DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is a response to an application filed on October 25, 2024, and to the preliminary amendment filed on November 7, 2024. Prior to the preliminary amendment, claims 1-59 were pending. By the preliminary amendment, claims 3-5, 9, 12, 17-19, 23, 26, and 57-59 were amended, claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, 25 and 27-56 were canceled, and claim 60 was newly added. Accordingly, claims 1-6, 9, 12, 15-20, 23, 26 and 57-60 are currently pending and ready for examination.
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 .
Relevant Technical Information Submittal Requirement
Requirement — Overview
The applicant is required to submit copies of non-patent literature and relevant technical information as set forth below.
Basis for Requirement
35 U.S.C. § 131 provides:
The Director shall cause an examination to be made of the application and the alleged new invention; and if on such examination it appears that the applicant is entitled to a patent under the law, the Director shall issue a patent therefor.
37 C.F.R. § 1.105(a) provides:
In the course of examining or treating a matter in a pending or abandoned application filed under 35 U.S.C. 111 or 371 (including a reissue application), in a patent, or in a reexamination proceeding, the examiner or other Office employee may require the submission, from individuals identified under § 1.56(c), or any assignee, of such information as may be reasonably necessary to properly examine or treat the matter, for example:
….
(iii) Related information: A copy of any non-patent literature, published application, or patent (U.S. or foreign), by any of the inventors, that relates to the claimed invention.
(iv) Information used to draft application: A copy of any non-patent literature, published application, or patent (U.S. or foreign) that was used to draft the application.
(v) Information used in invention process: A copy of any non-patent literature, published application, or patent (U.S. or foreign) that was used in the invention process, such as by designing around or providing a solution to accomplish an invention result.
…
(viii) Technical information known to applicant. Technical information known to applicant concerning the related art, the disclosure, the claimed subject matter, other factual information pertinent to patentability, or concerning the accuracy of the examiner’s stated interpretation of such items.
Background
The applicant has stated in a publicly available European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) record that the present application, Application No. 18/860,148 (“the Application”), identified as “WO2022CN90764” and “WO2023206559 A1,” which are family PCT application publications of the Application, may be or may become ESSENTIAL in relation to at least the ETSI Work Item(s), STANDARD(S) and/or TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION(S) identified in the attached IPR Information Statement Annex.”1
Necessity for this Requirement.
This Requirement is issued pursuant to the Director’s duty and authority to examine patent applications. See 35 U.S.C. § 131; 37 C.F.R. § 1.105(a). The examiner has obtained the ETSI Work Item(s), STANDARD(S) and/or TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION(S) identified in the attached IPR Information Statement Annex. However, the ETSI record indicates that the applicant likely possesses other information relating to the ETSI Work Item(s), STANDARD(S) and/or TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION(S) that is necessary for a more complete understanding of the invention and its context. See MPEP § 704.11. Such information may include non-patent literature and technical materials (e.g., contribution papers or Tdocs) authored, generated, or submitted by the applicant or others that form the basis of, or resulted from, the claimed invention.
Applicant is Required to Submit:
Copies of any non-patent literature relating to the ETSI Work Item(s), STANDARD(S) and/or TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION(S) identified in the ETSI record for the Application, which satisfies any of the following criteria:
Authored by any of the inventors and related to the claimed invention,
Used to draft the present application, or
Used in the invention process (for example, used to design around prior art or to provide a solution that enabled the claimed invention); and
Any technical information known to the applicant relating to the ETSI Work Item(s), STANDARD(S) and/or TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION(S) identified in the ETSI record for the Application, which concerns the related art, the disclosure, the claimed subject matter, other factual information pertinent to patentability, or the accuracy of the examiner’s stated interpretation of such items.
Instructions to Applicant
A complete reply to this Requirement is a reply to each enumerated requirement for information giving either the information required or a statement that the information required to be submitted is unknown and/or is not readily available to the applicant. There is no requirement for the applicant to show that the required information was not, in fact, readily attainable, but the applicant is required to make a good faith attempt to obtain the information and to make a reasonable inquiry once the information is requested. See MPEP § 704.12(b).
This Requirement is subject to the provisions of 37 CFR §§ 1.134, 1.135 and 1.136 and is accorded the same period for reply as the action on the merits sent with this Requirement. See MPEP § 704.13 (third paragraph). EXTENSIONS OF THIS TIME PERIOD MAY BE GRANTED UNDER 37 CFR 1.136 (a).
