DETAILED ACTION
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)(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 1-3, 5-7, 9-11, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable by Nilsson et al. (US 2023/0319839, “Nilsson”, Provisional application, 63/062,986, includes Figs.1-23 and the related paragraphs of Nilsson).
Regarding claim 1, Nilsson discloses a method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
- receiving, from a base station, a radio resource control (RRC) message containing a first list and a second list that are lists for serving cells to which to apply simultaneously an update of a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state (See 2202 Fig.22, UE receives a configuration of a plurality of TCI states via RRC signaling; See ¶.77, the two or more serving cells or the two or more component carriers are indicated by a higher layer parameter, the higher layer parameter indicating that when a TCI state of a particular CORESET is updated via DCI in one serving cell, then TCI state(s) of corresponding CORESET(s) in one or more other serving cells are also to be updated simultaneously; See ¶.180, the UE may be updated with a TCI state for all CORESETs as described in embodiment 1. Then, if this PDCCH-Config belongs to a BWP which belongs to a serving cell listed in a RRC configured list. The UE receives the MAC CE or DCI to update TCI state related to PDCCH);
- receiving, from the base station, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) containing a serving cell identifier, a control resource set (CORESET) identifier, and a TCI state identifier (See 2204 Fig.22 and ¶.80, receive a MAC CE that activates a subset of TCI states from the list of TCI states; See ¶.180, the UE receives the MAC CE or DCI to update TCI state related to PDCCH; See Fig.7,
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); and
- receiving, from the base station, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) by applying the TCI state to all cells in the list in which a serving cell is contained, in case where the serving cell indicated by the MAC CE is contained in the first list or the second list (See ¶.160, If we want to update the TCI state for CORESET #1, we can transmit the DCI carrying the codepoint for TCI state update in a PDCCH received in CORESET #1. The UE will then know that the TCI state update indicated in the DCI in the received PDCCH should be applied to CORESET #1; See ¶.180, if the list of serving cells in simultaneousTCI-UpdateList1 or simultaneousTCI-UpdateList2 (as defined in 3GPP TS 38.331), or a new list for this purpose, only consists of one serving cell and the UE receives the MAC CE or DCI to update TCI state related to PDCCH, the UE applies the update for all BWPs in that serving cell; See ¶.144, when the MAC CE activates the M TCI states for PDCCH, the MAC CE needs to provide the BWP ID, the Serving Cell ID, and the identifiers of the TCI states to be activated for PDCCH).
Regarding claim 2, Nilsson discloses “wherein PDCCH configuration information is contained in the RRC message, and the TCI state is configured on a per-CORESET basis, each CORESET contained in the PDCCH configuration information (See ¶.77, the two or more serving cells or the two or more component carriers are indicated by a higher layer parameter, the higher layer parameter indicating that when a TCI state of a particular CORESET is updated via DCI in one serving cell; See ¶.160, If we want to update the TCI state for CORESET #1 we can transmit the DCI carrying the codepoint for TCI state update in a PDCCH received in CORESET #1. The UE will then know that the TCI state update indicated in the DCI in the received PDCCH should be applied to CORESET #1).”
Regarding claim 3, Nilsson discloses “two TCI state identifiers are contained in the MAC CE, and the two TCI states are activated with respect to all the cells in the list in which the serving cell is contained (See ¶.59, In the first stage, RRC is used to configure a pool of TCI states. In the second stage, one or more of the RRC-configured TCI states are activated via MAC-CE signaling; See ¶.60, receiving a Media Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE) that activates a subset of the plurality of TCI states; See ¶.61, receiving a configuration of TCI state IDs for the plurality of TCI states, the configuration of the plurality of TCI state IDs being common for two or more Control Resource Sets, CORESETs, or being per CORESET; See ¶.77, the two or more serving cells or the two or more component carriers are indicated by a higher layer parameter, the higher layer parameter indicating that when a TCI state of a particular CORESET is updated via DCI in one serving cell; See ¶.66, the MAC CE activates the subset of the plurality of TCI states for all CORESETs; See 1306 Fig.13, MAC CE activates up to M TCI states for PDCCH).”
Regarding claim 5, it is a method claim performed by a base station corresponding to the claim 1 performed by a terminal and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claims 6 and 7, they are claims corresponding to claims 2 & 3, respectively and are therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
Regarding claim 9, it is a terminal claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitations “a transceiver, a controller coupled with the transceiver (See Fig.17, a control system and Tx/Rx)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claims 10 and 11, they are claims corresponding to claims 2 & 3, respectively and are therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
Regarding claim 13, it is a base station claim corresponding to the method claim 5, except the limitations “a transceiver, a controller coupled with the transceiver (See Fig.17, a control system and Tx/Rx)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 14, it is a claim corresponding to the claims 2 & 3 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 4, 8, 12, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nilsson in view of Noh et al. (US 2022/0376851, “Noh”, Foreign application priority date on May 4, 2021, 10-2021-0058197, hereinafter “Noh’197”).
Regarding claim 4, Nilsson discloses a UE capability reporting “the maximum number of TCI states that can be activated for PDCCH per BWP can be reported by the UE as part of UE capability, and an explicit parameter may be configured by the gNB to the UE to indicate the maximum number of TCI states that can be activated for PDCCH (Nilsson, See ¶.149) and the method “to introduce dynamics in beam and TRP selection, the UE can be configured through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling with M TCI states (Nilsson, See ¶.35) and “each of the M states in the list of TCI states can be interpreted as a list of M possible beams transmitted from the network or a list of M possible TRPs used by the network to communicate with the UE. The M TCI states can also be interpreted as a combination of one or multiple beams transmitted from one or multiple TRPs (Nilsson, See ¶.37),
but does not explicitly disclose what Noh discloses “receiving, from the base station, a terminal capability request message and transmitting, to the base station, terminal capability information (Noh, See Fig.16; See Noh’197, ‘도 16’
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); containing information indicating whether or not activation of a plurality of beams with respect to a plurality of cells is supported (Noh, See 2130 Fig.21 and ¶.351, the first communication node may receive a MAC CE indicating information for simultaneous TCI update (or simultaneous spatial relation information indication) for a specific CC (or a specific serving cell) from the second communication node (S2130). In other words, the second communication node may indicate the information for simultaneous TCI update (or simultaneous spatial relation information indication) for a specific CC (or a specific serving cell) to the first communication node through the MAC CE. The MAC CE that the first communication node receives from the second communication node in step S2130 may have the MAC CE structure described with reference to FIG. 19 or FIG. 20. In step S2130, an update (e.g., activation or deactivation) for a specific DL (or UL) beam RS may be indicated; Noh’197, See pg.137-133,
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).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply the method of “receiving, from the base station, a terminal capability request message and transmitting, to the base station, terminal capability information containing information indicating whether or not activation of a plurality of beams with respect to a plurality of cells is supported” as taught by Noh into the system of Nilsson, so that it provides a way of performing the activating/deactivation for all RSs having the same RS ID as the DL (or UL) beam RS updated for serving cell in the selected serving cell list (Noh, See S2170 Fig.21 and ¶.353).
Regarding claims 8, 12, and 15, they are claims corresponding to claims 4, 4, & 4, respectively and are therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung H Park whose telephone number is 571-272-8565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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/JUNG H PARK/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411