include a PUCCH group ID (PUCCH-ResourceGroupId-r16) and a list of PUCCH resources (e.g., up to 16 indicated by resourcePerGroupList-r16). The base station may use a MAC CE to update (and effectively activate or deactivate) the group of PUCCH resources. The update of one PUCCH resource in the group of PUCCH resources indicates that all PUCCH resources in the group of PUCCH resources are to be updated.”, Chen [0068]) (“According to various aspects described herein, a base station may use a MAC CE (e.g., enhanced MAC CE) that is originally intended for FR2 to update power control parameters in FR1. The MAC CE for FR2 indicates both spatial settings and power control parameters and thus the UE, when updating power control parameters for FR1, may ignore or refrain from using the spatial settings in the MAC CE. That is, for a single TRP (sTRP) PUCCH, the base station may use the MAC CE to activate, deactivate, or update a set of power control parameters (in FR1) of the UE spatial relation configuration for an identified PUCCH resource (PUCCH resource ID) or for all PUCCH resources in a PUCCH resource group to which the identified PUCCH resource belongs. The UE may reuse the power control parameters (e.g., pucch-PathlossReferenceRS-Id, pucch-PathlossReferenceRS-Id. P0-PUCCH-Id) associated with a PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfold identified in the MAC CE for FR2 and not use the spatial settings (referenceSignal) associated with the PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfoId. By using the existing (enhanced) MAC CE structure that is designed for FR2 (for updating spatial relations) for updating transmit power control parameters for FR1 (where spatial relations are not updated), the base station 110 and the UE 120 may conserve processing resources and signaling resources that would otherwise be consumed for additional MAC CE structure complexity (e.g., having to process separate MAC CE for FR1 transmit control parameters). Furthermore, by indicating whether the MAC CE applies to a single PUCCH resource or to a whole group of PUCCH resources, the base station 110 and the UE 120 may conserve processing resources and signaling resources by not sending multiple MAC CEs or by not updating more PUCCH resources than necessary.”, Chen [0075])
Ling, Sun, and Chen are analogous because they both pertain to updating power control parameters for PUCCH.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include RRC message that includes information on a PUCCH resource group as described in Chen into Ling as modified by Sun. By modifying the method to include RRC message that includes information on a PUCCH resource group as taught by Chen, the benefits of improved reliability (Sun [0034] and Ling [0036]) and improved power controlling scheme (Chen [0075]) are achieved.
As to claim 7 and 15 (claim 7 is the method claim for the base station in claim 15):
Claim 7 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 3 from the perspective of the base station.
Claim(s) 4, 8, 12, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling in view of Sun, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Matsumura et al. US 20230276447 (hereinafter “Matsumura”)
As to claim 4 and 12 (claim 4 is the method claim for the UE in claim 12):
The combination of Ling and Sun as described above does not explicitly teach:
The method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting, to the base station, UE capability information indicating whether the UE supports the repetition of the PUCCH transmission via the multiple TRPs in the FR 1.
However, Matsumura further teaches UE informing the base station that it supports repetition of PUCCH transmission via TRPs which includes:
The method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting, to the base station, UE capability information indicating whether the UE supports the repetition of the PUCCH transmission via the multiple TRPs in the FR 1 (“The UE may support subslot-based PUCCH repetition using at least one of indication of a plurality of PUCCH resources (for a plurality of TRPs) and a plurality of spatial relations per PUCCH resource, and may report capability information regarding this support to the network.”, Matsumura [0102]) (“Each CC may be included in at least one of a frequency range 1 (FR1) or a second frequency range 2 (FR2). The macro cell C1 may be included in FR1, and the small cell C2 may be included in FR2. For example, FR1 may be a frequency range of 6 GHz or less (sub-6 GHz), and FR2 may be a frequency range higher than 24 GHz (above-24 GHz). Note that the frequency bands, definitions, and the like of the FR1 and FR2 are not limited thereto, and, for example, the FR1 may correspond to a frequency band higher than the FR2.”, Matsumara [0136])
Ling, Sun, and Matsumura are analogous because they both pertain to supporting repetition of PUCCH transmission.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include UE informing the base station that it supports repetition of PUCCH transmission via TRPs as described in Matsumura into Ling as modified by Sun. By modifying the method to include UE informing the base station that it supports repetition of PUCCH transmission via TRPs as taught by Matsumura, the benefits of improved reliability (Sun [0034], Matsumura [0006], and Ling [0003]) are achieved.
As to claim 8 and 16 (claim 8 is the method claim for the base station in claim 16):
Claim 8 is rejected on the same grounds of rejection set forth in claim 4 from the perspective of the base station.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW C KIM whose telephone number is (703)756-5607. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM - 5PM (PST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K Kundu can be reached at (571) 272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/A.C.K./
Examiner
Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
Prosecution Insights