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 .
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.
Claims 14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chen et al (US Publication 2021/0083751 A1).
Regarding to claim 14, Chen discloses a method (fig. 2) of a base station (access node), comprising: transmitting S101 information on a pre-configured second physical uplink control channel PUCCH (page 9 paragraph 0092) to user equipment UE (page 9 paragraph 0096) to be shared by all pieces of user equipment 200 in the base station (fig. 1 page 8 paragraph 0090; more than one PUCCH resources for plurality UEs 200); determining a first beam to be used for communication with the user equipment through a random access procedure (page 10 paragraph 0110); communicating with the user equipment through the first beam (page 10 paragraph 0113); receiving S103 a sounding reference signal SRS (CSI-RS) transmission approval request for beam recovery from the user equipment through the second PUCCH (page 11 paragraph 0119); and transmitting S104 an SRS transmission approval to the user equipment in response to the SRS transmission approval request (page 12 paragraph 0122).
Regarding to claim 16, Chen discloses the information on the second PUCCH is transmitted to the user equipment through higher layer signaling (page 8 paragraph 0090) or a system information block SIB.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15 and 17-19 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.
Claims 1-13 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior of record fails to teach or make obvious for “when it is determined that the error condition for the first beam is met, determining whether a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) allocated to the user equipment is present within a predetermined first period of time; when it is determined that the first PUCCH is not present, transmitting a sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission approval request and an identifier of the user equipment to the base station through a second PUCCH pre-configured to be shared by all pieces of user equipment”, when the determining and transmitting are considered within the specific combination of steps recited in the method of claim 1. The prior of record fails to teach or make obvious for “when it is determined that the error condition for the first beam is met, selecting a reference signal (RS) with a largest reference signals received power (RSRP) value from among RSs received through beams other than the first beam; determining whether a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) allocated to the user equipment is present within a predetermined first period of time; when it is determined that the first PUCCH is not present, transmitting a channel status report approval request and an identifier of the user equipment to the base station through a pre-configured second PUCCH to be shared by all pieces of user equipment; and when a channel status report approval is received from the base station, transmitting a channel status report for the beam on which the RS with the largest RSRP value is transmitted to the base station”, when the determining and transmitting are considered within the specific combination of steps recited in the method of claim 8.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Duc T Duong whose telephone number is (571)272-3122. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri; 9am-6pm.
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/DUC T DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467