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 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 16, 17, 19-24, 26, 27, 29-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE et al. (US 20210281455 A1) in view of Sedin et al. (US 20220295572 A1) and LIU et al. (US 20190297619 A1).
LEE et al. discloses a communication system comprising: regarding claims 16, 26, a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), the WTRU comprising: a processor configured to (see [0159] “the firmware or software configured to implement the present invention is loaded in the processor 155/180 or saved in the memory 160/185 to be driven by the processor 155/180”); receive a first message, wherein the first message indicates that a cell supports dynamic waveform switching (see, [0082] “a new field for indicating the supported waveform can be defined in information (e.g., system information) transmitted by a base station (BS) to a user equipment (UE). … If the field value is set to 3, it may mean that both of the DFT-s-OFDM and CP-OFDM waveforms are supported as a hybrid”); transmit a preamble to the cell, wherein the preamble transmission indicates a capability of the WTRU to support dynamic waveform switching (see [0135] “ the UE may transmit information indicating whether the CP-OFDM waveform with low PAPR is supported or not by including the information in an RACH preamble”).
LEE et al. does not disclose, but Sedin et al. discloses: select the cell based at least on that the cell supports dynamic waveform switching (see [0137] ”a UE checks that the RACH configuration broadcasted in the system information for a particular cell matches the UE class or RACH class of the UE, or the RACH pre-compensation features supported by the UE, before selecting or reselecting the cell for camping”).
Moreover, LEE et al. does not disclose, but LIU et al. discloses: receive a second message from the cell, wherein the second message indicates a waveform type to use for transmitting a third message (see [0083], “configure a 1-bit information field in an uplink scheduling grant (UL-grant) of a MAC RAR to indicate a transmission waveform used by the UE 200 to transmit a msg3”); and transmit the third message using the waveform type (see [0090], “if the received information field is “1”, it is indicated that the UE 200 needs to transmit a msg3 and/or its subsequent PUSCH by using a DFT-S-OFDM waveform”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al., by the features as taught by Sedin et al., and LIU et al.; in order to improve access flexibility, efficiency, and reliability by matching cell selection and uplink waveform configuration to the UE’s capabilities and operating conditions.
Regarding claims 17, 27, LEE et al. and Sedin et al., do not disclose, but LIU et al. discloses: wherein the preamble transmission indicates the capability of the WTRU to support dynamic waveform switching via at least one of: a resource used for the preamble transmission, a preamble sequence, or a transmission occasion used for the preamble transmission (see [0097], “one preamble group (group 1) is used to indicate that the UE 200 is to transmit the msg3 and/or the subsequent PUSCH by using the DFT-S-OFDM waveform. The other preamble group (group 2) is used to indicate that the UE 200 is to transmit the msg3 and/or the subsequent PUSCH by using the CP-OFDM waveform.”). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al. and Sedin et al., by the features as taught by LIU et al.; in order to improve access flexibility, efficiency, and reliability by matching cell selection and uplink waveform configuration to the UE’s capabilities and operating conditions.
Regarding claims 19 and 29, LEE et al. discloses wherein the waveform type is a direct fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (DFT-s-OFDM) waveform type (see [0139] , “the UE modulates the UL signal and generates a CP-OFDM waveform or a DFT-s-OFDM waveform based on the modulated uplink signal”).
Regarding claims 20, 30, LEE et al. and Sedin et al., do not disclose, but LIU et al. discloses wherein the cell is a second cell, the waveform type is a second waveform type, and the processor is further configured to: prior to receiving the first message, communicate with a first cell using a first waveform type (see [0057] the configuration unit 110 reconfigures a transmission waveform of the UE 200 for a PUSCH through RRC signaling dedicated to the UE 200 after the UE 200 enters an RRC connected state). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al. and Sedin et al., by the features as taught by LIU et al.; in order to improve access flexibility, efficiency, and reliability by matching cell selection and uplink waveform configuration to the UE’s capabilities and operating conditions.
Regarding claims 21, 31, LEE et al. discloses wherein the second waveform type is a DFT-s-OFDM waveform type (see [0139] , “the UE modulates the UL signal and generates a CP-OFDM waveform or a DFT-s-OFDM waveform based on the modulated uplink signal”).
Regarding claims 22, 23, 32, 33, LEE et al. and Sedin et al., do not disclose, but LIU et al. discloses: wherein the third message is transmitted via a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (see [0082], “the msg3 being borne by a PUSCH”); wherein the first message is received via a radio resource control (RRC) transmission or a system information block (SIB) transmission (see [0076], “The above-mentioned common RRC signaling can be a Master Information Block (MIB) and/or System Information Block (SIB) and/or other common RRC signaling defined in NR”). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al. and Sedin et al., by the features as taught by LIU et al., in order to improve access flexibility, efficiency, and reliability by matching cell selection and uplink waveform configuration to the UE’s capabilities and operating conditions.
Regarding claims 24 and 34, LEE et al. and LIU et al. do not disclose, but Sedin et al. discloses: the first message is received from a first cell, and the cell is a second cell, wherein the second cell is one of a number of neighbor cells (see [0138] “In another embodiment, the cell broadcasts information on RACH resources on neighbor cells for intra frequency cell search”; [0142] “As illustrated, the base station 902 sends information that indicates one or more UE RACH pre-compensation features required for UEs to select a cell(s) for cell selection, cell reselection”). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al. and LIU et al, by the features as taught by Sedin et al., in order to improve cell discovery, selection flexibility, and access efficiency by enabling the UE to identify and select suitable neighboring cells based on received cell information.
4. Claims 18 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE et al. (US 20210281455 A1), Sedin et al. (US 20220295572 A1) and LIU et al. (US 20190297619 A1) as applied to claims 16, 26 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 20160337931 A1).
LEE et al. (US 20210281455 A1), Sedin et al. (US 20220295572 A1) and LIU et al. (US 20190297619 A1) disclose the claimed limitations above. They do not disclose, but Wang et al. (US 20160337931 A1) discloses: regarding claims 18 and 28, wherein the selection of the cell is further based on a measurement of the cell being below a threshold (“see [0095] In some examples selecting the cell for network access may include determining that a cell selection parameter for available candidate cells is less than a threshold value for cell selection, selecting one of the candidate cells). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE et al. (US 20210281455 A1), Sedin et al. (US 20220295572 A1) and LIU et al. (US 20190297619 A1), by the features as taught by Wang et al. (US 20160337931 A1), in order to improve cell selection and uplink transmission efficiency, reliability, and adaptability by using both capability-based criteria and cell-measurement thresholds to choose an appropriate cell and waveform configuration.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 25 and 35 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
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
PEISA et al. (US 20200107235 A1) discloses wireless communications and, more particularly, to a multi-beam random access procedure in handover execution.
XU et al. (US 20200068624 A1) discloses a data sending method and an apparatus.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KWANG B YAO whose telephone number is (571)272-3182. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/KWANG B YAO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2473
Prosecution Insights