Information Disclosure Statement
The three information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on October 25, 2024, on July 14, 2025 and on August 14, 2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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 1-6, 9, 12, 15-20, 23, 26 and 57-60 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over Lim et al. (US Published Patent Application No. US2025/0167946)(“Lim”) in view of Zhang et al. (US Published Patent Application No. US2025/0287380)(“ Zhang”).
Regarding claim 1, Lim discloses a method for processing information (Fig. 37a), performed by a base station (¶[0593], “FIG. 37A illustrates an operation flow of a base station when an uplink transmission beam of a PUCCH is determined based on a higher-layer parameter ”), comprising:
sending a network signaling to a terminal (See, Fig. 37A, #s 3715, 3725 and 3735; and ¶[0256], “A base station may configure, for a specific UE, a PUCCH resource for each BWP via a higher layer. The PUCCH resource configuration may be as shown in [Table 27].”), wherein the network signaling comprises beam indication information (See, Tables 27 and 33; ¶[0270], “If the UE has a UE-specific configuration for a PUCCH resource configuration (dedicated PUCCH resource configuration), the beam configuration for PUCCH transmission may be provided via pucch-spatialRelationInfoId that is higher signaling included in [Table 27]…. A higher-layer configuration for pucch-spatialRelationInfo may be as shown in [Table 33];” and ¶[0271], “When referenceSignal is configured as ssb-Index, the UE may configure as a beam for PUCCH transmission”. See, also, Fig. 16; [0273], “the base station may configure each PUCCH resource group for the UE via resourceGroupToAddModList in [Table 27] and the higher-layer configuration of [Table 35], and may configure a MAC CE for simultaneous activation of spatial relations of all PUCCH resources in one PUCCH resource group;” and ¶[0274], “FIG. 16 illustrates an example of a MAC CE for PUCCH resource group-based spatial relation activation in the wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the disclosure.” See, further, ¶[0521], “When a UE receives a transmission/reception beam-related indication by using the joint TC state scheme or the separate TCI state scheme via higher-layer signaling, the UE may receive a PDSCH including a MAC-CE indicating a joint TCI state or a separate TCI state from a base station so as to perform application to a transmission/reception beam…..the UE may identify that multiple joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets indicated by the MAC-CE correspond to each codepoint of the TCI state field in DCI format 1_1 or 1_2 and activate the indicated joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets”.) configured for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource indicated by a PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) (See, e.g., Table 32; and ¶[0265], “A relationship between the PRI and the PUCCH resource selected from the PUCCH resource set may be as shown in [Table 32].”), the beam indication information comprises multiple transmission configuration indications (TCIs) (See, e.g., Fig. 7; ¶[0183], “Referring to FIG. 7, the base station may transfer information regarding N different beams to the UE through N different TCI states; ¶[0487], “when a UE receives an indication from a base station based on the unified TCI scheme, beam management may be performed using a TCI state even for uplink transmission.”), and the beam indication information is used by the terminal to perform joint transmission for PUCCHs (See, e.g., Fig. 19; ¶[0399], Referring to FIG. 19, an example of coherent joint transmission (C-JT) supporting coherent precoding between respective cells. TRPs or/and beams is illustrated;” ¶[0401], “Referring to FIG. 19, according to an embodiment, an example 1920 of non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) that supports non-coherent precoding between respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams;” ¶[0396] “The NC-JT transmission described above may be applied to at least one channel among a downlink data channel, a downlink control channel, an uplink data channel, and an uplink control channel.”) based on a spatial division multiplexing (SDM) mode (See, ¶[0439], “The UE may be indicated with different single-DCI-based multi-TRP repeated PDSCH transmission schemes (e.g., TDM, FDM, and SDM) according to a higher-layer signaling configuration and a value indicated via a DCI field from the base station.”) of multi-panel (See, e.g., Fig. 19, #1915 and #1935, showing two antenna ports.) or multi-transmission reception point (TRP) (See, e.g., Table 42; ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”).
Lim, while teaching SDM being performed for PDSCH transmission (See, e.g., ¶[0439], “The UE may be indicated with different single-DCI-based multi-TRP repeated PDSCH transmission schemes (e.g., TDM, FDM, and SDM) according to a higher-layer signaling configuration and a value indicated via a DCI field from the base station;” and ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”), fails teach explicitly that such SDM is performed for PUCCHs.
