DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The instant application No. 18722308 has claims 1-20 are pending.
2 The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abedini et al. (Pub. No. US 2022/0053486 A1; hereinafter Abedini) in view of Li et al. (Pub. No. US 2020/0366363 A1; hereinafter Li)
Regarding claim 1, Abedini discloses a method for a smart repeater (SMR), the method comprising: configuring the SMR with a set of SMR transmission beam indicator (TBI) state (SMR-TBI State) configurations, (20220053486-See 0038, The repeater device may obtain fronthaul-link transmission configuration indication (TCI) state indexes and access-link TCI state indexes from control information sent to the repeater device in control signaling from the base station; See 0082, Each TCI state specifies an antenna downlink beam.) wherein each of the SMR-TBI State configurations in the set respectively comprises an SMR-TBI State identifier (ID), a cell index, and a reference signal associated with a beam for an access link between the SMR and a user equipment (UE); (See 0240, for K=16 (i.e., the base station sends K SSBs presumably using K different beams), the repeater device may be configured with g=8 of these K=16 SSBs (these may be referred to as the active TCI states); See 0075, An SSB includes a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS), and a physical broadcast control channel (PBCCH). A UE may utilize the PSS and SSS to achieve radio frame, subframe, slot, and symbol; synchronization in the time domain, identify the center of the channel (system) bandwidth in the frequency domain, and identify the physical cell identity (PCI) of the cell; See 0082, Each TCI state specifies an antenna downlink beam.)
However, Abedini fails to disclose receiving, at the SMR through a backhaul link from a base station, an indication of one or more active SMR-TBI States; and forwarding, by the SMR, a signal between the base station and the UE using the beam associated with the reference signal in at least one of the one or more active SMR-TBI States.
Li disclose receiving, at the SMR through a backhaul link from a base station, an indication of one or more active SMR-TBI States; (Pub. No. US 2020/0366363 A1-See 0089, the best backhaul beam pair between the repeater 140 and the base station 110; See 0092-0093, a base station 110 may transmit a configuration that indicates a resource set to be used by a millimeter wave repeater 140 for beam management; the configuration may include an indication of one or more beamforming configurations to be used by the repeater 140 to receive and/or relay communications, such as a beam parameter, a quasi co-location (QCL) relationship, a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state) and forwarding, by the SMR, a signal between the base station and the UE using the beam associated with the reference signal in at least one of the one or more active SMR-TBI States. (See 0111, UE 120 may transmit one or more uplink reference signals (e.g., one or more SRSs, one or more RACH messages, and/or the like) to the repeater 140 via corresponding one or more beams (e.g., using one beam for each uplink reference signal) according to the configuration. For each uplink reference signal received via a beam (e.g., via an Rx beam of the repeater 140), the repeater 140 may relay that uplink reference signal via multiple beams (e.g., multiple Tx beams of the repeater) according to the configuration)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify disclose receiving a set of TCI configuration states to include receiving a indicator for he TCI state for the beam used to transmit and receive signals. The motivation to combine is latency may be reduced and a cost to produce the mmW repeater 140 may be reduced (See 0045).
Claim(s) 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abedini in view of Li and further in view of Abedini et al. (Pub. No. US 2022/0053433 A1; hereinafter Abedini2).
Regarding claim 2, Li discloses reporting, by the SMR to the base station through the backhaul link (Pub. No. US 2020/0366363 A1-See 0089, the best backhaul beam pair between the repeater 140 and the base station 110; see 0103, the repeater 140 may transmit, to the base station 110, a report regarding a power setting or a measured receive (Rx) power of the repeater 140. In some aspects, the power setting and/or the measured Rx power may be reported for a specific Tx beam and/or Rx beam of the repeater 140 (e.g., according to the configuration))
Abedini in view of Li fails to discloses a beam forming capability or a maximum number of SMR-TBI States capability per component carrier (CC) for at least one of a downlink (DL) forwarding operation and an uplink (UL) forwarding operation, wherein a number of the SMR-TBI State configurations in the set is based on the beam forming capability or the maximum number of SMR-TBI States capability per CC reported by the SMR.
