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 .
Title of the Invention
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Objections
Claim(s) 1, 6, 13, 18 and 20 is/are objected because of the following informalities (or vagueness):
Regarding claim 1, said claim recites in part, "wherein the beam failure recovery MAC CE comprises cell beam recovery information units of one or more cells of a terminal device, wherein the cell beam recovery information unit indicates beam recovery information of a corresponding cell". It is suggested that the second underlined limitations may need to be rewrite to clearly present the limitations as follows; "wherein each of the cell beam recovery information units indicates beam recovery information of a corresponding cell". Otherwise, "the" definite article in the second underlined feature may cause confusion because the first underlined feature is in a plural form and the second underlined feature is in a singular form.
Regarding claims 13 and 20, said claims recite similar limitations to claim 1 and are objected with same informalities.
Regarding claims 6 and 18, said claims recite "the AC field" that has not been recited their independent claims, thus it may cause an antecedent basis issue. Appropriate correction is required.
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, 8, 13-14 and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Yi comprises the following features:
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim 1, an apparatus, comprising at least one processing circuit,
wherein the at least one processing circuit is coupled to a memory storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processing circuit ([0208 and Fig. 3] “The wireless device 110 may comprise at least one communication interface 310 (e.g. a wireless modem, an antenna, and/or the like), at least one processor 314, and at least one set of program code instructions 316 stored in non-transitory memory 315 and executable by the at least one processor 314.”) to perform operations comprising:
determining a beam failure recovery media access control control element (MAC CE) (See below [0392]); and
sending the beam failure recovery MAC CE ([0392] “Based on the detecting he beam failure, the wireless device may transmit a beam failure recovery request to the second TRP using/via one or more uplink resources (e.g., MAC-CE on UL-grant PUSCH”),
wherein the beam failure recovery MAC CE comprises cell beam recovery information units of one or more cells of a terminal device (See Fig. 25 reproduced below for different MAC CE formats, and [0407] “FIG. 25 illustrates different MAC CE formats which may be used in different scenarios or may be used to carry a TRP information in a beam failure recovery procedure.” Each configuration depicts # of entry, New candidate beam index and cell index, etc. These are equivalent to the recited information units.),
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wherein the cell beam recovery information unit indicates beam recovery information of a corresponding cell (See “New candidate beam index”, and “Cell Index” or “TRP Index” in Fig. 25 above.), and
the cell beam recovery information unit comprises:
a cell indication (C) field indicating a cell corresponding to the cell beam recovery information unit (See “Cell Index” in Fig. 25.); and
a transmit/receive point (TRP) beam recovery information unit quantity indication (N) field indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units in the cell beam recovery information unit (Note that as seen in [0409] below, Yi describes beam recovery information for TRPs, but does not specifically describe a specific field to indicate a quantity of TRP information units. This will be discussed in view of Li.),
wherein the TRP beam recovery information units indicate beam recovery information of a TRP ([0409] “In first MAC CE(s), a list of beam recovery information (e.g., a list of new candidate beam) of a first TRP of one or more cells (a first TRP may be the same as a cell when one TRP operates on the cell) may be reported. In second MAC CE(s), a list of beam recovery information of a second TRP of one or more cells may be reported (a second TRP may not present when one TRP operates on the cell).”).
It is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about an indication indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Li as follows;
quantity indication (N) field indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units ([Li, 0179] “Since there are two TRPs with beam failures, the MAC CE also carries the BFRQ information of the second TRP, namely the second TRP index value, CC index value, new candidate beam indication (if it is found to meet the requirements) and an indicator showing whether a new candidate beam is located. In addition, a parameter can be added to indicate the number of TRPs for which beam failures occur.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Li in order to provide possibilities of various MAC CE formats such that “the present application provides a beam recovery method in a multi-TRP system” [Li, 0007].
