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 .
This office action is responsive to the RCE and amendment filed 7/20/26.
Claims 1-10 and 14-21 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claim 9, the limitation “a second BFR medium access control (MAC) control element (CE)” is indefinite since it implies that a first BFR MAC CE has been or will be recited in claim 9 or claim 1. However, such is not the case and this omission of a “first BFR MAC CE” in either claims 1 or 9 renders the claim indefinite.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
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) 1-2, 4, 6, 10, 14-15, 18-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al., US 2020/0350972, (“Yi”), in view of Hu et al., US 2022/0124807, (“Hu”).
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Yi teaches “A user equipment (UE), comprising:
a receiver configured to receive a first signaling that indicates a first reference signal (RS) resource group and a second RS resource group, wherein the first RS resource group and the second RS resource group are associated with a Special Cell (SpCell), the first RS resource group comprises at least one RS resource, and the second RS resource group comprises at least one RS resource (see Fig. 3, wireless device 110, communication interface(s) 310; paragraph no. 0388, “For example, the cell is a primary cell of a group (e.g., PCell, SPCell). The wireless device may be configured with one or more first recovery reference signals for the first TRP (BM-RS1, BM-RS2 in FIG. 21) … The wireless device may be configured with one or more second recovery reference signals for the second TRP (BM-RS3 in FIG. 21)”; Yi appears to teach that the primary cell is a SPCell or special cell but see below for an explicit teaching), wherein the UE is configured to:
increment a first counter by one in response to a radio link quality evaluated according to the first RS resource group being worse than a first threshold (paragraph no. 0388, “The base station may configure a first threshold to determine a poor link quality for the first TRP. The base station may configure a first maximum counter to determine a BF for the first TRP, wherein the wireless device may declare the BF in response to poor link qualities may occur more than the first maximum counter (e.g., first BFI_COUNTER)”);
increment a second counter by one in response to a radio link quality evaluated according to the second RS resource group being worse than a second threshold (paragraph no. 0388, “The base station may configure a second threshold to determine a poor link quality for the second TRP. The base station may configure a second maximum counter to determine a BF for the second TRP, wherein the wireless device may declare the BF in response to poor link qualities may occur more than the second maximum counter (e.g., second BFI_COUNTER)”; note that the claimed “first counter” and “second counter” may alternatively be read on the second BFI_COUNTER and first BFI_COUNTER, respectively);
trigger a beam failure recovery (BFR) in response to at least the first counter reaching a first value (paragraph no. 0388, “The wireless device may measure link qualities of the first TRP based on the one or more first recovery reference signals. The wireless device may detect a beam failure incident for the first TRP in response to the link qualities of the one or more first recovery reference signals become lower than the first threshold. Based on a number of beam failure incidents become larger than the first maximum counter, the wireless device may declare a first BF of the first TRP”; paragraph no. 0389, “In response to the first BF and the second BF, the wireless device may determine to transmit a PRACH, as the wireless device may not have a valid uplink resource (e.g., for PUSCH transmission) with valid uplink beam in response to the failures of both TRPs … The wireless device may determine a first new candidate beam for the first TRP, based on measurements on the first one or more candidate reference signals for the first TRP”; see also, paragraph no. 0389 which discloses that a BFR is initiated for the second TRP based on measurements on the one or more second candidate reference signals for the second TRP);
determine whether to initiate a first random access procedure based on whether the first counter reaches the first value and whether the second counter reaches a second value (paragraph no. 0389, “In response to the first BF and the second BF, the wireless device may determine to transmit a PRACH”); and
cancel the BFR in response to a condition of a condition set being satisfied, wherein a first condition of the condition set is related to the first random access procedure, a second condition of the condition set is met in response to a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmission being received, the PDCCH transmission is associated with a cell radio network temporary identity (C-RNTI) of the UE, and the PDCCH transmission indicates a first uplink grant for new data transmission” (paragraph no. 0415, “When the wireless device initiates a RACH based BFR procedure, the wireless device may cancel on-going beam failure procedure for a TRP on the PCell or sPCell. In an example, if a wireless device has initiated a SR-based BFR for a second TRP via a first TRP, and then initiate a RACH-based BFR before the beam recovery of the second TRP is completed, the wireless device cancels the BFR procedure for the second TRP”; note that the claimed “first condition” is at least taught by Yi).
While Yi appears to implicitly teach that the primary cell is a Special Cell (SpCell), Hu teaches this limitation explicitly, see paragraph no. 0021, “Before the beamFailureDetectionTimer expires … a random access procedure is initiated on a special cell (SpCell).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi by incorporating the teachings of Hu to enable the wireless communication system to operate in accordance with newly released 3GPP specifications, such as Rel-15, as suggested by Hu in paragraph no. 0021.
