DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to communications filed on December 1, 2025. Claims 1, 5, and 12 have been amended. Claims 1-9 and 11-20 are pending in the application.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 1, 2025 has been entered.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, and 11-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belleschi et al. (US 2023/0007686) in view of Qiu (US 2022/0191961).
Regarding Claim 1, Belleschi teaches a method for reporting a situation of a random access, applied to a terminal device, the method comprising:
sending a situation of a random access that has been performed by the terminal device to a network device, wherein the situation of the random access comprises information related to a result of a listen before talk (LBT) detection of the terminal device in a random access attempt (“The method (450) comprises receiving, from a UE (105), a report comprising Listen Before Talk (LBT) diagnostic data for each of a plurality of attempts at random access to the access node (110) performed by the UE (105) (step 460)” – See [0147]; “For each initiated random access procedure, the diagnostic data reported to the access node 110 may contain a variety of information related to random access performance. Such information may include, for example, whether LBT was successful or not for a given preamble transmission (e.g., a msgA or msg1 transmission) or a msg3 transmission (when 4-step RACH or 2-step RACH with a fallback to 4-step RACH is performed)” – See [0148]; The UE (terminal device) sends a report to the base station (network device), wherein the report includes information related to LBT results during a random access procedure).
Belleschi does not explicitly teach a measurement result of the terminal device related to a channel occupancy of a cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report under each channel status indicator reference signal (CSI-RS).
However, Qiu teaches that a measurement result of the terminal device related to a channel occupancy of a cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report under each channel status indicator reference signal (CSI-RS) (“The RACH report further can include a list of beam indexes of the beams on which the UE has attempted the RACH procedure. The RACH report also can include the beam type (e.g., SSB or CSI-RS) for each beam on which the UE has attempted the RACH procedure. The RACH report can additionally include the number of preambles sent for each beam on which the UE has attempted the RACH procedure. The RACH report also can include the index of the beam where BFR occurs if the RACH is triggered by BFR. The RACH report further can include a BFR time stamp indicating the absolute time when BFR occurs if the RACH is triggered by BFR. The RACH report also can include the parameter contentionDetected, which indicates that a contention was detected for at least one of the transmitted preambles” – See [0088]; A contention detected indication (measurement result related to a channel occupancy of a cell where the random access is located) is comprised in a random access report, wherein the random access report further includes an index of each CSI-RS beam on which random access was attempted).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Belleschi such that a measurement result of the terminal device related to a channel occupancy of a cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report under each channel status indicator reference signal (CSI-RS). Motivation for doing so would be to provide information to the base station that it can use to determine various statistics related to beam failure/connection recovery (See Qiu, [0104]-[0105]).
Regarding Claim 2, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the method of Claim 1. Belleschi further teaches that the situation of the random access is sent by the terminal device in a random access report (“As will be described in further detail below, the 2-step/4-step RACH report may, in turn, be included in an overall RACH report” – See [0145]; The situation of the random access is sent in a RACH report).
Regarding Claim 3, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the method of Claim 1. Belleschi further teaches that at least one of the following is sent by the terminal device to the network device: indication information indicating whether an LBT failure is detected before a message 1 of a random access procedure is sent; and indication information indicating whether an LBT failure is detected before a message 3 of the random access procedure is sent (“For each initiated random access procedure, the diagnostic data reported to the access node 110 may contain a variety of information related to random access performance. Such information may include, for example, whether LBT was successful or not for a given preamble transmission (e.g., a msgA or msg1 transmission) or a msg3 transmission (when 4-step RACH or 2-step RACH with a fallback to 4-step RACH is performed)” – See [0148]; The report includes information indicating whether there is an LBT failure before msg1 transmission and/or msg3 transmission).
