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
Applicants’ arguments filed 0n 8/14/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., “However, the cited "initial access SSBs" and "additional SSBs" are not subsets of a same "SSB burst set," as in claim 1”) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The claim limitation “one SSB subset from the one or more SSB subsets” is broad, “initial access SSBs" and "additional SSBs” in John Wilson teaches the claim 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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-6, 8,11, 12,17-19, 21, 22, 26-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over John Wilson et al. (US 20200059922) in view of Cozzo et al. (US 20230147154, supported by provisional application 63/276394)
Regarding claims 1, 19, 26, and 29, John Wilson teaches to measure one or more synchronization signal block (SSB) subsets of an SSB burst set including multiple SSBs grouped into SSB subsets (Fig. 4, 405-initial access SSBs 515 - additional SSBs, and [0097] the UE 115-c may measure the SSB transmissions, such as by measuring a reference signal received power of a reference signal in the SSB transmissions); and transmit, to a base station, a random access message indicating information for at least one SSB subset from the one or more SSB subsets (Fig. 4, 435, [0100] the base station 105-c may receive the random access request and determine if multiple possible SSBs are mapped to a RACH resource used to transmit the random access request).
However, John Wilson does not expressly teach to transmit, to a base station measurement information for one or more SSBs of the at least one SSB subset. Cozzo teaches Fig. 12, steps 1220-1240, and [0112] the UE can also provide a report to the gNB. The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure, (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claims 2, 20, 27, and 30, John Wilson does not expressly teach, however, Cozzo teaches wherein the random access message further includes an ordering indication indicating an ordering of the one or more SSBs within the at least one SSB subset indicated in the random access message, the ordering of the one or more SSBs based in part on at least of
a beam strength and a beam interference associated with each of the one or more SSBs,
the ordering indication based in part on: indicating at least one SSB index within the at least one SSB subset associated with a strongest beam strength or the beam interference, or
indicating an explicit ordering of the one or more SSBs within the at least one SSB subset ([0112] The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure, (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claims 3 and 28, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the measurement information includes at least one of a layer 1 reference signal receive power (L1-RSRP) or a signal to interference. Cozzo teaches [0077] Layer 1 of a UE receives from higher layers a set of SS/PBCH block indexes and provides to higher layers a corresponding set of RSRP measurements. Layer 1 receives the configuration of physical random access channel (PRACH) transmission parameters (PRACH preamble format, time resources, and frequency resources for PRACH transmission), supported by provisional application 63/276394), see page 15) and noise ratio (SINR) of the one or more SSBs within the at least one SSB subset. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claims 4 and 21, John Wilson teaches wherein the memory and the at least one processor are further configured to: receive configuration information for groupings of the one or more SSB subsets of the SSB burst set, the configuration information based at least in part on random access channel (RACH) configurations in system information or radio resource control (RRC) configurations while operating in an RRC connected mode, wherein the apparatus further comprises a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor. Cozzo teaches [0087] A UE can be provided a first RACH configuration associated with a CD-SSBs and a second RACH configuration associated with a NCD-SSBs that can be same or differ in one or more parameters and can be provided by higher layers via common RRC signaling, such as by system information, or via UE-specific RRC signaling. For example, the first configuration can be provided by SIB1 and the second configuration can be provided by UE-specific RRC signaling (supported by provisional application 63/276394, see Fig. 6). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 5, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the configuration information includes one or more of:
a transmission beam direction, a transmission beam angular spread,
a first transmission beam angle separation between adjacent SSBs within a corresponding SSB subset, or a second transmission beam angle separation between at least two SSBs within different SSB subsets. Cozzo teaches [0031] The gNB can transmit multiple SSBs with different quasi-collocation properties, also referred to as beams, and the UE typically acquires the SSB associated with the quasi-collocation properties that best match the ones of the UE (supported by provisional application 63/276394, see page 17). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claims 6 and 22, John Wilson teaches wherein the SSB burst set is based on one of multiple grouping options, the memory and the at least one processor are further configured to: indicate, in the random access message, a corresponding grouping option from the multiple grouping options (Fig. 4, step 430, [0099] The random access request may be transmitted using the resources determined based on the mapping between the additional SSBs and the initial access SSBs).
Regarding claim 8, John Wilson teaches wherein the random access message includes at least one of:
a Msg1 in a four-step random access channel (RACH) procedure (Fig. 4, MSG1),
a MsgA preamble in a two-step RACH procedure,
a MsgA physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in the two-step RACH procedure, or an uplink message before a radio resource control (RRC) setup.
