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 claim(s) 1, 8 and 15 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.
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) 1-5, 7-12 and 14-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (US 2023/0413139) in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0329699) in view of Lin (US 2023/0044448).
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Xu et al. disclose a wireless communication method, an apparatus (Figures 15A and 21, wireless device 1502/2110) for wireless communication comprising one or more processors (Figure 15A, processing system 1518), and a non-transitory computer readable program storage medium having code stored thereon, the code, when executed by one or more processors, causing an apparatus to implement a method (Figure 15A and paragraph 190, the processing system 1518 may be associated with…a memory 1524…memory 1524 (e.g., one or more non-transitory computer readable mediums) may store computer program instructions or code that may be executed by the processing system 1508 and/or the processing system 1518, respectively, to carry out one or more of the functionalities), comprising and configured to cause the apparatus to:
receiving, by a communication device (Figure 21, wireless device 2110), a control information format that is associated with a first physical cell index (PCI) (Figure 21 and paragraphs 229-230, step 2160, wireless device 2110 receiving control information in step 2162 from source cell/base station 2130 [source 2130 is first PCI]; Figure 22 and paragraph 231, PDCCH format) and that indicates a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) order to initiate a random access procedure associated with a second PCI (Figure 21, step 2162, PDCCH order indicating target cell [second PCI] for random access; Figure 22 and paragraph 231, PDCCH order 2200 comprising a second bit field may indicate a random access procedure initiated by a PDCCH order 2200 and comprising a seventh bit field indicating physical cell identifier and/or cell identity 2270. The seventh bit field may indicate on which cell to send (e.g., transmit) the PRACH by a wireless device);
performing, by the communication device and in response to the receiving the control information format, a random access channel (RACH) transmission (Figure 21 and paragraph 230, A wireless device 2110 may perform synchronization 2162 with a target base station 2140 via a random access procedure 2163 based on (e.g., after or in response to) receiving a PDCCH order 2162. The wireless device 2110 may send (e.g., transmit), via the target base station 2140, a preamble of the random access procedure 2163, for example, based on (e.g., after or in response to) receiving a PDCCH order 2162 indicating the target base station 2140);
receiving, in response to the RACH transmission, a control channel (Figure 21 and paragraph 230, The random access response message may comprise an uplink grant 2164 (e.g., used for uplink resource allocation by the wireless device) and/or a TA value 2165) with a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) (Paragraph 173, DCIs may be used for different purposes…DCI having CRC parity bits scrambled with a random access RNTI (RA-RNTI) may indicate a random access response (RAR)),
wherein the RNTI is associated with the RACH transmission (Paragraph 173, …a random access RNTI (RA-RNTI) may indicate a random access response (RAR)),
wherein the control channel with the CRC scrambled by the RNTI is received using a first quasi co-location (QCL) property of a reference signal port (Paragraph 149, The base station may indicate that an RS resource is QCLed with one or more DM-RS s of a channel (e.g., a control channel, a shared data channel, and/or the like). The RS resource and the one or more DM-RSs of the channel may be QCLed, for example, if the channel characteristics (e.g., Doppler shift, Doppler spread, an average delay, delay spread, a spatial Rx parameter, fading, and/or the like) from a transmission via the RS resource to the wireless device are similar or the same as the channel characteristics from a transmission via the channel to the wireless device),
receiving, by the communication device, a shared channel scheduled by the RNTI (Paragraph 81, A downlink shared channel (DL-SCH)…; Paragraph 158, The second message (e.g., Msg 2 1312) may be scheduled on the DL-SCH and may be indicated by a PDCCH, for example, using a random access radio network temporary identifier (RA RNTI)),
wherein the control channel and the shared channel are received during a random access response window (Paragraph 158, The second message (e.g., Msg 2 1312) may be scheduled on the DL-SCH and may be indicated by a PDCCH…The wireless device may determine/start a time window (e.g., ra-ResponseWindow) to monitor a PDCCH for the second message (e.g., Msg 2 1312)).
Xu et al. do not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Zhou et al.: the second PCI being of a service of the communication device (Zhou et al., Paragraph 269, the base station 110 may transmit, to the UE 120, an indication of the association between one or more DL-RSs and the corresponding PCI of multiple PCIs [encompasses both first and second PCIs] associated with the serving cell. For example, the indication may be received, by the UE 120, in an RRC message for contention-free random access (RA), a PDCCH order message that triggers a RACH procedure, or a combination thereof).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xu et al. with the cited disclosure from Zhou et al. in order to perform random access across multiple PCIs of a serving cell (Zhou et al., Paragraph 2).
