DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to US App. 18/576,664. Claims 1-37 have been examined.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8-16, 18-25, 27-34, and 36-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Bae et al. (EP 4135467; hereafter Bae; included in IDS).
Regarding Claim 1,
A method for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
receiving, from a base station, a message comprising random access channel (RACH) configurations including a first RACH configuration indicating a first set of resources for reduced capability UEs supporting at least one first capability, a second RACH configuration indicating a second set of resources for coverage enhanced UEs supporting at least one second capability, and a third RACH configuration indicating a third set of resources for UEs supporting the at least one first capability and the at least one second capability; and transmitting a RACH message based on at least one of the RACH configurations [Bae: 0031; in this embodiment, a "RedCap and no CovEnh" UE indicates X-1; a "RedCap with CovEnh" UE indicates X-1 + X-a; a "CovEnh-only" UE indicates Y-1; 0037; at 305, the UE may receive a RACH configuration from the gNB, including sets A, B, and, C; then, at 310, 315, and 320, (i) if the UE supports neither feature X-1 nor Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 325, on set D; (ii) if the UE does not support feature X-1 and supports feature Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 330, on set B; (iii) if the UE supports feature X-1 and does not support feature Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 335, on set A; and (iv) if the UE supports features X-1 and Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 340, on set C].
Regarding Claim 2,
wherein the first set of resources and the second set of resources comprise overlapping resources, and wherein the third set of resources comprises the overlapping resources [Bae: first set of resources == S1; second set of resources == S2; overlapping resources == Set C; 0033; at 210, 215, and 220, (i) if the UE supports neither feature X-1 nor Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 225, on set D; (ii) if the UE does not support feature X-1 and supports feature Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 230, on set B; (iii) if the UE supports feature X-1 and does not support feature X-a, it transmits Msg1, at 235, on set A; and (iv) if the UE supports features X-1 and X-a, it transmits Msg1, at 240, on set C; 0037; at 305, the UE may receive a RACH configuration from the gNB, including sets A, B, and, C; 0038; these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2; then, the three sets (A, B, and C) mentioned above may be determined as: (i) Set C is the intersection of S1 and S2, (ii) Set A consists of the resources in S1 except for those in Set C, and (iii) Set B consists of the resources in S2 except for those in Set C; FIG. 4 is a set diagram illustrating the process for determining Set A, Set B and Set C from the RRC configurations mentioned above].
Regarding Claim 3,
wherein the first set of resources and the second set of resources comprise overlapping resources in time and frequency [Bae: 0038; these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2; then, the three sets (A, B, and C) mentioned above may be determined as: (i) Set C is the intersection of S1 and S2, (ii) Set A consists of the resources in S1 except for those in Set C, and (iii) Set B consists of the resources in S2 except for those in Set C; FIG. 4 is a set diagram illustrating the process for determining Set A, Set B and Set C from the RRC configurations mentioned above].
Regarding Claim 4,
wherein transmitting the RACH message comprises transmitting an indication that the UE is a reduced capability UE [Bae: 0038; these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2].
Regarding Claim 5,
wherein transmitting the RACH message comprises transmitting an indication associated with repetition of a RACH procedure message [Bae: 0038; these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2].
Regarding Claim 6,
wherein the indication associated with the repetition includes a coverage enhanced repetition capability or preference [Bae: 0038; these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2; 0039; a UE with RedCap capability may be required to read or acknowledge some or all of the RRC configurations related to Msg3 repetitions (or coverage enhancement in general) even if the UE does not support Msg3 repetitions (or coverage enhancement in general)].
Regarding Claim 8,
wherein the coverage enhanced UEs supporting the at least one second capability comprise UEs supporting at least one of message 2 (MSG-2) physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) repetition, message 3 (MSG-3) physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) repetition, or message 4 (MSG-4) PDCCH, PDSCH, or PUSCH repetition [Bae: 0039; a UE with RedCap capability may be required to read or acknowledge some or all of the RRC configurations related to Msg3 repetitions (or coverage enhancement in general) even if the UE does not support Msg3 repetitions (or coverage enhancement in general); 0045; a RedCap UE may then indicate a request for Msg3 repetition scheduling via an additional uplink (UL) transmission].
