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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. The amendments made to claim 1 for example change the scope of the claim.
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.
Claims 1-12 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (US 2020/0314664) in view of Jin et al. (US 2019/0149421).
Regarding claim 1, Zhou discloses a method for configuring resources in a handover process, comprising: receiving, by a terminal device, a first handover message from a source network device ([0403], “In an example, the network may initiate handover blindly, for example without having received measurement reports from the UE. Before sending the handover message to the UE, the source gNB may prepare one or more target cells. The source gNB may select a target PCell.”), wherein the first handover message is configured by a target network device, the target network device being a network device of a target cell ([0404], “As shown in FIG. 26, based on the one or more measurement reports from the UE, the source gNB may provide the target gNB with a list of best cells on each frequency for which measurement information is available, for example, in order of decreasing RSRP. The source gNB may also include available measurement information for the cells provided in the list. The target gNB may decide which SCells are configured for use after handover, which may include cells other than the ones indicated by the source gNB.”); and accessing, by the terminal device, the target cell based on the first handover message ([0406], “After or in response to performing downlink synchronization to the target gNB, the UE may initiate a random access (e.g., contention-free, or contention-based) procedure attempting to access the target gNB at the available RACH occasion according to a random access resource selection, where the available RACH occasion may be configured in the RACH resource configuration.”). Zhou does not explicitly disclose the waveform information in the handover message. Jin discloses wherein the first handover message comprises uplink transmission waveform information ([0314], “Therefore, when the UE 4c-01 initially accesses the cell, the NB 4c-03 needs to provide UL waveform information to the UE 4c-01 in advance and the above-described system information block includes such information indicating a UL technology/waveform to be used for UL transmission by the UE 4c-01. Such a waveform is called a common waveform (CWF).”; [0327], “Thereafter, a scenario of performing handover for a reason such as movement of the UE 4c-01 may be additionally considered. As such, when the UE 4c-01 reports a result of measuring a neighboring NB 4c-05 (hereinafter referred to as a target NB) and the NB 4c-03 (hereinafter referred to as a source NB) determines to hand the UE 4c-01 over to the target NB 4c-05, the source NB 4c-03 transmits a handover request to the target NB 4c-05 and the target NB 4c-05 transmits a handover command (4c-51). In this case, the handover command may include information about a waveform used as a CWF by the target NB 4c-05 and information about a waveform used as a DWF when the DWF is configured for the UE 4c-01.”), the uplink transmission waveform information is configured to determine that a waveform used in a case that the terminal device performs uplink transmission to the target cell is a discrete Fourier transform-spread-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) waveform or an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform ([0321], “Thereafter, the NB 4c-03 may instruct the UE 4c-01 to use a UL waveform other than the above-described CWF (4c-21). For example, a scenario in which, when the NB 4c-03 configures OFDMA for the UE 4c-01 but a wider coverage is required due to UE signal weakening or the like, the UL waveform configuration is changed to SC-FDMA is possible. Such a specific waveform only for the UE 4c-01 is called a dedicated waveform (DWF).”); the first handover message further comprises at least one of: a subcarrier spacing configuration; a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration; a control-resource set configuration, wherein the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID and/or a search space set ID, the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set; a search space set configuration; a configured grant configuration; a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI comprises a cell- radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) allocated by the target network device to the terminal device; timing adjustment indication information, wherein the timing adjustment indication information indicates NTA=0;or an uplink scheduling timing offset value Koffset ([0173], “The handover command message may include first active UL/DL BWP configuration information (e.g., center frequency, frequency band, and time (subframe or slot) information) of the target cell and further includes a cell ID, a UE identity (e.g., a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)) in the target cell, radio resource configuration information of the target cell, etc.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Zhou in view of Jin to have the waveform information in the handover message. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility for coverage and reception (e.g., Jin [0311]-[0313]).