Xu et al. in view of Zhou et al. do not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Lin: wherein the first QCL property of the reference signal port is same as that of a control resource set (CORESET) associated with a Type-1 physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) common search space (CSS) set (Lin, Paragraph 215, the UE may assume that the PDCCH that includes the DCI format 1_0 and the PDCCH order have same DM-RS antenna port quasi co-location properties. If the UE attempts to detect the DCI format 1_0 with CRC scrambled by the corresponding RA-RNTI in response to a PRACH transmission initiated by a PDCCH order that triggers a contention-free random access procedure for a secondary cell, the UE may assume the DM-RS antenna port quasi co-location properties of the CORESET associated with the Type1-PDCCH CSS set for receiving the PDCCH that includes the DCI format 1_0); wherein the random access response window starts at a first symbol of an earliest CORESET that the communication device is configured to receive the control channel associated with the Type-1 PDCCH CSS set (Lin, Paragraph 215, The window starts at the first symbol of the earliest CORESET the UE is configured to receive PDCCH for Type1-PDCCH CSS set…that is at least one symbol, after the last symbol of the PRACH occasion corresponding to the PRACH transmission, where the symbol duration corresponds to the SCS for Type1-PDCCH CSS set), and wherein the Type-1 PDCCH CSS set is configured for the serving cell (Lin, Paragraphs 268-269, operation of serving cells).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Xu et al. and Zhou et al. with the cited disclosure from Lin in order to perform random access response transmission with more efficiency (Lin, Abstract).
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, Lin discloses wherein the communication device receives the control information format using a second QCL property of the reference signal port (Paragraph 215, the UE may assume that the PDCCH that includes the DCI format 1_0 and the PDCCH order have same DM-RS antenna port quasi co-location properties).
Regarding claims 3, 10 and 17, Xu et al. disclose wherein the control information format includes a downlink control information (DCI) format (Figure 22 and paragraph 231, The PDCCH order 2200 (e.g., corresponding to DCI and also described herein in FIG. 21) may have DCI format comprising multiple bit fields), wherein the control channel is a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (Figure 22 and paragraph 231, PDCCH order 2200), and wherein the shared channel is a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Paragraph 82, A physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may comprise/carry downlink data and signaling messages from the DL-SCH; Paragraph 158, The second message (e.g., Msg 2 1312) may be scheduled on the DL-SCH and may be indicated by a PDCCH, for example, using a random access radio network temporary identifier (RA RNTI)).
Regarding claims 4, 11 and 18, Xu et al. disclose wherein the shared channel scheduled by the RNTI is received using the first QCL property of the reference signal port (Paragraph 149, The base station may indicate that an RS resource is QCLed with one or more DM-RS s of a channel (e.g., a control channel, a shared data channel, and/or the like); Paragraph 158, The second message (e.g., Msg 2 1312) may be scheduled on the DL-SCH and may be indicated by a PDCCH, for example, using a random access radio network temporary identifier (RA RNTI)).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 19, Lin discloses wherein the reference signal port includes a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) port (Paragraph 215, DM-RS antenna port).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, Xu et al. disclose wherein the PDCCH order indicates an identity of the second PCI (Figure 22 and paragraph 231, The PDCCH order 2200 may comprise a seventh bit field indicating physical cell identifier and/or cell identity 2270. The seventh bit field may indicate on which cell to send (e.g., transmit) the PRACH by a wireless device).
Claim(s) 6, 13, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. in view of Lin as applied to claims 1, 8 and 15 above, and further in view of Jung et al. (US 2023/0397247).
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 20, Xu et al. in view of Lin disclose the claimed invention above as well as receiving, by the communication device, a timing advance related message based on a reception of a random access response (RAR) (Xu et al., Figure 21 and paragraph 230, timing advance reception a 2165; Lin, Paragraph 174, timing advance acquisition), but do not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Jung et al.: wherein the timing advance related message indicates a time alignment group (TAG) index (Jung et al., Paragraph 111, In case of random access response, in one embodiment, a timing advance command…for a TAG; Paragraph 192, a UE is configured with an RRC parameter timeAlignmentTimer per timing advance group (TAG) which controls how long a MAC entity of the UE considers at least one serving cell belonging to an associated TAG to be uplink time aligned).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Xu et al. and Lin with the cited disclosure from Jung et al. in order to further provided uplink time alignment (Jung et al., Paragraph 192).
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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/OTIS L THOMPSON, JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477
September 4, 2026
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