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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office Action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed on July 17, 2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement submitted on July 17, 2025 has been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
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.
Claim(s) 1-10 and 16-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “3rd Generation Partnership Project; technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification (release 16) 3GPP DRAFT; 38,321 (hereinafter 3GPP).
Regarding claim 1, 3GPP discloses a terminal in a wireless communication system, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: control the transceiver to receive, a radio resource control, RRC, reconfiguration message comprising a reconfiguration with sync (page 19, last two steps “1> if the Random Access procedure was initiated for reconfiguration with sync and if the contention-free Random Access Resources for 2-step RA type have been explicitly provided in rach- Config Dedicated for the BWP selected for Random Access procedure: 2> set the RA_TYPE to 2-stepRA."),
control the transceiver to transmit, to a base station (BS), a first message comprising a physical random access channel (PRACH) and a physical uplink shared channel, (PUSCH) based on the reconfiguration with sync, wherein the first message comprises a cell radio network temporary identity, (C-RNTI) medium access control, (MAC) control element (CE) (page 26, last two steps, and page 30 "1> if C-RNTI MAC CE was included in the MSGA: é2> monitor the PDCCH of the SpCell for Random Access Response identified by the C-RNTI while the msgB-ResponseWindow is running;”, where the MSGA corresponds to the claimed first message),
control the transceiver to receive, from the BS, a second message comprising a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), determine that a random access response (RAR) reception is successful based on the second message (page 30, step 4 starting with “4> if a downlink assignment has been received on the PDCCH for the C-RNTI and the received TB is successfully decoded:" and subsequent steps till "6> consider this Random Access Response reception successful," where the MSGB [5.1.4a] corresponds to the second message),
and in case that a discontinuous reception, DRX, is configured for the terminal, monitor a PDCCH during a time until receiving a second PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to a C-RNTI corresponding to the C-RNTI MAC CE after the RAR reception (page 56 section 5.7, “The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's PDCCH monitoring activity for the MAC entity's C-RANTI, L..] When in RRC CONNECTED, if DRX is configured, for all the activated Serving Cells, the MAC entity may monitor the PDCCH discontinuously using the DRX operation specified in this clause’;
page 57, "When a DRX cycle is configured, the Active Time includes the time while: [...] -a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI of the MAC entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble", where the Active Time corresponds to the claimed time to be determined.).
Regarding claim 2, 3GPP discloses in case that the BS receives the preamble of the PRACH and does not receive the PUSCH, the second message includes a fallback RAR, and in case that the BS receives the PUSCH, the PDSCH includes an absolute timing advance command MAC CE (page 30, step 4).
Regarding claim 3, 3GPP discloses in case that the DRX is configured for the terminal, determining a time while the second PDCCH has not been received after the RAR reception an active time (page 30, step 4).
Regarding claim 4, 3GPP discloses wherein the reconfiguration with sync comprises at least one of a terminal identity, timer information, or resource information for random access, and wherein the resource information for random access comprises at least one of first dedicated resource information for contention-free 4-step random access comprising first synchronization signal block (SSB) resource information or second dedicated resource information for contention-free 2-step random access comprising second SSB resource information and resource information for the PUSCH of the first message (page 19 last four steps).
Regarding claim 5, 3GPP discloses determining to perform a 2-step random access procedure: in case that the terminal receives resource information for 4-step random access and resource information for 2-step random access and a first reference signal received power (RSRP) of a downlink pathloss reference signal is above a first RSRP threshold, in case that the terminal receives the resource information for 2-step random access and does not receive the resource information for 4-step random access, or in case that the reconfiguration with sync includes dedicated resource information for contention-free 2-step random access (page 19 last four steps).
Regarding claim 6, 3GPP discloses in case that the reconfiguration with sync comprises dedicated resource information for contention-free 4-step random access, determining to perform a 4-step random access procedure (page 24 and 25).
Regarding claim 7, 3GPP discloses in case that the reconfiguration with sync comprises dedicated resource information for contention-free 2-step random access comprising second synchronization signal block (SSB) resource information associated with a plurality of SSBs and at least one SSB with a second RSRP above a second RSRP threshold among the plurality of SSBs is available, determining to perform contention-free random access, and in case that the at least one SSB with the second RSRP above the second RSRP threshold among the plurality of SSBs is not available, determining to perform contention-based random access (page 20).
Regarding claim 8, 3GPP discloses wherein the reconfiguration with sync indicates a handover (page 20 step 2).