Zhang teaches performing a SDM for PUCCHs transmission (See, Fig. 4; ¶[0061], “the method 400 may include transmitting the first UCI in the first PUCCH, and transmitting the second UCI in the second PUCCH, at the same time, in at least one of a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner or a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) manner; and ¶[0105], “the wireless device 802 may implement analog beamforming techniques, whereby phases of the signals sent by the antenna(s) 812 are relatively adjusted such that the (joint) transmission of the antenna(s) 812”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 2/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the multiple TCs comprises [sic] a first TCI and a second TCI (See, Fig. 38, “I1;” and ¶[0610], “When I1 is configured to be “11”, the uplink beams indicated by both the two indicated TCI states may be indicated to be used for the PUCCH resource transmission.”);
the first TCI is configured to indicate a transmission beam direction of a first panel of the terminal or a beam direction for PUCCH transmission towards a first TRP of the base station (See, Fig. 19; ¶[0465] “ a cell, a transmission point, a panel, a beam, a transmission direction, and/or the like, which may be distinguishable via higher layer/L1 parameters, such as TCI state or spatial relation information, or indicators;” ¶[0610], “the first TCI state may be used as the second uplink beam during the PUCCH transmission”.); and
the second TCI is configured to indicate a transmission beam direction of a second panel of the terminal or a beam direction for PUCCH transmission towards a second TRP of the base station (See, ¶[0610], “the second TCI state may be used as the first uplink beam during the PUCCH transmission.”).
Regarding claim 3/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that demodulation reference signal (DMRS) ports associated with different TCIs are the same (See, Fig. 19, #1900; ¶[0400], “For C-JT, TRP A 1905 and TRP B 1910 may transmit single data (PDSCH) to a UE 1915, and joint precoding may be performed in multiple TRPs. This may indicate that DMRSs are transmitted via identical DMRS ports in order for TRP A 1905 and TRP B 1910 to transmit the same PDSCH;” ¶[0465], “In the following description of the disclosure, …may be described as a TRP (e.g., transmission point), a beam, or a TCI state in a unified manner.”).
Regarding claim 4/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhang further teaches that, in a case that the terminal transmits same uplink control information (UCI) through PUCCHs of different panels, a same time-frequency resource is mapped (See, Fig. 4; ¶[0055], “the method 400 may include identifying a time domain overlap between, at least, a first PUCCH to be transmitted from a first antenna panel of the set of multiple antenna panels, and a second PUCCH to be transmitted from a second antenna panel of the set of multiple antenna panels. The first PUCCH may be intended to carry at least a first UCI. The second PUCCH may be intended to carry at least a second UCI;” and ¶[0061], “the method 400 may include determining the first PUCCH and the second PUCCH occupy a same time window (i.e., have a same time domain occupancy). Upon determining the first PUCCH and the second PUCCH are scheduled within the same time window, the method 400 may include transmitting the first UCI in the first PUCCH, and transmitting the second UCI in the second PUCCH, at the same time, in at least one of a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner or a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) manner.” This is the same regardless of whether the two PUCCHs carry the same or different UCI.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 5/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the PUCCH transmission comprises: non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) of the PUCCHs (See, e.g., ¶[0395], “Channels between a UE and respective cells. TRPs, or/and beams may have significantly different characteristics. Non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) supporting non-coherent precoding between the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams may require individual precoding, MCS, resource allocation, TCI indication, etc. according to channel characteristics for each link between the UE and the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams;” and ¶[0396], “The NC-JT transmission described above may be applied to at least one channel among a downlink data channel, a downlink control channel, an uplink data channel, and an uplink control channel.”), or coherent joint transmission (C-JT) of the PUCCHs (See, e.g., Fig. 19; and ¶[0399], Referring to FIG. 19, an example of coherent joint transmission (C-JT) supporting coherent precoding between respective cells. TRPs or/and beams is illustrated.”).
Regarding claim 6/5, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 5 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that different panels of the terminal performing the NC-JT of the PUCCHs use different precoding matrices (See, e.g., ¶[0395], “Non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) supporting non-coherent precoding between the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams may require individual precoding, MCS, resource allocation, TCI indication, etc. according to channel characteristics for each link between the UE and the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams.”).
