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 .
Introduction
The claims 1-20 are pending in this application. This is a non-final office action in response to Application Number 18/896,215 filed on 25 September 2024 and claims priority to US Provisional 63/540,148 filed on 25 September 2023.
The applicant of record is Comcast Cable Communications, LLC in Philadelphia, PA, USA and the inventors of record are Ali Cagatay Cirik, Hyoungsuk Jeon, Esmael Hejazi Dinan, Hua Zhou, Mohammad Ghadir Khoshkholgh Dashtaki, Ryan Keating, and Gautham Prasad.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 15 January 2025 and 18 March 2025 were filed after the filing date of the instant application on 25 September 2024 and before the mailing date of the first office action on the merits. The submissions are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The claims have been considered according to the latest Patent Eligibility Guidelines and are considered eligible.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP (3GPP TS 38.214 Release 17 v17.6.0) in view of Zhu et al. (U.S. Patent Publication 2023/0199795).
Regarding claim 1, 3GPP disclosed a method comprising:
receiving, by a wireless device (see Zhu combination below), one or more configuration parameters, wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 43: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-state configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE”):
a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state parameter indicating a list of TCI states for both uplink transmission and downlink reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations, within the higher layer parameter dl-OrJoint-TCIStateList in PDSCH-Config for providing a reference signal for the quasi co-location for DM-RS of PDSCH and DM-RS of PDCCH in a BWP/CC, for CSI-RS, and to provide a reference, if applicable, for determining UL TX spatial filter for dynamic-grant and configured-grant based PUSCH and PUCCH resource in a BWP/CC, and SRS”), and
a repetition scheme parameter set to indicate a time-domain multiplexing (TDM) scheme (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by the higher layer parameter repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ ”);
receiving (see Zhu combination below) first downlink control information (DCI) configured to schedule a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) reception, wherein the first DCI comprises an antenna port field indicating one or more demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) ports within one code division multiplexing (CDM) group (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by…indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions”); and
based on the repetition scheme parameter indicating the TDM scheme and based on the antenna port field indicating the one or more DM-RS ports within one CDM group, receiving (see Zhu combination below) the PDSCH reception in a number of PDSCH transmission occasions, wherein the number is based on at least one of: a number of TCI states indicated by a TCI selection field in the first DCI (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by the higher layer parameter repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is derived by the number of TCI states indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ of the scheduling DCI”); or an absence of a TCI selection field in the first DCI.
Although 3GPP disclosed a UE can be configured according to the variety of parameters described in the claim limitations and citations above, 3GPP did not explicitly disclose an actual implementation according to the 3GPP configurations, i.e. “receiving, by a wireless device” the configuration parameters, a first DCI, and a PDSCH. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the 3GPP protocol would be implemented by a wireless device and base station.
However in a related art, Zhu disclosed “a user equipment (UE), comprising: a transceiver configured to receive: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states…and second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for receiving one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively” (see Zhu claim 1) and “a base station (BS), comprising:…transceiver configured to transmit: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states,…wherein the plurality of TCI states includes joint or downlink TCI states, second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for reception of one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively; and the one or more PDCCHs for reception based on the one or more TCI states, respectively” (see Zhu claim 9). “A UE could be indicated/provided/configured by the network, e.g., via one or more TCI fields in a DCI…one or more (e.g., M>1 or N>1, or M=2/N=2) TCI states/pairs of TCI states for UE-dedicated reception on PDSCH/PDCCH or dynamic-grant/configured-grant based PUSCH and all of dedicated PUCCH resources in a multi-TRP system, wherein each indicated TCI state (or pair of TCI states) could correspond to a joint DL and UL TCI state (e.g., provided by higher layer parameter DLorJointTCI-State)” (see Zhu [0561]). The UE is also able to be configured by repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and with repetitionNumber (see Zhu [0144]). “Throughout the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the first PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the first DM-RS(s) for PDSCH reception(s) in the first DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI…and the second PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the second PDSCH DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0713]). “The UE could follow (e.g., according to network's configuration/indication via…dynamic DCI based L1 signaling)…to determine the association between one or more of the indicated TCI states/pairs of TCI states…and/or first (or second) PDSCH DM-RS(s) in the first (or second) DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0725]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP and Zhu to further clarify how to implement the 3GPP protocol. Including Zhu’s teachings would flexibly accommodate various services and applications in 5G or NR mobile communications (see Zhu [0017]).
Regarding claim 2, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein the first DCI further comprises a time domain resource assignment field indicating a number of repetitions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation”), wherein a value of the TCI selection field in the first DCI or the absence of the TCI selection field in the first DCI indicates to use two TCI states for the PDSCH reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’ indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation and DM-RS port(s) within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port(s)’, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”), and wherein the receiving the PDSCH reception comprises:
based on the two TCI states being indicated to be used for the PDSCH reception, receiving the PDSCH reception using the two TCI states by using a same start and length indicator value (SLIV) for each PDSCH transmission occasion across consecutive time slots, wherein a number of the consecutive time slots is equal to the number of repetitions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’ indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation and DM-RS port(s) within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port(s)’, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”).
Regarding claim 3, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving second DCI indicating two TCI states for both uplink transmission and downlink reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations, within the higher layer parameter dl-OrJoint-TCIStateList in PDSCH-Config” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 45: “After a UE receives a higher layer configuration of dl-OrJointTCI-StateList with more than one TCI-State as part of a Reconfiguration with sync procedure”, i.e. second DCI || examiner notes that the phrasing “indicating two states for both uplink transmission and downlink reception” can be interpreted such that there are two states for UL and two states for DL, but it can also be interpreted such that there are two states that are applicable to both UL and DL, or it can also be interpreted such that there is one state for UL and one state for DL for a total of two TCI states).