Regarding claim 9, John Wilson does not expressly teach the measurement information is indicated based on a random access occasion (RO) in which the random access message is transmitted or a preamble included in the random access message. Cozzo teaches Fig. 9 and [0103] the UE selects one or more NCD-SSB, for example, based on RSRP measurements being above a threshold. In step 930, the UE transmits a PRACH using a first spatial setting associated with the selected NCD-SSB in the RO determined from the mapping to the NCD-SSB index (supported by provisional application 63/276394, see Fig. 8). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 10, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the measurement information is independently indicated in the MsgA PUSCH in the two-step RACH procedure. Cozzo teaches [0080] Instead of a 4-step RA procedure, a 2-step RA procedure can be used where a UE can transmit both a PRACH preamble and a PUSCH (MsgA) prior to reception of a corresponding RAR (MsgB) (supported by provisional application 63/276394, see page 16). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 11, John Wilson does not expressly teach, however, Cozzo teaches a random access occasion (RO) or preamble indicates an SSB subset index for an SSB subset, and a PUSCH indicates at least one of
an SSB ordering of the one or more SSBs of the one or more SSB subsets or
a measurement associated with the one or more SSBs of the one or more SSB subsets,
the measurement including at least one of a layer 1 reference signal receive power (L1-RSRP) or a signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) ([0112] The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure, (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 12, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the random access message includes the measurement information for a reduced set of SSBs within the at least one SSB subset, wherein a quantity of SSBs of the reduced set of SSBs is based on at least one of: a base station configuration, a UE determination, or a criteria. Cozzo teaches Fig. 12, steps 1220-1240, and [0112] the UE can also provide a report to the gNB. The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 17, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the random access message indicates multiple SSB subsets within the SSB burst set and corresponding measurement information. Cozzo teaches Fig. 12, steps 1220-1240, and [0112] the UE can also provide a report to the gNB. The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure, (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Regarding claim 18, John Wilson does not expressly teach wherein the random access message includes different measurement information for different SSB subsets. Cozzo teaches Fig. 12, steps 1220-1240, and [0112] the UE can also provide a report to the gNB. The UE can report a channel quality, such as an RSRP, associated with the best spatial setting (for example, the spatial setting resulting to the largest measured RSRP) and/or a channel quality associated with multiple spatial settings, based on measurements from NCD-SSB receptions. For example, a report can be associated to the best and second best spatial settings. The report(s) associated to one or more spatial settings can be included in a Msg1/PRACH transmission for a 4-step RA procedure (or in a MsgA transmission for a 2-step RA procedure, (supported by provisional application 63/276394, Fig. 10 and pages 27-28 of Specification)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with Cozzo in order to flexibly accommodate various services/applications with different requirements, new multiple access schemes to support massive connections ([0003], Cozzo).
Claims 13, 14 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over John Wilson et al. (US 20200059922) modified by Cozzo et al. (US 20230147154), and further in view of da Silva et al. (US 20220132578)
Regarding claim 13, neither John Wilson nor Cozzo expressly teaches wherein each SSB subset of the SSB burst set includes a designated SSB, the designated SSB used to determine a transmission beam to transmit a first message of a random access channel (RACH) procedure or to determine a receive beam to receive a second message of the RACH procedure, the first message including a message 1 (msg1) of a four-step RACH procedure or a message A (msgA) of a two-step RACH procedure, the second message including a message 2 (msg2) of the four-step RACH procedure or a message B (msgB) of the two-step RACH procedure, the designated SSB based on at least one of:
configuration information received from the base station, or
a UE determination reported at least in part on a corresponding random access occasion (RO) or a corresponding preamble of the first message.
da Silva teaches Fig. 6 UE performing RACH procedure, Fig. 10, [0090] a cell that comprises multiple SSBs (or SSBs defining a cell are transmitted in multiple downlink beams), and [0118] (b) radio conditions of the selected beam/beams (e.g., reference symbol receive power (RSRP). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with da Silva in order to report the information about the random access resources associated with the beam to a network node (Abstract, da Silva).
Regarding claims 14 and 23, neither John Wilson nor Cozzo expressly teaches wherein the memory and the at least one processor are further configured to: use a transmission beam to transmit a first message of a random access channel (RACH) procedure, the first message including a message 1 (msg1) of a four-step RACH procedure or a message A (msgA) of a two-step RACH procedure, or use a receive beam to receive a second message of the RACH procedure, the second message including a message 2 (msg2) of the four-step RACH procedure or a message B (msgB) of the two-step RACH procedure, wherein the transmission beam and the receive beam are based on a group of SSBs within the one or more SSBs reported in the random access message. da Silva further teaches Fig. 18, [0090] a cell that comprises multiple SSBs (or SSBs defining a cell are transmitted in multiple downlink beams) and [0349] wireless device 110 may select a random access preamble and an uplink beam. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with da Silva in order to report the information about the random access resources associated with the beam to a network node (Abstract, da Silva).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 15-16, 24-25, 31 and 32are 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.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EUNSOOK CHOI whose telephone number is (571)270-1822. The examiner can normally be reached on 8am-4:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan Phillips can be reached on 5712723940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/EUNSOOK CHOI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