Claims 5 and 12 are rejected based on reasoning similar to Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 6, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the terminal device of Claim 5. Belleschi further teaches that at least one of the following is sent by the processor to the network device: indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a preamble of a message A of a random access procedure is sent; indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a payload of the message A of the random access procedure is sent; and indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a message 3 of the random access procedure is sent (“For each initiated random access procedure, the diagnostic data reported to the access node 110 may contain a variety of information related to random access performance. Such information may include, for example, whether LBT was successful or not for a given preamble transmission (e.g., a msgA or msg1 transmission) or a msg3 transmission (when 4-step RACH or 2-step RACH with a fallback to 4-step RACH is performed)” – See [0148]; The report includes information indicating whether there is an LBT failure before msgA preamble transmission and/or msg3 transmission).
Regarding Claim 11, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the terminal device of Claim 5. Belleschi further teaches that the measurement result of the terminal device related to the channel occupancy of the cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report; and/or the measurement result of the terminal device related to the channel occupancy of the cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report of each random access attempt (“The diagnostic information reported to the access node 110 about random access may additionally or alternatively include an RSSI and/or channel occupancy measured by the UE 105 in the cell 115 in which the random access procedure was executed” – See [0162]; The channel occupancy measurement result is included in the diagnostic data sent in the RACH report).
Regarding Claim 13, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 12. Belleschi further teaches that the processor is further configured to: adjust a random access resource according to the situation of the random access (“The processing circuitry is further configured to configure the UE with an adjusted random access resource allocation based on the LBT diagnostic data of at least one of the attempts at random access” – See [0076]; The bast station adjusts a random access resource allocation based on the RACH report).
Regarding Claim 14, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 13. Belleschi further teaches that the processor is further configured to: change a time-frequency location of the random access resource in response to that a plurality pieces of information related to LBT failure is received (“The smallest element of the time-frequency grid 50 is typically referred to as a resource element 52, which comprises one OFDM subcarrier during one OFDM symbol interval” – See [0141]; “configuring the UE with the adjusted random access resource allocation based on the LBT diagnostic data of the at least one of the attempts at random access comprises excluding, for the UE, a bandwidth part (BWP) used for the at least one of the attempts at random access from the random access resource allocation, and including, for the UE, a different BWP in the random access resource allocation” – See [0059]; The resources are allocated in a time-frequency fashion, wherein changing the BWP of the random access resource results in a different time-frequency location).
Regarding Claim 15, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 14. Belleschi further teaches that changing the time-frequency location of the random access resource comprises at least one of the following: changing a frequency position of a bandwidth part (BWP) where the random access resource is located; and changing a frequency position of the random access resource inside the BWP, wherein in a case that a BWP width is greater than a preset threshold, the frequency position of the random access resource inside the BWP is changed (“configuring the UE with the adjusted random access resource allocation based on the LBT diagnostic data of the at least one of the attempts at random access comprises excluding, for the UE, a bandwidth part (BWP) used for the at least one of the attempts at random access from the random access resource allocation, and including, for the UE, a different BWP in the random access resource allocation” – See [0059]; The changing of the time-frequency location of the random access resource includes changing to a different BWP, resulting in a change in the frequency position of the BWP where the random access resource is located).
Regarding Claim 16, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 13. Belleschi further teaches that the processor is further configured to: change a frequency domain position of an uplink grant allocated to a message 3 in a random access response (RAR) in response to receiving a plurality pieces of information related to LBT failure of the message 3 of a random access procedure (“configuring the UE with the adjusted random access resource allocation based on the LBT diagnostic data of the at least one of the attempts at random access comprises excluding a Physical Uplink Shared Channel resource used in the at least one of the attempts at random access from subsequent use by the UE” – See [0061]; “the access node 110 may avoid allocating PUSCH resources for the msg3 (during 4-step RACH or after 2-step fallback) in those resource blocks in which previous msg3 transmissions suffered LBT failures” – See [0188]; As shown above with respect to claim 15, the change is made to a BWP/frequency domain position of the random access resources, wherein the change is made with respect to PUSCH resource for a msg3 in response to receiving indications of a plurality of LBT failures for previous msg3 transmissions).
