Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to a communication received on August 18, 2025.
This application has been reassigned to a new examiner. Please see the end of the office action for contact information.
Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statements received September 11, 2025 and May 20, 2026 have been considered, with the exception of WO 2022/099249 since a copy was not provided.
Response to Arguments
The 35 USC §101 rejection of claims 2, 6-11 and 17 is hereby withdrawn in light of applicant’s amendments and arguments.
The 35 USC §112(a) rejection of claims 2, 6-11 and 17 is hereby withdrawn in light of applicant’s amendments and arguments.
The 35 USC §112(b) rejection of claims 2, 6-11 and 17 is hereby withdrawn in light of applicant’s amendments and arguments.
The 35 USC §103 rejection of claims 1-20 is hereby withdrawn in light of applicant’s amendments and arguments. However a new rejection has been in made as necessitated by the amendments.
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.
Claim 1-3 and 5-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khoshnevisan et al (US 2023/0208598 hereinafter “Khoshnevisan”) in view of Liou et al (US 2019/0297637, hereinafter “Liou”).
Regarding claim 1, Khoshnevisan teaches a method for a User Equipment (UE), the method comprising:
receiving a first Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) (¶44, wherein control information is sent through PDCCH, ¶67 and ¶72 wherein the UE received PDCCH configurations on a higher layer that includes CORESETS which contain different TCI states)) indicating:
a first Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state comprising at least one of a first downlink (DL) TCI state or a first joint TCI state (¶32-33, wherein the CORESETS include configuration for one or more TCI states, ¶31, wherein the TCI states configure the UE to receive a PDSCH); and
a second TCI state comprising at least one of a second DL TCI state or a second joint TCI state, wherein at least one of the first TCI state or the second TCI state is configured to be applied for one or more receptions comprising one or more UE- dedicated DL receptions after a first time (¶32-33, wherein multiple TCI states are configured in a CORESET pool, ¶31, wherein the TCI states configure the UE to receive a PDSCH);
receiving a second PDCCH after the first time (¶44, wherein control information is sent over the PDCCH, ¶¶64-66, wherein the DCI is sent to the UE in control information, which can be sent through a PDCCH);
when a scheduling offset between the second PDCCH and a scheduled DL reception comprising is smaller than a threshold (¶¶68-70, wherein the UE calculates the threshold difference between the DCI, received in a PDCCH in at least one embodiment, and the duration before the scheduled DL RS (scheduled PDSCH), determining a third TCI state to use for the scheduled DL reception (¶70, wherein when the scheduling offset is less than a threshold, the UE applies a default QCL, which is a third TCI state) based on at least one of:
at least one of receiving or buffering the scheduled DL reception based on one or more TCI states comprising the third TCI state (¶73, wherein the default TCI state is used to configurate a beam to receive the PDSCH).
However, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate that the scheduled DL reception comprises a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) or determining a third TCI state to use for the scheduled DL reception further includes a determination, by the UE, of whether or not a first reference signal (RS) associated with the first TCI state is associated with a serving cell of the UE; or a determination, by the UE, of whether or not a second RS associated with the second TCI state is associated with the serving cell.
Liou teaches a system for scheduling PDSCH transmissions using PDCCH configuration, wherein the PDSCH transmission can comprise CSI-RS signals (¶¶102-108); determining a third TCI state to use for the scheduled DL reception further includes a determination, by the UE, of whether or not a first reference signal (RS) associated with the first TCI state is associated with a serving cell of the UE; or a determination, by the UE, of whether or not a second RS associated with the second TCI state is associated with the serving cell (¶¶182-186, only selecting the lowest CORESET-ID of the serving cell, rather than any cell).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion that the PDSCH transmission can include CSI-RS and that when the time between the DCI and the schedule DL RS is below a threshold, only selecting a CORESET which is from the same serving cell. in Khoshnevian’s system. The combination would ensure that Khoshnevian’s system would allow for cross-carrier scheduling, while also dealing with situations when the scheduled DL is below a threshold time to allow for decoding the DCI and also receiving the DL-RS in a short time frame. The combination would result in ensuring the DS RS information can include CSI-RS which is a typical communication type and that the default TCI state would not be a non-serving cell DL to help ensure the PDSCH is actually received or buffered rather switching cells in a short time window.