Regarding claim 9/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that,
the PUCCH resource is configured to not support repetition;
the PUCCH resource is configured to support slot-based repetition (See, ¶[0255], “In order to improve uplink coverage, multi-slot repetition may be supported for PUCCH formats 1, 3, and 4. PUCCH repetition may be configured for each PUCCH format. The UE may repeatedly transmit a PUCCH including UCI as many times as the number of slots configured via nrofSlots that is higher-layer signaling.”); or
the PUCCH resource is configured to support sub-slot-based repetition.
Regarding claim 12/1, Lim in view of Zhang teach a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the TCI comprises one of:
a joint TCI (See, ¶[0488], “A first type may be the joint TCI state, and the UE may be indicated, by the base station via one TCI-State, with TCI states to be applied to both uplink transmission and downlink reception.”);
a separate TCI (See, ¶[0489], “A second type is the separate TCI state, and the UE may be individually indicated, by the base station, with UL TCI-State to be applied to uplink transmission and DL TCI-State to be applied to downlink reception.”); or
spatial relationship information (See, e.g., ¶[0465], “a cell, a transmission point, a panel, a beam, a transmission direction, and/or the like, which may be distinguishable via higher layer/L1 parameters, such as TCI state or spatial relation information”.).
Regarding claim 15, Lim teaches a method for processing information (Fig. 37B), performed by a terminal (See, ¶[0052], “FIG. 37B illustrates an operation flow of a terminal when an uplink transmission beam of a PUCCH is determined based on a higher-layer parameter”.), comprising:
receiving a network signaling sent by a base station (See, Fig. 37B, #s 3720, 3730 and 3740; ¶[0601], “the UE may receive a higher-layer parameter from the base station;” ¶[0602] “the UE may receive a PDCCH (e.g., DCI format 1_1 or 1_2) for scheduling from the base station;”), wherein the network signaling comprises beam indication information (See, Tables 27 and 33; and ¶[0521], “When a UE receives a transmission/reception beam-related indication by using the joint TC state scheme or the separate TCI state scheme via higher-layer signaling, the UE may receive a PDSCH including a MAC-CE indicating a joint TCI state or a separate TCI state from a base station so as to perform application to a transmission/reception beam…..the UE may identify that multiple joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets indicated by the MAC-CE correspond to each codepoint of the TCI state field in DCI format 1_1 or 1_2 and activate the indicated joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets”.) configured for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource indicated by a PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) (See, e.g., Table 32; and ¶[0265], “A relationship between the PRI and the PUCCH resource selected from the PUCCH resource set may be as shown in [Table 32].”), the beam indication information comprises multiple transmission configuration indications (TCIs) (See, e.g., Fig. 7; ¶[0183], “Referring to FIG. 7, the base station may transfer information regarding N different beams to the UE through N different TCI states; ¶[0487], “when a UE receives an indication from a base station based on the unified TCI scheme, beam management may be performed using a TCI state even for uplink transmission.”), and the beam indication information is used by the terminal to perform joint transmission for PUCCHs (See, e.g., Fig. 19; ¶[0399], Referring to FIG. 19, an example of coherent joint transmission (C-JT) supporting coherent precoding between respective cells. TRPs or/and beams is illustrated;” ¶[0401], “Referring to FIG. 19, according to an embodiment, an example 1920 of non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) that supports non-coherent precoding between respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams;” ¶[0396] “The NC-JT transmission described above may be applied to at least one channel among a downlink data channel, a downlink control channel, an uplink data channel, and an uplink control channel.”) based on a spatial division multiplexing (SDM) mode (See, ¶[0439], “The UE may be indicated with different single-DCI-based multi-TRP repeated PDSCH transmission schemes (e.g., TDM, FDM, and SDM) according to a higher-layer signaling configuration and a value indicated via a DCI field from the base station.”) of multi-panel (See, e.g., Fig. 19, #1915 and #1935, showing two antenna ports.) or multi-transmission reception point (TRP) (See, e.g., Table 42; ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”).
Lim, while teaching SDM being performed for PDSCH transmission (See, e.g., ¶[0439], “The UE may be indicated with different single-DCI-based multi-TRP repeated PDSCH transmission schemes (e.g., TDM, FDM, and SDM) according to a higher-layer signaling configuration and a value indicated via a DCI field from the base station;” and ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”), fails teach explicitly that such SDM is performed for PUCCHs.
