chDETAILED 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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 5-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Liu (US 2024/0276381)
Regarding Claim 5, Liu teaches a user equipment (UE), comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory (¶ [0117], see specifically memory), to execute:
receiving an indication of availability of Tracking Reference Signal (TRS) occasion in an idle/inactive state from a base station (BS) through Layer 1 (L1) based signaling (¶ [0002], see specifically paging DCI) in at least one of the following:
(a) whenever the UE is camped on a same serving cell for at least two paging occasions (POs); and
(b) upon receiving an indication that system information has changed but the UE still remains camped on the same serving cell (¶ [0002], see specifically paging DCI).
wherein the indication of availability of TRS occasion is defined in a field of the SIB (¶ [0049], see specifically SIB).
Regarding Claim 6, Liu teaches UE according to claim 5, wherein the indication of availability of TRS occasion is carried by paging Early Indication (PEI) when the UE is paging in non-consecutive way in successive PO of a paging frame (¶ [0054] – [0057], see specifically PEI.)
Regarding Claim 7, Liu teaches the indication of availability of TRS occasion is carried by paging Downlink Control Information (DCI) when the UE is paging in consecutive way in successive PO of a paging frame (¶ [0002], see specifically paging DCI)
Regarding Claim 8, Liu teaches the indication of availability of TRS occasion is per cell based (¶ [0036], see specifically SIB at a cell level.)
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 23-26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiaomi (3GPP R2-2102863) in view of Koskela (US 2024/0039669).
Regarding Claim 1 and 23, Xaiomi teaches a user equipment (UE), to execute:
receiving an indication of availability of Tracking Reference Signal (TRS) occasion in an idle/inactive state from a base station (BS) through System Information Block (SIB) based signaling (page 4, ¶ 2, see specifically idle/inactive UE’s) in at least one of the following:
(a) whenever the UE does not have a valid version of a stored SIB which is used to configure TRS resource;
(b) upon cell selection or cell-reselection performed by the UE (page 3, section 2.2, see specifically sell selection, cell selection, return from out of coverage); and
(c) when the UE returns from out of coverage (page 3, section 2.2, see specifically sell selection, cell selection, return from out of coverage);
Xaiomi fails to explicitly teach teaches a user equipment (UE), comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory.
wherein the indication of availability of TRS occasion is defined in a field of the SIB.
Koskela from the same or similar field of endeavor teaches a user equipment (UE), comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory (¶ [0097], see specifically memory.)
wherein the indication of availability of TRS occasion is defined in a field of the SIB (¶ [0074], see specifically bit field for SIB and occasions).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of telecommunications at the time of the filing of the invention to use the system of Koskela to send the SIB based information about TRS availability on a group level in the system of Xaiomi as taught by the system of Koskela.
The motivation is that using groups of devices allows for the organization of various devices that are related in order to signal availability to some devices in a particular way but not others in the same way.
Regarding Claim 2 and 24, Xiaomi teaches the indication of availability of TRS occasion is associated to presence or absence of a same SIB_X which is used to configure the TRS resource (page 4, ¶ 2 see specifically sib-x)
Regarding Claim 3 and 25, Xiaomi teaches the indication of availability of TRS occasion is configured by a bit carried by SIB_X which is used to configure the same TRS resource (page 4, ¶ 2 see specifically sib-x. note: examiner submits that all data is in the form of bits, and therefore any TRS resource in a data message would be based on one or more bits).
With respect to Claim 4 and 26, Xaiomi fails to explicitly teach the indication of availability of TRS occasion is per paging group based.
Koskela from the same or similar field of endeavor the indication of availability of TRS occasion is per paging group based (¶ [0097], see specifically memory.)
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of telecommunications at the time of the filing of the invention to use the system of Koskela to send the SIB based information about TRS availability on a group level in the system of Xaiomi as taught by the system of Koskela.