Regarding Claim 17, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 14. Belleschi further teaches that receiving the plurality pieces of information related to LBT failure comprises: a plurality of each random access attempt information indicating information related to LBT failure being comprised in a list of each random access attempt information in the received random access report (“In particular, according to this first signaling embodiment, for each RA attempt, the UE 105 indicates whether or not LBT was successful for the corresponding preamble (or msg3) transmission, e.g., for each transmission attempt of the preambles listed in the perRAAttemptInfoList, information about LBT is included” – See [0172]; The report includes a list of LBT failure information for each random access attempt).
Claims 7, 8, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belleschi et al. (US 2023/0007686) in view of Qiu (US 2022/0191961) and further in view of Xie et al. (US 2023/0239930).
Regarding Claim 7, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the terminal device of Claim 6. Belleschi and Qiu do not explicitly teach that at least one of the following is further sent by the processor to the network device: information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the payload of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the message 3 of the random access procedure is located; and an uplink grant received on a fallback random access response (RAR).
However, Xie teaches that at least one of the following is further sent by the processor to the network device: information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the payload of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the message 3 of the random access procedure is located; and an uplink grant received on a fallback random access response (RAR) (“At S501, a network-side device receives 2-step RA related information from a UE” – See [0161]; “Herein, the 2-step RA related information may include at least one as follows … h) Transmission parameters of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA. The transmission parameters include at least one of a frequency-domain starting position, a subcarrier spacing (when the UE is only configured with a Bandwidth Part (BWP) of the 2-step RA), a number of msgA-RO-FDM, a maximum number of the msg A transmitted before switching to the 4-step RA, a msgA-PRCH-ConfigurationIndex and a msgA-RO-FrequencyStart” – See [0138]-[0150]; The UE sends msgA-RO-FrequencyStart (information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located) to the network device).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Belleschi such that information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located is sent to the network device. Motivation for doing so would be to improve a success rate of the random access and improve communication performance (See Xie, [0111]).
Regarding Claim 8, Belleschi in view of Qiu and Xie teaches the terminal device of Claim 7. Xie further teaches that the information related to the time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises at least one of the following: a lowest frequency position used to transmit message A, msgA-RO-Frequency Start; and a number of frequency multiplexing, msgA-FDM (“At S501, a network-side device receives 2-step RA related information from a UE” – See [0161]; “Herein, the 2-step RA related information may include at least one as follows … h) Transmission parameters of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA. The transmission parameters include at least one of a frequency-domain starting position, a subcarrier spacing (when the UE is only configured with a Bandwidth Part (BWP) of the 2-step RA), a number of msgA-RO-FDM, a maximum number of the msg A transmitted before switching to the 4-step RA, a msgA-PRCH-ConfigurationIndex and a msgA-RO-FrequencyStart” – See [0138]-[0150]; Information related to the time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located includes msgA-RO-Frequency Start).
Regarding Claim 18, Belleschi in view of Qiu teaches the network device of Claim 13. Belleschi further teaches that at least one of the following is received by the processor from the terminal device: indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a preamble of a message A of a random access procedure is sent; indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a payload of the message A of the random access procedure is sent; and indication information indicating whether an LBT failure occurs before a message 3 of the random access procedure is sent (“For each initiated random access procedure, the diagnostic data reported to the access node 110 may contain a variety of information related to random access performance. Such information may include, for example, whether LBT was successful or not for a given preamble transmission (e.g., a msgA or msg1 transmission) or a msg3 transmission (when 4-step RACH or 2-step RACH with a fallback to 4-step RACH is performed)” – See [0148]; The report includes information indicating whether there is an LBT failure before msgA preamble transmission and/or msg3 transmission).
