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 .
Claims 1-11 are subject to examination and rejected.
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, 6 and 11 recite the limitations ‘state(s)’, ‘index(es)’, and ‘cell(s)’. The terms of ‘(es)’ and ‘(s)’ are used to express singular and/or plural nouns, but these terms are not proper expressions for the claim language for a patent application and render the claim indefinite, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Da Silva (US PGPub 2024/0007169).
Regarding claims 1, 6 and 11, Da Silva teaches a user equipment (UE) that communicates with a base station apparatus (Da Silva, see abstract, A method of operating a user equipment, UE, configured with a plurality of transmission configurations associated with one or more cells), comprising:
receiving circuitry configured to (Da Silva, see figure 4, a block diagram illustrating elements of a UE 400 (also referred to as a mobile terminal, a mobile communication terminal, a wireless device, a wireless communication device, a wireless terminal, mobile device, a wireless communication terminal, a user equipment node/terminal/device, etc.) configured to provide wireless communication):
receive a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising first information used for indicating a first list of Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state(s) including non-zero power channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource index(es) associated with non-serving cell(s) (Da Silva, see table 13A and paragraphs 0097, 0132 and 0133, The UE can receive the plurality of non-serving cell configuration(s) for at least one non-serving cell in a dedicated signaling. That dedicated signaling can correspond to a list of IEs ServingCellConfigCommon(s) included in an RRC message e.g. an RRCReconfiguration. The QCL information configuration of a TCI state configuration contains a reference/pointer to the cell the reference signal indicated is associated to, wherein the reference/pointer is a non-serving cell index, as follows in Tables 13A, 13B, and 14. Table 13A shows the content of the TCI state configuration including the elements of TCI-Stateid [corresponding to TCI states], NSCellIndex [corresponding to non-serving cell(s)] and NZP-CSI-RS-ResourceID [corresponding to non-zero power CSI-RS resource index(es)]). ;
receive an RRC message comprising second information used for indicating a second list of Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state(s) including non-zero power channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource index(es) associated with serving cell(s) (Da Silva, see table 13A and paragraphs 0025, 0132 and 0133, the UE can be configured through RRC signaling with M TCI states (e.g. during connection setup, resume, reconfiguration, handovers, etc. The QCL information configuration of a TCI state configuration contains a reference/pointer to the cell the reference signal indicated is associated to, wherein the reference/pointer is a non-serving cell index, as follows in Tables 13A, 13B, and 14. Table 13A shows the content of the TCI state configuration including the elements of TCI-Stateid [corresponding to TCI states], ServCellIndex [corresponding to serving cell(s)] and NZP-CSI-RS-ResourceID [corresponding to non-zero power CSI-RS resource index(es)]);
receive a first media access control (MAC) Control Element (CE) message comprising third information used for activating a first set of TCI state(s) from the first list (Da Silva, see paragraphs 0087-0089, In block 715, the method includes the UE 400 receiving from the network an indication of a transmission configuration to be activated from the plurality of transmission configurations. The receiving may be in the form of a L1/L2 signaling indicating a new TCI state to the UE 400. a L1/L2 signaling may correspond to a MAC CE including a TCI state identifier);
receive a second media access control (MAC) Control Element (CE) message comprising fourth information used for activating a second set of TCI state(s) from the second list (Da Silva, see paragraphs 0168-0172, A L1/L2 signaling may correspond to a MAC CE including at least one of the following: a TCI state identifier that corresponds to one of the TCI state identifiers the UE is configured with; a serving cell reference to indicate in which of the serving cell configuration the TCI state is configured: Upon reception of the MAC CE, the UE determines the TCI state being indicated and its QCL configuration.); and
receive a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) carrying downlink control information (DCI) indicating a TCI state for physical downlink share channel (PDSCH) from either the first set or the second set (Da Silva, see figure 15 and paragraph 0172, The network may indicate a TCI state for PDCCH reception for a CORESET of a Serving Cell or of a Non-Serving Cell by sending the TCI State Indication for UE-specific PDCCH MAC CE. Table 15 shows the content of the PDSCH configuration including the legacy TCI state configuration for service cells and TCI state configuration for non-serving cells).
Regarding claims 2 and 7, Da Silva teaches wherein whether the first set or the second set is used is determined by radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) scrambling cyclic redundancy check (CRC) of the DCI (Da Silva, see Table 1 and paragraph 0097, According to the method, the ServingCellConfigCommon IE is extended to configure a non-serving cell for the purpose of L1/L2 inter-cell centric mobility. For example, in addition to the existing information in ServingCellConfigCommon(s), Cell-radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) and SSB measurement timing configuration (SMTC) information may be added).
Regarding claims 3 and 8, Da Silva teaches wherein whether the first set or the second set is used is determined by a format of the DCI (Da Silva, see paragraph 0008, signaling solution based on Medium Access Control protocol (MAC) Control Element (CE) or Downlink Control Information (DCI) have been introduced for beam management/intra-cell mobility).
Regarding claims 4 and 9, Da Silva teaches wherein whether the first set or the second set is used is determined by control resource set (CORESET) where the PDCCH carrying the DCI is detected (Da Silva, see figure 15 and paragraph 0172, The network may indicate a TCI state for PDCCH reception for a CORESET of a Serving Cell or of a Non-Serving Cell by sending the TCI State Indication for UE-specific PDCCH MAC CE. Table 15 shows the content of the PDSCH configuration including the legacy TCI state configuration for service cells and TCI state configuration for non-serving cells).
Regarding claims 5 and 10, Da Silva teaches wherein whether the first set or the second set is used is determined by search space where the PDCCH carrying the DCI is detected (Da Silva, see figure 15 and paragraph 0172, The network may indicate a TCI state for PDCCH reception for a CORESET of a Serving Cell or of a Non-Serving Cell by sending the TCI State Indication for UE-specific PDCCH MAC CE. Table 15 shows the content of the PDSCH configuration including the legacy TCI state configuration for service cells and TCI state configuration for non-serving cells).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHONG G KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-0619. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri @ 9am - 5pm.
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/CHONG G KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2443
/CHRISTOPHER B ROBINSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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