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 .
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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.
Claim(s) 25-27, 29, 31-33, 35, 37-39, 41, 43-45 and 47 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 2021/0360667 A1) in view of Kang et al. (US 2025/0056513 A1). Regarding claims 25, 31, 37, 43, Moon et al. discloses a method of communication performed by a terminal device, comprising: receiving, from a network device, a first downlink control information (DCI) in a first set of control resource sets (CORESETs) (Para 21 Para 186-188, Claim 4 “The configuration information of a first CORESET associated with the first search space may include first information indicating whether transmission configuration information (TCI) state information is included in the first DCI”) , and a second DCI in a second set of CORESETs, wherein the first DCI indicates a first transmission configuration indication (TCI) state and the second DCI indicates a second TCI state(Para 21 Para 186-188, and Claim 4 “configuration information of a second CORESET associated with the second search space may include second information indicating whether the TCI state information is included in the second DCI,.“); transmitting, to the network device, a first positive hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) corresponding to the first DCI or corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) scheduled by the first DCI and a second positive HARQ- ACK corresponding to the second DCI or corresponding to a PDSCH scheduled by the second DCI (Para 195 “The HARQ-ACK transmission times (e.g., first and second HARQ-ACK transmission times) corresponding to the plurality of PDSCHs may be different from each other. In the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 11A, the first HARQ-ACK transmission time may be the slot (n+2), and the second HARQ-ACK transmission time may be the slot”). Moon et al. does not explicitly discloses a method, wherein transmitting, to the network device, at least one of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) associated with the first set of CORESETs using a spatial domain filter corresponding to the first TCI state, and a PUSCH associated with the second set of CORESTs using a spatial domain filter corresponding to the second TCI state. However Kang et al. discloses a method, wherein transmitting, to the network device, at least one of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) associated with the first set of CORESETs using a spatial domain filter corresponding to the first TCI state, and a PUSCH associated with the second set of CORESTs using a spatial domain filter corresponding to the second TCI state (Para 170-171 teaches “a first spatial relation RS and a first power control (PC) parameter set (or a first UL TCI state) may be configured/indicated for a first PUSCH transmission, and a second spatial relation RS and a second PC parameter set (or a second UL TCI state) may be configured/indicated for a second PUSCH transmission. For example, the terminal may transmit a first PUSCH using a first panel corresponding to a first UL TCI state in a first time unit, and may transmit a second PUSCH using a second panel corresponding to a second UL TCI state in the first time unit. For example, the terminal may transmit (for the first CORESET pool) the first PUSCH through the first RS set based on the first UL TCI state in the first time unit, and may transmit the second PUSCH (for the second CORESET pool) through the second RS set based on the second UL TCI in the first time unit. “). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the method of generating a plurality of transmission beams simultaneously to perform uplink simultaneous transmission of Kang et al. with the system of Moon et al. in order to provide a system to improve uplink capacity, coverage and/or reliability. Regarding claims 26, 32, 38, 44, Moon et al. discloses a method, further comprising: applying at least one of the first TCI state to physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) receptions in the first set of CORESETs and PDSCH receptions scheduled by the PDCCH receptions in the first set of CORESETs, and the second TCI state to PDCCH receptions in the second set of CORESETs and PDSCH receptions scheduled by the PDCCH receptions in the second set of CORESETs. (Para 21 Para 186-188, and Claim 4 “configuration information of a second CORESET associated with the second search space may include second information indicating whether the TCI state information is included in the second DCI,.“). Regarding claims 27, 33, 39, 45, Kang et al. discloses a method, further comprising: transmitting, to the network device, a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) using a spatial domain filter corresponding to the first TCI state or the second TCI state based on a configuration. (Para 170-171 teaches “a first spatial relation RS and a first power control (PC) parameter set (or a first UL TCI state) may be configured/indicated for a first PUSCH transmission, and a second spatial relation RS and a second PC parameter set (or a second UL TCI state) may be configured/indicated for a second PUSCH transmission. For example, the terminal may transmit a first PUSCH using a first panel corresponding to a first UL TCI state in a first time unit, and may transmit a second PUSCH using a second panel corresponding to a second UL TCI state in the first time unit. For example, the terminal may transmit (for the first CORESET pool) the first PUSCH through the first RS set based on the first UL TCI state in the first time unit, and may transmit the second PUSCH (for the second CORESET pool) through the second RS set based on the second UL TCI in the first time unit. “). Motivation to combine is the same as claim 25 above. Regarding claims 29, 35, 41, 47, Moon et al. discloses a method, wherein the first TCI state is different from a TCI state previously indicated in the first set of CORESETs, and the second TCI state is different from a TCI state previously indicated in the second set of CORESETs (Para 94 teaches of different TCI states).
Claim(s) 28, 34, 40, and 46 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 2021/0360667 A1) in view of Kang et al. (US 2025/0056513 A1) as applied to claim 25 above in further view of Guo et al. (US 2023/0171771 A1). Regarding claims 28, 34, 40, 46 Moon et al. in view of Kang et al. discloses the claimed invention as set forth in claim 25 above. Moon et al. in view of Kang et al. does not explicitly discloses a method, wherein the first TCI state is applied from a first slot which is Y symbols after the last symbol of a PUCCH or a PUSCH with the first positive HARQ-ACK, Y is an integer, and the second TCI stat is applied from a first slot which is Y symbols after the last symbol of a PUCCH or a PUSCH with the second positive HARQ-ACK. However Gou et al. discloses a method, wherein the first TCI state is applied from a first slot which is Y symbols after the last symbol of a PUCCH or a PUSCH with the first positive HARQ-ACK, Y is an integer, and the second TCI stat is applied from a first slot which is Y symbols after the last symbol of a PUCCH or a PUSCH with the second positive HARQ-ACK (Para 66 teaches “ When a UE receives a DCI format Y1 at slot n, the UE can derive a TCI state according to the value indicated in block number i that the UE is configured with. the UE can be requested to apply the indicated TCI state for receiving PDCCH, PDSCH or CSI-RS resource and transmitting PUSCH, PUCCH or SRS resource starting from the first slot after N1 symbols from the last symbol of a PDCCH reception carrying the DCI format Y1.”). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the method of have the TCI state at a specific location of Gao et al. with the system of Moon et al. in view of Kang et al. in order to provide a system of optimizing beam management by guaranteeing beam consistency across all scheduled slots there by reducing signaling overhead.
Claim(s) 30, 36, 42, and 48, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 2021/0360667 A1) in view of Kang et al. (US 2025/0056513 A1) as applied to claim 25 above in further view of Papasakellariou et al. (US 2020/0007296 A1). Regarding claims 30, 36, 42, 48, Moon et al. in view of Kang et al. discloses the claimed invention as set forth in claim 25 above. Moon et al. in view of Kang et al. does not explicitly discloses a method, wherein the first positive HARQ-ACK comprises at least one bit value corresponding to acknowledgement (ACK), and the second positive HARQ- ACK comprises at least one bit value corresponding to ACK. However Papasakellariou et al. discloses a method, wherein the first positive HARQ-ACK comprises at least one bit value corresponding to acknowledgement (ACK), and the second positive HARQ- ACK comprises at least one bit value corresponding to ACK (Para 189-190 teaches of HARQ-ACK as on binary bit). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the method of using one binary bit to indicated HARQ-ACK or HARQ-NACK of Papasakellariou et al. with the system of Moon et al. with Kang et al. in order to provide a system with minimal overhead there by preserving bandwidth for actual data transmission.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AJAY P CATTUNGAL whose telephone number is (571)270-7525. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:00 PM.
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/AJAY CATTUNGAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
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