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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 7 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 7 recites limitation “the connection mode”. It seems to be “the connected mode” instead. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 14 recite limitation “the terminal” in line 2. However, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation.
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.
Claims 1, 4-6, 9 and 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 14,15 and 16, Oppo teaches a method/apparatus/computer-readable medium of receiving a group common PDSCH (physical downlink shared channel) in a wireless communication system, the method performed by a user equipment (UE) comprising:
transmitting, to a base station, a first message for a procedure for transitioning from a non-connected mode to a connected mode (under Proposal 3: “For RRC_INACTIVE mode UE, it is possible to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume). It is better to inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4”, also see Option 2: “MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5 can be used to report the detailed interesting MBS identities”, it’s noted that MSG3 correspond to the first message for a procedure for transitioning from a non-connected mode to a connected mode)
receiving, from the base station, a second message for the procedure for transitioning from the non-connected mode to the connected mode in response to the first message (page 3-4, under Propoal 3, “configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume)”, it’s noted that MSG4 correspond to the second message which is in response of MSG3); and
receiving configure the dedicated BWP to overlap the broadcast MBS BWP”),
wherein, to receive continuously the group common PDSCH from the base station after transitioning to the connected mode, information on the group common PDSCH is transmitted to the base station (page 4, Proposal 4, “MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5”, Section, 2.1 page 3, “inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4”), and
wherein the information on the group common PDSCH includes at least one of ii) information for notifying that the group common PDSCH is being received (Section 2.1, page 3, “For RRC_INACTIVE mode UE, it is possible to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume). It is better to inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4. There are 2 options: Option 1: preconfigured preamble and/or RO can be used to indicate the interesting MBS implicitly. Option 2: MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5 can be used to report the detailed interesting MBS identities).
Oppo doesn’t expressly teach that transmitting the first message while receiving the group common PDSCH in the non-connected mode.
Fujishiro teaches transmitting the first message while receiving multicast data via SC-MTCH in the non-connected mode ([0161], “the UE 100 detects an event forcing the UE 100 to transition to the RRC connected state. In the operation pattern 2, the UE 100 may continue, rather than suspend, the SC-PTM reception even if the UE 100 detects the event. In step S313, the UE 100 establishes an RRC connection with the eNB 200 by transmitting an RRC connection request message to the eNB 200, and transitions to the RRC connected state”, also see Fig. 23).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Oppo so that the UE continues receiving the group common PDSCH while transmitting MSG3. Oppo’s stated goals are MBS service continuity and avoiding BWP switching across the transition (page 3, Section 2.2). Fujishiro teaches achieving continuity by not suspending multicast reception during the RRC transition, which is a known technique applied to a similar method with predictable results.
Regarding claim 4, the aforementioned references further teaches: wherein, in performing the procedure for transitioning from the non-connected mode to the connected mode using a random access procedure, the information on the group common PDSCH is transmitted based on i) an identifier of a random access preamble (Oppo, page 3: “Option 1: preconfigured preamble and/or RO can be used to indicate the interesting MBS implicitly. Option 2: MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5 can be used to report the detailed interesting MBS identities”), ii) a physical random access channel (PRACH) occasion for random access preamble transmission, and iii) a uplink (UL) BWP for PRACH transmission.
Regarding claim 5, the aforementioned references further teach that based on information on a downlink (DL) BWP associated with a common frequency resource (CFR) for receiving the group common PDSCH being included in the second message, the group common PDSCH is transmitted in the DL BWP (Oppo, page 3, “In order to avoid frequent BWP switching for broadcast reception and unicast reception on dedicated BWP, it is better for gNB to know the UE is receiving broadcast MBS and configure the dedicated BWP to overlap the broadcast MBS BWP”, also page 3, option 2, “it is possible to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume)”; also see Observation 3).
Regarding claim 6, the aforementioned references further teach that based on information on a downlink (DL) BWP associated with a common frequency resource (CFR) for receiving the group common PDSCH being not included in the second message, the group common PDSCH is received in the CFR for receiving the group common PDSCH in the non-connected mode even after transitioning to the connected mode (Oppo, page 2 Agreements: “For RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE UEs, define/configure common frequency resource(s) for group-common PDCCH/PDSCH. - the UE may assume the initial BWP as the default common frequency resource for group-common PDCCH/PDSCH, if a specific common frequency resource is not configured”).
Regarding claim 9, the aforementioned references further teach that: receiving, from the base station, downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling the group common PDSCH through a group common physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (Oppo, page 2, “In RAN1#103 meeting, RAN1 agreed that the same group-common PDCCH and the corresponding scheduled group-common PDSCH can be received by both RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE UEs and RRC_CONNECTED UEs”, it’s noted that information transmitted in PDCCH is downlink control information which schedules the group-common PDSCH).
