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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Claims 1-4 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected method, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 02/04/2026.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 7-11, 13-20 is/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.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
With respect to the claim(s), the prior art of record fails to disclose singly or in combination or render obvious all the limitations of the claim(s).
The closest prior art relating to Applicant' s claimed invention is:
US 20180027540 A1 Guo; Yu-Hsuan et al.
US 20130122918 A1 Boley; Ajit Singh et al.
US 20210135801 A1 Zhou; Yan et al.
Guo discloses methods and apparatuses for transmission or reception using beamforming in a wireless communication system. In one method, a user equipment receives a second signal indicating a first information. The UE derives at least one specific UE beam based on the first information. The UE uses the at least one specific UE beam to receive or transmit at least one transmission, in which the at least one transmission is periodic channel state indication, scheduling request, and/or scheduling information for downlink assignment or uplink resource.
Boley discloses receiving a network message from a network, inhibiting a sending of a user equipment message to the network and transitioning to a target state. The user equipment is adaptable/adapted and/or configurable/configured to receive a network message from a network, inhibit a sending of a user equipment message to the network and transition to a target state. The network message indicates the target state to which the user equipment is to transition. FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a message sequence chart of a measurement report that is sent during a UE transition to a paging channel (PCH) state. A third generation partnership project (3GPP) technical specification (TS) 25.331 compliant UE would exhibit the behaviour shown in FIG. 4. The RNC instructs the UE to transition to a CELL_PCH/URA_PCH (PCH) state using an RRC reconfiguration message [1] (i.e., section 8.2.2.3 message of 3GPP TS 25.331). The UE sends the RNC an RRC reconfiguration complete message [2] and awaits a layer 2 radio link control acknowledgement (L2 RLC ACK) for the RRC reconfiguration complete message. While waiting for the L2 RLC ACK for the RRC reconfiguration complete message, the UE can continue to send RRC measurement reports [3] based on the current UE measurement configuration. While there may be one or more one measurement report sent while waiting for the L2 RLC ACK for the RRC reconfiguration complete message, a single measurement report is shown in FIG. 4.
Zhou discloses that user equipment (UE) may receive a signaling message configuring one or more component carrier groups for joint transmission configuration indication (TCI) state activation. When a beam update command indicates an updated TCI state for an individual component carrier, the UE may apply the beam update command after an action time based at least in part on a format of the beam update command. Furthermore, the UE may be configured with rules for applying the beam update command if the individual component carrier is not included in any of the component carrier groups and/or multiple beam update commands are received within a threshold time. Additionally, the UE may prioritize quasi co-located (QCL) reception for all component carriers that are associated with the same TCI state as another component carrier for which QCL reception is prioritized. In some aspects, the UE 305 may determine an action time after which the beam update command is ready to use or otherwise allowed to take effect. For example, based at least in part on the signaling to configure the one or more component carrier sets, the UE 305 may transmit, and the BS 310 may receive, an RRC reconfiguration complete message to acknowledge or otherwise indicate that the one or more component carrier sets have been configured, reconfigured, and/or the like at the UE 305. In some aspects, the BS 310 may then transmit, and the UE 305 may receive, an acknowledgement message based at least in part on the RRC reconfiguration complete message.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
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)(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.
(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) 5, 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1/2) as being anticipated by US 20180027540 A1 to Guo; Yu-Hsuan et al.
Re: Claim(s) 5
Guo discloses a handover method of a terminal, comprising: (Figs. 19 and 20)
detecting a beam change within a dual access transmission and reception point (TRP) through a beam search procedure (Fig. 19 and 0126 - If UE beamforming is used, the UE periodically performs beam sweeping for reception or transmission of the signaling. 0128 - If UE beam change is detected by the UE. The Examiner notes that the term “dual access” is not provided with any context. The broadest reasonable interpretation of “dual access” would be that the claimed TRP is capable of communicating via multiple beams. This is evident from at least Fig. 19 (e.g., beam changes from one beam to another). Further clarifying detail for “dual access” is found in claim 7, which contains allowable subject matter);
reporting a beam search result indicating the beam change to a current serving distributed unit (DU) through the dual access TRP (Fig. 19 and 0128 - the UE needs to provide feedback to the network, e.g. periodically or upon detection of the change. Feedback for serving beam/TRP change from UE to TRP and Info for serving beam/TRP change from TRP to BS. 0071 - TRP could also be referred to as distributed unit (DU). 0070 - A BS could also be referred to as a central unit (CU). Therefore, the feedback is from a UE to a DU and the info is from a DU to a CU);
receiving, from a central unit (CU) to which the terminal is connected and through the dual access TRP, a command message indicating DU switching for switching a serving TRP of the terminal from the current serving DU to a target DU (Fig. 19 and 0132 - After the UE receives the signaling for change detection, the UE needs to provide feedback to the network, and the network could decide whether to change (DL) serving beam(s) and/or serving TRP(s) for the UE. Update serving beam/TRP for UE transmitted from BS (CU) to TRP (DU) and Indication of serving beam/TRP change transmitted from TRP (DU) to UE);
and performing an access procedure to the target DU (See id. and 0071 - TRP: a transmission and reception point provides network coverage and directly communicates with UEs. The Examiner notes that upon a TRP change (as indicated in Fig. 19) it is implied that the UE would subsequently access the new TRP (i.e. target DU) for a subsequent communication).
Re: Claim(s) 6
Guo discloses wherein the DU switching is determined and notified by the current serving DU to the CU, or determined by the CU based on a beam search result from the terminal (Fig. 19 - Feedback for serving beam/TRP change from UE to TRP (DU) and Info for serving beam/TRP change from TRP (DU) to BS (CU). Update serving beam/TRP for UE transmitted from BS (CU) to TRP (DU) and Indication of serving beam/TRP change transmitted from TRP (DU) to UE).
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) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of US 20130122918 A1 to Boley; Ajit Singh et al.
Re: Claim(s) 12
Guo discloses those limitations as set forth in the rejection of claim(s) 5 and 6 above.
Guo does/do not appear to explicitly disclose transmitting a DU switching complete message to the CU; and receiving, from the CU, an acknowledgment message for the DU switching complete message transmitted by the terminal.
However, attention is directed to Boley which discloses said limitation (Fig. 4 and 0038 – RNC reconfigures the UE using an RRC reconfiguration message. The UE sends the RNC an RRC reconfiguration complete message and awaits a layer 2 radio link control acknowledgement (L2 RLC ACK) for the RRC reconfiguration complete message).
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 Guo invention by employing the teaching as taught by Boley to provide the ability to transmit an RRC reconfiguration complete message and receive an acknowledgement in response. The Examiner notes that Guo disclose that beam configuration can be carried via RRC messages (0158). Therefore, there exists a suggestion to one of ordinary skill in the art to have looked for methods of transmitting RRC messages and would have come across Boley which discloses such a method. The motivation for the combination is given by Boley (0001).
Conclusion
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/KASHIF SIDDIQUI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415