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
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) 1-3, 5-18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) (a)(2) as being anticipated by Ng et al. (US 2018/0219606) (“Ng”).
For claims 1, 12, 13, and 16; Ng discloses: receive, from a network device, configuration information for shared UE beams, shared transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states, UE-specific beams, UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof (paragraph 127, 130, 159, 171: downlink control channels can be divided into UE-common (or UE-group common) downlink control channel and UE-specific downlink control channel…beam indication for common or UE-group common PDSCH and PDCCH is done with higher layer signaling such as an RRC signaling or a combination of RRC and MAC CE signaling…RRC configures RS resource sets/settings (resourceConfig), resources and ports which are the possible QCL references for receiving data and/or control channels), receive, from the network device, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) that activates a subset of the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, the UE-specific beams, the UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof (paragraph 172: the set of RS that is used for QCL reference is further down-selected by one or more MAC CE signaling. This step is beneficial if there is a large number of QCL references configured…Hence the signaling effectively indicates the set of beam-pair links (BPLs). A BPL is formed by the UE through association of an RS measures to the receive beam (also called UE Rx spatial QCL) that the UE uses to perform the measurement); and receive, from the network device, downlink control information (DCI) for indicating at least one beam, at least one TCI state, or a combination thereof from the activated subset of the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, the UE-specific beams, the UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof (paragraph 181: DCI signaling indicates one of the BPLs indicated in previous MAC CE (s) for PDSCH reception. The bit field indicates the QCL reference ID which can be one of the RS resource sets, resources, port IDs configured by RRC and MAC CE).
For claims 2, 14, and 17; Ng discloses: wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to receive, from the network device, first radio resource control (RRC) configuration information that configures a first set comprising the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, or a combination thereof, and second RRC configuration information that configures a second set comprising the UE-specific beams, the UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof (paragraph 159: the beam indication for common or UE-group common PDSCH and PDCCH is done with higher layer signaling such as an RRC signaling).
For claims 3, 15, and 18; Ng discloses: receive, from the network device, a first MAC CE command that activates a first subset of the first set, and as second MAC CE command that activates a second subset of the second set (paragraph 159-160: The beam indication for unicast PDSCH is done with at least L1 signaling (including a combination of RRC and L1 signaling, or a combination of RRC, MAC CE and L1 signaling)… In another embodiment, the same signaling method is used for both common PDSCH and unicast PDSCH, but the signaling carries an indication information to indicate if the signaling is applied to common PDSCHs (or the configured common PDSCHs) or the unicast PDSCHs).
For claims 5 and 20; Ng discloses: receive, from the network device, one MAC CE command that activates either a first subset of the first set or a second subset of the second set (paragraph 159-160: The beam indication for unicast PDSCH is done with at least L1 signaling (including a combination of RRC and L1 signaling, or a combination of RRC, MAC CE and L1 signaling)… In another embodiment, the same signaling method is used for both common PDSCH and unicast PDSCH, but the signaling carries an indication information to indicate if the signaling is applied to common PDSCHs (or the configured common PDSCHs) or the unicast PDSCHs).
For claim 7; Ng discloses: receive, from the network device, an indication to use the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, or a combination thereof for a first set of channels and to use the UE-specific beams, the UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof for a second set of channels (paragraph 127: Similar to PDSCH, there are also two types of PDCCH, namely UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH. UE-common PDCCH may be received by multiple UEs, while UE-specific PDCCH may be received by a specific UE. Therefore, it would be beneficial to employ different beams for UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH, implying the need for different beam management procedure for the two types of PDCCHs).
For claim 8; Ng discloses: wherein the first set of channels is downlink (DL) only and the second set of channels is uplink (UL) only (paragraph 127: Similar to PDSCH, there are also two types of PDCCH, namely UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH. UE-common PDCCH may be received by multiple UEs, while UE-specific PDCCH may be received by a specific UE. Therefore, it would be beneficial to employ different beams for UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH, implying the need for different beam management procedure for the two types of PDCCHs).
For claim 9; Ng discloses: wherein the first set of channels is uplink (UL) only and the second set of channels is DL only (paragraph 127: Similar to PDSCH, there are also two types of PDCCH, namely UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH. UE-common PDCCH may be received by multiple UEs, while UE-specific PDCCH may be received by a specific UE. Therefore, it would be beneficial to employ different beams for UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH, implying the need for different beam management procedure for the two types of PDCCHs).
For claim 10; Ng discloses: wherein the first set of channels comprises only control channels and the second set of channels comprises only data channels (paragraph 127: Similar to PDSCH, there are also two types of PDCCH, namely UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH. UE-common PDCCH may be received by multiple UEs, while UE-specific PDCCH may be received by a specific UE. Therefore, it would be beneficial to employ different beams for UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH, implying the need for different beam management procedure for the two types of PDCCHs).
For claim 11; Ng discloses: wherein the first set of channels comprises only data channels and the second set of channels comprises only control channels (paragraph 127: Similar to PDSCH, there are also two types of PDCCH, namely UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH. UE-common PDCCH may be received by multiple UEs, while UE-specific PDCCH may be received by a specific UE. Therefore, it would be beneficial to employ different beams for UE-common PDCCH and UE-specific PDCCH, implying the need for different beam management procedure for the two types of PDCCHs).
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim(s) 4 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ng in view of Cao (US 2021/0083914).
For claims 4 and 19; Ng discloses the subject matter in claim 2 as described above in the office action.
Ng does not expressly disclose, but Cao from similar fields of endeavor teaches: UE to receive, from the network device, a first indication of a first TCI state from the first subset, and a second indication of a second TCI state from the second subset (paragraph 50-53: The CORESET in the RRC signaling includes GC-TCI to indicate the space domain resources for the GC-PDCCH, and the MAC signaling is used to further select a GC-TCI in the RRC signaling. For example, the RRC signaling is configured with multiple TCI states, for example, the RRC signaling is configured with M TCI states. The MAC signaling is used to select K TCI states from among the M TCI states to provide a reference for the UE when the UE receives the GC-PDCCH… in configuration of the CORESET, the TCI states of the GC-PDCCH and the TCI states of the UE-specific PDCCH for the UE need to be configured separately). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Cao in the beam management as described by Ng. The motivation is to improve channel reliability.
For claim 6; Ng discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
Ng does not expressly disclose, but Cao from similar fields of endeavor teaches: receive, from the network device, an indication to use the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, or a combination thereof, and, in response to a beam failure detection on the shared UE beams, the shared TCI states, or the combination thereof, switching to the UE-specific beams, the UE-specific TCI states, or a combination thereof (paragraph 88, fig. 10: beam pair link failure detecting based on a GC-PDCCH between the BS and the UE… the UE may further measure RSRP of DMRS or BLER of the received GC-PDCCH to judge whether a link of a beam pair fails, and transmit a beam pair link failure indicator to the BS…Next, the BS schedules resources for the UE and transmits a UE-specific PDCCH to the UE. In addition, the UE performs the beam pair link failure detecting based on the UE-specific PDCCH). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Cao in the beam management as described by Ng. The motivation is to improve beam failure detection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Bai et al. (US 2019/0335441); Bai discloses the beam configuration may include a first beam in a first beam direction that may be used to communicate the first set of bits of the at least one code block in a first set of symbols of the first resource block and a second beam in a second beam direction that is used to communicate the second set of bits of the at least one code block in the second set of symbols of the first resource block.
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/JOHN D BLANTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466