Regarding claim 17 and 18, Oppo teaches a method/apparatus of transmitting a group common PDSCH (physical downlink shared channel) in a wireless communication system, the method performed by a base station comprising:
receiving, from a user equipment (UE), a first message for a procedure for transitioning from a non-connected mode to a connected mode (under Proposal 3: “For RRC_INACTIVE mode UE, it is possible to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume). It is better to inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4”, also see Option 2: “MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5 can be used to report the detailed interesting MBS identities”, it’s noted that MSG3 correspond to the first message for a procedure for transitioning from a non-connected mode to a connected mode)
transmitting, to the UE, a second message for the procedure for transitioning from the non-connected mode to the connected mode in response to the first message (page 3-4, under Propoal 3, “configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume)”, it’s noted that MSG4 correspond to the second message which is in response of MSG3); and
transmitting continuously the group common PDSCH to the UE after transitioning to the connected mode (page 3, Agreements: “From physical layer perspective, for broadcast reception, the same group-common PDCCH and the corresponding scheduled group-common PDSCH can be received by both RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE UEs and RRC_CONNECTED UEs”, also paragraph under agreements: “In order to avoid frequent BWP switching for broadcast reception and unicast reception on dedicated BWP, it is better for gNB to know the UE is receiving broadcast MBS and configure the dedicated BWP to overlap the broadcast MBS BWP”),
wherein, in order for the UE to receive continuously the group common PDSCH from the base station after transitioning to the connected mode, information on the group common PDSCH is transmitted from the UE (page 4, Proposal 4, “MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5”, Section, 2.1 page 3, “inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4”), and
wherein the information on the group common PDSCH includes at Least one of i) information on a bandwidth part (BWP) for reception of the group common PDSCH, ii) information for notifying that the group common PDSCH is being received, iii) an identifier for the UE for reception of the group common PDSCH (Section 2.1, page 3, “For RRC_INACTIVE mode UE, it is possible to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4(RRCResume). It is better to inform the network whether there is ongoing MBS for the UE before MSG4. There are 2 options: Option 1: preconfigured preamble and/or RO can be used to indicate the interesting MBS implicitly. Option 2: MSG3 can be used to indicate the MBS reception, e.g. 1 bit to aid the network to configure the dedicated BWPs in MSG4 and MSG5 can be used to report the detailed interesting MBS identities).
Oppo doesn’t expressly teach that transmitting the first message while receiving the group common PDSCH in the non-connected mode.
Fujishiro teaches transmitting the first message while receiving multicast data via SC-MTCH in the non-connected mode ([0161], “the UE 100 detects an event forcing the UE 100 to transition to the RRC connected state. In the operation pattern 2, the UE 100 may continue, rather than suspend, the SC-PTM reception even if the UE 100 detects the event. In step S313, the UE 100 establishes an RRC connection with the eNB 200 by transmitting an RRC connection request message to the eNB 200, and transitions to the RRC connected state”, also see Fig. 23).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Oppo so that the UE continues receiving the group common PDSCH while transmitting MSG3. Oppo’s stated goals are MBS service continuity and avoiding BWP switching across the transition (page 3, Section 2.2). Fujishiro teaches achieving continuity by not suspending multicast reception during the RRC transition, which is a known technique applied to a similar method with predictable results.
Claims 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1), further in view of Harada et al (US 2021/0385800 A1).
Regarding claim 10, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations except that the group common PDCCH is transmitted in a predetermined time window based on a synchronization signal block (SSB) associated with the time window.
Harada teaches the above limitation (In a case of non-default association between the PDCCH monitoring occasion and SSB ([0063], when OSI search space information is configured), the K-th PDCCH monitoring occasion in the SI window may correspond to the K-th transmitted SSB).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Harada in the system in the method disclosed by Oppo in view of Fujishiro to reduce UE power consumption (see paragraph 0072 of Harada).
Regarding claim 11, the aforementioned references further teach that the time window is configured be associated with at least one of a CFR, a group-radio network temporary identifier (G-RNTI), a G-RNTI group, a search space (Harada, [0060], “A search space (SearchSpace) may indicate, for example, at least one PDCCH monitoring slot in the SI window (for example, a period per slot and offset (monitoringSlotPeriodicityAndoffset) or duration per slot (for example, duration)) or PDCCH monitoring occasion in the PDCCH monitoring slot (for example, the number of monitoring symbols in the PDCCH monitoring slot (monitoringSymbolsWithinSlot)”)., and a search space group.
Claims 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1), further in view of Abdoli et al (US 2021/0127414 A1).
Regarding claim 12, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations except that a scrambling identifier for the group common PDCCH and/or the group common PDSCH is configured separately for the non-connected mode and the connected mode.
