DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present U.S. non-provisional application is being examined under the first-inventor-to-file provisions of the AIA . The present U.S. non-provisional application, filed on December 21, 2023, claims benefit to a U.S. provisional application, filed on August 11, 2023.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-12, 14, 15 and 20 are considered as allowable. Claims 13 and 17-19 would be considered as allowable if rewritten into independent form to include all of the limitations of the respective base claim and any intervening claims, and if made to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112 set forth in this Office action. The claimed invention is neither anticipated by the prior art of record, nor considered as obvious in view thereof to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
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 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over Yu et al. (US 2020/0396035 A1) in view of Yi et al. (US 2019/0356524 A1).
16. A method (Yu, FIG. 4) comprising:
transmitting a reference signal for each of one or more synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) in an omni-directional transmission (Yu, para. [0051], “…In an exemplary beamsweeping procedure, a transmit device may transmit a reference signal to a receive device (e.g., using an omnidirectional antenna beamforming pattern). […] The receive device may repeat the beamsweeping procedure over time, and in doing so repeatedly updates the antenna beamforming pattern so that it tracks the transmit device as they move. Devices may also use beamsweeping for transmit beamforming, such as where a transmit device transmits a reference signal with different antenna beamforming patterns and a receive device reports back which antenna beamforming pattern produced the highest signal radio measurement at its end. […] The network access node may transmit a reference signal over a plurality of reference signal instances, where each instance is one (e.g., CSI-RS or SRS) or more (e.g., SSB) contiguous symbol periods that carry reference symbols of the reference signal…”); and
communicating, responsive to the transmitting, common control signaling (CCS) information with a user equipment (UE), the communicating using a first beam that is selected based on a second beam selected by the UE (Yi, para. [0195], “Overall, until reconfigured or indicated otherwise via dynamic signaling, a UE may assume that selected beam pairs from initial access may be used for common control message transmission. Based on radio link management (RLM) or beam management measurement, it is however possible that the UE may switch its beam to the best beam. For example, when RLM is performed across multiple SS blocks, the best beam may be selected and the UE may use the selected best beam for CSS reception. When the UE switches its best beam, the beam may be indicated to the network so that the network may also reconfigure CSI-RS configurations according to the best beam. However, for RAR reception, unless indicated in PRACH transmission, the beam selected for PRACH transmission may be used for RAR reception…”)
Yu et al. may not seem to describe the identical claimed invention, however in the same field of endeavor, Yi et al. provides prior art disclosure for the claimed invention, such as communicating, responsive to the transmitting, common control signaling (CCS) information with a user equipment (UE), the communicating using a first beam that is selected based on a second beam selected by the UE (Yi, para. [0195], Id.) The prior art disclosure and suggestions of Yi et al. are for reasons of efficiently defining a control channel or control resource set (Yi, para. [0011], “Advantageous Effects of Invention […] A control channel or control resource set can be defined efficiently.”) In view of the prior art of record, the claimed invention 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, for reasons of efficiently defining a control channel or control resource set.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112 that forms the basis for all indefiniteness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(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.
Claims 13 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite because they fail to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 13 recites “a beamformed uplink reference signal (SRS)” (ll. 2-3) whereas the scope of the claim is not clear because uplink reference signal and sounding reference signal (SRS) have different meanings to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 18 recites “beamformed uplink reference signals (UL SRSs)” (ll. 2-3) whereas the scope of the claim is not clear because uplink reference signal and sounding reference signal (SRS) have different meanings to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record (PTO-1449, PTO-892) and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the subject matter of the present U.S. non-provisional application.
Hakola et al. (US 2019/0380099 A1) provides prior art disclosure considered as relevant to the subject matter of the claimed invention (Hakola, Abstract, “A technique includes receiving a plurality of synchronization signal blocks, including synchronization signals and beam specific reference signals, receiving a plurality of beam sweeping scheduling blocks, each beam sweeping scheduling block corresponding to one of the synchronization signal blocks and including scheduling information to schedule a dynamic size beam sweeping resource (e.g., mini-slot or other resource) for transmission of common control information (e.g., paging data and/or system information or SIB) via a set of one or more beams, and selecting, based on a measurement of signals of at least one of the synchronization signal blocks and the scheduling information, one of the dynamic size beam sweeping resources (e.g., one of the beam sweeping mini-slots or other resource) to receive the common control information (e.g., paging data and/or system information or SIB).”)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Timothy J. Weidner whose telephone number is (571) 270-1825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time.
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/TIMOTHY J WEIDNER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476