Abedini2 discloses reporting, by the SMR to the base station through the backhaul link, a beam forming capability or a maximum number of SMR-TBI States capability per component carrier (CC) for at least one of a downlink (DL) forwarding operation and an uplink (UL) forwarding operation, wherein a number of the SMR-TBI State configurations in the set is based on the beam forming capability or the maximum number of SMR-TBI States capability per CC reported by the SMR. (20220053433-See 0308, receiving capability information from the repeater device, estimating a quantity of beams supported by the repeater device based on the capability information, and determining the first quantity of SSBs based on the quantity of beams supported by the repeater device. In some examples, the capability information may include at least one of: a maximum number of configured transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states per component carrier, a maximum number of configured spatial relations, a maximum number of sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets, a maximum number of SRS resources per set, or a combination thereof.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify receiving configuration on backhaul link to include base station receiving a beam capability information. The motivation to combine is a repeater device may be placed so that there are no obstructions or fewer obstructions between the repeater device and the UE and between the repeater device and the network access node. Thus, communications between the network access node and the UE via the repeater device may have a higher quality than communications directly between the network access node the UE (See 0200).
Claim(s) 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abedini in view of Li and further in view of Cao (Pub. No. US 2021/0184733 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Abedini in view of Li fails to disclose the reference signal indicated in the SMR-TBI State configuration is selected from a non-zero power channel state information reference signal transmitted by the SMR (SMR-NZP-CSI-RS) and a synchronization signal block transmitted by the SMR (SMR-SSB).
Cao discloses the reference signal indicated in the SMR-TBI State configuration is selected from a non-zero power channel state information reference signal transmitted by the SMR (SMR-NZP-CSI-RS) and a synchronization signal block transmitted by the SMR (SMR-SSB). (See 0142, the base station can refer to the TCI state ID in a control signaling such as MAC control element (MAC CE) or downlink control information (DCI). The UE decodes the control signaling and extracts the TCI state ID, finds qcl-Type1 or qcl-Type2 whose qcl-Type parameter is set to “QCL-TypeD” in the TCI state identified by the TCI state ID, and finds the indicator of the source reference signal, such as NZP-CSI-RS-ResoureId or SSB-Index; See 0178, By means of the TCI state identification fields indicating multiple beams in the DCI, the UE can find the source reference signals (such as NZP-CSI-RSs or SSBs) for which “QCL-TypeD” is set, and determine the receiving beams that receive these source reference signals, and with the quasi co-location relationship between the source reference signal and the DM-RS of PDSCH, the receiving parameters (receiving beams) for monitoring the PDSCH are determined.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify repeater receiving TCI state configuration through backhaul link to include transmitting the reference signal indicating the state configuration. The motivation to combine is by using the TCI state of the multi-beam indication, the efficiency of indicating beams by the base station can be improved (See 0187).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-20 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Gutman et al. (Pub. No. US 2024/0007881 A1)-See 0193, , the signaling including the TCI state may be transmitted via at least one of a MAC-CE or an RRC message. In one aspect, the network node may configure a set of TCI states for the controller using the RRC message, and activate/deactivate a TCI state from the set of TCI states using the MAC-CE. In another aspect, the network node may dynamically configure the TCI state for the controller using the MAC-CE.
Awadin et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0327735 A1)-See 0192, To determine the TCI pool from which activated TCI states are activated, a 1-bit field in the MAC-CE may be used. For example, if the 1-bit field is set to zero or one, then this MAC-CE (de)activates TCI states for the mobile part of the repeater or forwarding link, respectively. For example, in the “enhanced TCI states activation/deactivation for UE-specific PDSCH MAC-CE”, there is one reserved bit that can be used for this purpose. Also, in “TCI States Activation/Deactivation for UE-specific PDSCH MAC CE” the number of configured TCI states by RRC should not be multiple integers of 8 such that there is at least 1-bit field left indicating which TCI state pool should be used.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TEJIS DAYA whose telephone number is (571)270-7817. The examiner can normally be reached 6:30-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas Jensen can be reached at 571-270-5443. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Tejis Daya/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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