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 .
This Office Action is a response to communications dated 02/29/2024 and 10/18/2024. Claims 1, 4, 6-10, 13-14, 16-17, 20, 22-26, 29-30, 32-33, 36, 38-42, 45-46, 49-49, 52, 54-58, 61-62, and 64.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed 03/12/2024 and 03/19/2024 comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. They have been considered and placed in the application file.
Claim Objections
Claims 10 and 26 are objected to because of the following informalities: As per claims 10 and claim 26, a period is needed at the end of both claims. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 4, 6-7, 9-10, 13-14, 17, 20, 22-23, 25-26, 29-30, 33, 36, 38-39, 41-42, 45-46, 49, 52, 54-55, 57-58, and 61-62 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Venugopal et al. (US 2021/0195624) (hereinafter “Venugopal”) in view of Huang et al. (US 2022/0394548) (hereinafter “Huang”).
Regarding claim 1, in accordance with Venugopal reference entirety, Venugopal discloses a network node (FIG. 3; base station 310) configured to communicate with a wireless device, WD (FIG. 3; UE 350), the network node (FIG. 3; base station 310) comprising: processing circuitry (FIG. 3; 316/370/375) configured to configure the WD (FIG. 3; UE 350) with at least two transmission configuration indicator, TCI, states; and a radio interface (FIG. 3; 318) in communication with the processing circuitry (FIG. 3; 316/370/375) (see corresponding description related to base station 310 described in paras [0048] to [0060]) and configured to (FIG. 8 and paras [0086] to [0091]):
transmit downlink control information, DCI, comprising: an indication (activation configuration) of a first TCI state (a subset of configured UL-TCI states) and a second TCI state (a subset of configured UL-TCI states) to be activated by the WD (UE) (FIG. 8; step [0087]: “At 802, the base station transmits to a UE, an activation configuration activating a subset of configured UL-TCI states. For example, 802 may be performed by configuration component 940 of apparatus 902. For example, as described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the BS 404 may transmit to the UE 402, the activation configuration 406/500. The BS may also transmit to the UE an activation of a subset of configured UL-TCI states. For example, with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the UE may transmit the activation configuration 406, 500 activating a subset of configured UL-TCI states through a MAC-CE, to the UE 402. In some aspects, the configuration of UL-TCI states and the activation of the subset of configured UL-TCI states may be received through an RRC signal and a MAC-CE, respectively”); and
receive a first uplink transmission (UL transmission) using the first spatial filter associated with the first TCI state (TCI states), and receive a second uplink transmission using the second spatial filter associated with the second TCI state (TCI states) (FIG. 8; step 808 and para [0090]: “At 808, the base station receives the UL transmission from the UE. For example, 808 may be performed by uplink component 946 of apparatus 902. The UL transmission may be based on the one or more TCI states. For example, as described above with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the BS 404 may receive the UL transmission 410 based on the one or more TCI states indicated by the DCI 408. In some aspects, the UL transmission may be at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. In some aspects, the UL transmission is associated with a QCL property that is the same or similar as a reference signal associated with one TCI state (e.g., the one or more TCI states for the UL transmission 410 indicated by the DCI 408). In some aspects, the reference signal may be associated with a panel ID of the UE. In some aspects, the QCL property includes at least one of a one or more port indications, a Doppler shift, a Doppler spread, an average delay, a delay spread, a spatial Tx parameter, or a spatial Rx parameter. In one configuration, the reference signal is one of SRS, or a DL RS. In some aspects, the DL RS is one of CSI-RS, DM-RS for at least one of a PDSCH or PDCCH, or a SS/PBCH block.” Moreover; para [0059]: “A UL-TCI may be used to indicate or enable which UL states to use for a UL transmission and the UL-TCI may be used to specify QCL relations for uplink transmissions. Two antenna ports may have a QCL relationship if properties of the channel over which a symbol on one antenna port is conveyed can be inferred from the channel over which a symbol on the other antenna port is conveyed. A set of two QCL antenna ports may have a common set of QCL relations (referred to as the same spatial filter), such as one or more of Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, delay spread, or a spatial Rx parameter … .”).