Regarding claim 13, an apparatus, comprising at least one processing circuit and, wherein the at least one processing circuit is coupled to a memory storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processing circuit processor ([0208 and Fig. 3] “The processor 314 of the wireless device 110, the processor 321A of the base station 1 120A, and/or the processor 321B of the base station 2 120B may comprise at least one of a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP)”) to perform operations comprising:
receiving a beam failure recovery MAC CE from a terminal device ([0392] “Based on the detecting he beam failure, the wireless device may transmit a beam failure recovery request to the second TRP using/via one or more uplink resources (e.g., MAC-CE on UL-grant PUSCH”),
wherein the beam failure recovery MAC CE comprises cell beam recovery information units of one or more cells of the terminal device (See Fig. 25 reproduced below for different MAC CE formats, and [0407] “FIG. 25 illustrates different MAC CE formats which may be used in different scenarios or may be used to carry a TRP information in a beam failure recovery procedure.” Each configuration depicts # of entry, New candidate beam index and cell index, etc. These are equivalent to the recited information units.),
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wherein the cell beam recovery information unit indicates beam recovery information of a corresponding cell (See “New candidate beam index”, and “Cell Index” or “TRP Index” in Fig. 25 above.), and the cell beam recovery information unit comprises:
a cell indication (C) field indicating a cell corresponding to the cell beam recovery information unit (See “Cell Index” in Fig. 25.); and
a transmit/receive point (TRP) beam recovery information unit quantity indication (N) field indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units in the cell beam recovery information unit (Note that as seen in [0409] below, Yi describes beam recovery information for TRPs, but does not specifically describe a specific field to indicate a quantity of TRP information units. This will be discussed in view of Li.),
wherein the TRP beam recovery information units indicate beam recovery information of a TRP ([0409] “In first MAC CE(s), a list of beam recovery information (e.g., a list of new candidate beam) of a first TRP of one or more cells (a first TRP may be the same as a cell when one TRP operates on the cell) may be reported. In second MAC CE(s), a list of beam recovery information of a second TRP of one or more cells may be reported (a second TRP may not present when one TRP operates on the cell).”).
It is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about an indication indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Li as follows;
quantity indication (N) field indicating a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units ([Li, 0179] “Since there are two TRPs with beam failures, the MAC CE also carries the BFRQ information of the second TRP, namely the second TRP index value, CC index value, new candidate beam indication (if it is found to meet the requirements) and an indicator showing whether a new candidate beam is located. In addition, a parameter can be added to indicate the number of TRPs for which beam failures occur.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Li in order to provide possibilities of various MAC CE formats such that “the present application provides a beam recovery method in a multi-TRP system” [Li, 0007].
Regarding claim 20, it is a method claim corresponding to the method claim 1, and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claims 2 and 14, the apparatus according to claim 1 and the apparatus according to claim 13, respectively,
wherein the cell beam recovery information unit comprises at least one TRP beam recovery information unit ([0407] “A TRP index may be identified as a TRP ID associated with each TRP, determined based on a CORESET group ID, determine based on a TCI state group ID, and/or the like. In MAC CEs, a wireless device may report a new candidate beam index for a TRP of a cell using Configuration 2.”), and the TRP beam recovery information unit comprises one or more of:
an available candidate beam indication (AC) field indicating whether content in a candidate reference signal index (candidate RS ID) field is valid; a candidate reference signal index (candidate RS ID) field indicating a reference signal index of a candidate beam (These alternatives are not examined.); or
a TRP indication (TI) field indicating the TRP corresponding to the TRP beam recovery information unit (See aforesaid [0407] “A TRP index”).
Regarding claim 8, the apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the operations further comprising:
before sending the beam failure recovery MAC CE, searching for candidate beams for the one or more TRPs in the one or more cells to determine the beam failure recovery MAC CE ([0378] “The wireless device may inform a first new candidate beam for the first TRP and a second new candidate beam for the second TRP where the first new candidate beam is a beam/RS from the one or more first candidate beam reference signals with a good quality and the second new candidate beam is a beam/RS from the one or more second candidate beam reference signals with a good quality.”);
sending the beam failure recovery MAC CE ([0379] “The wireless device may inform/indicate/transmit the first new candidate beam via a PUSCH comprising one or more MAC CEs”); and
after receiving a response, determining that beam recovery is completed ([0385] “The base station may transmit a confirmation via a BFR CORESET/SS to complete the BFR.”, or [0389] “In response to receiving the update, the wireless device may complete the BFR of the second TRP.”).