Regarding claim 2, Zhou discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein: the first handover message comprises the configured grant configuration ([0408], “In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise preconfigured uplink grant(s) of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”); and accessing, by the terminal device, the target cell based on the first handover message comprises ([0406], “After or in response to performing downlink synchronization to the target gNB, the UE may initiate a random access (e.g., contention-free, or contention-based) procedure attempting to access the target gNB at the available RACH occasion according to a random access resource selection, where the available RACH occasion may be configured in the RACH resource configuration.”): determining, by the terminal device, pre-granted resources of the target cell based on the configured grant configuration ([0406], “The UE, after completing the random access procedure towards the target PCell, may apply second parts of measurement and radio resource configuration that require the UE to know the SFN of the target gNB (e.g. measurement gaps, periodic CQI reporting, SR configuration, SRS configuration), upon acquiring the SFN of the target gNB.”); and transmitting by the terminal device, upon synchronization with the target cell, a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) to the target cell over a first available resource of the pre-granted resources ([0298], “A UE may adjust an uplink transmission timing based on a timing advanced command indicated by a random access response and may transmit one or more transport blocks based on an uplink grant indicated by a random access response. Subcarrier spacing for PUSCH transmission for Msg3 1240 may be provided by at least one higher layer (e.g. RRC) parameter. A UE may transmit a random access preamble via PRACH and Msg3 1240 via PUSCH on a same cell.”).
Regarding claim 3, Zhou discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the configured grant configuration is configured to determine at least one of: a configured grant configuration ID; frequency domain frequency hopping indication; a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) parameter configuration; a frequency domain resource allocation type; the uplink transmission waveform information; a number of pre-configured uplink hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes; periods of the pre-granted resources; a number of repetitions of transmissions over the pre-granted resources; a corresponding redundancy version (RV) of repeated transmissions over the pre-granted resources; time units occupied by the pre-granted resources in a time domain; starting symbols and a number of symbols occupied by the pre-granted resources in occupied time units; resource blocks (RBs) occupied by the pre-granted resources in a frequency domain; an antenna port; a DMRS sequence initialization parameter; precoding and number of layers indication; modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and transport block size (TBS) indication; sounding reference signal (SRS) resource indication; frequency domain frequency hopping offset indication; or path loss reference indication ([0255], “In an example, a gNB may transmit a downlink control information comprising an uplink grant to a wireless device via one or more PDCCHs. The uplink grant may comprise parameters indicating at least modulation and coding format; resource allocation; and/or HARQ information related to UL-SCH.”).
Regarding claim 4, Zhou discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein: the first handover message comprises the PDCCH configuration, wherein the PDCCH configuration is configured to determine control-resource set configuration associated with a PDCCH candidate of the target cell ([0409], “The handover request message may comprise one or more measurement reports of the target gNB. In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise PDCCH configurations of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”), and the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID ([0410], “In an example, after or in response to receiving the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH candidates in one or more search space sets of one or more control resource sets (CORESETs) via the cell of the target gNB. The one or more search space sets and the one or more CORESETs may be indicated in the PDCCH configurations. The wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB.”), the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set ([0439], “In an example, when a TCI state comprises an SSB index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with SS/PBCH block identified by the SSB index. In an example, when a TCI state comprises a CSI-RS index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with CSI-RS identified by the CSI-RS index”); and accessing, by the terminal device, the target cell based on the first handover message comprises: accessing, by the terminal device, the target cell by monitoring a PDCCH of the target cell based on the PDCCH configuration ([0406], “After or in response to performing downlink synchronization to the target gNB, the UE may initiate a random access (e.g., contention-free, or contention-based) procedure attempting to access the target gNB at the available RACH occasion according to a random access resource selection, where the available RACH occasion may be configured in the RACH resource configuration.”).