Regarding claim 16, Khoshnevisan teaches a method for a User Equipment (UE), the method comprising:
receiving a first Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) (¶44, wherein control information is sent through PDCCH, ¶67 and ¶72 wherein the UE received PDCCH configurations on a higher layer that includes CORESETS which contain different TCI states)) indicating:
a first Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state comprising at least one of a first downlink (DL) TCI state or a first joint TCI state (¶32-33, wherein the CORESETS include configuration for one or more TCI states, ¶31, wherein the TCI states configure the UE to receive a PDSCH); and
a second TCI state comprising at least one of a second DL TCI state or a second joint TCI state, wherein at least one of the first TCI state or the second TCI state is configured to be applied for one or more receptions comprising one or more UE- dedicated DL receptions after a first time (¶32-33, wherein multiple TCI states are configured in a CORESET pool, ¶31, wherein the TCI states configure the UE to receive a PDSCH);
receiving a second PDCCH after the first time (¶44, wherein control information is sent over the PDCCH, ¶¶64-66, wherein the DCI is sent to the UE in control information, which can be sent through a PDCCH);
when a scheduling offset between the second PDCCH and a scheduled DL reception is smaller than a threshold (¶¶68-70, wherein the UE calculates the threshold difference between the DCI, received in a PDCCH in at least one embodiment, and the duration before the scheduled DL RS (scheduled PDSCH), determining a third TCI state to use for the scheduled DL reception based on the first TCI state (¶70, wherein when the scheduling offset is less than a threshold, the UE applies a default QCL, which is a third TCI state), wherein:
a first reference signal (RS) associated with the first TCI state is associated with a serving cell; a second RS associated with the second TCI state is associated with the serving cell (¶90, wherein the UE is configured with different CORESETS for the same serving cell);
a TCI codepoint is indicative of a first octet index associated with the first TCI state and a second octet index associated with the second TCI state; and the first octet index is lower than the second octet index (see Figures 7A and 7B, ¶65 wherein the codepoints are assigned to 8 values); and
at least one of receiving or buffering the scheduled DL reception based on one or more TCI states comprising the third TCI state.
However, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate that the scheduled DL reception comprises a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS).
Liou teaches a system for scheduling PDSCH transmissions using PDCCH configuration, wherein the PDSCH transmission can comprise CSI-RS signals (¶¶102-108).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion that the PDSCH transmission can include CSI-RS in Khoshnevian’s system to allow the PDCCH to help make better use of the special QCL to receive all types of information for PDSCH transmissions.
Regarding claim 2, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 1, wherein at least one of: the UE does not support receiving or buffering a DL reception based on two TCI states (¶¶80-2, wherein UE capability not maintain two TCI states or received two beams simultaneously, the UE defaults to a single QCL); or when a scheduling offset between a PDCCH and the DL reception scheduled by the PDCCH is smaller than a threshold, the UE receives or buffers the DL reception based on one TCl state (¶¶68-70 and ¶73 wherein the UE receives the PDSCH based upon the default QCL/default TCI state when the duration is less than a threshold).
Regarding claim 3, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 1, wherein at least one of: the first RS and the second RS are associated with quasi-colocation (QCL) type- D assumption; the first RS is associated with a first cell or a second cell; or the second RS is associated with the first cell or the second cell (¶30-33 wherein the TCI states can be mapped to QCL assumptions, ¶61 wherein in at least one embodiments the TCI states are associated with QCL-TypeD assumptions).
Regarding claim 5, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 1.
However, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate wherein at least one of:
at least one of the first RS or the second RS is associated with a second cell;
the second cell is not associated with a serving cell index;
the second cell is associated with an index for configuring an additional Physical Cell Identity (PCI);
the second cell is a non-serving cell; or the second cell is an additional cell.
Liou teaches a system for performing cross carrier scheduling, wherein the UE can be configured with multiple CORESETS and those CORESETS can be associated with separate serving cells, thus the first and second RS can be associated with a non-serving cell (See fig 6, elements 605 and 610, and ¶390, wherein the first PDCCH and provide CORESETs of non-serving cells) and that a TCI state should be selected based up the TCI state being associated with the current serving cell (¶¶406-408).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion of managing cross carrier TCI states in Khoshnevisan’s system, the combination would allow Khoshnevisan’s system to account for TCI states that are on different serving cells and ensure when there is a schedule offset issue the default TCI state would be within current serving cell (see ¶¶400-406).
Regarding claim 6, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2, wherein: the first RS is associated with the serving cell and the second RS is associated with the serving cell (¶90, wherein the UE is configured with different CORESETS for the same serving cell); the first TCI state and the second TCI state are associated with a TCI codepoint (¶90, wherein the CORESETS have different TCI states associated with a TCI codepoint), wherein an octet for indicating the first TCI state is in an earlier ordinal position than another octet for indicating the second TCI state (see Figures 7A and 7B, ¶65 wherein the codepoints are assigned to 8 values); and the third TCI state is determined based on the first TCI state, wherein the first TCI( state corresponds to at least one of a DL TCI state in the TCI codepoint or a joint TCI state in the TCI codepoint (¶70, ¶81, ¶¶93-94 and ¶97-99, wherein the UE applies a default QCL to the beam configuration based upon the UE capability, priority, and lowest index value, wherein the lowest index value can be a first TCI state provided when configuring the TCI codepoints).
Regarding claim 7, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2, wherein: the first RS is associated with the serving cell and the second RS is associated with the serving cel (¶90, wherein the UE is configured with different CORESETS for the same serving cell); and the third TCl state is determined based on a TCl state, of the first TCl state and the second TCl state, that has a lowest TCl state identity (ID) among a first TCl state ID associated with the first TCl state and a second TCl state ID associated with the second TCl state (¶70, ¶81, ¶¶93-94 and ¶97-99, wherein the UE applies a default QCL to the beam configuration based upon the UE capability, priority, and lowest index value, wherein the lowest index value can be a first TCI state provided when configuring the TCI codepoints).
Regarding claim 8, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2, wherein: the first RS is associated with the serving cell and the second RS is associated with a second cell (¶90, wherein the UE is configured with different CORESETS for the same serving cell); and the third TCl state is determined based on the first TCl state in response to the first RS being associated with the serving cell (¶72 and ¶81, wherein the default QCL is determined to be within the active BWP of the serving cell).
Regarding claim 9, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2, wherein: the first RS is associated with the serving cell (¶90, wherein the TCI states are associated with CORESETS of the serving cell) and; and the third TCI state is determined based on a TCI state of a Control Resource Set (CORESET) with a lowest CORESET identity (ID) among one or more CORESET IDs of one or more CORESETs in one or more slots (¶72, wherein in at least one embodiment the lowerest CORESET ID is used).
Hhowever, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate that the second RS is associated with a second cell.
Liou teaches a system for performing cross carrier scheduling, wherein the UE can be configured with multiple CORESETS and those CORESETS can be associated with separate serving cells (See fig 6, elements 605 and 610, and ¶390, wherein the first PDCCH and provide CORESETs of non-serving cells).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion of managing cross carrier TCI states in Khoshnevisan’s system, the combination would allow Khoshnevisan’s system to account for TCI states that are on different serving cells and ensure when there is a schedule offset issue the default TCI state would be within current serving cell (see ¶¶400-406).