Zhang teaches performing a SDM for PUCCHs transmission (See, Fig. 4; ¶[0061], “the method 400 may include transmitting the first UCI in the first PUCCH, and transmitting the second UCI in the second PUCCH, at the same time, in at least one of a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner or a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) manner; and ¶[0105], “the wireless device 802 may implement analog beamforming techniques, whereby phases of the signals sent by the antenna(s) 812 are relatively adjusted such that the (joint) transmission of the antenna(s) 812”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 16/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the multiple TCs comprises [sic] a first TCI and a second TCI (See, Fig. 38, “I1;” and ¶[0610], “When I1 is configured to be “11”, the uplink beams indicated by both the two indicated TCI states may be indicated to be used for the PUCCH resource transmission.”);
the first TCI is configured to indicate a transmission beam direction of a first panel of the terminal or a beam direction for PUCCH transmission towards a first TRP of the base station (See, Fig. 19; ¶[0465] “ a cell, a transmission point, a panel, a beam, a transmission direction, and/or the like, which may be distinguishable via higher layer/L1 parameters, such as TCI state or spatial relation information, or indicators;” ¶[0610], “the first TCI state may be used as the second uplink beam during the PUCCH transmission”.); and
the second TCI is configured to indicate a transmission beam direction of a second panel of the terminal or a beam direction for PUCCH transmission towards a second TRP of the base station (See, ¶[0610], “the second TCI state may be used as the first uplink beam during the PUCCH transmission.”).
Regarding claim 17/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that demodulation reference signal (DMRS) ports associated with different TCIs are the same (See, Fig. 19, #1900; ¶[0400], “For C-JT, TRP A 1905 and TRP B 1910 may transmit single data (PDSCH) to a UE 1915, and joint precoding may be performed in multiple TRPs. This may indicate that DMRSs are transmitted via identical DMRS ports in order for TRP A 1905 and TRP B 1910 to transmit the same PDSCH;” ¶[0465], “In the following description of the disclosure, …may be described as a TRP (e.g., transmission point), a beam, or a TCI state in a unified manner.”).
Regarding claim 18/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Zhang further teaches that, in a case that the terminal transmits same uplink control information (UCI) through PUCCHs of different panels, a same time-frequency resource is mapped (See, Fig. 4; ¶[0055], “the method 400 may include identifying a time domain overlap between, at least, a first PUCCH to be transmitted from a first antenna panel of the set of multiple antenna panels, and a second PUCCH to be transmitted from a second antenna panel of the set of multiple antenna panels. The first PUCCH may be intended to carry at least a first UCI. The second PUCCH may be intended to carry at least a second UCI;” and ¶[0061], “the method 400 may include determining the first PUCCH and the second PUCCH occupy a same time window (i.e., have a same time domain occupancy). Upon determining the first PUCCH and the second PUCCH are scheduled within the same time window, the method 400 may include transmitting the first UCI in the first PUCCH, and transmitting the second UCI in the second PUCCH, at the same time, in at least one of a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner or a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) manner.” This is the same regardless of whether the two PUCCHs carry the same or different UCI.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 19/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the PUCCH transmission comprises:
non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) of the PUCCHs (See, e.g., ¶[0395], “Channels between a UE and respective cells. TRPs, or/and beams may have significantly different characteristics. Non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) supporting non-coherent precoding between the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams may require individual precoding, MCS, resource allocation, TCI indication, etc. according to channel characteristics for each link between the UE and the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams;” and ¶[0396], “The NC-JT transmission described above may be applied to at least one channel among a downlink data channel, a downlink control channel, an uplink data channel, and an uplink control channel.”), or
coherent joint transmission (C-JT) of the PUCCHs (See, e.g., Fig. 19; and ¶[0399], Referring to FIG. 19, an example of coherent joint transmission (C-JT) supporting coherent precoding between respective cells. TRPs or/and beams is illustrated.”).
Regarding claim 20/19, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 19 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that different panels of the terminal performing the NC-JT of the PUCCHs use different precoding matrices (See, e.g., ¶[0395], “Non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) supporting non-coherent precoding between the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams may require individual precoding, MCS, resource allocation, TCI indication, etc. according to channel characteristics for each link between the UE and the respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams.”).
