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
1. 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.
2. 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 of this title, 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 and 14-26 and 18-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. US 2022/0065357 (Provisional Application 63/082,852) to Mostafa et al. (hereinafter Mostafa) in view of U.S. Publication No, US 2023/0156488 to Song et al. (hereinafter Song)
As to claims 1, 14, 15 and 28, Mostafa discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:
receiving configuration information for monitoring physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the configuration information for monitoring PDCCH indicating at least one search space set configured in a set of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols, and a set of one or more control resource sets (CORESETs) associated with the at least one search space set includes at least a control resource set (CORESET) with a plurality of activated transmission configuration indication (TCI) states or two frequency division multiplexing (FDM)-ed CORESETs (Mostafa; Fig.4A; 4B; Fig.6; [0100]-[0104];Provisional application; Fig.4A; 4B; Fig.6; [0099]-[0103] shows and discloses A first symbol set 420-a (e.g., set of OFDM symbols in the time domain) of the CORESET 405-b may be configured or activated with a first TCI state and a second symbol set 420-b of the CORESET 405-b may be configured or activated with a second TCI state. The first symbol set 420-a may be a contiguous set of symbols (e.g., in time) or split into multiple non-contiguous subsets of OFDM symbols (or other units of time), the second symbol set 420-b may be a contiguous set of symbols or split into multiple non-contiguous subsets of OFDM symbols (or other units of time), or any combination thereof. In some cases, the first symbol set 420-a and the second symbol set 420-b may be interleaved in time. If a search space set 415 is associated with both TCI states of the CORESET 405-b, a PDCCH candidate (e.g., monitoring occasion) in the search space set 415 may have the first TCI state in the first symbol set 420-a and the second TCI state in the second symbol set 420-b). Here Mostafa is applied for the 1st alternative TCI state)
Mostafa discloses a UE receiving CORESET configuration information from a base station, but fails to disclose of receiving CSI-RS configuration in a set of OFDM symbols. However, Song discloses
receiving configuration information of channel state information (CSI)-reference signal (RS), the configuration information of CSI-RS indicating at least one CSI-RS configured in the set of OFDM symbols (Song; [0003]; [0080] discloses the downlink signal includes a channel state information reference signal CSI-RS. [0085] discloses a UE is configured with a CSI-RS resource, and the CSI-RS resource is in one or more same OFDM symbols as a search space associated with a CORESET); and
monitoring the at least one search space set and the at least one CSI-RS in the set of OFDM symbols based on one of:
a configuration restriction rule on quasi co-location (QCL)-TypeD of CSI RS in view of CORESET in a same OFDM symbol (Song; [0085] discloses if UE is configured with a CSI-RS resource, and the CSI-RS resource is in one or more same OFDM symbols as a search space associated with a CORESET, spatial information of the CSI-RS may be determined based on the CORESET. If the CORESET corresponds to multiple TCI states or QCLs, the UE may assume that the CSI-RS is in QCL-TypeD with one of the multiple TCI states or QCLs that correspond to a DMRS of a PDCCH in all search space sets associated with the CORESET If the QCL-TypeD is available corresponding to a configuration restriction rule on quasi co-location (QCL)-TypeD of CSI RS in view of CORESET in a same OFDM symbol. Here song is applied for the 1st alternative); and
a monitoring rule for monitoring PDCCH and CSI-RS with different QCL-TypeDs in the same OFDM symbol.
It is obvious for a person of ordinary skilled in the art to combine the teachings before the effective filing date of the invention. One would be motivated to combine the teachings in order to use the limited resources in an effective way by configuring the UE with CSI-RS resources and CORESET in one or more same OFDM symbols.
As to claims 16 and 29, the rejection of claim 15 as listed above is incorporated herein. In addition, Mostafa- Song discloses wherein the configuration restriction rule defines that:
a QCL-TypeD of a CSI-RS to be monitored is a same QCL-TypeD as one QCL-TypeD of a CORESET with a plurality of active TCI states in a case that the CSI-RS and one or more search space sets associated with the CORESET are configured in the same OFDM symbol (Song; [0085] discloses if UE is configured with a CSI-RS resource, and the CSI-RS resource is in one or more same OFDM symbols as a search space associated with a CORESET, spatial information of the CSI-RS may be determined based on the CORESET. If the CORESET corresponds to multiple TCI states or QCLs, the UE may assume that the CSI-RS is in QCL-TypeD with one of the multiple TCI states or QCLs that correspond to a DMRS of a PDCCH in all search space sets associated with the CORESET If the QCL-TypeD is available corresponding to a configuration restriction rule on quasi co-location (QCL)-TypeD of CSI RS in view of CORESET in a same OFDM symbol. Here song is applied for the 1st alternative. Here song is applied for the 1st alternative); or
a QCL-TypeD of a CSI-RS to be monitored is as the same QCL-TypeD as a QCL-TypeD of a CORESET of a plurality of FDM-ed CORESETs in the case that the CSI-RS and one or more search space sets associated with the plurality of CORESETs are configured in the same OFDM symbol.
