DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/261036 filed on 07/11/2023 is presented for examination by the examiner.
Claims 5-24 are pending. Claims 1-4 were cancelled.
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 . 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 for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection.
Allowable Subject Matters
Claims 10, 12, 20, 22 are 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. Claims 11 and 21 are objected since they depend on claims 10 and 20 respectively.
Response to Arguments
On Applicant’s remark, Applicant argues that NTT does not disclose the scope of the limitations “any confirmation of successfully receiving the DCI and a particular bit for signaling the successful reception of the DCI. In addition, there is no teaching in the cited portion of NTT of any transmit or receive based on this DCI feedback bit indicating that the UE successfully received the DCI”. In response Examiner respectfully disagree.
As stated in, p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3, NTT discloses “If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated (i.e. applied), Alt.2 after a HARQ-ACK (i.e. HARQ is a digital technology **emphasis added**) transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI”. As such, NTT discloses “confirmation of successfully receiving the DCI and a particular bit for signaling the successful reception of the DCI”. Furthermore, as stated in, p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1, NTT discloses “UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS”. As such, based on the NTT’s disclosure above, NTT discloses “transmit or receive based on this DCI feedback bit indicating that the UE successfully received the DCI”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 5-9, 13-19, 23-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by NTT DOCOMO, INC “Discussion on multi-beam operation”, R1-2009174, Oct. 26th – Nov. 13th, 2020 (From Applicant’s IDS)
As per claim 5, NTT discloses “A base station, comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the base station to: transmit downlink control information (DCI) to a (UE), wherein the DCI comprises a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) field,” as [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.] “and the TCI field signals at least one common beam for transmissions on at least one channel and/or at least one reference signal (RS) resource;” [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.] “receive a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) codebook from the UE, wherein the HARQ codebook comprises a downlink DCI feedback bit indicating whether the UE successfully received the DCI; and transmit or receive on the at least one channel and/or the at least one RS resource in response to the DCI feedback bit indicating that the UE successfully received the DCI based on the TCI field signaled in the DCI” [(p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), To avoid misunderstanding of the common TCI b/w UE and gNB, the common TCI should be updated after the “confirmation” of the DCI indicating the common TCI. If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.]
As per claim 6, NTT discloses “A method performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: receiving downlink control information (DCI) from a base station, wherein the DCI comprises a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) field, and the TCI field signals at least one common beam for transmissions on at least one channel and/or at least one reference signal (RS) resource;” as [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.] “transmitting a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) codebook to the base station, wherein the HARQ codebook comprises a DCI feedback bit indicating whether the UE successfully received the downlink control DCI;” [(p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), To avoid misunderstanding of the common TCI b/w UE and gNB, the common TCI should be updated after the “confirmation” of the DCI indicating the common TCI. If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.] “and applying a TCI state indicated by the TCI field to the at least one channel and/or the at least one RS resource in response to successfully receiving the DCI.” [(p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), To avoid misunderstanding of the common TCI b/w UE and gNB, the common TCI should be updated after the “confirmation” of the DCI indicating the common TCI. If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.]
As per claim 7, NTT discloses “The method of claim 6,” as [see rejection of claim 6.] “wherein the at least one channel comprises a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), or a combination thereof, and the at least one RS resource comprises at least one channel state information (CSI) RS (CSI-RS) resource and/or at least one sounding reference signal (SRS) resource” [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.]
As per claim 8, NTT discloses “The method of claim 6,” as [see rejection of claim 6.] “wherein the DCI feedback bit comprises an acknowledgement (ACK) in response to the UE successfully receiving the DCI and a non-acknowledgement (NACK) in response to the UE not successfully receiving the DCI” [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.]
As per claim 9, NTT discloses “The method of claim 6,” as [see rejection of claim 6.] “wherein transmitting the HARQ codebook to the base station comprises transmitting the HARQ on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)” [(p.6, 3. Signaling mechanism of common TCI framework: Proposal 3-1), For separate common TCI indication, MAC CE activates multiple common TCIs - UL DCI selects one common TCI for UL, which is applied to multiple UL channels, e.g. PUSCH/PUCCH/SRS. (p.18-19, 7. Conclusion: Proposal 3-3), If UL DCI indicates the common TCI, the common TCI should be updated after a HARQ-ACK transmission to the UL DCI reception which indicates the common TCI.]
As per claim 13, NTT discloses “The method of claim 6,” as [see rejection of claim 6.] “wherein the DCI feedback bit is an extra feedback bit transmitted with feedback bits corresponding to at least one transport block (TB) and/or at least one code block group (CBG)” [(p.7 – 3.2 Applicable timing of the DCI indication of the common TCI), In case DL DCI indicates the common TCI, if PDSCH is correctly decoded, HARQ-ACK is transmitted. Since the requirement of ACK to NACK error rate is less than 0.1%, we propose to update the common TCI after UE sends HARQ-ACK.]
As per claim 14, NTT discloses “The method of claim 6,” as [see rejection of claim 6.] “wherein applying the TCI state indicated by the TCI field to the at least one channel and/or the at least one RS resource in response to successfully receiving the DCI comprises applying the TCI state no earlier than a predetermined time after transmitting the HARQ codebook, and the predetermined time is determined by a specification or by a radio resource configuration (RRC) protocol” [(p.7 – 3.2 Applicable timing of the DCI indication of the common TCI), In case DL DCI indicates the common TCI, if PDSCH is correctly decoded, HARQ-ACK is transmitted. Since the requirement of ACK to NACK error rate is less than 0.1%, we propose to update the common TCI after UE sends HARQ-ACK.]
As per claims 15-19, 23-24, as [see rejections of claim 5-9, 13-14.]
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mang Hang Yeung whose telephone number is (571)-270-7319 The examiner can normally be reached on Mon through Th (9:00 am to 4:00pm EST).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rebecca Song can be reached on (571) 270-3667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANG HANG YEUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2417