Regarding claim 23/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that:
the PUCCH resource is configured to not support repetition;
the PUCCH resource is configured to support slot-based repetition (See, ¶[0255], “In order to improve uplink coverage, multi-slot repetition may be supported for PUCCH formats 1, 3, and 4. PUCCH repetition may be configured for each PUCCH format. The UE may repeatedly transmit a PUCCH including UCI as many times as the number of slots configured via nrofSlots that is higher-layer signaling.”); or
the PUCCH resource is configured to support sub-slot-based repetition.
Regarding claim 26/15, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Lim further teaches that the TCI comprises one of:
a joint TCI (See, ¶[0488], “A first type may be the joint TCI state, and the UE may be indicated, by the base station via one TCI-State, with TCI states to be applied to both uplink transmission and downlink reception.”);
a separate TCI (See, ¶[0489], “A second type is the separate TCI state, and the UE may be individually indicated, by the base station, with UL TCI-State to be applied to uplink transmission and DL TCI-State to be applied to downlink reception.”); or
spatial relationship information (See, e.g., ¶[0465], “a cell, a transmission point, a panel, a beam, a transmission direction, and/or the like, which may be distinguishable via higher layer/L1 parameters, such as TCI state or spatial relation information”.).
Regarding claim 57, Lim discloses a base station (Fig. 41) for processing information (¶[0626], “FIG. 41 illustrates a structure of a base station in a wireless communication system”.), comprising:
a processor (Fig. 41, #4105; ¶[0627], “the base station processor 4105” .), and
a memory (See, ¶[0627], “a memory (not illustrated)”.) storing a program executable by the processor (See, ¶[0630], “The memory may store programs and data necessary for operations of the base station.”), wherein the processor is configured to (¶[0627], “the base station processor 4105” may operate according to the above-described communication methods of the base station.”):
send a network signaling to a terminal (See, Fig. 37A, #s 3715, 3725 and 3735; and ¶[0256], “A base station may configure, for a specific UE, a PUCCH resource for each BWP via a higher layer. The PUCCH resource configuration may be as shown in [Table 27].”), wherein the network signaling comprises beam indication information (See, Tables 27 and 33; ¶[0270], “If the UE has a UE-specific configuration for a PUCCH resource configuration (dedicated PUCCH resource configuration), the beam configuration for PUCCH transmission may be provided via pucch-spatialRelationInfoId that is higher signaling included in [Table 27]…. A higher-layer configuration for pucch-spatialRelationInfo may be as shown in [Table 33];” and ¶[0271], “When referenceSignal is configured as ssb-Index, the UE may configure as a beam for PUCCH transmission”. See, also, Fig. 16; [0273], “the base station may configure each PUCCH resource group for the UE via resourceGroupToAddModList in [Table 27] and the higher-layer configuration of [Table 35], and may configure a MAC CE for simultaneous activation of spatial relations of all PUCCH resources in one PUCCH resource group;” and ¶[0274], “FIG. 16 illustrates an example of a MAC CE for PUCCH resource group-based spatial relation activation in the wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the disclosure.” See, further, ¶[0521], “When a UE receives a transmission/reception beam-related indication by using the joint TC state scheme or the separate TCI state scheme via higher-layer signaling, the UE may receive a PDSCH including a MAC-CE indicating a joint TCI state or a separate TCI state from a base station so as to perform application to a transmission/reception beam…..the UE may identify that multiple joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets indicated by the MAC-CE correspond to each codepoint of the TCI state field in DCI format 1_1 or 1_2 and activate the indicated joint TCI states or separate TCI state sets”.) configured for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource indicated by a PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) (See, e.g., Table 32; and ¶[0265], “A relationship between the PRI and the PUCCH resource selected from the PUCCH resource set may be as shown in [Table 32].”), the beam indication information comprises multiple transmission configuration indications (TCIs) (See, e.g., Fig. 7; ¶[0183], “Referring to FIG. 7, the base station may transfer information regarding N different beams to the UE through N different TCI states; ¶[0487], “when a UE receives an indication from a base station based on the unified TCI scheme, beam management may be performed using a TCI state even for uplink transmission.”), and the beam indication information is used by the terminal to perform joint transmission (See, e.g., Fig. 19; ¶[0399], Referring to FIG. 19, an example of coherent joint transmission (C-JT) supporting coherent precoding between respective cells. TRPs or/and beams is illustrated;” ¶[0401], “Referring to FIG. 19, according to an embodiment, an example 1920 of non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) that supports non-coherent precoding between respective cells, TRPs, and/or beams;” ¶[0396] “The NC-JT transmission described above may be applied to at least one channel among a downlink data channel, a downlink control channel, an uplink data channel, and an uplink control channel.”) based on a spatial division multiplexing (SDM) mode of multi-panel (See, e.g., Fig. 19, #1915 and #1935, showing two antenna ports.) or multi-transmission reception point (TRP) (See, e.g., Table 42; ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”).