The motivation is that using groups of devices allows for the organization of various devices that are related in order to signal availability to some devices in a particular way but not others in the same way.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed April 28, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, In particular, Liu paragraph [0036] describes that system information (e.g., SIB) may be transmitted at a cell level and may be used by the UE in relation to configuration or acquisition of information associated with TRS. However, Liu does not disclose that the availability of TRS occasions is explicitly defined in a dedicated field within a SIB.
Instead, Liu consistently teaches that the UE acquires or determines TRS availability based on configuration information, rather than directly reading an explicit availability indication from a structured SIB field. In other words, the SIB in Liu serves as a carrier of general configuration information, and the TRS availability must be inferred or derived by the UE from such configuration.
Thus, even considering paragraph [0036], Liu merely discloses that SIB is involved at a cell level for conveying information, but fails to disclose any explicit definition of TRS availability in a specific SIB field, as required by Claim 5.
Examiner disagrees, looking to ¶ [0049]:
[0049] In some examples, in response to the change frequency degree of the TRS available information corresponding to the terminal being lower than (or equal to) a frequency degree (phthreshold, it is determined that the first indication field corresponds to a first value, and the first value is used for indicating the terminal to read the TRS available information from the physical layer information. That is, the first value corresponds to the acquisition mode of reading the TRS available information from the physical layer information. In response to the change frequency degree of the TRS available information corresponding to the terminal reaching (being greater than or equal to) the frequency degree threshold, it is determined that the first indication field corresponds to a second value, the second value is used for indicating the terminal to read the TRS available information from the system information block (SIB). That is, the second value corresponds to the acquisition mode of reading the TRS available information from the system information block (SIB), and the second value also corresponds to a mode of directly understanding a TRS available mode according to the TRS available information configured by the SIB without reading the TRS available information from the physical layer information.
Examiner submits that Liu teaches the required “wherein the indication of availability of TRS occasion is defined in a field of the SIB” as required by the claim.
Applicant argues, Koskela discloses that system information block (SIB) signaling provides configuration of TRS/CSI-RS occasions for idle/inactive UEs. In particular, SIB signaling indicates when CSI-RS may potentially be transmitted. However, Koskela makes clear that such configuration merely defines potential occasions, rather than explicitly indicating availability.
Examiner disagrees, looking to ¶ [0074]:
[0074] In an embodiment, the presence indicator is transmitted by UE 120 in a system information broadcast message (SIB). In one further example the presence information may be provided in a SIB in group specific manner i.e. network may indicate that TRS/CSI-RS are present for specific group or groups or all the groups. The indication may be in a form of bitmap. The bitmap may have a bit field for each of the SSB and/or TRS/CSI-RS or the groups of SSB and/or TRS/CSI-RS. A bit in the bitmap indicates whether the TRS/CSI-RS or group of TRS/CSI-RS are present/transmitted by network 110. The bitmap may include bit fields for the SSB or TRS/CSI-RS that have no TRS/CSI-RS configured (e.g. the bitmap may have fixed length that may depend on the maximum number SSBs that are transmitted by NW 110 in a cell). In one other example, network 110 may provide indication (e.g. in a SIB or in other RRC message) that which configured TRS/CSI-RS occasions have the TRS/CSI-RS present. The indication may be in a form of a bitmap e.g. where the bitmap has e.g. bit field for each configured occasion (SSB based bitmap or TRS/CSI-RS based bitmap) i.e. bitmap may have entries for configured occasions. The occasions may be configured in broadcast message such as SIB or in dedicated manner via RRC.
Examiner disagrees, first, an occasion is an occasion for the TRS to be received as they will be transmitted from the nore. Examiner submits that occasion would directly render obvious availability, as the TRS would be available during that occasion. In Koskela, it uses the phrasing presence information which would render obvious availability.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT M MORLAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5674. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 10 AM - 4PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hadi Armouche can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ROBERT M MORLAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
ROBERT M. MORLAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2409
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