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 Objections
Claim 19 objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 19 recites RRC, MAC CE and MAC PDU without spelling out. The abbreviations need to be spelled out.
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 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, 8-11, 15 and 17-24 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) (2) as being anticipated by Purkayastha et al. (US 2025/0318006, “Purkayastha”, provision application 63136112 (“112”)).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Purkayastha unless otherwise mentioned.
Purkayastha comprises the following features:
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim 1, a method for processing beam failure of a deactivated secondary node (SN), performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
in response to a configured secondary cell group (SCG) or a primary SCG cell (PSCell) being in a deactivated state, detecting whether beam failure occurs to a specific SCG ([0059] “When the UE is in the SCG deactivated state, the UE may detect RLF (e.g., PSCell RLF due to the PSCell being out of coverage with respect to the UE) based at least in part on the RLM measurements and/or the BFD.”, and [0067] “the UE detecting PSCell RLF or the UE detecting a beam failure.” See [112, 0057 and 0065].),
wherein the specific SCG is the SCG in the deactivated state or an SCG to which the PSCell in the deactivated state belongs (See aforesaid [0059], and [0063] “The secondary node may be associated with an SCG, which may include a PSCell.”); and
in response to detecting that the beam failure occurs to the specific SCG, sending a message indicating beam failure of the specific SCG (See below [0059]) to a secondary node (SN) ([0068 and Fig. 3] “the master node may forward the SCG failure information message to the secondary node.” See [112, 0066 and Fig. 3].) to which the specific SCG belongs via a master node (MN) ([0059] “In the case of SCG RLF, SCG failure information may be communicated by the UE via an MCG to initiate a radio link recovery”) or an activated SN (This alternative is not examined.).
Regarding claim 17, a method for processing beam failure of a deactivated
secondary node (SN), to performed by a master node (MN) or an activated SN, comprising:
receiving a message indicating beam failure from a user equipment (UE) ([0059] “In the case of SCG RLF, SCG failure information may be communicated by the UE via an MCG to initiate a radio link recovery”);
sending the message indicating beam failure to a deactivated SN ([0068 and Fig. 3] “the master node may forward the SCG failure information message to the secondary node.” See [112, 0066 and Fig. 3].),
wherein the deactivated SN is an SN to which a specific secondary cell group (SCG) belongs, and the specific SCG is a deactivated SCG or an SCG to which a deactivated primary SCG cell (PSCell) belongs ([0063] “The secondary node may be associated with an SCG, which may include a PSCell.”);
receiving a feedback message from the deactivated SN ([0070] “the UE may receive the configuration from the secondary node via the master node. In other words, the secondary node may transmit the configuration to the master node, and the master node may forward the configuration to the UE.”); and
generating a response message based on the feedback message and sending the response message to the UE (See aforesaid [0070], and [0071] “As shown by reference number 312, the UE may receive, from the master node, an RRC reconfiguration”).
Regarding claim 22, a method for processing beam failure of a deactivated secondary node (SN), applied to performed by a deactivated network side device, comprising:
receiving a message indicating beam failure from a reporting node ([0068 and Fig. 3] “the master node may forward the SCG failure information message to the secondary node.” See [112, 0066 and Fig. 3].),
wherein the reporting node is a master node (MN) (See aforesaid [0068 and Fig. 3]) or another an activated SN;
generating a feedback message; and sending the feedback message to the reporting node ([0070] “the UE may receive the configuration from the secondary node via the master node. In other words, the secondary node may transmit the configuration to the master node, and the master node may forward the configuration to the UE.”).
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claim 2, the method of claim 1, wherein detecting that the beam failure occurs to the specific SCG, comprises at least one of:
detecting beam failure of the PSCell of the specific SCG (See aforesaid [0067]); or,
detecting beam failure of a secondary cell (SCell) of the specific SCG (This alternative is not examined.).
Regarding claim 3, the method of claim 1, wherein the message indicating beam failure comprises at least one of:
indication information for indicating the beam failure of the specific SCG; identification information of the specific SCG; identification information of the SCell of the specific SCG to which the beam failure occurs; identification information of the PSCell of the specific SCG (These alternatives are not examined.);
a beam measurement result of the SCell or PSCell of the specific SCG to which the beam failure occurs ([0061] “The SCG failure information message may indicate the RLM reference signal measurements, the BFD reference signal measurements,”); or
indication information of a beam identification (ID) of the SCell or PSCell of the specific SCG to which the beam failure occurs (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claim 8, the method of claims 1, further comprising:
receiving a response message fed back by the MN or the activated SN (See below [0072]), wherein the response message comprises at least one of the followings:
beam failure recovery indication information; indication information of rejecting beam failure recovery; indication information for reconfiguring the deactivated SN (These alternatives are not examined.);
a feedback message from the deactivated SN ([0072] “the UE may receive the RRC configuration from the secondary node via the master node. In other words, the secondary node may transmit the RRC configuration to the master node, and the master node may forward the RRC configuration to the UE.”); or
configuration information for beam failure recovery (This alternative is not examined.).
