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
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8, 10-13, 16-19, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by SHAHMOHAMMADIAN US 20240039582.
Regarding claim 1, 10, 16, SHAHMOHAMMADIAN teaches a method comprising:
receiving, by a wireless device, one or more messages indicating activation of two or more transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states, wherein each TCI state of the two more TCI states is associated with a respective physical cell identifier (PCD) (receiving, by the UE, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) command activating one or more TCI states from the list of TCI states, wherein each of the activated TCI states is associated with a physical cell ID (PCI) value that is different from a PCI value of a serving cell, claim 16);
receiving downlink control information (DCI) scheduling reception of a downlink signal via a cell (fig. 1, gNB schedules multi-TRP transmissions with the UE, the gNB may operate in single-DCI scheme to schedule the UE using the same DCI for multiple TRPs or operate in multi-DCI scheme to schedule the UE using independent DCIs from each TRP, [0026);
determining a TCI state based on a quantity of TCI states, among the two or more TCI states, that are associated with a PCI of the cell (The unified TCI state may be indicated by a codepoint value in a TCI field of DCI format 1_1 or 1_2, wherein the codepoint value maps to one or more activated unified TCI states (e.g., up to 8 activated states), [0031], UE determines the default TCI state based on a lowest codepoint value among codepoint values mapped to multiple, activated TCI states, claim 17, wherein each of the activated TCI states is associated with a physical cell ID (PCI) value that is different from a PCI value of a serving cell, claim 16); and
receiving the downlink signal based on the determined TCI state (For example, the gNB determines whether a same or different signal beams are used for UL and DL transmissions between the UE and the TRP, based on channel conditions and/or other constraints, such as maximum permitted exposure (MPE) limits, and communicates the determination to the UE, for example, as a TCI state information in a DCI, [0026]).
Regarding claim 2, a time offset between the DCI and the downlink signal is less than a threshold ([0058]).
Regarding claim 3, 11, determining that the two or more TCI states are associated with the PCI of the cell; and
selecting one of the two or more TCI states having a lowest TCI state index (claim 17).
Regarding claim 4, determining that the two or more TCI states are associated with a second PCI different from the PCI of the cell; and
selecting one of the two or more TCI states of a control resource set (coreset) having a lowest coreset index ([0094, 0095]).
Regarding claim 5, determining that a first TCI state of the two or more TCI states is associated with the PCI of the cell;
determining that a second TCI state of the two or more TCI states is associated with a second PCI different from the PCI of the cell; and
selecting the first TCI state ([0094]).
Regarding claim 6, the downlink signal comprises at least one of:
an aperiodic channel-state information reference signal (CSI-RS); or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) reception (PDSCH, aperiodic CSI-RS, [0029]).
Regarding claim 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, receiving a media access control control element (MAC-CE) indicating activation of a subset of the two or more TCI states; and mapping the subset of the two or more TCI states to one or more TCI codepoints, wherein each TCI codepoint of the one or more TCI codepoints indicates one or more TCI states ([0031, 0033, 0036]).
Regarding claim 12, (TCI state, TCI state pool index, [0118]).
Regarding claim 21, receiving one or more messages indicating two or more TCI states comprises:
receiving second DCI indicating the two or more TCI states (The unified TCI state may be indicated by a codepoint value in a TCI field of DCI format 1_1 or 1_2, wherein the codepoint value maps to one or more activated unified TCI states (e.g., up to 8 activated states), [0031]).
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(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SHAHMOHAMMADIAN as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Frenne US 20240421877.
Although SHAHMOHAMMADIAN teaches Release 17 ([0003]), the reference is silent on the downlink signal is a repetition of a PDSCH.
Frenne teaches, in a Release 17, the downlink signal is a repetition of a PDSCH (Rel-17, PDSCH, repeated, [0035]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of SHAHMOHAMMADIAN by the downlink signal is a repetition of a PDSCH, as shown by Frenne. This modification would benefit the system by improving the TRPs reliability ([0035]).
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SHAHMOHAMMADIAN as applied to claim 10 above, and further in view of Matsumura US 20230115642.
SHAHMOHAMMADIAN is silent on selecting comprises selecting a TCI state, among the first TCI state and the second TCI state, having a highest TCI state index.
Matsumura teaches selecting comprises selecting a TCI state, among the first TCI state and the second TCI state, having a highest TCI state index ([0322]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of SHAHMOHAMMADIAN by selecting comprises selecting a TCI state, among the first TCI state and the second TCI state, having a highest TCI state index, as shown by Matsumura. This modification would benefit the system by providing a proven, reliable method for selecting a TCI state.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15 and 20 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 3/13/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant contends, “Shahmohammadian fails to anticipate claim 1 at least because Shahmohammadian fails to disclose or suggest at least "determining a TCI state based on[] a quantity of TCI states, among the two or more TCI states, that are associated with a PCI of the cell" as required by claim 1. Shahmohammadian does not disclose "a quantity of TCI states that are associated with a PCI of the cell pg. 6 last paragraph). As shown above, Shahmohammadian discloses:
(The unified TCI state may be indicated by a codepoint value in a TCI field of DCI format 1_1 or 1_2, wherein the codepoint value maps to one or more activated unified TCI states (e.g., up to 8 activated states), [0031], wherein each of the activated TCI states is associated with a physical cell ID (PCI) value that is different from a PCI value of a serving cell, claim 16)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RONALD B ABELSON whose telephone number is (571)272-3165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
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/RONALD B ABELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476
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