Regarding claim 5, Zhou discloses the method according to claim 4, wherein accessing, by the terminal device, the target cell by monitoring the PDCCH of the target cell based on the PDCCH configuration comprises: monitoring, by the terminal device, the PDCCH of the target cell based on the PDCCH configuration ([0449], “In an example, a handover acknowledgment message may comprise PDCCH configurations of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB. In an example, parameters of the PDCCH configuration of the cell of the target gNB may comprise: one or more search space sets; one or more control resource sets; one or more TCI states. In an example, the target gNB may determine the one or more TCI states based on the measurement reports of the wireless device. In an example, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH candidates in at least one of the one or more search space sets in at least one of the one or more control resource sets with at least one of the one or more TCI states.”); receiving, by the terminal device, uplink grant information over the PDCCH of the target cell ([0408], “In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise preconfigured uplink grant(s) of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”); and transmitting, by the terminal device, a PUSCH to the target cell over resources scheduled by the uplink grant information [0298], “A UE may adjust an uplink transmission timing based on a timing advanced command indicated by a random access response and may transmit one or more transport blocks based on an uplink grant indicated by a random access response. Subcarrier spacing for PUSCH transmission for Msg3 1240 may be provided by at least one higher layer (e.g. RRC) parameter. A UE may transmit a random access preamble via PRACH and Msg3 1240 via PUSCH on a same cell.”).
Regarding claim 6, Zhou discloses the method according to claim 4, wherein the first handover message includes the first RNTI, and monitoring, by the terminal device, the PDCCH of the target cell based on the PDCCH configuration comprises: monitoring, by the terminal device, a PDCCH candidate based on the first RNTI on a search space set determined based on the PDCCH configuration ([0410], “In an example, after or in response to receiving the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH candidates in one or more search space sets of one or more control resource sets (CORESETs) via the cell of the target gNB. The one or more search space sets and the one or more CORESETs may be indicated in the PDCCH configurations. The wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB.”).
Regarding claim 7, Zhou discloses a communication device, comprising: a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store a computer program, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to ([0208], “FIG. 3 is a block diagram of base stations (base station 1, 120A, and base station 2, 120B) and a wireless device 110. A wireless device may be called a UE. A base station may be called a NB, eNB, gNB, and/or ng-eNB. In an example, a wireless device and/or a base station may act as a relay node. The base station 1, 120A, may comprise at least one communication interface 320A (e.g. a wireless modem, an antenna, a wired modem, and/or the like), at least one processor 321A, and at least one set of program code instructions 323A stored in non-transitory memory 322A and executable by the at least one processor 321A.”): receive a first handover message from a source network device ([0403], “In an example, the network may initiate handover blindly, for example without having received measurement reports from the UE. Before sending the handover message to the UE, the source gNB may prepare one or more target cells. The source gNB may select a target PCell.”), wherein the first handover message is configured by a target network device, the target network device being a network device of a target cell cell ([0404], “As shown in FIG. 26, based on the one or more measurement reports from the UE, the source gNB may provide the target gNB with a list of best cells on each frequency for which measurement information is available, for example, in order of decreasing RSRP. The source gNB may also include available measurement information for the cells provided in the list. The target gNB may decide which SCells are configured for use after handover, which may include cells other than the ones indicated by the source gNB.”); and access the target cell based on the first handover message ([0406], “After or in response to performing downlink synchronization to the target gNB, the UE may initiate a random access (e.g., contention-free, or contention-based) procedure attempting to access the target gNB at the available RACH occasion according to a random access resource selection, where the available RACH occasion may be configured in the RACH resource configuration.”). Zhou does not explicitly disclose the waveform information in the handover message. Jin discloses wherein the first handover message comprises uplink transmission waveform information ([0314], “Therefore, when the UE 4c-01 initially accesses the cell, the NB 4c-03 needs to provide UL waveform information to the UE 4c-01 in advance and the above-described system information block includes such information indicating a UL technology/waveform to be used for UL transmission by the UE 4c-01. Such a waveform is called a common waveform (CWF).”; [0327], “Thereafter, a scenario of performing handover for a reason such as movement of the UE 4c-01 may be additionally considered. As such, when the UE 4c-01 reports a result of measuring a neighboring NB 4c-05 (hereinafter referred to as a target NB) and the NB 4c-03 (hereinafter referred to as a source NB) determines to hand the UE 4c-01 over to the target NB 4c-05, the source NB 4c-03 transmits a handover request to the target NB 4c-05 and the target NB 4c-05 transmits a handover command (4c-51). In this case, the handover command may include information about a waveform used as a CWF by the target NB 4c-05 and information about a waveform used as a DWF when the DWF is configured for the UE 4c-01.”), the uplink transmission waveform information is configured