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 .
This action is in response to the application filed on November 15, 2023
Claims 1-30 are under examination.
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muruganathan et al. (US: 2024/0056247 A1) in view of SCHOBER et al. (US: 2025/0106770 A1).
As per Claim 1 Muruganathan teaches a user equipment, comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code (Paragraph 0252- 0254 UE 1300 can include a processor 1310 (processor 1310 can execute program code stored in program memory 1320); and
one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the first user equipment to (Paragraph 0252- 0254 UE 1300 can include a processor 1310 (also referred to as “processing circuitry”) that can be operably connected to a program memory 1320 and/or a data memory 1330 via a bus 1370 that can comprise parallel address and data buses, serial ports, or other methods):
receive control signaling comprising an indication of a resource allocation associated with a physical downlink shared channel for a second user equipment and an indication to measure a demodulation reference signal associated with the physical downlink shared channel for the second user equipment (Paragraph 0014, 0083- 0086,0091 For example, these include demodulation reference signals (DM-RS), which are transmitted to aid the UE in the reception of an associated PDCCH or PDSCH. reference signal received power (RSRP) per beam. A UE first detects and decodes DCI and, if the DCI includes an uplink grant for the UE, transmits the corresponding PUSCH on the resources indicated by the UEs perform such measurements on SSBs associated with the respective beams, PDCCH downlink control information (DCI) contains a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) field that informs a UE which network beam is used for DL data transmission so that the UE can adjust its receive beam accordingly. PBCH carries the basic system information (SI) required by the UE to access a cell. PDCCH is used for transmitting DL control information (DCI) including demodulation RS (DMRS), phase-tracking reference signals (PTRS), etc. scheduling information for DL messages on PDSCH, grants for UL transmission on PUSCH, and channel quality feedback (e.g., CSI) for the UL channel. PUSCH is the uplink counterpart to the PDSCH...);
measure, based at least in part on receiving the control signaling, the demodulation reference signal associated with the physical downlink shared channel for the second user equipment (Paragraph 0090, 0092, 0096 transmits downlink control information (DCI) over PDCCH that indicates which UE is scheduled to receive data in that slot, as well as which RBs will carry that data. The fallback DCI support resource allocation type 1 in which DCI size depends on the size of active BWP. A UE first detects and decodes DCI and, if the DCI includes DL scheduling information for the UE, receives the corresponding PDSCH based on the DL scheduling information. DCI formats 1_0 and 1_1 are used to convey PDSCH scheduling. For example, to determine the modulation order, target code rate, and TB size(s) for a scheduled PDSCH transmission, the UE first reads the 5-bit modulation and coding scheme field (I.sub.MCS) in the DCI (e.g., formats 1_0 or 1_1) to determine the modulation order ); and
transmit, to a network entity and based at least in part on measuring the demodulation reference signal associated with the physical downlink shared channel for the second user equipment, signaling comprising a beam management report (Paragraph 0101, 0107, 0230 This can be useful for demodulation since the UE can know beforehand the properties of the channel when trying to measure the channel utilizing the DMRS. the UE to perform measurements on SSBs. If the network receives a UE report indicating that a new SSB beam is better than the previous best SSB beam. The first antenna port is represented by a measurement reference signal such as CSI-RS (referred to as “source RS”) and the second antenna port is a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) (referred to as “target RS”). A UE performs measurements on many DL-RSs and the beam report also includes respective reference signal identifiers associated with the first and second reference signals. In some of these embodiments, the beam report is arranged into a plurality of preconfigured bitfields and each group of measurements is arranged ).
Muruganathan does not explicitly disclose a resource allocation associated with a physical downlink shared channel for a second user equipment
However, SCHOBER from an analogous art similarly teaches a resource allocation associated with a physical downlink shared channel for a second user equipment (Paragraph 0062, 0063 The DCI schedules which resources will be allocated to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) for each UE device 101-103. For example, DCI in the first PDCCH 302 may indicate the location of a large “legacy” PDSCH resource allocation 310 for the first UE 101 and a smaller PDSCH resource allocation 320 for the second UE 102, amongst other control information. The second PDCCH 303 may communicate the location of a large “legacy” PDSCH resource allocation 311 for the second UE 102 and a smaller allocation 321 for the first UE 101, while the third and fourth PDCCHs 304, 305 may communicate the locations of PDSCH resource allocations 312, 322, 313, 323 in the third and fourth slots all for the third UE 103.. );
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 Muruganathan to include the teaching of SCHOBER so the second UE device 102 is allocated a “legacy” rectangle 311 of resource units occupying PRBs “5-18” and symbol periods “3-13” of the second slot 301b, and also a set 320 of resource units occupying PRBs “0-3”. (See SCHOBER Paragraph 0063).
