DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Species I, claims 1-8 in the reply filed on February 26, 2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that Species I and Species II are essentially and mutually linked for the reasons set forth on pages 3 and 4 of the remarks. This is found persuasive. The requirement is therefore withdrawn and all claims are being examined below.
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)(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.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Liu (US Pub. 2023/0261719).
Regarding claim 1, Liu discloses a terminal in a communication system, the terminal comprising:
a transceiver; and a controller (par.080 transceiver and “a processor” which reads on “a controller”) configured to:
receive, from a base station, a higher layer parameter enabling a default beam and a default pathloss reference signal (RS) for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (par.036 “On the other hand…..higher layer parameter to ‘enable’, which means that a default spatial relation and a default PL-RS”),
identify a spatial relation for the PUCCH (par.007 “the higher layer parameters related to spatial relation is PUCCH-spatialRelationInfo”),
transmit, to the base station, the PUCCH based on the spatial relation, wherein the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of a control resource set (CORESET) with the lowest ID on an active downlink (DL) BWP (par.003 “The default spatial relation….dedicated-PUCCH resource….The UE may determine the default spatial relation by the activated TCI state with the lowest ID….in the active DL-BWP”, par.008 “each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”), and wherein,
in case that the CORESET corresponds to more than one activated TCI state, the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a first TCI state among the more than one activated TCI state (par.008 “TCI states……each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”).
Regarding claims 2, 6, 10 and 14, Liu discloses identify a pathloss RS index used to determine power for the PUCCH, wherein the pathloss RS index is associated with the TCI state of the CORESET with the lowest ID on an active DL BWP, and wherein, in case that the CORESET corresponds to more than one activated TCI state, the pathloss RS index is associated with the first TCI state among the more than one activated TCI state (par.008 “a first TCI state pointed to by the lowest TCI codepoint….each of the activated TCI states….associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value……determining the default PL-RS comprises determining a RS resource index”).
Regarding claims 3, 7, 11 and 15, Liu discloses value of CORESET pool index does not corresponds to 1 for any CORESET (par.058 CORESETs in the PCell are associated with CORESETPoolindex=0”), or the value of CORESET pool index corresponds to 1 for all CORESETs (par.058 “while other CORESETs in the PCell are associated with CORESETPoolindex=1 (i.e. associated with TRP1)”).
Regarding claims 4, 8 and 12, Liu discloses a dedicated pathloss RS for the PUCCH and a dedicated spatial relation for the PUCCH are not configured from the base station (par.035 “The spatial relation and the PL-RS….may not configured for the target uplink signa”, par.061 “dedicated PUCCH resource without configured spatial relation and PL-RS”).
Regarding claim 5, Liu discloses a method performed by a terminal in a communication system, the method comprising:
receive, from a base station, a higher layer parameter enabling a default beam and a default pathloss reference signal (RS) for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (par.036 “On the other hand…..higher layer parameter to ‘enable’, which means that a default spatial relation and a default PL-RS”),
identify a spatial relation for the PUCCH (par.007 “the higher layer parameters related to spatial relation is PUCCH-spatialRelationInfo”),
transmit, to the base station, the PUCCH based on the spatial relation, wherein the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of a control resource set (CORESET) with the lowest ID on an active downlink (DL) BWP (par.003 “The default spatial relation….dedicated-PUCCH resource….The UE may determine the default spatial relation by the activated TCI state with the lowest ID….in the active DL-BWP”, par.008 “each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”), and wherein,
in case that the CORESET corresponds to more than one activated TCI state, the spatial
relation for the PUCCH is associated with a first TCI state among the more than one activated TCI state (par.008 “TCI states……each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”).
Regarding claim 9, Liu discloses base station in a communication system, the base station comprising:
a transceiver; and a controller (par.080 “The gNB…includes a processor, a memory, and a transceiver”) configured to:
transmit, to a terminal, a higher layer parameter enabling a default beam and a default pathloss reference signal (RS) for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (par.036 “On the other hand…..higher layer parameter to ‘enable’, which means that a default spatial relation and a default PL-RS”), and
receive, from the terminal, the PUCCH based on the spatial relation, wherein the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of a control resource set (CORESET) with the lowest ID on an active downlink (DL) BWP (par.003 “The default spatial relation….dedicated-PUCCH resource….The UE may determine the default spatial relation by the activated TCI state with the lowest ID….in the active DL-BWP”, par.008 “each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”), and
wherein, in case that the CORESET corresponds to more than one activated TCI state, the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a first TCI state among the more than one activated TCI state (par.008 “TCI states……each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”).
Regarding claim 13, Liu discloses a method perform by a base station in a
communication system, the base station comprising:
transmit, to a terminal, a higher layer parameter enabling a default beam and a default pathloss reference signal (RS) for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (par.036 “On the other hand…..higher layer parameter to ‘enable’, which means that a default spatial relation and a default PL-RS”), and
receive, from the terminal, the PUCCH based on the spatial relation, wherein the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of a control resource set (CORESET) with the lowest ID on an active downlink (DL) BWP (par.003 “The default spatial relation….dedicated-PUCCH resource….The UE may determine the default spatial relation by the activated TCI state with the lowest ID….in the active DL-BWP”, par.008 “each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”), and
wherein, in case that the CORESET corresponds to more than one activated TCI state, the spatial relation for the PUCCH is associated with a first TCI state among the more than one activated TCI state (par.008 “TCI states……each of the activated TCI states…..is associated with a CORESETPoolIndex value”, par.058 “CoresetsPoolindex=0”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Tu Nguyen whose telephone number is (571)272-7883. The examiner can normally be reached on 8AM-5PM Eastern Time.
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/TU X. NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2642
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