It appears that Venugopal fails to further explicitly disclose the claim limitation of “a single TCI field codepoint configured to update a first spatial filter based on the first TCI state for both downlink and uplink channels, the single TCI field codepoint being configured to update a second spatial filter based on the second TCI state.” Nevertheless, such limitation lacks thereof from Venugopal’s teaching appears to be well-known in the art and taught by Huang.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Huang teaches method and apparatus for signaling for beam indication (Huang; Abstract and thereinafter) comprising, among other things, the limitations of “a single TCI field codepoint configured to update a first spatial filter based on the first TCI state for both downlink and uplink channels, the single TCI field codepoint being configured to update a second spatial filter based on the second TCI state” (Huang; para [0456]: “… .” Moreover; para [0278]: "According to current RAN1 agreements, a DCI format 1_1/1_2, with or without downlink assignment, could be used for beam indication for unified TCI framework. With this unified beam indication via DCI, beam updates could be faster compared to some beam indications in a legacy release using MAC CE and/or RRC signaling. With reusing a TCI field in DCI format 1_1/1_2, code-points of the TCI field could at least indicate a Joint TCI state, Separate DL TCI state, and/or Separate UL TCI state. Joint TCI state may mean or refer to a TCI state being applied for DL and UL (e.g., being applied to one or more DL channels/ signals and being applied to one or more UL channels/ signals) ... .")
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention. A motivation for doing so would be to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in providing faster beam update.
Regarding claim 4, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the DCI further includes at least one of: an indication of simultaneous transmission of at least one of the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission; and an indication of a set of demodulation reference signal, DMRS, ports associated to the simultaneous transmission (Huang; para [0108]: "The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE and the given serving cell, where M depends on the UE capability maxNumber-ConfiguredTCistatesPerCC. Each TCI-State contains parameters for configuring a quasi-co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals and the DM-RS ports of the PDSCH, the DM-RS port of PDCCH or the CSI-RS port(s) of a CSI-RS resource.". Moreover; para [0125]: "... Configures the number of bits for "Transmission configuration indicator" in DCI format 1_2. When the field is absent the UE applies the value of 0 bit for the "Transmission configuration indicator" in DCI format 1_2 (see TS 38.212, clause 7.3.1 and TS 38.214, clause 5.1.5). tci-StatesPDCCH-ToAddList A subset of the TC! states defined in pdsch-Config included in the BWP-DownlinkDedicated corresponding to the serving cell and to the DL BWP to which the ControlResourceSet belong to. They are used for providing QCL relationships between the DL RS(s) in one RS Set (TCI-State) and the PDCCH DMRS ports (see TS 38.213 [13], clause 6.)." It is also noted that the claim is drafted in an alternative format not requiring all recitations but one of the recitations).
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 6, in addition to features recited in base claim 4 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the set of DMRS ports includes at least one of a first subset of DMRS ports associated to at least the first PUSCH transmissions and the first uplink transmission and a second subset of DMRS ports associated to at least the second uplink transmission (Huang; para [0133]: "The source reference signal(s) in N TCIs provide a reference for determining common UL TX spatial filter(s) at least for dynamic-grant/configured-grant based PUSCH, all or subset of dedicated PUCCH resources in a CC." Also see para [0156], [0160], [0164], and [0254] for similar description.).
