Notice of DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
2. 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, would be the same under either status.
Status of Claims
1. The following is a final office action in response to the applicant’s arguments/remarks received 09/16/2026.
2. Claims 10, 12 - 14 have been amended.
3. Claims 1 - 9 have been cancelled.
4. Claims 10 – 14 are currently pending and have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
1. The information disclosure statement filed on 09/02/2026 is in compliance with the provision of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. It has been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Response to Arguments
The Applicant’s amendments to the independent claims filed on 09/16/2026 were thoroughly reviewed, the independent claims were further amended to reflect the capability information is transmitted with regards to beam failure of the different TRP in a frequency domain. The newly amended limitations to the independent claims changed the scope of the claims and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is being made.
In addition, the applicant’s representative pointed out neither the reference of Yi (US 2020/0350972) or Jang (US 12, 542, 596) discloses the following limitation of the independent claims: “…a processor that determines, based on the plurality of configurations, whether beam failure occurs in each of the plurality of TRPs…”. The examiner does agree the primary reference, Jang, which was used in the last rejection to account for the above limitation did not totally cover every aspect of this limitation, however, the examiner is quite sure the secondary reference of Yi covers the limitation above for at least the reason presented below:
Looking at paragraph 369 and ¶ 370 of Yi, it is quite clear that the wireless device is being configured with reference signals to a first TRP and second TRP for beam failure detection. Looking at ¶ 370 which states: “In an example, a wireless device may experience a first condition where the channel qualities of the one or more first reference signals of the first TRP are lower than a first threshold used to determine a beam failure of the first TRP, while the channel qualities of the one or more second references signals of the second TRP are above a threshold used to determine a beam failure of the second TRP. In an example, opposite case may occur.” This excerpt is interpreted that the UE uses the different configurations of the RS pertaining to the different TRP to determine beam failure of each TRPs. This covers the scope of the argued limitation set forth above “…a processor that determines, based on the plurality of configurations, whether beam failure occurs in each of the plurality of TRPs…”.
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).
Claim interpretation
1. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim should not be read into the claim. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369, 67 USPQ2d 1947, 1950 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (claims must be interpreted "in view of the specification" without importing limitations from the specification into the claims unnecessarily) [MPEP 2106 Sec I, C]. “Though understanding the claim language may be aided by explanations contained in the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment.” Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875, 69 USPQ2d 1865, 1868 (Fed. Cir. 2004). [MPEP 2111.01 Sec II]. Thus, the Examiner interprets Applicant’s claims "in view of the specification" and does not “import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim”.
2. When multiple limitations are connected with “OR”, one of the limitations does not have any patentable weight since both of the limitations are optional.
NOTE: The Examiner has pointed out particular references contained in the prior art of record within the body of this action for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages, paragraph and figures may apply. Applicant, in preparing the response, should consider fully the entire reference as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
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(s) 10 - 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jang et al. (US 12, 542, 596 B2) in view of Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972) and Zhou et al. (US 2022/0103233 A1).
Regarding claim 10, Jang discloses: A terminal [the terminal is seen in figure 9, label 9 -15 and 9- 35] comprising:
a transmitter that transmits [Column 41, lines 31 - 32] capability information indicating support of beam failure recovery per transmission/reception point (TRP) in a frequency domain; [Colum 41, lines 6 – 15: Based on the UE capability, the UE sends its capability to a given base station in view of beam failure recovery (BFD) which entails multiple TRPs: “…the terminal may report the number of BFD RS sets that can be configured to the terminal for partial BFR operation, the maximum number of BFD RSs, the maximum number of BFD RSs per BFD RS set, the number of TRPs connected to the BFD RS in each BFD RS set…” ]
a receiver [Column 41, liens 31 - 32] that receives a plurality of configurations for beam failure detection in a plurality of TRPs within a same serving cell; and [See column 41, Lines 18 – 25, in view of the capability sent by the UE the UE will receive from the base station configurations pertaining to TRPs: “…the base station may configure, through higher layer signaling, the terminal with the number of BFD RS sets, the maximum number of BFD RSs, the maximum number of BFD RSs per BFD RS set, the number of TRPs connected to a BFD RS in each BFD RS set, the number of candidate beam sets, and the maximum number of candidate beams per candidate beam set”.]