to determine that a waveform used in a case that a terminal device performs uplink transmission to the target cell is a discrete Fourier transform-spread-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) waveform or an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform ([0321], “Thereafter, the NB 4c-03 may instruct the UE 4c-01 to use a UL waveform other than the above-described CWF (4c-21). For example, a scenario in which, when the NB 4c-03 configures OFDMA for the UE 4c-01 but a wider coverage is required due to UE signal weakening or the like, the UL waveform configuration is changed to SC-FDMA is possible. Such a specific waveform only for the UE 4c-01 is called a dedicated waveform (DWF).”); the first handover message further comprises at least one of: a subcarrier spacing configuration; a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration; a control-resource set configuration, wherein the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID and/or a search space set ID, the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set; a search space set configuration; a configured grant configuration; a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI comprises a cell- radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) allocated by the target network device to the terminal device; timing adjustment indication information, wherein the timing adjustment indication information indicates NTA=0; or an uplink scheduling timing offset value Koffset ([0173], “The handover command message may include first active UL/DL BWP configuration information (e.g., center frequency, frequency band, and time (subframe or slot) information) of the target cell and further includes a cell ID, a UE identity (e.g., a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)) in the target cell, radio resource configuration information of the target cell, etc.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Zhou in view of Jin to have the waveform information in the handover message. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility for coverage and reception (e.g., Jin [0311]-[0313]).
Regarding claim 8, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein: the first handover message comprises the configured grant configuration ([0408], “In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise preconfigured uplink grant(s) of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”); and the computer program, which when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to: determine, by the terminal device, pre-granted resources of the target cell based on the configured grant configuration ([0406], “The UE, after completing the random access procedure towards the target PCell, may apply second parts of measurement and radio resource configuration that require the UE to know the SFN of the target gNB (e.g. measurement gaps, periodic CQI reporting, SR configuration, SRS configuration), upon acquiring the SFN of the target gNB.”); and transmit, by the terminal device, upon synchronization with the target cell, a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) to the target cell over a first available resource of the pre-granted resources ([0298], “A UE may adjust an uplink transmission timing based on a timing advanced command indicated by a random access response and may transmit one or more transport blocks based on an uplink grant indicated by a random access response. Subcarrier spacing for PUSCH transmission for Msg3 1240 may be provided by at least one higher layer (e.g. RRC) parameter. A UE may transmit a random access preamble via PRACH and Msg3 1240 via PUSCH on a same cell.”).
Regarding claim 9, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein: the first handover message comprises the PDCCH configuration, wherein the PDCCH configuration is configured to determine control-resource set configuration associated with a PDCCH candidate of the target cell ([0409], “The handover request message may comprise one or more measurement reports of the target gNB. In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise PDCCH configurations of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”), and the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID ([0410], “In an example, after or in response to receiving the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH candidates in one or more search space sets of one or more control resource sets (CORESETs) via the cell of the target gNB. The one or more search space sets and the one or more CORESETs may be indicated in the PDCCH configurations. The wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB.”), the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set ([0439], “In an example, when a TCI state comprises an SSB index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with SS/PBCH block identified by the SSB index. In an example, when a TCI state comprises a CSI-RS index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with CSI-RS identified by the CSI-RS index”); and the computer program, which when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to: access, by the terminal device, the target cell by monitoring a PDCCH of the target cell based on the PDCCH configuration ([0406], “After or in response to performing downlink synchronization to the target gNB, the UE may initiate a random access (e.g., contention-free, or contention-based) procedure attempting to access the target gNB at the available RACH occasion according to a random access resource selection, where the available RACH occasion may be configured in the RACH resource configuration.”).
Regarding claim 10, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein the quasi co-location information comprises at least one of: transmission configuration indicator (TCI) information, quasi co-location reference signal information, or quasi co-location type configuration ([0439], “In an example, when a TCI state comprises a CSI-RS index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with CSI-RS identified by the CSI-RS index. For example, as shown in FIG. 31, the target gNB may configure one or more TCIs (e.g., TCI 1 and TCI 2) for PDCCH receptions of the wireless device.”).