As per Claim 2 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 1, wherein the control signaling further comprises an indication of one or more metrics to measure, and wherein, to measure the demodulation reference signal, the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the first user equipment to measure, using the demodulation reference signal, the one or more metrics (Paragraph 0090, 0169, Note that RSRP is given as an exemplary measurement quantity or metric, but other relevant measurement quantities or metrics (e.g., SINR) can be reported instead of RSRP. For example, PDCCH downlink control information (DCI) contains a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) field that informs a UE which network beam is used for DL data transmission so that the UE can adjust its receive beam accordingly, transmits downlink control information (DCI) over PDCCH that indicates which UE is scheduled to receive data in that slot, as well as which RBs will carry that data..).
As per Claim 3 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 2, wherein the one or more metrics comprise a reference signal received power, a spectral efficiency, or a combination thereof (Paragraph 0169, 0277 Note that RSRP is given as an exemplary measurement quantity or metric, but other relevant measurement quantities or metrics (e.g., SINR) can be reported instead of RSRP. FIG. 15 can also include measurement procedures and/or sensors that monitor network performance metrics including data rate, latency and other factors).
As per Claim 4 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the first user equipment to: decode the control signaling to determine: one or more resource blocks within the resource allocation comprise the demodulation reference signal, and a quantity of demodulation reference signal ports associate with the demodulation reference signal (Paragraph 0106, 0107 the UE can estimate the average delay from the signal received from antenna port A (source RS) and assume that the signal received from antenna port B (target RS) has the same average delay. This can be useful for demodulation since the UE can know beforehand the properties of the channel when trying to measure the channel utilizing the DMRS. These antenna ports are then said to be “quasi co-located” or “QCL”. The network can signal to the UE that two antenna ports are QCL with respect to one or more parameters. Once the UE knows that two antenna ports are QCL with respect to a certain parameter (e.g., Doppler spread), the UE can estimate that parameter based on one of the antenna ports and use that estimate when receiving the other antenna port. Typically, the first antenna port is represented by a measurement reference signal such as CSI-RS (referred to as “source RS”) and the second antenna port is a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) (referred to as “target RS”). ).
As per Claim 5 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the first user equipment to: receive, from the network entity and responsive to transmission of the signaling comprising the beam management report, a message notifying the first user equipment to switch from a first directional beam to a second directional beam (Paragraph 0014, 0097 Hence, frequent and fast beam switching (e.g., within a single TRP or between TRPs) is often needed to maintain satisfactory performance for a UE, particularly at mmW frequencies. To support such beam switching, a beam indication framework has been specified in NR. For example, PDCCH downlink control information (DCI) contains a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) field that informs a UE which network beam is used for DL data transmission so that the UE can adjust its receive beam accordingly. Prior to data transmission, however, a training phase is used to determine preferred and/or optimal UL and DL beam configurations for UE and network.).
As per Claim 6 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 5, wherein the second directional beam is associated with the second user equipment, is associated with a third user equipment, or is a newly-configured directional beam (Paragraph 0070, 0114 various directional beams to provide coverage in the respective cells. Depending on the particular cell in which it is located, a UE 405 can communicate with the gNB or ng-eNB serving that particular cell via the NR or LTE radio interface, respectively. Hence, the network may give this relation between a channel to be decoded (e.g., PDCCH/PDSCH) and a signal that is known to be transmitted in a given direction that may be used as reference by the UE, like CSI-RS, SSB, etc.).
As per Claim 7 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the first user equipment to: transmit, to the network entity, second signaling recommending a spatial direction of a directional beam to be associated with the first user equipment, a different directional beam to be associated with the first user equipment, or a combination thereof (Paragraph 0072, 0099 An important benefit of multi-TRP operation is reliability due to the spatial diversity provided by the different transmission paths to/from the respective TRPs. A basic operational principle of spatial diversity is that multiple copies of the same data payload are combined at the receiver to improve the receiver's capability to recover the data payload, the NR beam management framework allows the network to inform the UE about spatial relations between beams and to facilitate UE-side beam tracking. Before starting a random access channel (RACH) procedure towards the network, the UE measures on a set of SSBs and chooses a suitable one ).
As per Claim 8 Muruganathan- SCHOBER teaches the first user equipment of claim 7, wherein the second signaling is transmitted based at least in part on movement detected at the first user equipment, a changed location of the first user equipment, or a changed direction of the first user equipment (Paragraph 0006, 0071, 0116 Each TRP is typically an antenna array with one or more antenna elements and is located at a specific geographical location. In this manner, a gNB associated with multiple TRPs can transmit the same or different signals from each of the TRPs. For example, a gNB can transmit different version of the same signal on multiple TRPs to a single UE. Each of the TRPs can also employ beams for transmission and reception towards the UEs served by the gNB, as discussed above. Since different TRPs may be located in different physical locations and have different beams, the propagation channels can be different. To facilitate receiving PDSCH data from different TRPs or beams, a UE may be configured by RRC with multiple TCI states. The functions of HSS 131 can be related to the functions of legacy Home Location Register (HLR) and Authentication Centre (AuC) functions or operations.).
Claims 9 – 30 are network entity and a method claims corresponding to the user equipment claims 1 – 8 that have been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claims 1 – 8. Claims 9-30 are rejected under the same rational as claims 1-8.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner is open for discussion if the applicant’s representative need further clarifications.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (See form 892).
Conclusion
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/SYED ALI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463