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 7, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the indication of the set of DMRS ports implicitly indicates at least one of a first number of layers associated to at least the first uplink transmission, and a second number of layers associated to at least the second uplink transmission (Huang; para [0108]: "The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE and the given serving cell, where M depends on the UE capability maxNumb~rConfiguredTCistatesPerCC. Each TCI-State contains parameters for configuring a quasi co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals and the DM-RS ports of the PDSCH, the DM-RS port of PDCCH or the CSI-RS port(s) of a CSI-RS resource. The quasi colocation relationship is configured by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type1 for the first DL RS, and qcl-Type2 for the second DL RS (if configured). For the case of two DL RSs, the QCL types shall not be the same, regardless of whether the references are to the same DL RS or different DL RSs. The quasi co-location types corresponding to each DL RS are given by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type in QCL-Info.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 9, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the simultaneous transmission is explicitly indicated by a codepoint of a bitfield (bitmap) in the DCI (Venugopal; para [0063]: "In addition, the UE 402 receives, from the base station 404, DCI 408 in a PDCCH scheduling an UL transmission. The DCI 408 may schedule an UL transmission with one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 schedules a transmission of at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. For example, the DCI 408 may schedule a transmission of an SRS based on the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 may include one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The codepoint values may represent a bitmap to indicate one or more activated TCI states. For example, the DCI 408 may be resource constrained in terms of the number of bits that can be included in the DCI 408. Therefore, instead of including a bit sequence to specify the one or more TCI states, the DCI 408 may include a coded sequence (e.g., a codepoint value to specify the one or more TCI states as described below with reference to FIG. 5). The codepoint value may be within the set of one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states. In one configuration, the codepoint value may be specified using three bits (for example to indicate one of codepoint 0, codepoint 1, ... codepoint 7 as described below with reference to FIG. 5). In one configuration, the UE 402 may have a mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values. In another configuration, the UE 402 may separately receive the mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values from the base station 404.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 10, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the simultaneous transmission is indicated by a Radio Resource Control, RRC, message (Huang; para [0223]: "Configure the TCI state type by RRC signalling. If both TCI state types are configured by RRC signalling, additional dynamic signalling is needed to signal the type of TCI state being indicated." Moreover; Huang; para [0079] and thereinafter: “… If the indicated Serving Cell is configured as part of a SimultaneousTCI-UpdatedList 1 or SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList2 … the MAC CE applies to all the Serving Cells configured in the set SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList1 or SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList2, respectively”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 13, in addition to features recited in base claim 4 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein one of a first codeword and transmission layers associated with the first codeword are transmitted using a first of two indicated TCI states, and one of a second codeword and transmission layers associated with the second codeword are transmitted using a second of the two indicated TCI states (Venugopal; para [0063]: "In addition, the UE 402 receives, from the base station 404, DCI 408 in a PDCCH scheduling an UL transmission. The DCI 408 may schedule an UL transmission with one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 schedules a transmission of at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. For example, the DCI 408 may schedule a transmission of an SRS based on the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 may include one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The codepoint values may represent a bitmap to indicate one or more activated TCI states. For example, the DCI 408 may be resource constrained in terms of the number of bits that can be included in the DCI 408. Therefore, instead of including a bit sequence to specify the one or more TCI states, the DCI 408 may include a coded sequence (e.g., a codepoint value to specify the one or more TCI states as described below with reference to FIG. 5). The codepoint value may be within the set of one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states. In one configuration, the codepoint value may be specified using three bits (for example to indicate one of codepoint 0, codepoint 1, ... codepoint 7 as described below with reference to FIG. 5). In one configuration, the UE 402 may have a mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values. In another configuration, the UE 402 may separately receive the mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values from the base station 404." Or Huang; para [0082]: "TCI state IDi,f This field indicates the TCI state identified by TCI-StateID as specified in TS 38.331 [5], where i is the index of the codepoint of the DCI Transmission configuration indication field as specified in TS 38.212 [9] and TCI state IDi,f denotes the jth TCI state indicated for the ith codepoint in the DCI Transmission Configuration Indication field. The TCI codepoint to which the TCI States are mapped is determined by its ordinal position among all the TCI codepoints with sets of TCI state IDi,f fields, i.e. the first TCI codepoint with TCI state ID0,1 and TCI state ID0,2 shall be mapped to the codepoint value 0, the second TCI codepoint with TCI state ID1 1 and TCI state ID1 2 shall be mapped to the codepoint value 1 and so on. The TCI state IDi,2 is optional based on the indication of the Ci field. The maximum number of activated TCI codepoint is 8 and the maximum number of TCI states mapped to a TCI codepoint is 2.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 14, in addition to features recited in base claim 13 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein at least one of: at least one of a first modulation and coding scheme, MCS, field in scheduling uplink DCI, a first new data indicator field in the scheduling uplink DCI and a first redundancy version field in the scheduling uplink DCI is associated with a transmission corresponding to the first of the two indicated TCI states; and at least one of a second modulation and coding scheme, MCS, field in scheduling uplink DCI, a second new data indicator field in the scheduling uplink DCI and a second redundancy version field in the scheduling uplink DCI is associated with a transmission corresponding to the to the second of the two indicated TCI states (Huang; para [0219]; TABLE 2; MCS field and DCI format 1_1/1_2 for beam indication. It is also noted that the claim is drafted in a alternative format not requiring all recitations but one of the recitations.).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
As per group claims 17, 20, 22-23, 25, and 29-30, the claims appear to call for a method having limitations variously and essentially mirrored functional limitations of apparatus claims 1, 4, 6-7, 9-10, and 13-14, respectively. Thus, they are deemed obvious over Venugopal in view of Huang for the same rationales applied to apparatus claims 1, 4, 6-7, 9-10, and 13-14 as above discussed.