Regarding claim 11, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein the search space set configuration indicates search space set configuration information associated with a search space set ID; wherein the search space set configuration information is configured to determine at least one of ([0422], “In an example, the wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB. As shown in FIG. 31, the wireless device may receive the first DCI with a first TCI (e.g., TCI 1) of one or more TCI states configured in the PDCCH configurations. The first DCI may comprise one or more uplink grants on the cell of the target gNB. The first DCI may be transmitted with DCI format 0_0. DCI format 0_0 may not comprise an SRS resource indicator. The first DCI may be transmitted in a UE-specific search space set.”): time units occupied by a search space set in a time domain; symbols occupied by the search space set in occupied time units; a search space set type; a DCI format of a PDCCH candidate; an aggregation level associated with the PDCCH candidate; or blind monitoring times corresponding to the aggregation level of the PDCCH candidate ([0365], “In an example, a UE may monitor one or more PDCCH candidates to detect one or more DCI with one or more DCI format. The one or more PDCCH may be transmitted in common search space or UE-specific search space. A UE may monitor PDCCH with only a limited set of DCI format, to save power consumption. For example, a normal UE may not be required to detect a DCI with DCI format 6 which is used for an eMTC UE. The more DCI format to be detected, the more power be consumed at the UE.”).
Regarding claim 12, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein the subcarrier spacing configuration is configured to determine at least one of a first subcarrier spacing or a second subcarrier spacing, wherein the first subcarrier spacing is configured for the terminal device to transmit at least one of a PUSCH or a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) to the target cell, and the second subcarrier spacing is configured for the terminal device to receive at least one of a PDCCH or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) from the target cell ([0298], “A UE may adjust an uplink transmission timing based on a timing advanced command indicated by a random access response and may transmit one or more transport blocks based on an uplink grant indicated by a random access response. Subcarrier spacing for PUSCH transmission for Msg3 1240 may be provided by at least one higher layer (e.g. RRC) parameter. A UE may transmit a random access preamble via PRACH and Msg3 1240 via PUSCH on a same cell.”).
Regarding claim 14, Zhou discloses a communication device, comprising: a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store a computer program, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to ([0208], “FIG. 3 is a block diagram of base stations (base station 1, 120A, and base station 2, 120B) and a wireless device 110. A wireless device may be called a UE. A base station may be called a NB, eNB, gNB, and/or ng-eNB. In an example, a wireless device and/or a base station may act as a relay node. The base station 1, 120A, may comprise at least one communication interface 320A (e.g. a wireless modem, an antenna, a wired modem, and/or the like), at least one processor 321A, and at least one set of program code instructions 323A stored in non-transitory memory 322A and executable by the at least one processor 321A.”): configure a first handover message; and transmit the first handover message to a terminal device over a source network device ([0403], “As shown in FIG. 26, the network may configure the UE to perform measurement reporting (possibly including the configuration of measurement gaps). The UE may transmit one or more measurement reports to the source gNB (or source PCell). In an example, the network may initiate handover blindly, for example without having received measurement reports from the UE. Before sending the handover message to the UE, the source gNB may prepare one or more target cells. The source gNB may select a target PCell.”). Zhou does not explicitly disclose the waveform information in the handover message. Jin discloses wherein the first handover message comprises uplink transmission waveform information ([0314], “Therefore, when the UE 4c-01 initially accesses the cell, the NB 4c-03 needs to provide UL waveform information to the UE 4c-01 in advance and the above-described system information block includes such information indicating a UL technology/waveform to be used for UL transmission by the UE 4c-01. Such a waveform is called a common waveform (CWF).”; [0327], “Thereafter, a scenario of performing handover for a reason such as movement of the UE 4c-01 may be additionally considered. As such, when the UE 4c-01 reports a result of measuring a neighboring NB 4c-05 (hereinafter referred to as a target NB) and the NB 4c-03 (hereinafter referred to as a source NB) determines to hand the UE 4c-01 over to the target NB 4c-05, the source NB 4c-03 transmits a handover request to the target NB 4c-05 and the target NB 4c-05 transmits a handover command (4c-51). In this case, the handover command may include information about a waveform used as a CWF by the target NB 4c-05 and information about a waveform used as a DWF when the DWF is configured for the UE 4c-01.”), the uplink transmission waveform information is configured to determine that a waveform used in a case that the terminal device performs uplink transmission to a target cell is a discrete