Claim(s) 3-4 and 15-16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”) and further in view of Lin (US 2021/0105058).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claims 3 and 15, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about a cell index indicating SpCell. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Lin as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 1 and the apparatus according to claim 13, respectively, wherein the cell indicated by the cell indication (C) field comprises a special cell (SpCell) ([Lin, 0043] “in the BFRQ MAC CE, UE 110 may indicate the beam failure of SpCell by indicating the serving cell index of SpCell (e.g., cell ID=00000) or, alternatively, UE 110 may set the bitmap for ID 0 as 1 to inform wireless network 120 of BFR on the SpCell (e.g., not setting the C.sub.i for cell ID 0 as R, reserved bit).”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Lin in order to include effective information in various MAC CE formats such that “to provide schemes, concepts, designs, techniques, methods and apparatuses pertaining to a BFR procedure for SCell in mobile communications. Under various schemes described in the present disclosure, some MAC CE formats for BFRQ are introduced” [Lin, 0007].
Regarding claims 4 and 16, the apparatus according to claim 3 and the apparatus according to claim 15, respectively, wherein the special cell (SpCell) corresponds to a bit C0 in the cell indication (C) field (See aforesaid [Lin, 0043] “the bitmap for ID 0 as 1”).
Claim(s) 5 and 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”) and further in view of Cirik et al. (US 2025/0105904, “Cirik”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claims 5 and 17, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about octets and bits. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Cirik as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 1 and the apparatus according to claim 13, respectively, wherein the cell indication (C) field comprises 8 bits C0 to C7 or 32 bits C0 to C31 (See [Fig. 29-Fig. 35]), each bit corresponds to one cell ([0360] “A C.sub.i field may indicate an activation/deactivation status of an SCell with an SCell index I”), and wherein for each bit:
1 indicates that for a cell corresponding to the bit, beam recovery information of an TRP on which beam recovery needs to be performed is present in the beam failure recovery MAC CE ([0543] “The wireless device may activate one or more BFR-RS resources indicated by BFR MAC CE, if the C_i field is set to one. The BFR MAC CE may apply for the BWP with the BWP index i (e.g., BFR MAC CE for BWP-i shown in FIG. 35).”); or
0 indicates that for a cell corresponding to the bit, beam recovery information of an TRP on which beam recovery needs to be performed is not present in the beam failure recovery MAC CE ([0543] “The wireless device may deactivate one or more BFR-RS resources indicated by BFR MAC CE, for example, if the C_i field is set to zero. The BFR MAC CE may apply for the BWP with the BWP index i.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Cirik in order to achieve effective resource management in beam failure recovery procedures such that “The BFR MAC CE may allocate beam failure recovery resources to particular cells to achieve orthogonality of resource allocation” [Cirik, 0004].
Claim(s) 6 and 18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”) and further in view of Agiwal et al. (US 2022/0046441, “Agiwal”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 6 and 18, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about octets and bits. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Cirik as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 1 and the apparatus according to claim 13, respectively, wherein the AC field occupies 1 bit ([Agiwal, 0126] “AC: this field indicates the presence of the candidate RS ID field in this octet. If at least one of the SSBs with SS-RSRP above rsrp-ThresholdBFR amongst the SSBs in candidateBeamRSSCellList or the CSI-RSs with CSI-RSRP above rsrp-ThresholdBFR amongst the CSI-RSs in candidateBeamRSSCellList is available, the AC field is set to 1; otherwise, it is set to 0.”), and wherein: the AC field being 1 indicates that the terminal device finds an available candidate beam for a corresponding TRP ([Agiwal, 0126] “If the AC field set to 1, the Candidate RS ID field is present.”); or the AC field being 0 indicates that the terminal device does not find an available candidate beam for a corresponding TRP ([Agiwal, 0126] “If the AC field set to 0, R bits are present instead”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Agiwal in order to handle beam failure recovery with multiple TRPs such that “identifying, by MAC layer, whether evaluation of candidate beams is completed for the at least one serving cell for which the failure recovery is triggered” [Agiwal, 0008].