Belleschi and Qiu do not explicitly teach that at least one of the following is further received by the processor from the terminal device: information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the payload of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the message 3 of the random access procedure is located; and an uplink grant received on a fallback RAR.
However, Xie teaches that at least one of the following is further received by the processor from the terminal device: information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the payload of the message A of the random access procedure is located; information related to a time-frequency location where the message 3 of the random access procedure is located; and an uplink grant received on a fallback RAR (“The receiving module 801 is configured to receive 2-step RA related information from a UE. In an embodiment, the 2-step RA related information includes at least one of the following: … Transmission parameters of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA, the transmission parameters including at least one of a frequency-domain starting position, a subcarrier spacing, a number of msgA-RO-FDM, a maximum number of the msg A transmitted before switching to the 4-step RA, a msgA-PRACH-ConfigurationIndex and a msgA-RO-FrequencyStart” – See [0228]-[0237]; The UE sends msgA-RO-FrequencyStart (information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located) to the network device).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Belleschi such that information related to a time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located is received from the terminal device for the same reasons as those given with respect to Claim 7.
Regarding Claim 19, Belleschi in view of Qiu and Xie teaches the network device of Claim 18. Xie further teaches that the information related to the time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises at least one of the following: a lowest frequency position used to transmit message A, msgA-RO-Frequency Start; and information about a number of frequency multiplexing, msgA-FDM (“At S501, a network-side device receives 2-step RA related information from a UE” – See [0161]; “Herein, the 2-step RA related information may include at least one as follows … h) Transmission parameters of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA. The transmission parameters include at least one of a frequency-domain starting position, a subcarrier spacing (when the UE is only configured with a Bandwidth Part (BWP) of the 2-step RA), a number of msgA-RO-FDM, a maximum number of the msg A transmitted before switching to the 4-step RA, a msgA-PRCH-ConfigurationIndex and a msgA-RO-FrequencyStart” – See [0138]-[0150]; Information related to the time-frequency location where the preamble of the message A of the random access procedure is located includes msgA-RO-Frequency Start),
wherein the processor is further configured to: determine a spectrum bandwidth occupied by a sending resource of the preamble of the message based on at least one of the lowest frequency position used to transmit message A msgA-RO-Frequency Start, the information about a number of frequency multiplexing msgA-FDM, a number of PRBs occupied by each random access channel occasion (RO) unit, and a subcarrier bandwidth of a BWP (“In an embodiment, as illustrated in FIG. 5, after S501, the network-side device may also execute S502 so as to optimize network coverage and random access procedure parameters according to the 2-step RA related information. For example: 1) Information such as a frequency-domain position, an adopted preamble sequence, waiting time for the msg B and the like of the 2-step RA process with successful or failed access are determined according to at least one of information h, i, j, or l. Configuration of relevant parameters is optimized according to the above determined information” – See [0183]-[0184]; The network device determines a spectrum bandwidth occupied by the msgA preamble based on reported information and configures optimized parameters accordingly).
Claims 9 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belleschi et al. (US 2023/0007686) in view of Qiu (US 2022/0191961) and Xie et al. (US 2023/0239930) and further in view of Sun et al. (US 2022/0070919).
Regarding Claim 9, Belleschi in view of Qiu and Xie teaches the terminal device of Claim 7. Xie further teaches that the terminal device sends time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located to the network device (“the 2-step RA related information may include at least one as follows … c) Information of a PUSCH resource (e.g., size and/or position of the resource) for a msg A configured by the network side to the UE. In addition, a size of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA, a payload size of the msg A or PUSCH (i.e., size of an overall payload available in a UE buffer at a time of initiating the 2-step RA), a padding size of the msg A or PUSCH, etc. may also be included here” – See [0138]-[0143]; The terminal sends, to the network device, a time-frequency position of the PUSCH resource used for transmitting the msgA payload).
