DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 7-13, 23, 24, and 29-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable by HE et al. (US 2023/0040353, “HE”).
Regarding claim 1, HE discloses a method for receiving a temporary reference signal, performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
- receiving, by the UE, a medium access control control element (MAC CE) signaling sent by a base station, wherein the MAC CE signaling comprises a first indication field (See 425 Fig.4 and ¶.53, the gNB transmits a MAC CE on the cell to the UE. The MAC CE may indicate to the UE that a deactivated SCell is to be activated. In addition, the MAC CE may also indicate to the UE that aperiodic reference signals are to be transmitted on the SCell);
- determining, by the UE, a secondary cell to be activated, wherein the first indication field corresponds to the secondary cell to be activated (See ¶.53, UE that a deactivated SCell is to be activated. In addition, the MAC CE may also indicate to the UE that aperiodic reference signals are to be transmitted on the SCell); and
- receiving, by the UE, a temporary reference signal in the secondary cell to be activated (See 430 Fig.4 and ¶.53, UE receives ‘Reference signals’; See ¶.44, FIG. 4 shows a signaling diagram 400 for SCell activation with temporary aperiodic reference signals according to various exemplary embodiments. The signaling diagram is provided as a general overview of a scenario in which SCell activation with temporary aperiodic reference signals may be utilized).
Regarding claim 2, HE discloses “the MAC CE signaling further comprises a second indication field, and the second indication field corresponds to the first indication field (See ¶.53, the MAC CE may also indicate to the UE that aperiodic reference signals are to be transmitted on the SCell).”
Regarding claim 4, HE discloses “the temporary reference signal in the determined secondary cell to be activated is sent from a base station to the UE (See 430 Fig.4).”
Regarding claim 7, it is a method claim for receiving a temporarily reference signal corresponding to the claim 1 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 8, HE discloses “the indication information is: downlink control information; coding information of downlink control information; or a MAC CE signaling (See 425 Fig.4, MAC CE).”
Regarding claim 9, HE discloses “the indication information comprises at least one of: a control resource set identifier (ID); a search space ID; or a cell ID (See ¶.55, resource set ID; See Fig.8 and ¶.78, TRS resource set ID).”
Regarding claim 10, HE discloses “the first indication field corresponds to a temporary reference signal subset (See ¶.9, temporary aperiodic reference signals; a burst of temporary reference signals).”
Regarding claim 11, HE discloses “determining, by the UE, the secondary cell to be activated according to the indication information, comprises: determining, by the UE, the secondary cell to be activated according to configuration information of the temporary reference signal subset (See ¶.55, each aperiodic reference signal resource set may include a set of reference signals and corresponding set-specific parameters. For example, the SCell activation configuration information may include a resource set ID which may be used to differentiate between reference signal resource sets. The corresponding reference signals may be configured in a number of bursts where each burst consists of one or more samples. Thus, the SCell activation configuration information may also indicate a number of reference signals and/or a number of bursts for the reference signal resource set; See ¶.56, a burst of temporary reference signals (TES) may be referred to as a “TRS burst.” However, as mentioned above, the exemplary embodiments are not limited to TRS and the aperiodic reference signals may be any appropriate type of reference signal. In some embodiments, the TES burst may be defined in a frequency range specific manner, e.g., frequency range 1 (FR1), frequency range 2 (FR2), etc. For example, in FR1, a TRS burst may consist of two slots with four CSI-RS resources (four samples). In FR2, a TRS burst may comprise either one slot with two CSI-RS resources (two samples) or two slots with four CSI-RS resources).”
Regarding claim 12, HE discloses “the configuration information of the temporary reference signal subset is N groups of temporary reference signal configuration information among M groups of temporary reference signal configuration information of the secondary cell to be activated, wherein M and N are positive integers, and N≤M (See Fig.6, ¶.67-68).”
Regarding claim 13, HE discloses “the temporary reference signal in the determined secondary cell to be activated is sent by a base station (See Fig.4).”
Regarding claim 23, it is a user equipment claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitation “a processor and a memory (See Fig.3)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 24, it is a user equipment claim corresponding to the method claim 1 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claims 29-34, they are claims corresponding to claims 8-13, respectively and are therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claims.
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 of this title, 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.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HE in view of Babaei (US 2022/0225215, “Babaei”).
Regarding claim 3, HE does not explicitly disclose what Babaei discloses “a number of the second indication field is more than one, one of the more than one second indication field corresponds to an identifier (ID) of one secondary cell, and is configured to indicate an activation state of the secondary cell (Babaei, See ¶.154, when MAC CE is used for fast SCell activation, target SCell ID may be included in the MAC CE. In an example, TRS triggering information (e.g., trigger state ID) may be included in the MAC CE; See further ¶.277).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply “a number of the second indication field is more than one, one of the more than one second indication field corresponds to an identifier (ID) of one secondary cell, and is configured to indicate an activation state of the secondary cell” as taught by Babaei into the system of HE, so that it provides a way of activating the target Scell by using the Scell ID (Babaei, ¶.154)
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung H Park whose telephone number is 571-272-8565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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/JUNG H PARK/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411