Regarding independent claims 19 and 20, these independent claims are corresponding base station and method claims of the apparatus/UE claim 1 and recite similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to these independent claims and as further amplified below to highlight the minor differences between the claims.
Regarding independent claim 19, see Yi, Fig. 3, base station for the claimed structural elements of the claim.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claim 2, Yi teaches “wherein the UE is configured to trigger the BFR in response to the first counter reaching the first value and the first random access procedure not being performed” (paragraph no. 0394 discloses that counters are used for beam recovery and the wireless device may initiate a beam recovery procedure of the second TRP by triggering a SR (i.e., not a RACH procedure).).
Regarding claim 4, Yi teaches “wherein the UE is configured to determine that the first random access procedure is completed, wherein the first condition is satisfied in response to determining that the first random access procedure is completed (see paragraph no. 0389 which discloses that the base station transmits a RAR to the wireless device to complete the random access procedure).
Yi does not teach “wherein the UE is configured to cancel the BFR in response to the first condition being satisfied” as recited in claim 4. Yi discloses that the canceling of the BFR is based on other factors, see paragraph no. 0415. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi and Hu by canceling the BFR on the completion of the RACH procedure since the completion of the RACH procedure signifies that beam recovery is not needed.
Regarding claim 6, see paragraph no. 0389 of Yi.
Regarding claim 10, Yi does not teach “wherein: the first condition being related to the first random access procedure includes the first condition is related to the first random access procedure being completed” (note that this first alternative limitation is being used in this rejection since the other conditions are also alternatives). Yi discloses that the canceling of the BFR is based on other factors, see paragraph no. 0415. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi and Hu by canceling the BFR on the completion of the RACH procedure since the completion of the RACH procedure signifies that beam recovery is not needed.
Regarding claim 14, see paragraph no. 0335 of Yi.
Regarding claim 15, Yi teaches “wherein the radio link quality being evaluated according to the first RS resource group includes: the radio link quality obtained by performing a measurement with respect to each RS resource in the first RS resource group, the radio link quality being evaluated according to the second RS resource group includes: the radio link quality obtained by performing a measurement with respect to each RS resource in the second RS resource group” (see paragraph no. 0388).
Regarding claim 18, Yi teaches “wherein cancelling the BFR includes: cancelling all BFRs triggered for the first RS resource group” (see paragraph no. 0415).
Regarding claim 21, Yi teaches “wherein the first threshold and the second threshold are configurable, the first value and the second value are configurable, and the first value and the second value are positive integers” (see paragraph no. 0388).
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi and Hu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Xu et al., US 2022/0264404, (“Xu”).
Yi does not teach but Xu teaches “wherein receiving the PDCCH transmission is used to determine completion of the first random access procedure” (paragraph no. 0118) as recited in claim 5.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi and Hu by incorporating the teachings of Xu to implement contention based random access, as suggested by Xu in paragraph no. 0118.
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi and Hu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Li, US 2024/0172313, (“Li”).
Regarding claim 16, Yi teaches “wherein the first signaling is radio resource control (RRC)signaling, the radio link quality being evaluated according to the first resource group includes: the radio link quality obtained by performing a measurement with respect to each RS resource of the first RS resource group, the radio link quality being evaluated according to the second RS resource group includes: the radio link quality obtained by performing a measurement with respect to each RS resource of the second RS resource group” (paragraph nos. 0311, 0323 disclose RRC signaling; paragraph no. 0388 discloses the measurement of the radio link qualities).
Yi does not teach but Li teaches “in one subset” as recited in claim 5, see paragraph no. 0053.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi and Hu by incorporating the teachings of Li to facilitate the beam failure recovery operation in the network.
Claim(s) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi and Hu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Zhou et al., US 2023/0309170, (“Zhou”).
Regarding claim 17, Yi does not teach but Yi and Zhou teach “characterized in that each RS resource in the first RS resource group is periodic, an RS resource in the first RS resource group is a CSI-RS resource identified by csi-RS-Index or an SSB resource identified by ssb-Index, each RS resource in the second RS resource group is periodic, and an RS resource in the second RS resource group is a CSI-RS resource identified by csi-RS-Index or an SSB resource identified by ssb-Index” (paragraph no. 0129 of Zhou; note that Yi teaches those limitations other than “periodic” and “CSI-RS resource identified by CSI-RS index or an SSB resource identified by ssb-index”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Yi and Hu by incorporating the teachings of Zhou to facilitate the beam failure recovery operation in the network.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 7, 8 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the limitations recited in each of the claims 3, 7, and 8.
Conclusion
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/WON TAE C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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