Regarding claim 9, the method of claim 8, wherein receiving the response message fed back by the MN or the activated SN, comprises at least one of the followings:
receiving the response message via a RRC signaling ([0071] “the UE may receive, from the master node, an RRC reconfiguration based at least in part on the SCG failure information message transmitted to the master node.”); or
receiving the response message via a MAC PDU/MAC CE (This alternative is not examined.).
Regarding claim 10, the method of claim 8, wherein the RRC signaling/MAC PDU/MAC CE comprises the feedback message of the deactivated SN or a
RRC signaling/MAC PDU/MAC CE generated by the deactivated SN ([0072] “the secondary node may transmit the RRC configuration to the master node, and the master node may forward the RRC configuration to the UE.”).
Regarding claims 11, 21 and 24, the method of claim 8, the method of claim 18 and the method of claim 23, respectively, wherein the configuration information for beam failure recovery comprises one or more of:
activated transmission configuration indication (TCI) information (This alternative is not examined.);
a synchronization signal block (SSB) index ([0078] “The RRC reconfiguration may define an association between SSB/PBCH block indices (or beams) and physical random access channel (PRACH) occasions, and/or preamble indices.”);
a channel state indication reference signal (CSI-RS) index; beam identification information; SCG identification information; cell identification information; the beam failure recovery indication information; or the indication information of rejecting beam failure recovery (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claim 15, the method of claim 3, wherein the beam measurement result of the SCell or PSCell of the specific SCG to which the beam failure occurs comprises one or more of the followings:
a beam measurement result greater than a preset threshold;
a maximum beam measurement result; or
measurement results of all beams ([0061] “a UE may perform RLM reference signal measurements on a PSCell while the UE is operating in the SCG deactivated state.”, [0064] “The RLM reference signals may be received on a beam or a set of beams at the UE.”, and [0069] “the UE may report beam measurement results in the SCG failure information message.”).
Regarding claims 18 and 23, the method of claim 17 and the method of claim 22, respectively, wherein receiving the feedback message from the deactivated SN, and the feedback message comprises at least one of the followings:
indication information of confirming beam failure recovery; indication information of rejecting beam failure recovery (These alternatives are not examined.); or
configuration information for beam failure recovery ([0071] “the RRC reconfiguration may indicate a new set of beams for the UE to measure, and/or a new RLM configuration with a new set of RLM reference signals for the UE to measure. The RRC reconfiguration may enable the UE to perform updated RLM reference signal measurements.”).
Regarding claim 19, the method of claim 17, wherein generating the response message based on the feedback message and sending the response message to the UE, comprises one of the followings:
carrying the feedback message in a RRC signaling ([0071] “the UE may receive, from the master node, an RRC reconfiguration based at least in part on the SCG failure information message transmitted to the master node.”)/MAC CE/MAC PDU and sending the RRC signaling/MAC CE/MAC PDU to the UE (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claim 20, the method of claim 19, wherein generating the response message based on the feedback message and sending the response message to the UE, comprises:
generating the RRC signaling that carries the feedback message and sending the RRC signaling that carries the feedback message to the UE via a RRC signaling/MAC PDU of the MN (See aforesaid [0071]); or,
generating the MAC CE/MAC PDU that carries the feedback message and sending the MAC CE/MAC PDU that carries the feedback message to the UE via a MAC CE/MAC PDU of the MN (This alternative is not examined.).
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) 4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Purkayastha et al. (US 2025/0318006, “Purkayastha”, provision application 63136112 (“112”)) in view of Selvaganapathy et al. (US 2024/0236801, “Selvaganapathy”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Purkayastha unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 4, it is noted that while disclosing SCG in a deactivated state, Purkayastha does not specifically teach about a way delivering the failure message. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Selvaganapathy as follows;
the method of claim 1, wherein sending the
message indicating beam failure of the specific SCG to the SN to which the specific SCG belongs via the MN or the activated SN, comprises:
sending the message indicating beam failure to the MN or the activated SN by carrying the message indicating beam failure in a radio resource control (RRC) signaling ([Selvaganapathy, 0120] “The UE sends SCG-Failure-Information in a radio resource control (RRC) message to the master node (MN) via a MN radio link.”)/media access control control element (MAC CE)/MAC protocol data unit (PDU) (These alternatives are not examined.),
wherein the message indicating beam failure is sent by the MN or the activated SN to the SN to which the specific SCG belongs (See aforesaid [0068]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Purkayastha by using the features of Selvaganapathy in order to provide various communication means such that “provide information based on the radio link failure to the primary cell of the master cell group, the information being that the radio link failure occurred on the secondary cell group while waiting for a prepared conditional cell change from the primary cell of the secondary cell group to be fulfilled.” [Selvaganapathy, 0005].