Regarding claim 9, 3GPP discloses a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system, the BS comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: control the transceiver to transmit, to a terminal, a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message comprising a reconfiguration with sync (page 19, last two steps “1> if the Random Access procedure was initiated for reconfiguration with sync and if the contention-free Random Access Resources for 2-step RA type have been explicitly provided in rach- Config Dedicated for the BWP selected for Random Access procedure: 2> set the RA_TYPE to 2-stepRA."), control the transceiver to receive, from the terminal, a first message comprising a preamble of a physical random access channel (PRACH) and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) based on the reconfiguration with sync, wherein the first message comprises a cell radio network temporary identity (C-RNTI) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) (page 26, last two steps, and page 30 "1> if C-RNTI MAC CE was included in the MSGA: é2> monitor the PDCCH of the SpCell for Random Access Response identified by the C-RNTI while the msgB-ResponseWindow is running;”, where the MSGA corresponds to the claimed first message), control the transceiver to transmit, to the terminal, a second message comprising a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (page 30, step 4 starting with “4> if a downlink assignment has been received on the PDCCH for the C-RNTI and the received TB is successfully decoded:" and subsequent steps till "6> consider this Random Access Response reception successful," where the MSGB [5.1.4a] corresponds to the second message), and control the transceiver to transmit, to the terminal, a second PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to a C-RNTI corresponding to the C- RNTI MAC CE, wherein, in case that a discontinuous reception (DRX) is configured for the terminal, a PDCCH is monitored by the terminal during a time until receiving the second PDCCH indicating the new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI corresponding to the C-RNTI MAC CE after a successful random access response (RAR) reception (page 56 section 5.7, “The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's PDCCH monitoring activity for the MAC entity's C-RANTI, L..] When in RRC CONNECTED, if DRX is configured, for all the activated Serving Cells, the MAC entity may monitor the PDCCH discontinuously using the DRX operation specified in this clause’;
page 57, "When a DRX cycle is configured, the Active Time includes the time while: [...] -a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI of the MAC entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble", where the Active Time corresponds to the claimed time to be determined.).
Regarding claim 10, 3GPP discloses an active time comprises a time while the second PDCCH has not been received after the successful RAR reception (page 30, step 4).
Regarding claim 16, 3GPP discloses a terminal in a wireless communication system, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: receiving, a radio resource control, RRC, reconfiguration message comprising a reconfiguration with sync (page 19, last two steps “1> if the Random Access procedure was initiated for reconfiguration with sync and if the contention-free Random Access Resources for 2-step RA type have been explicitly provided in rach- Config Dedicated for the BWP selected for Random Access procedure: 2> set the RA_TYPE to 2-stepRA."),
transmitting, to a base station (BS), a first message comprising a physical random access channel (PRACH) and a physical uplink shared channel, (PUSCH) based on the reconfiguration with sync, wherein the first message comprises a cell radio network temporary identity, (C-RNTI) medium access control, (MAC) control element (CE) (page 26, last two steps, and page 30 "1> if C-RNTI MAC CE was included in the MSGA: é2> monitor the PDCCH of the SpCell for Random Access Response identified by the C-RNTI while the msgB-ResponseWindow is running;”, where the MSGA corresponds to the claimed first message),
receiving, from the BS, a second message comprising a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), determine that a random access response (RAR) reception is successful based on the second message (page 30, step 4 starting with “4> if a downlink assignment has been received on the PDCCH for the C-RNTI and the received TB is successfully decoded:" and subsequent steps till "6> consider this Random Access Response reception successful," where the MSGB [5.1.4a] corresponds to the second message),
and in case that a discontinuous reception, DRX, is configured for the terminal, monitoring a PDCCH during a time until receiving a second PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to a C-RNTI corresponding to the C-RNTI MAC CE after the RAR reception (page 56 section 5.7, “The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's PDCCH monitoring activity for the MAC entity's C-RANTI, L..] When in RRC CONNECTED, if DRX is configured, for all the activated Serving Cells, the MAC entity may monitor the PDCCH discontinuously using the DRX operation specified in this clause’;
page 57, "When a DRX cycle is configured, the Active Time includes the time while: [...] -a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI of the MAC entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble", where the Active Time corresponds to the claimed time to be determined.).
Regarding claims 17-18, 21-25, see above rejection of claims 2-8.
Regarding claim 19, 3GPP discloses a method; performed by a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: transmitting, to a terminal, a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message comprising a reconfiguration with sync (page 19, last two steps “1> if the Random Access procedure was initiated for reconfiguration with sync and if the contention-free Random Access Resources for 2-step RA type have been explicitly provided in rach- Config Dedicated for the BWP selected for Random Access procedure: 2> set the RA_TYPE to 2-stepRA."); receiving, from the terminal, a first message comprising a preamble of a physical random access channel (PRACH); and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH); based on the reconfiguration with sync, wherein the first message comprises a cell radio network temporary identity (C-RNTI) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) (page 26, last two steps, and page 30 "1> if C-RNTI MAC CE was included in the MSGA: é2> monitor the PDCCH of the SpCell for Random Access Response identified by the C-RNTI while the msgB-ResponseWindow is running;”, where the MSGA corresponds to the claimed first message); transmitting, to the terminal, a second message comprising a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (page 30, step 4 starting with “4> if a downlink assignment has been received on the PDCCH for the C-RNTI and the received TB is successfully decoded:" and subsequent steps till "6> consider this Random Access Response reception successful," where the MSGB [5.1.4a] corresponds to the second message); and transmitting, to the terminal, a second PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to a C-RNTI corresponding to the C-RNTI MAC CE, wherein, in case that a discontinuous reception (DRX) is configured for the terminal, a PDCCH is monitored by the terminal during a time until receiving the second PDCCH indicating the new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI corresponding to the C-RNTI MAC CE after a successful random access response (RAR) reception (page 56 section 5.7, “The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's PDCCH monitoring activity for the MAC entity's C-RANTI, L..] When in RRC CONNECTED, if DRX is configured, for all the activated Serving Cells, the MAC entity may monitor the PDCCH discontinuously using the DRX operation specified in this clause’;
page 57, "When a DRX cycle is configured, the Active Time includes the time while: [...] -a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI of the MAC entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble", where the Active Time corresponds to the claimed time to be determined.).
Regarding claim 20, 3GPP discloses an active time comprises a time while the second PDCCH has not been received after the successful RAR reception (page 30, step 4).
Conclusion
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/LITON MIAH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2642