Belleschi, Qiu, and Xie do not explicitly teach that the specific information related to the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises at least one of the following: a lowest frequency position where the load is located, frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH; information about a number of frequency domain multiplexing, nrofMsgA-PO-FDM; and a number of PRBs occupied by each physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) unit, nrofPRBs-PerMsgA-PO.
However, Sun teaches using the frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH to represent the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located (“the 2-step MsgA PUSCH configuration for RACH may provide an offset from the lowest RB of first PUSCH to PRB 0 by an offset parameter such as a “frequencyStartMsgA-PUSCH”” – See [0076]; The time-frequency location of the message A payload is represented by the parameter frequencyStartMsgA-PUSCH).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Belleschi such that the information related to the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises a lowest frequency position where the load is located, frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH since the terminal is provided with this information via a 2-step MsgA PUSCH configuration (See Sun, [0076]). Thus, since the terminal is aware of this information via a 2-step MsgA PUSCH configuration, it is able to use it in the random access report to inform the network device of the resources that were used to transmit the MsgA payload.
Regarding Claim 20, Belleschi in view of Qiu and Xie teaches the network device of Claim 18. Xie further teaches that the terminal device sends time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located to the network device (“the 2-step RA related information may include at least one as follows … c) Information of a PUSCH resource (e.g., size and/or position of the resource) for a msg A configured by the network side to the UE. In addition, a size of the msg A transmitted when the UE initiates the 2-step RA, a payload size of the msg A or PUSCH (i.e., size of an overall payload available in a UE buffer at a time of initiating the 2-step RA), a padding size of the msg A or PUSCH, etc. may also be included here” – See [0138]-[0143]; The terminal sends, to the network device, a time-frequency position of the PUSCH resource used for transmitting the msgA payload),
wherein the processor is further configured to: determine a spectrum bandwidth occupied by a sending resource of the payload of the message A based on the time-frequency location (“In an embodiment, as illustrated in FIG. 5, after S501, the network-side device may also execute S502 so as to optimize network coverage and random access procedure parameters according to the 2-step RA related information. For example: … 2) For inactive and idle UE, different 2-step RA parameters are configured for the inactive and idle UE in combination with the information a and c. For example, in a case that the RA resources are limited, more 2-step RA resources may be allocated to the inactive UE to reduce a delay of the 2-step RA of the inactive UE, so as to make the inactive UE enter a connected state as soon as possible” – See [0183]-[0185]; The network device determines a spectrum bandwidth occupied by the msgA PUSCH payload based on reported information and configures optimized parameters accordingly).
Belleschi, Qiu, and Xie do not explicitly teach that the specific information related to the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises at least one of the following: a lowest frequency position where the load is located, frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH; information about a number of frequency domain multiplexing, nrofMsgA-PO-FDM; and a number of PRBs occupied by each physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) unit, nrofPRBs-PerMsgA-PO.
However, Sun teaches using the frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH to represent the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located (“the 2-step MsgA PUSCH configuration for RACH may provide an offset from the lowest RB of first PUSCH to PRB 0 by an offset parameter such as a “frequencyStartMsgA-PUSCH”” – See [0076]; The time-frequency location of the message A payload is represented by the parameter frequencyStartMsgA-PUSCH).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Belleschi such that the information related to the time-frequency location where the load of the message A of the random access procedure is located comprises a lowest frequency position where the load is located, frequency StartMsgA-PUSCH for the same reasons as those given with respect to Claim 9.
Response to Arguments
On pages 10-12 of the remarks, Applicant argues in substance that Belleschi and Wang do not teach “wherein a measurement result of the terminal device related to a channel occupancy of a cell where the random access is located is comprised in a random access report under each channel status indicator reference signal (CSI-RS)” as recited in independent claim 1. Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot based on the new grounds of rejection. In response to the amended limitations, the Examiner relies upon the newly cited Qiu reference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Scott M Sciacca whose telephone number is (571)270-1919. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday, 7:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. EST.
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/SCOTT M SCIACCA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478