Regarding claim 10, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2.
However Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate the first RS is associated with a second cell and the second RS is associated with the second cell; and the third TCl state is determined based on a TCl state in a TCl codepoint with a lowest TCl codepoint index among TCl codepoints comprising at least one TCl state that is associated with a RS associated with the serving cell and comprises at least one of a DL TCl state or a joint TCl state.
Liou teaches a system for performing cross carrier scheduling, wherein the UE can be configured with multiple CORESETS and those CORESETS can be associated with separate serving cells (See fig 6, elements 605 and 610, and ¶390, wherein the first PDCCH and provide CORESETs of non-serving cells) and that a TCI state should be selected based up the TCI state being associated with the current serving cell (¶¶406-408).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion of managing cross carrier TCI states in Khoshnevisan’s system, the combination would allow Khoshnevisan’s system to account for TCI states that are on different serving cells and ensure when there is a schedule offset issue the default TCI state would be within current serving cell (see ¶¶400-406).
Regarding claim 11, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2.
However, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate wherein: the first RS is associated with a second cell and the second RS is associated with the second cell; and the third TCI state is determined based on a TCl state of a Control Resource Set (CORESET) with a lowest CORESET identity (ID) among one or more CORESET IDs of one or more CORESETs in one or more slots.
Liou teaches a system for performing cross carrier scheduling, wherein the first RS is associated with a second cell and the second RS is associated with the second cell (See fig 6, elements 605 and 610, and ¶390, wherein the first PDCCH and provide CORESETs of non-serving cells) and and the third TCI state is determined based on a TCl state of a Control Resource Set (CORESET) with a lowest CORESET identity (ID) among one or more CORESET IDs of one or more CORESETs in one or more slots (¶¶406-408).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion of managing cross carrier TCI states in Khoshnevisan’s system, the combination would allow Khoshnevisan’s system to account for TCI states that are on different serving cells and ensure when there is a schedule offset issue the default TCI state would be within current serving cell (see ¶¶400-406).
Regarding claim 12, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: based on the UE supporting receiving a DL reception based on two TCI states, the one or more TCI states used to at least one of receive or buffer the scheduled DL reception comprise two TCI states (¶¶79-82, wherein the default can be a TCI codepoint that indicates two TCI states).
Regarding claim 13, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 12, wherein: the one or more TCI states used to at least one of receive or buffer the scheduled DL reception comprise the first TCI state and the second TCI state; and at least one of the first RS or the second RS is associated with the serving cell (¶¶79-82, wherein the default can be a TCI codepoint that indicates two TCI states, wherein the TCI states are of the serving cell and the TCI states were configured in PDCCH based upon assigned TCI codepoints).
Regarding claim 14, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 12, wherein: the one or more TCI states used to at least one of receive or buffer the scheduled DL reception are determined based on a TCI codepoint with a lowest TCI codepoint index among TCI codepoints comprising two TCI states associated with a RS associated with the serving cell (¶¶79-82, wherein the default can be a TCI codepoint that indicates two TCI states, and the default is the lowest TCI codepoint).
However, Khoshnevisan does not explicitly indicate that the first RS is not associated with the serving cell and the second RS is not associated with the serving cell.
Liou teaches a system for performing cross carrier scheduling, wherein the UE can be configured with multiple CORESETS and those CORESETS can be associated with separate serving cells (See fig 6, elements 605 and 610, and ¶390, wherein the first PDCCH and provide CORESETs of non-serving cells).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the application to use Liou’s suggestion of managing cross carrier TCI states in Khoshnevisan’s system, the combination would allow Khoshnevisan’s system to account for TCI states that are on different serving cells and ensure when there is a schedule offset issue the default TCI state would be within current serving cell (see ¶¶400-406).
