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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2/1/24, 1/17/25, and 12/19/25 is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-7, and 9-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by NTT Docomo Inc (WO 2020121497A1) (hereinafter “NTT”).
Regarding claim 1, NTT teaches a communication apparatus (UE) comprising:
a receiver configured to:
receive by using a radio resource control (RRC) signaling (higher layer signaling), from a base station, configuration information (information regarding the correspondence between each TRP) for a serving cell (see “Information regarding the correspondence between each TRP (or DMRS port group, codeword (CW), PDCCH configuration (e.g., PDCCH-config), PDSCH configuration (PDSCH-config), or serving cell configuration (ServingCellConfig)) and TAG may be set from the network (e.g., base station) to the UE by higher layer signaling” [par 40], the configuration information including information for configuring each of an identifier of a first timing advance group (TAG#0) and an identifier of a second timing advance group (TAG#1) (see “For example, the base station notifies the UE by using higher layer signaling or the like of information that TRP#1 corresponds to TAG#0 and that TRP#2 corresponds to TAG#1” [par 47]), information for configuring an identifier (TRP identifier) corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group (see “For example, the base station notifies the UE by using higher layer signaling or the like of information that TRP#1 corresponds to TAG#0 and that TRP#2 corresponds to TAG#1” [par 47]), and information for configuring SS/PBCH Block (SSB) (see “The specified configuration may be at least one of…an SSB Configuration…” [par 112]), and
receive, from the base station, the identifier corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group (specific TRP identifier) and a timing advance command (TA command) (see “For example, when a UE receives a MAC control element for a TA command for a specific TRP, it adjusts the timing of UL transmissions (e.g., at least one of PUCCH, PUSCH, and SRS) to the TRPs included in the specified TAG” [par 56] which suggests that the UE may receive a TA command with a specific TRP identifier which reads on the claimed “identifier corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group”); and
a controller configured to control an amount of timing adjustment for an uplink transmission corresponding to the second timing advance group on a basis of the identifier corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group and the timing advance command (see “For example, when a UE receives a MAC control element for a TA command for a specific TRP, it adjusts the timing of UL transmissions (e.g., at least one of PUCCH, PUSCH, and SRS) to the TRPs included in the specified TAG” [par 58] which suggests that the UE adjusts the timing of UL transmissions for the TAG corresponding to the specific TRP which reads on the claimed “control an amount of timing adjustment for an uplink transmission corresponding to the second timing advance group on a basis of the identifier corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group and the timing advance command”), wherein
the controller is configured to perform a measurement based on the information for configuring the SSB (UE performs measurements on SSB or reference signals which is well known in the art and defined in 3GPP).
Regarding claim 2, NTT teaches the communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the identifier corresponding to the identifier of the second timing advance group and the timing advance command are included in a media access control (MAC) control element (see “For example, when a UE receives a MAC control element for a TA command for a specific TRP, it adjusts the timing of UL transmissions (e.g., at least one of PUCCH, PUSCH, and SRS) to the TRPs included in the specified TAG” [par 56]).
Regarding claim 3, NTT teaches the communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to:
maintain a time alignment timer (TA timer) corresponding to the first timing advance group and a time alignment timer corresponding to the second timing advance group (see “In addition, a TA timer (e.g., timeAlignmentTimer) for UL transmission time alignment (UL time alignment) for each TAG may be controlled commonly for multiple TRPs included in the same TAG” [par 57]), and
start the time alignment timer corresponding to the second timing advance group in a case where the amount of the timing adjustment for the uplink transmission corresponding to the second timing advance group is controlled (see “The TA timer is started (initialized) every time a TA command is received” [par 40]).
Claims 5 and 9 recite subject matter similar to claim 1 and are therefore rejected on the same basis.
Claims 6 and 10 recite subject matter similar to claim 2 and are therefore rejected on the same basis.
Claims 7 and 11 recite subject matter similar to claim 1 and are therefore rejected on the same basis.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Nam T Huynh whose telephone number is (571)272-5970. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
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/NAM T HUYNH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2647