Regarding Claim 9,
wherein the first set of resources, the second set of resources, or the third set of resources includes at least one random access occasion (RO) to be used for transmitting the RACH message, or a preamble to be used for transmitting the RACH message [Bae: 0027; several methods are presented herein for the indicating, by a UE, during initial access, of being a reduced capability UE or of being capable of transmitting Msg3 with repetitions; for example, the indicating may be done implicitly, by the use of different Msg1 resource sets (preambles or Random Access Channel (RACH) Occasions (ROs)); 0028; as used herein, "implicitly" indicating a characteristic of the UE means (i) indicating the characteristic by the sending of a Msg1 preamble that corresponds to the characteristic, or (ii) sending a Msg1 preamble in an RO that corresponds to the characteristic, or (iii) sending a Msg1 preamble in an RO, when the combination of the preamble and the RO corresponds to the characteristic].
Regarding Claims 10-11, 13-16, and 18-19, which recite the same claim limitations as those in claims 1-6 and 8-9 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claims 1-6 and 8-9 is applicable.
Regarding Claim 12,
wherein transmitting the RACH message based on the RACH configurations includes avoiding transmission of the RACH message using the overlapping resources [Bae: 0037; at 305, the UE may receive a RACH configuration from the gNB, including sets A, B, and, C; then, at 310, 315, and 320, (i) if the UE supports neither feature X-1 nor Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 325, on set D; (ii) if the UE does not support feature X-1 and supports feature Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 330, on set B; (iii) if the UE supports feature X-1 and does not support feature Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 335, on set A; and (iv) if the UE supports features X-1 and Y-1, it transmits Msg1, at 340, on set C].
Regarding Claims 20-25 and 27-28, which recite the same claim limitations as those in claims 1-6 and 8-9 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claims 1-6 and 8-9 is applicable.
Regarding Claims 29-34 and 36-37, which recite the same claim limitations as those in claims 1-6 and 8-9 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claims 1-6 and 8-9 is applicable.
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) 7, 17, 26, and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bae in view of Rastegardoost et al. (WO 2022/1333357; hereafter Doost).
Regarding Claim 7,
Bae teaches that these RRC configurations may provide a set of resources used for RedCap capability indication which may be referred to as S1, and a set of resources used for Msg3 repetition request indication which may be referred to as S2 [Bae: 0038].
However, Bae does not teach that the reduced capability UEs supporting the at least one first capability include UEs supporting at least one of a reduced bandwidth configuration, reduced receiver configuration, or half duplex (HD) frequency division duplexing (FDD).
Doost teaches:
wherein the reduced capability UEs supporting the at least one first capability include UEs supporting at least one of a reduced bandwidth configuration, reduced receiver configuration, or half duplex (HD) frequency division duplexing (FDD) [Dosst: 0287; for example, due to the reduced capability (e.g., reduced supported bandwidth, and/or limited antennas, and/or restricted processing capabilities, and/or prolonged processing time, etc.) the RedCap UE may not be able to effectively use cell-specific resources that have been designed for legacy UEs without those hardware restrictions; for example, RedCap UEs may not be able to support a CORESET and/or search space and/or DL/UL BWP; and/or monitor/receive PDCCH and/or PDSCH; and/or transmit via a PRACH and/or PUSCH and/or PUCCH, that are configured with a bandwidth larger than the maximum supported bandwidth of RedCap (e.g., 20 MHz in FR1 and 100 MHz in FR2)].
It would have been obvious for POSITA before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Bae and Doost in order to improve flexibility, enhance productivity and efficiency, reduce maintenance cost, and improve operational safety [Doost: 0250].
Regarding Claim 17, which recites the same claim limitations as those in claim 7 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claim 7 is applicable.
Regarding Claim 26, which recites the same claim limitations as those in claim 7 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claim 7 is applicable.
Regarding Claim 35, which recites the same claim limitations as those in claim 7 above, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claim 7 is applicable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See US 2021/0037573 [para. 0060].
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SAAD A. WAQAS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2468
/Saad A. Waqas/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468