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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
1a. Claims 3-8, 11-16 and 19-20 are objected to as dependent upon rejected claims, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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, 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.
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.
2a. Claims 1-2, 9-10 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura (US 20250007679 A1) in view of Bai (US 2023/0032365 A1).
2b. Summary of the Cited Prior Art
Matsumura discloses a method for beam failure detection and recovery.
Bai discloses a method for beam failure detection and new beam selection.
2c. Claim Analysis
Regarding Claim 1, Matsumura discloses:
A user equipment (UE) (Fig 26, User Terminal, 20), comprising:
a transceiver (Fig 26, RF Section, 222) configured to:
transmit a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Fig 8, S104; see: [0187] The BFRQ may be transmitted by using at least one of an uplink control channel (Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)) including a first reference signal (RS) index (Fig 8, S101; see: Information related to the Beam Failure Detection RS BFD-RS (for example, indices, in [0179]) for a first beam failure recovery request (Fig 8, S104; the UE that has identified the new candidate beam transmits a beam recovery request (Beam Failure Recovery reQuest (BFRQ)), in [0186]) associated with a first beam failure detection (BFD) RS set (Fig 8, S102; see: The RS measured at step S101 may be referred to as an RS for beam failure detection (Beam Failure Detection RS (BFD-RS), in [0173]);
receive a response (Fig 8, S105, Response) to the first beam failure recovery request (Fig 8, S105; see: the base station that has detected the BFRQ transmits a response signal, [0193]);
receive (Fig 8, PDCCH S105) first information (RS (reference Signal) functions as first information, see in [0160]) for reception of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (Fig 8. S105; see: [0160] If an active TCI state for PDCCH reception includes only one RS, the UE uses the RS provided for the active TCI state for PDCCH reception, for RLM) and;
receive (Fig 8, PDCCH S105) second information (DCI functions as second information, see in [0129]) for reception of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Fig 8. S105; see: A plurality of PDSCHs from the multi-TRP may be scheduled by using one piece of DCI, in [0129]); and
a processor (Fig 26, Baseband Section 221) operably coupled to the transceiver (Fig 26, RF Section, 222), the processor configured to:
determine, based on the response (Fig 8, S105, Response) and the first information (RS (reference Signal) functions as first information, see in [0160]), whether to apply a first spatial domain filter (see: update and activation of a common TCI state ID for providing at least one of common QCL information for UE-dedicated PDCCH/PDSCH and a common UL TX spatial filter, in [0104]) according to the first RS index (see: the RS indices in the RS set indicated by a TCI state (TCI-State) for the corresponding CORESET, in [0212]; Examiner’s Note: each TCI state is associated with RS, as known in the art) for reception of the PDCCH (Fig 8. S105; see: [0160] If an active TCI state for PDCCH reception includes only one RS, the UE uses the RS provided for the active TCI state for PDCCH reception, for RLM); and
determine, based on the response (Fig 8, S105, Response) and the second information (DCI functions as second information, see in [0129]), whether to apply a second spatial domain filter (see: update and activation of a common TCI state ID for providing at least one of common QCL information for UE-dedicated PDCCH/PDSCH and a common UL TX spatial filter, in [0104]) according to the first RS index (see: the RS indices in the RS set indicated by a TCI state (TCI-State) for the corresponding CORESET, in [0212]; Examiner’s Note: each TCI state is associated with RS, as known in the art) for reception of the PDSCH (Fig 8. S105; see: A plurality of PDSCHs from the multi-TRP may be scheduled by using one piece of DCI, in [0129]).
Matsumura does not elaborate about PDSCH scheduling.
However, Bai discloses:
receive second information for reception of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Fig 7, PDSCH; see: [0094] …. a single PDCCH may be used to schedule downlink data communications for a single PDSCH. Examiner’s Note: PDCCH includes DCI that provide information about PDSCH scheduling).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to integrate Matsumura’s method for beam failure detection and recovery with Bai’s method for beam failure detection and new beam selection with the motivation being to improve spectral efficiency and lowering costs (Bai, [0004]).
Regarding Claim 2, Matsumura discloses:
wherein the response (Fig 8, S105) corresponds to a PDCCH reception with a downlink control information (DCI) format that (see: [0194] … The response signal may be notified by using a PDCCH (DCI))
(i) schedules a PUSCH transmission with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number used for transmitting the PUSCH and (ii) includes a toggled new data indicator (NDI) field value. (see: [0412] … the last symbol in a DCI format scheduling a PUSCH with the same HARQ process number as the HARQ process number of a first PUSCH and including a toggled new data indicator (NDI) field in BFR MAC CE based BFR (Rel. 16) in an SCell).
Regarding Claims 9-10, the base station claims disclose similar features of Claims 1-2, and are rejected accordingly. Further, Claims 9-10 disclose the same operations of Claims 1-2, but are performed by a base station.
Regarding Claims 17-18, the user equipment claims disclose similar features of Claims 1-2, and are rejected accordingly.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung-Jen Liu whose telephone number is 571-270-7643. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kwang B. Yao can be reached on 571-272-3182. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUNG LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2473