a processor [column 41, lines 33 – 34] [see column 35, lines 56 – 64: the MACCE includes information, such as “…Index(es) of TRPs whose radio link quality is lower than a given threshold for all RSs in the BFD RS set or BFD RS group corresponding to each TRP (or, RSs in the BFD RS set or BFD RS group corresponding to each CORESETPoolIndex)…”] [see also ¶ 0116 of Zhou used in the remaining claim 14 rejection below]
Jang does not disclose: the TRPs are within the same serving cell; determines, based on the plurality of configurations, whether beam failure occurs in each of the plurality of TRPs and capability information indicating support of beam failure recovery per transmission/reception point (TRP) in a frequency domain. Such difference is seen in the analogous reference of Yi in which the TRPS are of the same cell see ¶ 0368 in view of ¶ 0362: The TPRS are under the same serving cell/carrier/frequency in performing BFD (¶ 0368, ¶0361, ¶ 305 and ¶ 420 (multiple TRPs BFR), hence, Yi is analogous art performing similar steps as Jang. Yi further discloses determines, based on the plurality of configurations, whether beam failure occurs in each of the plurality of TRPs [Looking at paragraph 369 and ¶ 370 of Yi, it is quite clear that the wireless device is being configured with reference signals to a first TRP and second TRP for beam failure detection and in ¶ 370 states “In an example, a wireless device may experience a first condition where the channel qualities of the one or more first reference signals of the first TRP are lower than a first threshold used to determine a beam failure of the first TRP, while the channel qualities of the one or more second references signals of the second TRP are above a threshold used to determine a beam failure of the second TRP. In an example, opposite case may occur.” This excerpt is interpreted that the UE uses the different configurations of the RS pertaining to both TRP to determine beam failure of each TRPs].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Jang’s system in view of Yang. The motivation for making the above modification would have been to support one or more advanced scenarios that may not be effectively supported, examples of which is given in ¶ 0362 of Yi as “…For example, a base station/gNB may operate one or more transmission and reception points (TRPs) in a cell (or a carrier or a frequency) to enhance performance (e.g., coverage, throughput, latency, etc.).
Jang in view of Yi does not disclose: capability information indicating support of beam failure recovery per transmission/reception point (TRP) in a frequency domain. This limitation is interpreted in view of ¶ 0195 of this application’s specification submitted on 09/19/2023, whereby the TRPs are in the same frequency carrier which is interpreted by the applicant as a frequency domain.
However, in the analogous art of Zhou ¶ 0144 discloses: “… maximum number of BFD RSs the UE supports for TRP specific BFR may be a final capability including any combination (e.g., at least two) of the indicated maximum number of BFD RSs the UE supports per TRP, the indicated maximum number of BFD RSs the UE supports across all of TRPs…”., this statement is saying the final capability transmitted by the UE involved multiple TRP with the max number of BFD RS it can support, ¶ 0142 states a given TRP is associated with one or more frequency band and ¶ 0141 deals with the indicated maximum number of BFD RSs the UE supports for TRP specific BFR may include a maximum number of BFD RSs the UE supports per component carrier (CC) configured for the UE. The component carrier is interpreted as the frequency carrier/domain.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Jang’s system in view of Yang and Zhou. The motivation for making the above modification would have been enhancements for enabling per-transmission reception point (per-TRP) based beam failure recovery (BFR) [¶ 0002 of Zhou].
Claims 12 – 14 (Claim 14 is a combination of claim 12 and claim 13 limitations) recites similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 1.
Claim 11, Jang further discloses: The terminal according to claim 10, wherein the plurality of configurations corresponds to the plurality of TRPs, respectively. [See column 41, Lines 18 – 25, in view of the capability sent by the UE the UE will receive from the base station configurations pertaining to TRPs: “…the base station may configure, through higher layer signaling, the terminal with the number of BFD RS sets, the maximum number of BFD RSs, the maximum number of BFD RSs per BFD RS set, the number of TRPs connected to a BFD RS in each BFD RS set, the number of candidate beam sets, and the maximum number of candidate beams per candidate beam set”.]
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 MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR whose telephone number is (571)270-7909. The examiner can normally be reached 6:00 AM - 3:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nawaz M Asad can be reached at 571-272-3988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MAHARISHI V. KHIRODHAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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