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 § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claims 1, 10, 11, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification” (hereinafter, TS 38.331).
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 20, TS 38.331 discloses a user equipment comprising a processor; and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions (Page 115, Section 5.3.5.13d: “memory reserved for storing application layer measurement reports”) that, when executed, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
detecting, by a user equipment (UE), that a condition for triggering a layer-1 (L1) measurement report transmission is satisfied based on a layer-3 (L3) measurement (page 182, Section 5.5.4.1: “if the reportType is set to eventTriggered and if the entry condition applicable for this event, i.e. the event corresponding with the eventId of the corresponding reportConfig within VarMeasConfig, is fulfilled for one or more applicable cells for all measurements after layer 3 filtering taken during timeToTrigger defined for this event within the VarMeasConfig, while the VarMeasReportList does not include a measurement reporting entry for this measId”);
determining, by the UE, whether the condition is detected over a first duration based on an L1 measurement, in response to detecting that the condition is satisfied based on the L3 measurement (the timeToTrigger parameter requires that the L3 filtered event condition persists for a configured duration before the event is considered triggered.); and
transmitting, by the UE, the measurement report, in case that the condition is detected over the first duration (page 198, Section 5.5.5.1: “The purpose of this procedure is to transfer measurement results from the UE to the network. The UE shall initiate this procedure only after successful AS security activation. For the measId for which the measurement reporting procedure was triggered, the UE shall set the measResults within the MeasurementReport message”).
Regarding claims 10 and 19, TS 38.331 discloses that detecting whether the condition is detected over the first duration comprises: detecting that the condition is held continuously over the first duration; or detecting a predetermined number of instances of the condition over the first duration, wherein the first duration begins at a first instance of the condition or the first duration is predefined based on a timeline, and wherein transmission of the measurement report is triggered after a last instance of the predetermined number of instances over the first duration (page 849: “The IE TimeToTrigger specifies the value range used for time to trigger parameter, which concerns the time during which specific criteria for the event needs to be met in order to trigger a measurement report.”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claims 7-9, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TS 38.331 in view of “NR; Physical layer procedures for data” (hereinafter, TS 38.214).
Regarding claims 7, 8 and 17, TS 38.331 fails to disclose that the measurement report is transmitted via CSI on PUSCH, and the CSI is split into a first part and a second part, and that the second part is multiplexed with other CSI, and the measurement report has a higher priority than the other CSI.
However, in an analogous art, TS 38.214 discloses that a measurement report is transmitted via CSI on PUSCH, and the CSI is split into a first part and a second part (page 100, Section 5.2.3: “For Type I, Type II and Enhanced Type II CSI feedback on PUSCH, a CSI report comprises of two parts. Part 1 has a fixed payload size and is used to identify the number of information bits in Part 2. Part 1 shall be transmitted in its entirety before Part 2 … Part 1 and 2 are separately encoded”). Furthermore, TS 38.214 discloses that the second part is multiplexed with other CSI, and the measurement report has a higher priority than the other CSI (Section 5.2.3: “CSI reporting on PUSCH can be multiplexed with uplink data on PUSCH except that semi-persistent CSI reporting on PUSCH activated by a DCI format is not expected to be multiplexed with uplink data on the PUSCH. CSI reporting on PUSCH can also be performed without any multiplexing with uplink data from the UE.”; Section 5.2.5: “A first CSI report is said to have priority over second CSI report if the associated … value is lower for the first report than for the second report.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to modify TS 38.331 by incorporating these features taught in TS 38.214 for the purpose of ensuring that the measurement report is delivered reliably even when competing with other CSI.
Regarding claims 9 and 18, TS 38.331 fails to disclose that the measurement report is transmitted via semi-persistent CSI on PUSCH, and the measurement report has a higher priority than uplink (UL)-shared channel (SCH)-only PUSCH.
However, TS 38.214 discloses that the measurement report is transmitted via semi-persistent CSI on PUSCH, and the measurement report has a higher priority than uplink (UL)-shared channel (SCH)-only PUSCH (Section 5.2.4: “Semi-persistent CSI reporting on the PUCCH supports Type I CSI. Semi-persistent CSI reporting on the PUCCH format 2 supports Type I CSI with wideband frequency granularity. Semipersistent CSI reporting on PUCCH formats 3 or 4 supports Type I CSI with wideband and sub-band frequency granularities and Type II CSI Part 1.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to modify TS 38.331 by incorporating this feature taught in TS 38.214 for the purpose of enabling more accurate precoding, scheduling and link adaptation.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6 and 12-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art fails to disclose the recited combinations of elements, including wherein detecting that the condition is satisfied comprises: determining, by the UE, whether the condition is satisfied based on the L3 measurement; and determining, by the UE, whether the condition, based on the L3 measurement, is held for a second duration, in case that the condition is satisfied, wherein the UE determines whether the condition, based on the L1 measurement, is detected over the first duration, in case that the condition, based on the L3 measurement, is held for the second duration, as in claims 2 and 12.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Liu et al. (US 2023/0189046) discloses SR for reporting L1 measurement which is triggered by a L3 measurements is transmitted in a dedicated PUCCH resource configured by the gNB for the reporting.
Faxér et al. (US 2019/0199420) discloses CSI from Multiple Cells or Multiple CSI Reports Multiplexed in Single UCI.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAM BHATTACHARYA whose telephone number is (571)272-7917. The examiner can normally be reached weekdays, 9-5:30.
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/SAM BHATTACHARYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646