Regarding claim 15, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 2, wherein
the UE receives a third PDCCH after the first time (¶44, wherein control information is sent over the PDCCH, ¶¶64-66, wherein the DCI is sent to the UE in control information, which can be sent through a PDCCH, this can occur any number of times to provide more DCI with TCI codepoints); and
when a scheduling offset between the third PDCCH and a second scheduled DL reception comprising at least a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) scheduled by the third PDCCH is smaller than a second threshold (¶¶79-82, when the schedule offset/duration between the received DCI and scheduled PDSCH is less than a threshold),
determining the third TCI state to use for the second scheduled DL reception is based on the first TCI state (¶¶79-82, wherein the default TCI state is determined based upon the received TCI codepoints).
Regarding claim 17, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 16, wherein at least one of:
the UE does not support receiving or buffering a DL reception based on two TCI states (¶80, UE may not support simultaneous reception of beams);
when a scheduling offset between a PDCCH and the DL reception scheduled by the PDCCH is smaller than a threshold, the UE receives or buffers the DL reception based on one TCl state (¶¶78-82); or
the UE determines the third TCI state to be at least one of the first DL TCI state or the first joint TCI state (¶¶80-82, wherein the default TCI state may be one TCI state when the UE does not support dual beam receiption).
Regarding claim 18, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 16, wherein: based on the UE supporting receiving a DL reception based on two TCI states, the one or more TCI states used to at least one of receive or buffer the scheduled DL reception comprise two TCI states (¶¶79-82, wherein the default can be a TCI codepoint that indicates two TCI states).
Regarding claim 19, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 18, wherein: the one or more TCI states used to at least one of receive or buffer the scheduled DL reception comprise the first TCI state and the second TCI state (¶¶79-82, wherein the default can be a TCI codepoint that indicates two TCI states).
Regarding claim 20, Khoshnevisan teaches the method of claim 17, wherein the UE receives a third PDCCH after the first time (¶44, wherein control information is sent over the PDCCH, ¶¶64-66, wherein the DCI is sent to the UE in control information, which can be sent through a PDCCH, this can occur any number of times to provide more DCI with TCI codepoints); and
when a scheduling offset between the third PDCCH and a second scheduled DL reception comprising at least a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) scheduled by the third PDCCH is smaller than a second threshold (¶¶79-82, when the schedule offset/duration between the received DCI and scheduled PDSCH is less than a threshold),
determining the third TCl state to use for the second scheduled DL reception is based on the first TCl state (¶¶79-82, wherein the default TCI state is determined based upon the received TCI codepoints).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khoshnevisan in view of Liou, and in further view of Min et al (US 2024/0172054, hereinafter “Min”).
Regarding claim 4, Khoshnevisan, as improved by Liou, teaches the method of claim 1.
However, the combination does not explicitly indicate wherein at least one of:
the serving cell is associated with a serving cell index; or
the serving cell is not associated with an index for configuring an additional Physical Cell Identity (PCI).
Min teaches a system of scheduling PDSCH RS, wherein the serving cell and other cells are associated with index values (¶¶38-41).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to use Min’s suggestion of having IE values of server index values of serving cells and secondary cells in Khoshnevisan’s system, this would allow the PDCCH of Khoshnevisan provide upper layer configuration of both the serving cell and the secondary cells which will allow the UE to distinguish between those cells based upon the IE information and make TCI decisions based on that information. The combination would better allow the CORESET configuration and management of TCI states based upon the associated cell.
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2023/0115642 issued to Matsumura et al because it discloses managing default TCI states received in DCI of a PDCCH.
US 2022/0158805 issued to Frenne et al because it discloses it managed configuring TCI states include a two or more TCI states within DCI activation.
US 2021/0045141 issued to Lee et al because it discloses how to handle a TCI state when the scheduling offset of the DCI and the scheduled DL is less than a threshold (see fig 11).
US 2023/0132040 issued to Gao et al because it discloses multi-DCI based PDSCH transmission.
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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/KEVIN T BATES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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