Abdoli teaches the above limitation ([0148], “The UE 402 is in the inactive state when the DCI 406 is received. The DCI 406 includes a CRC scrambled by a RNTI that is specific to the UE 402. An RNTI that is specific to a particular UE, or to a particular group of UEs, and is used when the UE(s) are in the inactive state is referred herein to as an “I-RNTI”. Optionally, an I-RNTI is associated with or specific to the inactive state. If the I-RNTI is specific to the inactive state, then the I-RNTI is not used to scramble the CRC of DCI for the UE or the particular group of UEs in a connected or idle state”, [0149]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Abdoli in the method disclosed by Oppo in view of Fujishiro. The motivation for doing so would allow the nteowrk direct group-common DCI to the UEs in the intended RRC state. This is the use of a known technique to improve a similar method in the same way, with predictable results.
Regarding claim 13, the aforementioned references further teaches that the scrambling identifier is configured to be associated with at least one of a DCI format, a G-RNTI, a G-RNTI group, a CFR, and a BWP (Abdoli, [0150], “the I-RNTI could be configured in pdcch-ServingCellConfig or PDCCH-Config in a DL bandwidth part (BWP) configuration in NR”).
Claims 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1), further in view of Chin et al (US 2022/0286818 A1).
Regarding claim 2, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations. However, Oppo in view of Fujishiro doesn’t expressly teach which field of the first message carries the indication - the information on the group common PDSCH is included in cause information of the first message.
Chin teaches that cause information of the first message of the transition procedure is used to convey MBS-related information to the network. The resume cause in the RRCResumeRequest message, and the establishment cause in the RRCSetupRequest message, inform the network that the UE is interested in receiving an MBS ([0242], Chin is relied upon only for the teaching that the cause field of the first message is suitable vehicle for an MBS-related indication. The content of the information, i.e., notifying the group common PDSCH is being received, is supplied by OPPO in view of Fujishiro.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to carry Oppo’s MSG3 indication that the group common PDSCH is being received as cause information of the first message, as taught by Chin. Placing Oppo’s indication int eh cause filed conveys it through an existing field of the first message rather than adding a new one. This is the use of a known technique to improve a similar method in the same way, with predictable results.
Claims 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1), further in view of HE et al (US 2023/0042274 A1).
Regarding claim 3, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations except that the information on the group common PDSCH is included in a logical channel identifier (LCID) field in a header of a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) carrying the first message.
HE teaches that, instead of using bits in the Msg3 payload, a dedicated LCID may be configured for the MAC SDU used for Msg3 (the CCCH) ([0077], instead of using any bits in the Msg3 payload, a dedicated logical channel ID (LCID) may be introduced that identifies a device type. The LCID may be configured for the medium access control (MAC) service data unit (SDU) that is used for Msg3; it’s noted that HE is relied upon only for the mechanism of conveying an indication through the LCID field. The content of the information is supplied by Oppo in view of Fujishiro).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of HE in the system disclosed by Oppo in view of Fujishiro to convey Oppo’s MSG3 indication that the group common PDSCH is being received through a dedicated LCI value in the MAC subheader of the MAC PDU carrying the first message. This is a predictable use of a known early-indication technique.
Claims 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oppo, “Discussion on MBS interesting indication and service continuity for delivery mode 2”, in view of Fujishiro et al (US 2019/0261140 A1), further in view of Li et al (US 2023/0403759 A1).
Regarding claim 7, the aforementioned references teach all of the limitations as applied to claim 6, further teaches that the connection mode is maintained at an initial BWP configured by system information (Oppo, page 2, agreement, “the UE may assume the initial BWP as the default common frequency resource for group-common PDCCH/PDSCH, if a specific common frequency resource is not configured”).
Oppo in view of Fujishiro does not teach that only when receiving the group common PDSCH, the UE switches to the CFR for receiving the group common PDSCH in the non-connected mode.
Li teaches the above limitation ([0130], Fig. 8A, 9: Li teaches that the UE operates with the initial BWP by default and remains on it, perform BWP switching to the MBS BWP only when an MBS transmission, and switches back to the initial BWP after the PDSCH is received; it’s noted that LI is relied upon for switching from the initial BWP to that non-connected mode frequency resource only when receiving the group common PDSCH).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Li in the system disclosed by Oppo in view of Fujishiro. The motivation for doing so would enable providing the MBS service continuity sought by OPPO and Fujishiro without requiring the network to configure a dedicated BWP. This is the application of a known technique to a similar method with predictable results.
Regarding claim 8, the aforementioned references further teach an initial BWP configured by system information is configured to include a CFR for receiving the group common PDSCH in the non-connected mode (Li, [0097], Fig. 4).
Conclusion
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/SIMING LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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