Regarding claim 33, in accordance with Venugopal reference entirety, Venugopal discloses a wireless device, WD, (FIG. 3; UE 350) configured to communicate with a network node (FIG. 3; base station 310) (see FIG. 3 for connection details and its corresponding description in para [0048] and thereinafter), the WD (FIG. 3; UE 350) comprising: a radio interface (FIG. 3; 354) configured to:
receive from the network node a Downlink Control Information, DCI, comprising: an indication that indicates a first and second TCI state (FIG. 8; step [0087]: “At 802, the base station transmits to a UE, an activation configuration activating a subset of configured UL-TCI states. For example, 802 may be performed by configuration component 940 of apparatus 902. For example, as described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the BS 404 may transmit to the UE 402, the activation configuration 406/500. The BS may also transmit to the UE an activation of a subset of configured UL-TCI states. For example, with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the UE may transmit the activation configuration 406, 500 activating a subset of configured UL-TCI states through a MAC-CE, to the UE 402. In some aspects, the configuration of UL-TCI states and the activation of the subset of configured UL-TCI states may be received through an RRC signal and a MAC-CE, respectively”); and
; and
transmit a first uplink transmission using the first spatial filter, and transmit a second uplink transmission using the second spatial filter associated with the second TCI state (FIG. 8; step 808 and para [0090]: “At 808, the base station receives the UL transmission from the UE. For example, 808 may be performed by uplink component 946 of apparatus 902. The UL transmission may be based on the one or more TCI states. For example, as described above with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the BS 404 may receive the UL transmission 410 based on the one or more TCI states indicated by the DCI 408. In some aspects, the UL transmission may be at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. In some aspects, the UL transmission is associated with a QCL property that is the same or similar as a reference signal associated with one TCI state (e.g., the one or more TCI states for the UL transmission 410 indicated by the DCI 408). In some aspects, the reference signal may be associated with a panel ID of the UE. In some aspects, the QCL property includes at least one of a one or more port indications, a Doppler shift, a Doppler spread, an average delay, a delay spread, a spatial Tx parameter, or a spatial Rx parameter. In one configuration, the reference signal is one of SRS, or a DL RS. In some aspects, the DL RS is one of CSI-RS, DM-RS for at least one of a PDSCH or PDCCH, or a SS/PBCH block.” Moreover; para [0059]: “A UL-TCI may be used to indicate or enable which UL states to use for a UL transmission and the UL-TCI may be used to specify QCL relations for uplink transmissions. Two antenna ports may have a QCL relationship if properties of the channel over which a symbol on one antenna port is conveyed can be inferred from the channel over which a symbol on the other antenna port is conveyed. A set of two QCL antenna ports may have a common set of QCL relations (referred to as the same spatial filter), such as one or more of Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, delay spread, or a spatial Rx parameter … .”).
It appears that Venugopal fails to further explicitly disclose the claim limitation of “a single TCI field codepoint configured to update a first spatial filter based on the first TCI state for both downlink and uplink channels, the single TCI field codepoint being configured to update a second spatial filter based on the second TCI state.” Nevertheless, such limitation lacks thereof from Venugopal’s teaching appears to be well-known in the art and taught by Huang.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Huang teaches method and apparatus for signaling for beam indication (Huang; Abstract and thereinafter) comprising, among other things, the limitations of “a single TCI field codepoint configured to update a first spatial filter based on the first TCI state for both downlink and uplink channels, the single TCI field codepoint being configured to update a second spatial filter based on the second TCI state” (Huang; para [0456]: “… .” Moreover; para [0278]: "According to current RAN1 agreements, a DCI format 1_1/1_2, with or without downlink assignment, could be used for beam indication for unified TCI framework. With this unified beam indication via DCI, beam updates could be faster compared to some beam indications in a legacy release using MAC CE and/or RRC signaling. With reusing a TCI field in DCI format 1_1/1_2, code-points of the TCI field could at least indicate a Joint TCI state, Separate DL TCI state, and/or Separate UL TCI state. Joint TCI state may mean or refer to a TCI state being applied for DL and UL (e.g., being applied to one or more DL channels/ signals and being applied to one or more UL channels/ signals) ... .")