Claim(s) 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Purkayastha et al. (US 2025/0318006, “Purkayastha”, provision application 63136112 (“112”)) in view of Kim (US 2024/0430968).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Purkayastha unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 12, it is noted that while disclosing SCG in a deactivated state, Purkayastha does not specifically teach about recovering a beam based on a response message. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Kim as follows;
the method of claim 8, further comprising:
recovering a corresponding beam based on the configuration information for beam failure recovery in the response message (This alternative is not examined.); or
recovering a beam with the best channel quality reported for the SCell or PSCell to which the beam failure occurs, based on the response message ([Kim, 0176] “the terminal transmit the MAC CE (or MAC control PDU) or the RRC control message (e.g., beam recovery failure report message, radio link failure (RLF) report message, radio link re-establishment request message, or the like) to the SCell, PUCCH SCell, or PCell for notification of the beam failure detection or the beam recovery failure, or for the beam recovery (BFR)”, and [Kim, 0180] “Identifier (or index) of the BWP where the beam failure detection or the beam recovery procedure is performed or the BWP where the RLF occurs, information for identifying a target beam or candidate beam of the beam recovery (or, reconfiguration) (e.g., TCI state ID, CSI-RS index, or SSB index)”); or
reporting a failure message for the specific SCG to the MN or the activated SN, based on the indication information of rejecting beam failure recovery or the indication information for reconfiguring the deactivated SN in the response message (This alternative is not examined.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Purkayastha by using the features of Kim in order to support better mobility and radio link establishments such that “a method for mobility support and radio link management in a mobile communication system environment supporting carrier aggregation” [Kim, 0005].
Claim(s) 14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Purkayastha et al. (US 2025/0318006, “Purkayastha”, provision application 63136112 (“112”)) in view of Cheng et al. (US 2024/2414803, “Cheng”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Purkayastha unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 14, it is noted that while disclosing SCG in a deactivated state, Purkayastha does not specifically teach about an activated SN and deactivated SN. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Cheng as follows;
the method of claim 1, wherein there is a communication interface between the activated SN and the deactivated SN ([0249 and Fig. 16] “previously serving SN 1603 may initialize an SN addition procedure based on the received measurement reporting for target node 1604 from UE 115-o. As a result, at 1645, previously serving SN 1603 may transmit an addition request to target node 1604. The addition request may include an indication of the SCG configuration stored at previously serving SN 1603.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Purkayastha by using the features of Cheng in order to support efficient resume communications such that “support measurement based and blind secondary cell group (SCG) configuration in multi-radio access technology-dual connectivity (MR-DC) and carrier aggregation (CA) activation” [Cheng, 0005].
Claim(s) 16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Purkayastha et al. (US 2025/0318006, “Purkayastha”, provision application 63136112 (“112”)) in view of Kwak et al. (US 2023/0300645, “Kwak”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Purkayastha unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 16, it is noted that while disclosing SCG in a deactivated state, Purkayastha does not specifically teach about reporting a beam ID whose measurement is greater than a threshold. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Kwak as follows;
the method of claim 3, wherein the indication information of the beam ID of the SCell or PSCell of the specific SCG to which the beam failure occurs comprises one or more of the followings:
indication information of a beam whose measurement result is greater than a preset threshold ([Kwak, 0424] “the WTRU may report one or more sets of NCB-RSs, of the RS-group (e.g., periodic CSI-RS configuration indexes and/or SS/PBCH block indexes from the set q.sub.1), based on beam quality measurements (e.g., beam quality which is larger than or equal to the Q.sub.in,LR,A threshold).”); or
indication information of a beam corresponding to a maximum beam measurement result (This alternative is not examined.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Purkayastha by using the features of Kwak in order to efficiently monitor reference signals such that “receiving configuration information of a set of reference signals (RSs) for monitoring” [Kwak, 0003].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 5-7 and 13 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 5 contain the following underlined features which, when combined with other features of the claim, prior art of record failed to anticipate or render obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application was filed:
5 . The method of claim 4, wherein sending the message indicating beam failure to the MN by carrying the message indicating beam failure in the RRC signaling/MAC CE/MAC PDU, comprises:
generating the RRC signaling/MAC CE that carries the message indicating beam failure based on an encoding mode of the MN and sending the RRC signaling/MAC CE to the MN; or,
generating the RRC signaling/MAC CE/MAC PDU that carries the message indicating beam failure based on an encoding mode of the deactivated SN and sending the RRC signaling/MAC CE/MAC PDU to the MN,
wherein the deactivated SN is an SN corresponding to the specific SCG.
Claims 6-7 depend from claim 5 and thus are allowed.
Claim 13 contain the following underlined features which, when combined with other features of the claim, prior art of record failed to anticipate or render obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application was filed:
13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
in response to not receiving a response message fed back from the MN or the
activated SN within a preset time period, reporting a failure message indicating the specific SCG failure to the MN or the activated SN.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Harry H. Kim whose telephone number and email address are as follows; 571-272-5009, harry.kim2@uspto.gov.
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/HARRY H KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411