DETAILED ACTION
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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites limitation “transmission of a channel the physical uplink shared channel”.
The phrase lacks grammatical connector and renders the claim internally inconsistent, making it unclear whether:
“a channel” is distinct from the physical uplink shared channel, or the phrase is intended to mean “transmission of the physical uplink shared channel.”
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected for the same reason stated above.
Claims 2-4, 7 are dependent claims of Claim 1 and 6 respectively, thus are rejected for the same deficiency.
For the purpose of the examination, the terms are interpreted as “transmission of the physical uplink shared channel”.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3, 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lei et al (US 2022/0312501 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 5, Lei teaches a terminal/method (Fig. 6, UE 115-c) comprising:
a transmitting section (Fig. 7, element 720) that transmits a message in a random access procedure in a physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 4, step 415 and 420; and also see [0129], “UE 115-b may transmit, to base station 105-b, a payload of the first message (e.g., msgA payload), where the payload is transmitted in one or more PUSCH occasions associated with the RACH occasion”); and
a control section (Fig. 7, element 715) that controls a plurality of repetitions of at least one of reception of a downlink channel for scheduling the physical uplink shared channel (Fig.4, step 435) and transmission of the physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 3, [0123], “a first random access message of the two-step RACH procedure (e.g., a msgA) may fail as described above, leading to the UE 115 to determine to retransmit the first random access message. However, the UE 115 may determine to reconfigure the first random access message according to a set of transmission configuration options (e.g., transmission parameters that can be changed by the UE 115) to improve performance of the first random access message transmission”).
Regarding claim 2, Lei further teaches that the control section uses a plurality of beams for the plurality of respective repetitions ([0125], “the retransmission of the first random access message may use a second transmission configuration state 305-b, a third transmission configuration state 305-c, etc. up to a k-th transmission configuration state 305-k”, “the transmission configuration state 305-k may include a different transmit beam than the other transmission configuration states 305, etc”).
Regarding claim 3, Lei further teaches that when initial transmission of the message has failed, the control section controls the plurality of repetitions of the transmission of the physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 3, [0123], “a first random access message of the two-step RACH procedure (e.g., a msgA) may fail as described above, leading to the UE 115 to determine to retransmit the first random access message. However, the UE 115 may determine to reconfigure the first random access message according to a set of transmission configuration options (e.g., transmission parameters that can be changed by the UE 115) to improve performance of the first random access message transmission”).
Regarding claim 6, Lei teaches a base station comprising:
a receiving section that receives a message in a random access procedure in a physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 4, step 415 and 420; and also see [0129], “UE 115-b may transmit, to base station 105-b, a payload of the first message (e.g., msgA payload), where the payload is transmitted in one or more PUSCH occasions associated with the RACH occasion”); and
a control section that controls a plurality of repetitions of at least one of transmission of a downlink channel for scheduling the physical uplink shared channel (Fig.4, step 435; Fig. 6, step 605) and reception of the physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 6, step 630, 635 and 640; see [0126], [0123]).
Regarding claim 7, Lei further teaches that when initial transmission of the message has failed, the control section controls the plurality of repetitions of the transmission of the physical uplink shared channel (Fig. 3, [0123], “a first random access message of the two-step RACH procedure (e.g., a msgA) may fail as described above, leading to the UE 115 to determine to retransmit the first random access message. However, the UE 115 may determine to reconfigure the first random access message according to a set of transmission configuration options (e.g., transmission parameters that can be changed by the UE 115) to improve performance of the first random access message transmission”).
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 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lei et al (US 2022/0312501 A1), in view of Shih et la (US 11,291,012 B2).
Regarding claim 4, Lei teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 3, further teaches that the random access procedure is based on a first synchronization signal block (Fig. 4, step 405, “SSB” transmitted from BS to UE, SSB correspond to synchronization signal block; [0128], “UE 115-b may perform a downlink synchronization based on the received SSB to synchronize with base station 105-b prior to beginning the two-step RACH procedure”). However, Lei fails to disclose that retransmission of the message is based on a second synchronization signal block.
Shih discloses that retransmission of the message is based on a second synchronization signal block (see Claim 6, “after the transmission using the at least one PUR is not successful, determining whether the first beam becomes unsuitable based on the RSRP of the first SSB; selecting, by the UE, a second SSB from the multiple SSBs to perform a retransmission of the data in the RRC_INACTIVE state if the UE determines that the first beam is unsuitable and the second SSB fulfills the at least one condition”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Shih in the system disclosed by Lei for the purpose of improving transmission reliability by switching to a different beam associated with another SSB.
Conclusion
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/SIMING LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411