DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
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.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230066772 A1 (Myung), in view of US 20250126647 A1 (Awadin).
Regarding Claims 1 and 14-15:
An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled with the processor, the processor configured to cause the apparatus to: report at least one uplink ("UL") transmission beam and at least one sensing beam that can be used to perform listen-before-talk ("LBT") prior to transmitting on the at least one UL transmission beam, according to a first configuration received from a network; indicate a relationship between the reported at least one UL transmission beam and the reported at least one sensing beam via transmission configuration indication ("TCI"), sounding reference signal ("SRS") resource indicator ("SRI"), beam corresponding, or some combination thereof, according to a second configuration received from the network; and indicate a UL transmission beam via TCI, SRI, beam correspondence, or some combination thereof and determine a corresponding at least one sensing beam, based on the second configuration, to perform LBT, according to a third configuration received from the network (Myung: Fig. 12, UE and BS interactions in a UL transmission based on dynamic grant, where each grant from BS may indicate the UE transmission configurations; Figs. 20-21, UE receives SRS config and transmits SRS with determined Tx beam; Figs. 25-27, UE receives LBT config, performs LBT based on the info and transmitting UL signal; par.239-247, beam management that includes UE receives configurations from BS, beam measurements, beam determination, and beam report (i.e., UE reports information about a signal beamformed based on the beam measurement); par. 388-392, use TCI and SRI to configurate/indicate the spatial relation for both the transmission and LBT beams; par. 411-436 primary/secondary LBT beams (configurations) and the logic for switching between them, the primary LBT beam is associated with a first CSI-RS (or first SSB), and the secondary LBT beam is associated with a second CSI-RS (or second SSB) (i.e., multiple configurations); par. 438, 367-370, UE switches the LBT beam based on specific failure criteria or using prescheduled/preconfigured specific time-frequency resource or network configuration; First configuration (reporting): proposed Method #1 and #3 (e.g., par. 331, 386) that UE informs the network of its beam correspondence capabilities and preferred beam pairs; second configuration (relationship indication): Proposed Method #3 (e.g., par. 387-402) that BS indicates the spatial relationship using TCI/SRI; third configuration (dynamic determination): Proposed Method #4 (e.g., par 410-439) UE dynamically selecting or determining the sensing beam (primary vs. secondary) to perform LBT based on real-time channel conditions and the config provided by BS; Awadin further illustrates UE is configurated to perform LBT on beams that have spatial relationship and/or link association with DL-RS, PSS, SSS, SSB, and CSI_RS in Figs. 2-13 and par. 57-64, 73, 82-85 among others).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Myung with specific LBT/sensing beam configuration as further taught by Awadin. The advantage of doing so is to use a variety of listen-before-talk (LBT) procedures and hybrid channel access procedures for uplink transmissions are on different beams and configured or scheduled in contiguous or non-contiguous mode (Awadin: Abstract).
Regarding Claim 2, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein reporting the at least one sensing beam is activated or triggered separately from the reporting of the at least one UL transmission beam, according to the first configuration (Awadin: e.g., par. 108-109 config LBT types via RRC, MAC CE, or DCI fields; Myung: e.g. par. 428-431 UE informs the gNB of the LBT beam actually used via a special signal/channel).
Regarding Claim 3, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the activation or triggering of reporting the at least one sensing beam is implicitly indicated such that it is assumed that whenever a new set of beams or TCI states for UL is activated by the network, for example via MAC CE activation (Awadin: e.g., par. 108-109 config LBT types via RRC, MAC CE, or DCI fields; Myung: e.g. par. 428-431 UE informs the gNB of the LBT beam actually used via a special signal/channel).
Regarding Claim 4, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus in claim 2, wherein the activation or triggering of reporting the at least one sensing beam is explicitly indicated via a separate medium access control-control element ("MAC CE") activation, downlink control information ("DCI") indication, radio resource control ("RRC") indication, or some combination thereof to activate reporting of the sensing beams corresponding to each of the configured set of UL beams or TCI states (Awadin: e.g., par. 108-109 config LBT types via RRC, MAC CE, or DCI fields; Myung: e.g. par. 428-431 UE informs the gNB of the LBT beam actually used via a special signal/channel).
Regarding Claim 5, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 2, wherein deactivation of reporting the at least one sensing beam is implicit in response to a number of reporting periods satisfying a predetermined threshold (Myung: e.g., par. 367, 379, the LBT failure counter/timer, if a condition is met (e.g., reaching maximum attempts), the UE stops or switches the procedure).
Regarding Claim 6, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the predetermined threshold is one (Myung: e.g., par. 367-372 counter value (M1, M2) for failure, usually > 1; Awadin: par. 88, aperiodic SRS/CSI-RS reporting, where once the report is sent the reporting state is implicitly deactivated until the next trigger).
Regarding Claim 7, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 2, wherein deactivation of reporting the at least one sensing beam is explicitly indicated via a separate medium access control-control element ("MAC CE") activation, downlink control information ("DCI") indication, radio resource control ("RRC") indication, or some combination thereof to deactivate reporting of the sensing beams corresponding to each of the configured set of UL beams or TCI states (Myung: par. 428-438; Awadin: par 109, the network provides a list of candidate LBT beams. The network can explicitly deactivate these to reduce the UE’s sensing overhead).
Regarding Claim 8, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the periodicity of reporting UL transmission beams and the periodicity of reporting corresponding sensing beams are different, the periodicity of reporting sensing beams being longer than the periodicity of reporting UL transmission beams, according to the first configuration (Myung: e.g., par. 161, 330, periodic and semi-persistent LBT beaming reporting; Awadin: e.g., par. 138-146).
Regarding Claim 9, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensing beams are quasi-co-located with type-D assumption with downlink reference signals, according to the first configuration (Myung: par. 252-258).
Regarding Claim 10, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least two sensing beams are reported for the at least one UL transmission beam, at least one of the two reported sensing beams being wider than the UL transmission beam, according to the first configuration (Myung: par. 418-426; Awadin: par. 132-157).
Regarding Claim 11, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least two sensing beams are reported for the at least one UL transmission beam, both of the two reported sensing beams being narrower than the UL transmission beam, according to the first configuration (Myung: par. 418-426; Awadin: par. 132-157).
Regarding Claim 12, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensing beam is quasi-co-located with type-D assumption with the UL transmission beam in response to no sensing beam being reported to be configured and beam correspondence is supported at the apparatus (Myung: par 390-393, LTB beam defaults to UL Tx beam; Awadin: par. 113-115, partially assisted LBT where UE uses default filters if no explicit beam is signaled).
Regarding Claim 13, Myung as modified further teaches:
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensing beam determination is based on the apparatus's implementation in response to no sensing beam being reported to be configured and no beam correspondence is supported at the apparatus (Myung: par 390-393, LTB beam defaults to UL Tx beam; Awadin: par. 113-115, partially assisted LBT where UE uses default filters if no explicit beam is signaled).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHITONG CHEN whose telephone number is (571) 270-1936. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30am - 5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuwen Pan can be reached on 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ZHITONG CHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649