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 § 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) 1, 2, 6, 8, 10-12, 13, 16-19, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SHAHMOHAMMADIAN US 20240039582 in view of Bai US 20240023111.
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 (PCI) different from a PCI of a serving cell (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 the serving 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);
Although SHAHMOHAMMADIAN teaches based on each TCI state, of the two or more TCI states, being associated with the respective PCI different from the PCI of the serving cell, the reference is silent on receiving the downlink signal using a TCI state, among the two or more TCI states, that is associated with a control resource set (CORESET) having a lowest CORESET identifier.
Bai teaches receiving the downlink signal using a TCI state, among the two or more TCI states, that is associated with a control resource set (CORESET) having a lowest CORESET identifier ( if the indicated TCI is associated with PCI different from serving cell PCI (i.e., inter-cell), in each CC, the default TCI state may be the TCI state associated with a CORESET ID (e.g., such as a lowest CORESET ID), [0092]).
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 receiving the downlink signal using a TCI state, among the two or more TCI states, that is associated with a control resource set (CORESET) having a lowest CORESET identifier, as shown by Bai. This modification would benefit the system since adhering to preexisting standards will all the system to be more easily implemented into larger systems.
Regarding claim 2, a time offset between the DCI and the downlink signal is less than a threshold (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: [0058]).
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 (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: 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 (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: [0031, 0033, 0036]).
Regarding claim 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 (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: claim 17).
Regarding claim 12, (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: 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 (SHAHMOHAMMADIAN: 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(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of SHAHMOHAMMADIAN and Bai 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 the combination of SHAHMOHAMMADIAN and Bai 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 with respect to the amended independent claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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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