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention. A motivation for doing so would be to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in providing faster beam update.
Regarding claim 36, in addition to features recited in base claim 33 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the received DCI further includes at least one of: an indication of simultaneous transmission of at least one of the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission; and an indication of a set of demodulation reference signal, DMRS, ports associated to the simultaneous transmission (Huang; para [0108]: "The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE and the given serving cell, where M depends on the UE capability maxNumber-ConfiguredTCistatesPerCC. Each TCI-State contains parameters for configuring a quasi-co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals and the DM-RS ports of the PDSCH, the DM-RS port of PDCCH or the CSI-RS port(s) of a CSI-RS resource.". Moreover; para [0125]: "... Configures the number of bits for "Transmission configuration indicator" in DCI format 1_2. When the field is absent the UE applies the value of 0 bit for the "Transmission configuration indicator" in DCI format 1_2 (see TS 38.212, clause 7.3.1 and TS 38.214, clause 5.1.5). tci-StatesPDCCH-ToAddList A subset of the TC! states defined in pdsch-Config included in the BWP-DownlinkDedicated corresponding to the serving cell and to the DL BWP to which the ControlResourceSet belong to. They are used for providing QCL relationships between the DL RS(s) in one RS Set (TCI-State) and the PDCCH DMRS ports (see TS 38.213 [13], clause 6.)." It is also noted that the claim is drafted in an alternative format not requiring all recitations but one of the recitations).
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 38, in addition to features recited in base claim 36 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the set of DMRS ports includes at least one of a first subset of DMRS ports associated to at least the first PUSCH transmissions and the first uplink transmission and a second subset of DMRS ports associated to at least the second uplink transmission (Huang; para [0133]: "The source reference signal(s) in N TCIs provide a reference for determining common UL TX spatial filter(s) at least for dynamic-grant/configured-grant based PUSCH, all or subset of dedicated PUCCH resources in a CC." Also see para [0156], [0160], [0164], and [0254] for similar description.).
`Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 38, in addition to features recited in base claim 36 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the indication of the set of DMRS ports implicitly indicates at least one of a first number of layers associated to at least the first uplink transmission, and a second number of layers associated to at least the second uplink transmission (Huang; para [0108]: "The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE and the given serving cell, where M depends on the UE capability maxNumb~rConfiguredTCistatesPerCC. Each TCI-State contains parameters for configuring a quasi co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals and the DM-RS ports of the PDSCH, the DM-RS port of PDCCH or the CSI-RS port(s) of a CSI-RS resource. The quasi colocation relationship is configured by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type1 for the first DL RS, and qcl-Type2 for the second DL RS (if configured). For the case of two DL RSs, the QCL types shall not be the same, regardless of whether the references are to the same DL RS or different DL RSs. The quasi co-location types corresponding to each DL RS are given by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type in QCL-Info.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 39, in addition to features recited in base claim 36 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the indication of the set of DMRS ports implicitly indicates at least one of a first number of layers associated to at least the first uplink transmission, and a second number of layers associated to at least the second uplink transmission (Huang; para [0108]: "The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE and the given serving cell, where M depends on the UE capability maxNumb~rConfiguredTCistatesPerCC. Each TCI-State contains parameters for configuring a quasi co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals and the DM-RS ports of the PDSCH, the DM-RS port of PDCCH or the CSI-RS port(s) of a CSI-RS resource. The quasi colocation relationship is configured by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type1 for the first DL RS, and qcl-Type2 for the second DL RS (if configured). For the case of two DL RSs, the QCL types shall not be the same, regardless of whether the references are to the same DL RS or different DL RSs. The quasi co-location types corresponding to each DL RS are given by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type in QCL-Info.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 41, in addition to features recited in base claim 36 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the simultaneous transmission is explicitly indicated by a codepoint of a bitfield (bitmap) in the DCI (Venugopal; para [0063]: "In addition, the UE 402 receives, from the base station 404, DCI 408 in a PDCCH scheduling an UL transmission. The DCI 408 may schedule an UL transmission with one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 schedules a transmission of at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. For example, the DCI 408 may schedule a transmission of an SRS based on the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 may include one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The codepoint values may represent a bitmap to indicate one or more activated TCI states. For example, the DCI 408 may be resource constrained in terms of the number of bits that can be included in the DCI 408. Therefore, instead of including a bit sequence to specify the one or more TCI states, the DCI 408 may include a coded sequence (e.g., a codepoint value to specify the one or more TCI states as described below with reference to FIG. 5). The codepoint value may be within the set of one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states. In one configuration, the codepoint value may be specified using three bits (for example to indicate one of codepoint 0, codepoint 1, ... codepoint 7 as described below with reference to FIG. 5). In one configuration, the UE 402 may have a mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values. In another configuration, the UE 402 may separately receive the mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values from the base station 404.