Lim, while teaching SDM being performed for PDSCH transmission (See, e.g., ¶[0439], “The UE may be indicated with different single-DCI-based multi-TRP repeated PDSCH transmission schemes (e.g., TDM, FDM, and SDM) according to a higher-layer signaling configuration and a value indicated via a DCI field from the base station;” and ¶[0451], “Multi-TRP SDM: This may refer to a multi-TRP-based spatial resource division PDSCH transmission scheme.”), fails teach explicitly that such joint transmission/SDM is performed for PUCCHs.
Zhang teaches Performing a SDM for PUCCHs transmission (See, Fig. 4; ¶[0061], “the method 400 may include transmitting the first UCI in the first PUCCH, and transmitting the second UCI in the second PUCCH, at the same time, in at least one of a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner or a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) manner; and ¶[0105], “the wireless device 802 may implement analog beamforming techniques, whereby phases of the signals sent by the antenna(s) 812 are relatively adjusted such that the (joint) transmission of the antenna(s) 812”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 58, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a terminal (Fig. 40) for processing information (¶[0620], “FIG. 40 illustrates a structure of a UE in a wireless communication system”), comprising:
a processor (Fig. 40, #4005; ¶[0621], “a UE processor 4005”), and
a memory (¶[0621], “a memory (not illustrated)”) storing a program executable by the processor (¶[0624], “The memory may store programs and data necessary for operations of the UE.”), wherein the processor is configured to perform (¶[0621], “the UE processor 4005 may operate according to the above-described communication methods of the UE.”) the method of claim 15 (See, the above discussion Lim in view of Zhang with respect to claim 15.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 59, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhang further teaches a non-transitory computer storage medium (Fig. 8, #824; ¶[0111], “The memory 824 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium”) storing an executable a program that when being executed by a processor (¶[0111], “a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions 826 (which may include, for example, the instructions being executed by the processor(s) 822)”.) of a base station (Fig. 8, #820), causes the base station to implement the method of claim 1 (See, the above discussion Lim in view of Zhang with respect to claim 1.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 60, Lim in view of Zhang teaches a method comprising all elements recited in claim 15 as discussed above.
Zhang further teaches a non-transitory computer storage medium (Fig. 8, #806) storing a program that, when being executed by a processor (¶[0102], “The wireless device 802 may include a memory 806. The memory 806 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions 808 (which may include, for example, the instructions being executed by the processor(s) 804).”) of a terminal (Fig. 8, #802), causes the terminal to implement the method of claim 15 (See, the above discussion Lim in view of Zhang with respect to claim 15.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above teachings of Lim to incorporate the above teaching of Zhang, i.e., the performance of the SDM for a PUCCH transmission, in order to enable transmission of multiple PUCCH at the same time by a UE capable of multi-panel transmission (See, e.g., Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
Park et al. (US Published Patent Application No. US 2025/0112681) teaches various aspects pertinent to the claimed invention, including multiple TCIs associated with the same DMRS port (See, e.g., ¶¶[0216]-[0233]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KI S KIM whose telephone number is (571)272-9141. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 7:00AM - 5:30PM.
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/K.S.K./Examiner, Art Unit 2418 September 14, 2026
/Moo Jeong/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2418
1 See Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co., Ltd.’s IPR Information Statement and IPR Licensing Declaration and IPR
Information Statement Annex, ISLD-202412-009, pp 1 & 6 (identifying the Application as “WO2022CN90764” and “WO2023206559A1”), Retrieved from the Internet<URL: https://ipr.etsi.org/IPRDetails.aspx?IPRD_ID=8920&IPRD_TYPE_ID=2&MODE=2&sessionkey=6fdce9> (Year: 2024). A copy of the ISLD-202412-009 is being provided herewith.
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