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 .
Claims 1, 3-5, 8, 10-12, 29-31 and 44 are pending. Claims 29-31 and 44 are withdrawn from consideration.
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 08 July 2024 and 10 October 2025 is being considered by the examiner.
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) 1, 4, 8 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHANG et al. (US 2022/0417932 A1) in view of Onggosanusi et al. (US 2021/0136741 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 8, ZHANG et al. discloses a user equipment (UE), comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute:
being configured by radio resource control (RRC) signaling with one or more transmission configuration indication (TCI) states forming a common TCI state pool ([0067]: “the common TCI state pool 414 may be signaled to the UE 404 using RRC signaling.”);
being indicated by medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) for downlink (DL) channel TCI states activation which TCI states in the common TCI state pool are active ([0070]: “As illustrated in FIG. 4A, the base station 402 may transmit the TCI activation 428(1) to the UE 404. In some examples, the TCI activation 428(1) may be transmitted to the UE 404 via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE).”;
in a case of the one or multiple TCI states being joint DL/uplink (UL) TCI state, being indicated by DL DCI which TCI state in the activate TCI states is applied for DL beam indication ([0061]: “a unified TCI framework may employ a DL common TCI state, a UL common TCI state, and a joint TCI for beam indication. The joint DL/UL TCI may indicate a common beam for at least one DL channel and at least one UL channel.”).([0062]: “a unified TCI framework may implement joint full duplex TCI indication for one or more DL channels and one or more UL channels for FD transmission.”), and UL Tx spatial filter is derived from the TCI state ([0061]: “the source reference signals of one or more TCIs may also provide a reference for determining common UL TX spatial filters for a dynamic-grant and/or configured grant based PUSCH or dedicated PUCCH resources. “).
ZHANG et al. does not explicitly teach the TCI state which is indicated by DL DCI.
Onggosanusi et al. in the same field of invention, teaches this feature.
([0096]: “The DCI states represented by the code points of the TCI field in the corresponding DCI...The TCI state indicated by the code point of the TCI field is a reference to the TX beam or the TX spatial filter associated with a reference RS. For DL, given such a reference, the UE can further derive the RX bem or RX spatial filter. The DCI that includes the TCI field (which can be either DL-related DCI or UL-related DCI) performs the function of the so-called “beam indication”.)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to transmit the TCI states by DL DCI.
Regarding claims 4 and 11, ZHANG et al. teaches wherein for the joint DL/UL TCI state, only one MAC CE is used for DL channels to indicate which TCI states in the common TCI state pool are active. (0070]: “As illustrated in FIG. 4A, the base station 402 may transmit the TCI activation 428(1) to the UE 404. In some example, the TCI activation 428(1) may be transmitted to the UE 404 via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE). Futher, the TCI activations 428(1)-(N) may include one or more TCI state identifier 432 identifying one or more TCI states (e.g., one or more of the FD TCI states 416) within the common TCI state pools 414.”)
Claim(s) 3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHANG et al. (US 2022/0417932 A1) in view of Onggosanusi et al. (US 2021/0136741 A1) further in view of (WO 2021/090204 A1).
Regarding claims 3 and 10, ZHANG et al. in view of Onggosanusi et al. fails to teach wherein the MAC CE comprises an unified TCI state indication field for activating the TCI states in the common TCI state pool.
(WO 2021/090204 A1) teaches ([0041]: “the one or more TCI states activated by the MACE to each of a plurality of codepoint for a Downlink Control Information (DCI) transmission configuration indication field.”)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to configure the MAC CE comprises an unified TCI state indication field for activating the TCI states.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 12 are 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Jiang can be reached at 571-270-7191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