Fourier transform-spread-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) waveform or an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform ([0321], “Thereafter, the NB 4c-03 may instruct the UE 4c-01 to use a UL waveform other than the above-described CWF (4c-21). For example, a scenario in which, when the NB 4c-03 configures OFDMA for the UE 4c-01 but a wider coverage is required due to UE signal weakening or the like, the UL waveform configuration is changed to SC-FDMA is possible. Such a specific waveform only for the UE 4c-01 is called a dedicated waveform (DWF).”); the first handover message further comprises at least one of: a subcarrier spacing configuration; a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration; a control-resource set configuration, wherein the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID and/or a search space set ID, the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set; a search space set configuration; a configured grant configuration; a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI comprises a cell-radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) allocated by a target network device to the terminal device; timing adjustment indication information, wherein the timing adjustment indication information indicates NTA=0; or an uplink scheduling timing offset value Koffset ([0173], “The handover command message may include first active UL/DL BWP configuration information (e.g., center frequency, frequency band, and time (subframe or slot) information) of the target cell and further includes a cell ID, a UE identity (e.g., a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)) in the target cell, radio resource configuration information of the target cell, etc.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Zhou in view of Jin to have the waveform information in the handover message. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility for coverage and reception (e.g., Jin [0311]-[0313]).
Regarding claim 15, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 14, wherein the first handover message comprises the configured grant configuration ([0408], “In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise preconfigured uplink grant(s) of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”).
Regarding claim 16, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 14, wherein the configured grant configuration is configured to determine at least one of: a configured grant configuration ID; frequency domain frequency hopping indication; a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) parameter configuration; a frequency domain resource allocation type; the uplink transmission waveform information; a number of pre-configured uplink hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes; periods of the pre-granted resources; a number of repetitions of transmissions over the pre-granted resources; a corresponding redundancy version (RV) of repeated transmissions over the pre-granted resources; time units occupied by the pre-granted resources in a time domain; starting symbols and a number of symbols occupied by the pre-granted resources in occupied time units; resource blocks (RBs) occupied by the pre-granted resources in a frequency domain; an antenna port; a DMRS sequence initialization parameter; precoding and number of layers indication; modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and transport block size (TBS) indication; sounding reference signal (SRS) resource indication; frequency domain frequency hopping offset indication; or path loss reference indication ([0255], “In an example, a gNB may transmit a downlink control information comprising an uplink grant to a wireless device via one or more PDCCHs. The uplink grant may comprise parameters indicating at least modulation and coding format; resource allocation; and/or HARQ information related to UL-SCH.”).
Regarding claim 17, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 14, wherein the first handover message comprises the PDCCH configuration, wherein the PDCCH configuration is configured to determine control-resource set configuration associated with a PDCCH candidate of the target cell ([0409], “The handover request message may comprise one or more measurement reports of the target gNB. In response to receiving the handover request message, the target gNB may transmit to the source gNB a handover acknowledgement message. The handover acknowledgment message may comprise PDCCH configurations of a cell (e.g., PCell) of the target gNB.”), and the control-resource set configuration indicates control-resource set configuration information associated with a control-resource set ID ([0410], “In an example, after or in response to receiving the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH candidates in one or more search space sets of one or more control resource sets (CORESETs) via the cell of the target gNB. The one or more search space sets and the one or more CORESETs may be indicated in the PDCCH configurations. The wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB.”), the control-resource set configuration information being configured to determine quasi co-location information associated with the control-resource set ([0439], “In an example, when a TCI state comprises an SSB index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with SS/PBCH block identified by the SSB index. In an example, when a TCI state comprises a CSI-RS index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with CSI-RS identified by the CSI-RS index”).