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 42, in addition to features recited in base claim 36 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein the simultaneous transmission is indicated by a Radio Resource Control, RRC, message (Huang; para [0223]: "Configure the TCI state type by RRC signalling. If both TCI state types are configured by RRC signalling, additional dynamic signalling is needed to signal the type of TCI state being indicated." Moreover; Huang; para [0079] and thereinafter: “… If the indicated Serving Cell is configured as part of a SimultaneousTCI-UpdatedList 1 or SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList2 … the MAC CE applies to all the Serving Cells configured in the set SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList1 or SimultaneousTCI-UpdateList2, respectively”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 45, in addition to features recited in base claim 33 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein one of a first codeword and transmission layers associated with the first codeword are transmitted using a first of two indicated TCI states, and one of a second codeword and transmission layers associated with the second codeword are transmitted using a second of the two indicated TCI states (Venugopal; para [0063]: "In addition, the UE 402 receives, from the base station 404, DCI 408 in a PDCCH scheduling an UL transmission. The DCI 408 may schedule an UL transmission with one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 schedules a transmission of at least one of SRS, a PUCCH, a PUSCH, or a PRACH. For example, the DCI 408 may schedule a transmission of an SRS based on the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The DCI 408 may include one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states of the activated TCI states. The codepoint values may represent a bitmap to indicate one or more activated TCI states. For example, the DCI 408 may be resource constrained in terms of the number of bits that can be included in the DCI 408. Therefore, instead of including a bit sequence to specify the one or more TCI states, the DCI 408 may include a coded sequence (e.g., a codepoint value to specify the one or more TCI states as described below with reference to FIG. 5). The codepoint value may be within the set of one or more codepoint values indicating the one or more TCI states. In one configuration, the codepoint value may be specified using three bits (for example to indicate one of codepoint 0, codepoint 1, ... codepoint 7 as described below with reference to FIG. 5). In one configuration, the UE 402 may have a mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values. In another configuration, the UE 402 may separately receive the mapping between the one or more activated TCI states and a set of codepoint values from the base station 404." Or Huang; para [0082]: "TCI state IDi,f This field indicates the TCI state identified by TCI-StateID as specified in TS 38.331 [5], where i is the index of the codepoint of the DCI Transmission configuration indication field as specified in TS 38.212 [9] and TCI state IDi,f denotes the jth TCI state indicated for the ith codepoint in the DCI Transmission Configuration Indication field. The TCI codepoint to which the TCI States are mapped is determined by its ordinal position among all the TCI codepoints with sets of TCI state IDi,f fields, i.e. the first TCI codepoint with TCI state ID0,1 and TCI state ID0,2 shall be mapped to the codepoint value 0, the second TCI codepoint with TCI state ID1 1 and TCI state ID1 2 shall be mapped to the codepoint value 1 and so on. The TCI state IDi,2 is optional based on the indication of the Ci field. The maximum number of activated TCI codepoint is 8 and the maximum number of TCI states mapped to a TCI codepoint is 2.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
Regarding claim 46, in addition to features recited in base claim 45 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang also renders obvious the claim limitation of wherein at least one of: at least one of a first modulation and coding scheme, MCS, field in scheduling uplink DCI, a first new data indicator field in the scheduling uplink DCI and a first redundancy version field in the scheduling uplink DCI is associated with a transmission corresponding to the first of the two indicated TCI states; and at least one of a second modulation and coding scheme, MCS, field in scheduling uplink DCI, a second new data indicator field in the scheduling uplink DCI and a second redundancy version field in the scheduling uplink DCI is associated with a transmission corresponding to the to the second of the two indicated TCI states (Huang; para [0219]; TABLE 2; MCS field and DCI format 1_1/1_2 for beam indication. It is also noted that the claim is drafted in a alternative format not requiring all recitations but one of the recitations.).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Huang’s teaching into Venugopal’s to arrive the claim invention for the same rationale as above discussed.
