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
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-22 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frenne (US 2016/0157267) in view of Rune (US 2019/0090185).
Regarding claim 1, Frenne describes a user equipment (UE) (fig. 1 wireless device/UE 110), comprising:
a memory; at least one receiving circuitry; at least one transmitting circuitry; and at least one processor coupled to the memory, the at least one receiving circuitry and the at least one transmitting circuitry (fig. 9, UE with memory 930, processor 220, transceiver 910), wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to:
receive, via the at least one receiving circuitry, a signaling indicating at least one reference signal (RS) (fig. 8 #804 & para. 55 or abstract, UE receives set RSs); and
determine at least one of a random access (RA) procedure or a paging procedure based on the signaling (fig. 8 #808 & para. 57 or abstract, UE selects/determines the RA resource (procedure) to use base on the determined preferred BRS derived from reception of set of RSs in step #804).
Frenne only implies that all beams used are on/active (para. 7-9), thus fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein a spatial domain filter associated with the at least one RS is on or off.
Rune also describes UE receiving reference signal from network device (abstract), further describing:
wherein a spatial domain filter associated with the at least one RS is on or off para. 12 & 119, the base station turns on a particular directional beam (= spatial domain filter, per para. 36 corresponding to the reference signal) for transmitting RS to the UE. In fact, all (collective) beams are kept active (i.e. ‘on’), para. 73).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the RS for the random access procedure in Frenne to be associated with a spatial domain filter (beam) being on as in Rune.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that saves network resources and improves energy efficiency in the UE (Rune, para. 20).
Regarding claim 2, Frenne already describes:
to determine a random access procedure based on the signaling, but fails to further explicitly describe:
not use at least one of the spatial domain filter for the procedure in the case of the spatial domain filter being off.
Rune also describes UE receiving reference signal from network device (abstract), further describing:
not use at least one of the spatial domain filter for the procedure in the case of the spatial domain filter being off (para. 12 & 119, the base station turns on a particular directional beam (= spatial domain filter, per para. 36 corresponding to the reference signal) for transmitting RS to the UE, else off).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the RS for the random access procedure in Frenne to be associated with a spatial domain filter (beam) being on, else turned off, as in Rune.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that saves network resources and improves energy efficiency in the UE (Rune, para. 20).
Regarding claim 3, Frenne already describes determining a random access procedure based on the signaling, but fails to further explicitly describe:
at least one of physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) occasion associated with the spatial domain filter is valid for the random access procedure, in the case of the spatial domain filter being on.
Rune also describes UE receiving reference signal from network device (abstract), further describing:
at least one of physical random access channel (PRACH) occasion associated with the spatial domain filter is valid for the random access procedure, in the case of the spatial domain filter being on (para. 119 in view of para. 78 & 144, the base station turns on a particular directional beam (= spatial domain filter for transmission of RS in a beam using PRACH resources).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the RS for the random access procedure in Frenne to be associated with PRACH occasion as the spatial domain filter (beam) being on as in Rune.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that saves network resources and improves energy efficiency in the UE (Rune, para. 20).
Regarding claim 22, Frenne describes a base station for wireless communication, the base station comprising:
a memory; at least one receiving circuitry; at least one transmitting circuitry; and at least one processor coupled to the memory, the at least one receiving circuitry and the at least one transmitting circuitry (fig. 10 network node 115 with memory 1030, processor 1020, transceiver 1010 to perform steps), wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to:
transmit, via the at least one receiving circuitry, a signaling indicating at least one reference signal (RS) (fig. 8 #802 & para. 53 or abstract, network node transmits set of reference signals (RSs))); and
determine at least one of a random access (RA) procedure or a paging procedure based on the signaling (fig. 8 #820 & para. 60-62, network node detect the PRACH preamble sent by wireless device & the RA resource (procedure) it selected in step #808).
Frenne fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein a spatial domain filter associated with the at least one RS is on or off.
Rune also describes UE receiving reference signal from network device (abstract), further describing:
wherein a spatial domain filter associated with the at least one RS is on or off (para. 12 & 119, the base station turns on a particular directional beam (= spatial domain filter, per para. 36 corresponding to the reference signal) for transmitting RS to the UE).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the RS for the random access procedure in Frenne to be associated with a spatial domain filter (beam) being on as in Rune.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that saves network resources and improves energy efficiency in the UE (Rune, para. 20).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frenne in view of Rune as applied to claim1 above, and further in view of He (US 2024/0297776).
Regarding claim 4, Frenne and Rune combined fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein, in the case that a physical random access channel (PRACH) occasion (RO) associated with the spatial domain filter overlaps a downlink channel or a downlink RS in time domain, the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to:
receive the downlink channel or the downlink RS in the case of the spatial domain filter being off; or
not receive the downlink channel or the downlink RS in the case of the spatial domain filter being on.
He also describes communication between UE & network node (fig. 1), further describing:
wherein, in the case that a physical random access channel (PRACH) occasion (RO) associated with the spatial domain filter overlaps a downlink channel or a downlink RS in time domain, the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to:
not receive the downlink channel or the downlink RS in the case of the spatial domain filter being on (para. 48, UE selects downlink beam (spatial domain filter turned on) & transmits PRACH signal over RO associated with the selected SSB. If there is a collision in transmission due to overlapping SSB reception, UE prioritizes ROs over downlink traffic (channel), para. 57).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the RO associated with the spatial domain filter in Frenne and Rune combined to not receive downlink channel when spatial domain filter is on & overlaps a downlink channel as in He.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this configuration will enable network to support reduced capability (redcap) NR devices (He, para. 18),
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frenne in view of Run as applied to claim1 above, and further in view of Li (US 2024/0380548).
Regarding claim 13, Fan and Rune combined already describe:
the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to determine a paging procedure based on the signaling as per claim 1, but fails to further explicitly describe:
in the case of the spatial domain filter being off, not monitor paging early indication (PEI) associated with the spatial domain filter being off.
Li also describes UE communication between UE & scheduling gNB (base station) with RS resource availability indication monitoring (fig. 6,9-10), further describing:
in the case of the spatial domain filter being off, not monitor paging early indication (PEI) associated with the spatial domain filter being off (para. 110, gNB indicates to UE which beams (spatial domain filter) are switched on/off during which period of time so that PDCCH for PEI need not be monitored).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the spatial domain filter in Frenne and Rune combined to be set off for no monitoring of PEI as in Li.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this facilitates efficient operation of the communication system as well as particular devices in the system (Li, para. 3).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-12 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.
Claims 16-20 are a processor for wireless communication via a user equipment claim comprising steps recited in UE apparatus claims 1-2 & 4-6 respectively. Hence, they are rejected/objected to under the same rationale.
Claim 21 is a method for UE claim reciting steps of UE apparatus claim 1. Hence, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Jia (US 2022/0217785) describing TE selects/determines a first/second DL RS and selects RA preamble + resource according to the first/second DL RS (fig. 4), Xu (WO 2022/076873) describing initiating of the random access procedure comprises causing the wireless device to determine a random access occasion for the preamble, and the preamble is determined based on a reference signal associated with the TCI state(s), Takahashi (US 2026/0304469) describing terminal performing PRACH repetition wherein the terminal device 1 selects a random access preamble group based on the received reference signal (para. 301), and same assignee Yan (US 2026/0025796) describing UE receiving a configuration of one or more carriers, includes transmission beam ON/OFF indication (para. 23, 32-33, 42), where
UE determines the paging carrier subset according to beam ON/OFF indication. A beam corresponds to a transmission filter (para. 113).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