Regarding claim 18, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 14, wherein the quasi co-location information comprises at least one of: transmission configuration indicator (TCI) information, quasi co-location reference signal information, or quasi co-location type configuration ([0439], “In an example, when a TCI state comprises an SSB index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with SS/PBCH block identified by the SSB index. In an example, when a TCI state comprises a CSI-RS index, the wireless device may monitor PDCCH by assuming that DM-RS antenna port associated with PDCCH receptions is quasi co-located with CSI-RS identified by the CSI-RS index”).
Regarding claim 19, Zhou discloses the communication device according to claim 14, wherein the search space set configuration indicates search space set configuration information associated with a search space set ID; wherein the search space set configuration information is configured to determine at least one of ([0422], “In an example, the wireless device, during the monitoring, may receive a first DCI addressed to the wireless device (e.g., the first DCI with CRC scrambled by a C-RNTI value, the C-RNTI value being assigned by the target gNB to the wireless device in the one or more RRC reconfiguration messages), via the cell of the target gNB. As shown in FIG. 31, the wireless device may receive the first DCI with a first TCI (e.g., TCI 1) of one or more TCI states configured in the PDCCH configurations. The first DCI may comprise one or more uplink grants on the cell of the target gNB. The first DCI may be transmitted with DCI format 0_0. DCI format 0_0 may not comprise an SRS resource indicator. The first DCI may be transmitted in a UE-specific search space set.”): time units occupied by a search space set in a time domain; symbols occupied by the search space set in the occupied time units; a search space set type; a DCI format of a PDCCH candidate; an aggregation level associated with the PDCCH candidate; or blind monitoring times corresponding to the aggregation level of the PDCCH candidate ([0365], “In an example, a UE may monitor one or more PDCCH candidates to detect one or more DCI with one or more DCI format. The one or more PDCCH may be transmitted in common search space or UE-specific search space. A UE may monitor PDCCH with only a limited set of DCI format, to save power consumption. For example, a normal UE may not be required to detect a DCI with DCI format 6 which is used for an eMTC UE. The more DCI format to be detected, the more power be consumed at the UE.”).
Regarding claim 20, Zhou discloses a chip, comprising: a processor configured to execute a computer program from a memory, to cause a device installed with the chip to perform the method of claim 1 ([0208], “FIG. 3 is a block diagram of base stations (base station 1, 120A, and base station 2, 120B) and a wireless device 110. A wireless device may be called a UE. A base station may be called a NB, eNB, gNB, and/or ng-eNB. In an example, a wireless device and/or a base station may act as a relay node. The base station 1, 120A, may comprise at least one communication interface 320A (e.g. a wireless modem, an antenna, a wired modem, and/or the like), at least one processor 321A, and at least one set of program code instructions 323A stored in non-transitory memory 322A and executable by the at least one processor 321A.”).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (US 2020/0314664) in view of Jin et al. (US 2019/0149421) and further in view of Yiu et al. (US 2021/0227442).
Regarding claim 13, Zhou in view of Jin does not disclose the handover for NTN. Yiu discloses the communication device according to claim 7, wherein: the first handover message carries configuration information associated with a non-terrestrial network (NTN) system, the first handover message comprising an uplink scheduling timing offset value Koffset; and/or the source network device is a network device in the NTN system; and/or the target network device is a network device in the NTN system ([0032], “In NTN, the signal variation is so low, it is very difficult to use regular event for conditional handover, which currently is events A3 and A5 of 3GPP TS 38.331, V15.8.0. In embodiments, a location-based conditional handover may be used for NTN. In this case, the UE may perform RACH only if the UE enters the location range in the conditional handover command. The location range may include, for example, a coordinate and a distance, although other representations of the location range may be used. When the UE measures its location and the coordinate of the target cell, if distance is less than configured distance, the UE triggers handover (by performing RACH).”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date off the claimed invention to have modified Zhou in view of Jin and further in view of Yiu to have the handover for NTN. The motivation would have been to reduce network latency (e.g., Yiu [0099]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/NICK ANON SUNDARA/Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479