As per group claims 49, 52, 54-55, 57-58, and 61-62, the claims appear to call for a method having limitations variously and essentially mirrored functional limitations of apparatus claims 33, 36, 38-39, 41-42, and 45-46, respectively. Thus, they are deemed obvious over Venugopal in view of Huang for the same rationales applied to apparatus claims 33, 36, 38-39, 41-42, and 45-46 as above discussed.
Claims 8, 24, 40, and 56 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Venugopal in view of Huang as applied to claims 4, 20, 36, and 52 above, and further in view of Shin et al. (US 10,651,963) (hereinafter “Shin”).
As per claims 8, 24, 40, and 56, in addition to features recited in base claims 4, 20, 36, and 52 (see rationales discussed above), Venugopal in view of Huang appears to fail to render obvious the claim limitation of “wherein the simultaneous transmission is implicitly indicated when the first subset of DMRS ports are in a first code division multiplex, CDM, group and the second subset of DMRS ports are in a second CDM group, wherein the first and second CDM groups are different.” Nevertheless, such limitation lacks thereof from Venugopal in view of Huang’s teaching is well-known in the art and taught by Shin.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Shin teaches, among other things, the limitation “wherein the simultaneous transmission is implicitly indicated when the first subset of DMRS ports are in a first code division multiplex, CDM, group and the second subset of DMRS ports are in a second CDM group, wherein the first and second CDM groups are different” (Shin; col. 3, lines 4-20 and thereinafter: "In accordance with an aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a method of a terminal in a wireless communication system. The method includes identifying demodulation reference signal (DMRS) type information and DMRS symbol length information, identifying port number information for receiving a DMRS and receiving the DMRS based on the DMRS type information, the DMRS symbol length information and port number information, wherein the port number information indicates a port number for the terminal in DMRS information including parameters for code division multiplexing (CDM) group information, offset information, frequency-domain orthogonal cover code (OCC) information, and time-domain OCC information corresponding respectively to multiple port numbers, and wherein the DMRS information is defined per DMRS type.").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Shin’s teaching into Venugopal in view of Huang’s teaching to arrive the claim invention. A motivation for doing so would be to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in supporting an increased number of cell-IDs, an increase channel bandwidth, various subcarrier spacings, slot-based transmission and slot aggregation, DMRS bundling in time domain, and a configurable DMRS structure (Shin; col. 2, lines 35-39).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16, 32, 48, and 64 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record, considered individually or in combination, appears to fail to fairly show, suggest or render obvious a claim invention of base claims 4, 20, 26, and 52, and further limits with novel and unobvious limitations of “wherein the DCI further comprises information about a first DMRS port associated to a first phase tracking reference signal, PTRS, and information about a second DMRS port associated to a second PTRS, wherein the first DMRS port and the first PTRS are associated to the first uplink transmission and the second DMRS port and the second PTRS are associated to the first uplink transmission, and wherein the first and second DMRS ports are in the first and second code division multiplex, CDM, groups, respectively, and belong to the set of DMRS ports,” structurally and functionally interconnected in a manner as recited in claims 16, 32, 48, and 64.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Farag et al. (US 2022/0263616).
Muruganathan et al. (US 2024/0080843).
Muruganathan et al. (US 2023/0216626).
Tidestav et al. (US 2024/0064770).
Grossmann et al. (US 2023/0246785).
Qualcomm Incorporated, Enhancements on Multi-beam Operation, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #105-e, R1- 2104654, 15 pages, May 10th-27th, 2021.
Samsung, Multi-beam enhancements, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #105-e, R1-2105291, 22 pages, May 10th to May 27th, 2021.
ZTE , Sanechips, Consideration on Enhancement of TCI-State MAC CE for Multi-TRP transmission, 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 Meeting #107bis, R2-1913049, 7 pages, October 14th-18th, 2019.
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/FRANK DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474 February 25, 2026