As to claims 17 and 30, the rejection of claim 15 as listed above is incorporated herein. In addition, Mostafa- Song discloses wherein the configuration restriction rule defines that:
a QCL-TypeD of a CSI-RS to be monitored is a same QCL-TypeD as a QCL-TypeD of a search space set with a highest priority of one or more search space sets in a case that the CSI-RS and the one or more search space sets are configured in the same OFDM symbol (Song; [0085] discloses the CSI-RS corresponds to a first TCI state or QCL, or one or more TCI states or QCLs that have the highest signal strength among the multiple TCI states or QCLs corresponding to the CORESET, the UE may determine that the spatial information of the CSI-RS corresponds to one or more TCI states or QCLs corresponding to the CORESET, where the one or more TCI states or QCLs may be pre-designated, for example, the first TCI state or QCL; or may be one or more TCI states or QCLs that have the highest signal strength among the multiple TCI states or QCLs corresponding to the CORESET)
As to claim 18, the rejection of claim 17 as listed above is incorporated herein. In addition, Mostafa- Song discloses wherein the search space set with the highest priority is a common search space set with a lowest identity if existed, otherwise is a UE specific search space set with a lowest identity (Song; [0031] discloses a higher-layer parameter tci-PresentInDCI configured for a CORESET is set to “enabled”, DCI in a PDCCH transmitted on the CORESET uses DCI format 1_1 or DCI format 1_2, and the DCI includes a TCI field, but a symbol interval between the last symbol of the PDCCH where the DCI is located and the first symbol of a single-slot or multi-slot PDSCH scheduled by the PDCCH is less than a first preset threshold (timeDurationForQCL). In this case, the first spatial information of the target object (namely, the PDSCH) is determined based on the second spatial information of the reference resource, where the reference resource may be a CORESET that has the smallest ID in CORESETs associated with a monitored search space)
As to claims 19-26 and 31-32, the limitations of claims 19-26 and 31-32 are dependent on the 2nd alternative (i.e. monitoring rule) of the last limitation in the independent claims 15 and 28. Independent claims 15 and 28 are rejected based on the 1st alternative (i.e. restriction rule) and therefore the claim limitations 19-26 and 31-32 are not considered here and rejected based on the 1st alternative (i.e. restriction rule) of the independent claims 15 and 28.
Claim 27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. US 2022/0065357 (Provisional Application 63/082,852) to Mostafa et al. (hereinafter Mostafa) in view of U.S. Publication No, US 2020/0107314 to Zhou et. al. (hereinafter Zhou)
As to claim 27, Mostafa-Song discloses a UE receiving QCL TypeD indication, but dfails to disclose wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to: report a capability signaling indicating whether the UE is capable of receiving with different QCL-TypeDs. However, Zhou discloses
wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to: report a capability signaling indicating whether the UE is capable of receiving with different QCL-TypeDs in one or more same OFDM symbols (Zhou; [0061] discloses the UE may provide another indication of other aspects associated with the triggers. In some example, the other indication may be provided with the indication of the UE capability of the number of support aperiodic trigger states. In some examples, the other indication is provided for each trigger state or for all of the trigger states. In some examples, the other indication indicates a maximum number of supported report configurations per aperiodic trigger state ; a maximum number of total triggered A-CSI-RS resources; a maximum number of A-CSI-RS resources per resource set; and/or a maximum number of TCI states per A-CSI-RS resource or for all A-CSI-RS resources triggered by different active aperiodic trigger states, such as a maximum number of distinct QCL TypeD RS in TCI states) .
It is obvious for a person of ordinary skilled in the art to combine the teachings before the effective filing date of the invention. One would be motivated to combine the teachings so that a base station can allocate resources based on the UE’s capability and thus use the limited resources in an effective way.
Conclusion
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/FAISAL CHOUDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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