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 .
Priority
The Office acknowledges Applicant’s foreign claim of priority to KR10-2022-0052404 made through the 371 application of PCT application KR2023/005665.
Information Disclosure Statement
Applicants IDS submitted 12/8/25 and 6/23/2026 are acknowledged and considered. See accompanying PTO-1446.
Response to Amendments
The Office acknowledges the preliminary amendment dated 10/4/2024 cancelling claims 11-13
The Office acknowledges the amendments to the specification dated 10/4/2024. They are accepted and entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-8, 10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #107bis-e e-Meeting (R1-2200784 “Summary#5 on mechanisms to support group scheduling for RRC _ CONNECTED UEs for NR MBS”; Source: Moderator (CMCC)) (cited by Applicant in IDS) (hereinafter CMCC).
Referring to claim 1, CMCC discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (section 2.3: 2nd bullet discloses if no MAC CE has been received by the UE to configure the TCI Codepoints for multicast…”indicating that the TCI codepoints configured in the first bullet are received and processed at the UE), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, configuration information for a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states (see Proposal 14 (p. 6) showing that Multicast reuses the TCI state list tci-StatesToAddModList which is the RRC parameter in PDSCH-Config Information Element containing a list of Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) states indicating a transmission configuration which includes QCL-relationships between the DL RSs in one RS set and the PDSCH DMRS ports (see ETSI TS 38.331, p. 509) );
receiving, from the base station, control information, wherein the control information includes one or more TCI states to be applied to one or more UEs among the plurality of TCI states and an individual time offset for each of the one or more TCI states (Section 2.3 (p. 13): “TCI Codepoints in DCI 4_2 are configured by a TCI States Activation/Deactivation for UE-Specific PDSCH MAC CE sent over group PDSCH scrambled with G-RNTI” which discloses the PDSCH; also Section 2.3 (CATT proposal) (pp. 15-16) discloses aligning application time for the TCI codepoints should be applied starting from the slot
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, where slot n is the slot for HARQ-ACK corresponding to the PDSCH carrying the activation command, which indicates each TCI states require a time offset from a relative point in the slot sequence); and
transmitting an uplink transmission or receiving a downlink transmission based on the one or more TCI states from a time according to the time offset (this is an inherent feature to the system in order to configure transmission channels between base station and the UE).
As to claim 2, CMCC discloses the control information includes information on one TCI state to be applied to a plurality of UE groups and a time offset for the one TCI state for each of the plurality of UE groups (Section 2.3: CATT proposal (pp 15-16) PDSCH MAC CE can send a single activation command to a group of MBS UE).
As to claim 3, CMCC discloses the control information includes information on multiple TCI states to be applied to one UE group or one UE and a time offset for each of the multiple TCI states (Section 2.3: CATT proposal (pp 15-16) PDSCH MAC CE can send a single activation command to a group of MBS UE; As CATT discloses aligning the application times of the TCI codepoints among a group of UEs states there inherently must be multiple TCI states).
As to claim 5-8, CMCC discloses the control information further includes information on a reference time for the time offset, and wherein the time offset is calculated from the reference time in a time domain, a time period to which one or more TCI states are applied until another TCI state is indicated by other control information (Section 2.3 (CATT proposal) (pp. 15-16) discloses aligning application time for the TCI codepoints should be applied starting from the slot
n
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, where slot n is the slot (i.e. slot unit) for HARQ-ACK corresponding to the PDSCH carrying the activation command, which indicates each TCI states require a time offset from a relative point in the slot sequence and each TCI state is active until another TCI state is activated or terminated which is functionally equivalent to the claimed ‘time periods’).
Claims 10, and 14 are rejected for similar reasons as stated above. Furthermore CMCC inherently discloses a base station (p. 2 section 2.1 ZTE comment discloses the UE can receive MBS broadcast service from the perspectives of RAN1 and RAN2 which are radio access networks comprising base stations).
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 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CMCC in view of Nimbalker et al. (USPN 11979755) (hereinafter Nimbalker).
CMCC discloses the invention as described in the claims above. Although CMCC does discuss timing offsets and aligning TCI states based on application time, it is not explicit that the time offset is calculated from a time of completion of reception of the control information in a time domain. In analogous art, Nimbalker discloses another wireless telecommunications environment wherein the time offset is calculated from a time of completion of reception of the control information in a time domain (Fig. 2 and col. 7 lines 3-8: showing that the delta offset is calculated based from when the PDCCH is received). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Nimbalker with CMCC to time align application TCI states in CMCC relative to when control information is received in order to accurately calculate when offsets are calculated from, ensuring a universal timepoint for which all the UE’s in the system to determine their offsets.
Claim(s) 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CMCC in view of Prezehki et al (USPN 11716725) (hereinafter Yan).
Referring to claim 9, CMCC discloses the invention as described in the claims above. CMCC does not explicitly disclose the UE derives the one or more TCI states from an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) model using at least one of {a position, a speed, a downlink channel measurement value, SINR (signal to interference and noise ratio) for each downlink reference signal, RSRP (reference signal received power) for each downlink reference signal, preference for a downlink reference signal} for the one or more UEs. In analogous art, Prezehki discloses another NR system where the UE may implement machine learning to generate a model for determine a number of TCI states, including which TCI states, to use for communications, with inputs including metrics associated with the communication and/or information about the underlying raw channel, such as angles of arrival and/or path gains for channel paths) (col. 11, lines 1-19). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the use of machine learning/artificial intelligence into the system of CMCC in order to utilize AI/ML to select TCI states in order to provide intelligent selection of the TCI states based on current channel characteristics and may conserve computing, communication, network, and/or power resources that may otherwise have been used to communicate via a number of TCI states without accounting for UE preferences (see Prezehki, col. 11, lines 20-32).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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JOSEPH E. AVELLINO
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2478
/JOSEPH E AVELLINO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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