Claim(s) 9-10 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”), and further in view of Liu et al. (US 2021/0068191, “Liu”) and Alfarhan et al. (US 2024/0314605, “Alfarhan”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 9, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about collecting statistics on BFI quantities and two thresholds for a BFR procedure. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Liu and Alfarhan, respectively, as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the operations further comprising:
before the sending the beam failure recovery MAC CE, collecting statistics on a quantity of beam failure instance times of each of the one or more TRPs in the one or more cells ([Liu, 0240] “the MAC layer collects statistics about the link failure instance (that is, the BFI) of the first control resource set for a plurality of times, to reduce a probability of false determining caused by an accidental event. This improves reliability of determining the link failure of the first control resource set. In addition, the MAC layer determines one or more PRACHs used to send the link failure recovery request. This can improve air interface usage.”), and
when the quantity of beam failure instance times of the TRP is greater than a first threshold and less than a second threshold ([Alfarhan, 0156] “current BFI counter is larger than a first threshold and less than a second threshold (e.g., the WTRU may reset the inactivity timer if resetting the timer can result in detecting a beam failure upon counting a number of BFIs in upcoming BFDRs within an extra inactivity timer period).”), determining to perform beam recovery on the TRP ([Alfarhan, 0158] “The WTRU may (i) monitor a PDCCH search space (e.g., configured as beam recovery search space), for example, after new candidate beam indication (e.g., using PRACH or a BFR MAC CE)”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Liu and Alfarhan in order to manage resource overheads such that “to quickly recover a communication link, so as to reduce a communication latency” [Liu, 0005] and “methods may be implemented for power efficient measurements for high frequency operations” [Alfarhan, 0004].
Regarding claim 10, the apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the operations further comprising: when the quantity of beam failure instance times of the TRP is greater than or equal to the second threshold, determining that a beam of the TRP is in a beam failure state ([Alfarhan, claim 7] “determine that the beam failure instance counter has reached a maximum number of beam failure instances; initiate a random access procedure based determining that the beam failure instance counter has reached the maximum number of beam failure instances”).
Claim(s) 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”), Liu et al. (US 2021/0068191, “Liu”) and Alfarhan et al. (US 2024/0314605, “Alfarhan”), and further in view of Xu et al. (US 2025/0203595, “Xu”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 11, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about an indication for two threshold of BFI. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Liu as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the operations further comprising: receiving indication information of the first threshold and the second threshold ([Xu, 0092] “acquiring, from the base station, information of a first threshold and a second threshold”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Xu in order to identify a candidate beam for BFR procedures such that “acquire, from a base station, configuration information including a first candidate beam set for beam failure recovery” [Xu, 0007].
Claim(s) 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2020/0350972, “Yi”) in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0073710, “Li”), Liu et al. (US 2021/0068191, “Liu”) and Alfarhan et al. (US 2024/0314605, “Alfarhan”), and further in view of Zhou et al. (US 2022/0385351, “Zhou”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Yi unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 12, it is noted that while disclosing MAC CE formats, Yi does not specifically teach about statistics information with a counter and a timer. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Zhou as follows;
the apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the statistics on the quantity of beam failure instance times is collected by using a beam failure instance counter and a beam failure detection timer ([Zhou, 0088] “While a BFR timer is shown in various examples discussed herein, other techniques for beam failure declaration may be used in other examples, such as a rolling time window or moving average BFI count for a configured number of BDS-RS instances, and techniques discussed herein may be used in such other examples as well.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Yi by using the features of Zhou in order to achieve BFR procedures with low power consumption and low resource overheads such that “techniques provide for interference-aware beam failure detection procedures” [Zhou, 0004].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 7 and 19 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 7 contains the following underlined features which, when combined with other features of the claim, prior art of record failed to anticipate or render obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application was filed:
7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the TRP beam recovery information unit quantity indication (N) field occupies 8 bits or 32 bits, each bit corresponds to one cell, and wherein for each bit:
0 indicates that a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units in a cell corresponding to the bit is 1; or
1 indicates that a quantity of TRP beam recovery information units in a cell corresponding to the bit is 2.
Claim 19 contains similar features as recited in claim 7, thus is objected for the same reason.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Harry H. Kim whose telephone number and email address are as follows; 571-272-5009, harry.kim2@uspto.gov.
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/HARRY H KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411