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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 3 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 1, limitation 4 uses the incorrect indefinite article, "after an last RO among the plurality of ROs." should be written as, "after a last RO among the plurality of ROs". Revise the article "an" to "a" to overcome the objection.
Regarding claim 3, the claim introduces the term "TO" into the language of the invention. However, the specification does not define "TO". The examiner interprets this as a typo and "TO" should be written as "RO".
Appropriate corrections are required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, limitation 3 will not be considered over prior art due to its indefinite language. The examiner is unclear with the verbiage, "wherein, based on an interval between a time resource related to a specific RO among the plurality of ROs and a time resource related a specific signal or a specific channel being less than a predefined value:". It is not clear if this limitation is a determining factor of the configuration information or if the configuration information contains an indication of this factor.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 5, 9, 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rastegardoost, Nazanin et al. (US 20210051707 A1, hereinafter referred to as Rastegardoost).
Regarding claim 1, Rastegardoost teaches:
receiving, from a base station, configuration information related to repeated transmission of a physical random access channel (PRACH) preamble (Rastegardoost discloses a base station that transmits a configuration that indicates the number of repetitions for a PRACH preamble transmission. See paragraphs [0232-0233].
and performing repeated transmission of the PRACH preamble in at least one of a plurality of random access channel occasions(ROs) based on the configuration information (Rastegardoost discloses performing the repeated transmissions of the preamble using many PRACH occasions. The examiner interprets the PRACH occasion as the RO. See paragraph [0241]).
based on whether first UE capability information related to repeated transmission of the PRACH preamble is transmitted, PRACH preamble transmission is not performed in the specific RO (Rastegardoost discloses the method of using the wireless device capability information to determine if the preamble transmissions may not need to be repeated. See paragraph [0242]).
and random access response window start point is determined after an last RO among the plurality of ROs (Rastegardoost discloses a response window that is determined after the last repetition which would occur during an RO, making it the last RO. See paragraph [0247]).
Regarding claim 5, Rastegardoost teaches the specific channel includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), or another PRACH, and the specific signal includes a sounding reference signal (SRS) (Rastegardoost discloses the use of a PUSCH as a specific channel. See paragraphs [0252-0254]).
Regarding claim 9, Rastegardoost teaches the RA-RNTI is calculated based on an index of a first symbol of the last RO, an index of a first slot of the last RO in a system frame, an index of the last RO in a frequency domain, and an index of an uplink carrier used for repeated transmission of the PRACH preamble (Rastegardoost discloses using the index of an OFDM symbol, a slot index, a frequency domain index and a UL carrier indicator (which can be an index) in order to calculate the RA-RNTI. See paragraph [0156]).
Regarding claim 12, Rastegardoost teaches a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the UE comprising: at least one transceiver; and at least one processor connected to the at least one transceiver(Rastegardoost discloses a wireless device with a processor that is connected to a peripheral that can be a transceiver. See paragraph [0190] and Figure 15A) , wherein the at least one processor is configured to: performing the method of claim 1, which is rejected for the same reasons outlined in claim 1.
Regarding claim 14, Rastegardoost teaches a base station in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising: at least one transceiver; and at least one processor connected to the at least one transceiver (Rastegardoost discloses a base station with a processor that is connected to a peripheral that can be a transceiver. See paragraph [0190] and Figure 15A), wherein the at least one processor is configured to: performing similar operations between the base station and the UE of claim 1, which is rejected for the similar reasons outlined in claim 1.
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.
Claims 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rastegardoost in view of Cozzo, Carmela et al. (US 20220095372 A1, hereinafter referred to as Cozzo).
Regarding claim 2, Rastegardoost teaches all aspects of the claimed invention except based on the last RO among the plurality of ROs, a random access-radio network temporary identifier (RA-RNTI) is calculated.
In the same field of endeavor, Cuzzo discloses that the RA-RNTI is calculated based on an RO from a set of ROs. The RO can either be the first or the last of the set. See paragraph [0094].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Rastegardoost to incorporate using the last RO to determine the RA-RNTI. The motivation to combine is having a consistent and repeatable calculation that simplifies the UE processing and avoids contention in high-load scenarios.
Regarding claim 3, Rastegardoost teaches all aspects of the claimed invention except the specific TO is the last RO among the plurality of ROs.
In the same field of endeavor, Cuzzo discloses that a specified RO can be the last RO in the set. See paragraph [0094].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Rastegardoost to incorporate specifying the last RO in the set of ROs for different uses in the procedure. The motivation to combine is to reduce redundancy and lower latency by having a fixed and predictable resource.
Claims 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rastegardoost in view of Xu, Kai et al. (US 20220070943 A1, hereinafter referred to as Xu).
Regarding claim 7, Rastegardoost teaches all aspects of the claimed invention except second UE capability information indicating that repeated transmission of physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) based on RAR are transmitted to the base station.
In the same field of endeavor, Xu discloses a wireless device sending capability information about the repeated transmission of PUSCH based on the random access response. See paragraph [0237].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Rastegardoost to incorporate informing the base station of the capabilities of the UE regarding repeated transmission of PUSCH in relation to the RAR. The motivation to combine is improved reliability and efficiency along with optimized throughput.
Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rastegardoost in view of Lin, Ko-Chiang et al. (US 20180049169 A1, hereinafter referred to as Lin).
Regarding claim 10, Rastegardoost teaches all aspects of the claimed invention except configuration information related to a preamble index hopping operation associated with repeated transmission of the PRACH preamble is received from the base station.
In the same field of endeavor, Lin discloses a base station transmitting configuration information to a UE that contains a PRACH hopping configuration and information on repeated PRACH transmissions. See paragraphs [0122-0123] and [0133].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Rastegardoost to incorporate preamble index hopping in the configuration information. The motivation to combine is to reduce collisions and increase the chance of successful access.
Regarding claim 11, Rastegardoost teaches all aspects of the claimed invention except, the configuration information related to the preamble index hopping operation includes at least one of information on a preamble index pool for repeated transmission of the PRACH preamble or information on an RO allocated for preamble index hopping.
In the same field of endeavor, Lin discloses a set of preambles that includes a root sequence index for generating preambles and indicators for preamble formats. These indicators denote an index pool. See paragraph [0133].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Rastegardoost to incorporate generating an index pool of the preambles for repeated transmission. The motivation to combine is to avoid redundant preamble creation and reduce overhead.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CAMILLE J ETIENNE whose telephone number is (571)721-1789. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thurs 9:00- 7:00 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ricky Ngo can be reached at (571) 272-3139. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/C.J.E./Examiner, Art Unit 2464
/RICKY Q NGO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2464
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