Regarding claim 4, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 3, wherein the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is equal to two based on:
the TCI selection field in the first DCI being set to a value indicating to use the two TCI states for the PDSCH reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’ indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation and DM-RS port(s) within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port(s)’, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion” | Zhu [0691]: “for N=2 or M=2, the indicator could be a one-bit indicator with “0” (or “1”) indicating that the first indicated TCI state/pair of TCI states could be applied/used for receiving first (or second) PDSCH DM-RS(s) in the first (or second) DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI”); or
the TCI selection field being absent in the first DCI, wherein the absence of the TCI selection field indicates to use the two TCI states for the PDSCH reception.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP and Zhu to further clarify how to implement the 3GPP protocol. Including Zhu’s teachings would flexibly accommodate various services and applications in 5G or NR mobile communications (see Zhu [0017]).
Regarding claim 5, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 4, wherein the first DCI does not comprise the TCI selection field based on the one or more configuration parameters not comprising a TCI selection parameter that indicates a presence of a TCI selection field in a DCI format, and wherein the first DCI has the DCI format (examiner notes that the claim language is confusing | see 3GPP section 5.1 UE procedure for receiving the physical downlink shared channel, page 13: “When a UE is not indicated with a DCI that DCI field "Time domain resource assignment indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, and it is indicated with two TCI states in a codepoint of the DCI field Transmission Configuration Indication' and DM-RS port(s) within two CDM groups in the DCIfield 'Antenna Port(s)' and it is not configured with higher layer parameter sfnSchemePdsch, the UE may expect to receive a single PDSCH where the association between the DM-RS ports and the TCI states are as defined in Clause 5.1.6.2”).
Regarding claim 6, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 3, wherein the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is equal to one based on the TCI selection field in the first DCI being set to:
a first value indicating to use a first TCI state of the two TCI states for the PDSCH reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1.1 Determination of the resource allocation to be used for PDSCH, page 19: “Either a default PDSCH time domain allocation…is applied, or the higher layer configured pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationList or pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationListForMultiPDSCH or pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationListDCI-1-2 is applied” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE receives an activation command…used to map up to 8 TCI states and/or pairs of TCI states, with one TCI state for DL channels/signals and/or one TCI state for UL channels/signals to the codepoints of the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ for…a set of CCs/DL BWPs and if applicable, for a set of CCs/UL BWPs” | 3GPP 5.2.1.5.1 Aperiodic CSI Reporting/Aperiodic CSI-RS when triggering PDCCH and the CSI-RS have the same numerology, page 80: “the UE applies the first one of two TCI states corresponding to the lowest TCI codepoint among those mapped to two TCI states and applicable to the PDSCH within the active BWP of the cell”); or
a second value indicating to use a second TCI state of the two TCI states for the PDSCH reception.
Regarding claim 7, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, in the number of PDSCH transmission occasions, the PDSCH reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’…, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”).
Regarding claim 8, 3GPP disclosed a method comprising:
receiving, by a wireless device (see Zhu combination below), one or more configuration parameters, wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 43: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-state configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE”) a downlink-or-joint transmission configuration indication (TCI) state list parameter indicating a list of TCI states for both uplink transmission and downlink reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations, within the higher layer parameter dl-OrJoint-TCIStateList in PDSCH-Config for providing a reference signal for the quasi co-location for DM-RS of PDSCH and DM-RS of PDCCH in a BWP/CC, for CSI-RS, and to provide a reference, if applicable, for determining UL TX spatial filter for dynamic-grant and configured-grant based PUSCH and PUCCH resource in a BWP/CC, and SRS”);
receiving (see Zhu combination below) downlink control information (DCI) configured to schedule a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) reception, wherein the DCI comprises: an antenna port field indicating one or more demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) ports within one code division multiplexing (CDM) group (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by…indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions”); and a time domain resource assignment field indicating a number of repetitions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation”), wherein a value of a TCI selection field in the DCI or an absence of a TCI selection field in the DCI indicates to use two TCI states for the PDSCH reception (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by the higher layer parameter repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is derived by the number of TCI states indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ of the scheduling DCI” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 43: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations” | 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with…repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation); and
based on the two TCI states being indicated to be used for the PDSCH reception, receiving (see Zhu combination below) the PDSCH reception using the two TCI states by using a same start and length indicator value (SLIV) for each PDSCH transmission occasion across consecutive time slots, wherein a number of the consecutive time slots is equal to the number of repetitions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with…repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation…, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”).
Although 3GPP disclosed a UE can be configured according to the variety of parameters described in the claim limitations and citations above, 3GPP did not explicitly disclose an actual implementation according to the 3GPP configurations, i.e. “receiving, by a wireless device” the configuration parameters, a first DCI, and a PDSCH. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the 3GPP protocol would be implemented by a wireless device and base station.
However in a related art, Zhu disclosed “a user equipment (UE), comprising: a transceiver configured to receive: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states…and second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for receiving one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively” (see Zhu claim 1) and “a base station (BS), comprising:…transceiver configured to transmit: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states,…wherein the plurality of TCI states includes joint or downlink TCI states, second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for reception of one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively; and the one or more PDCCHs for reception based on the one or more TCI states, respectively” (see Zhu claim 9). “A UE could be indicated/provided/configured by the network, e.g., via one or more TCI fields in a DCI…one or more (e.g., M>1 or N>1, or M=2/N=2) TCI states/pairs of TCI states for UE-dedicated reception on PDSCH/PDCCH or dynamic-grant/configured-grant based PUSCH and all of dedicated PUCCH resources in a multi-TRP system, wherein each indicated TCI state (or pair of TCI states) could correspond to a joint DL and UL TCI state (e.g., provided by higher layer parameter DLorJointTCI-State)” (see Zhu [0561]). The UE is also able to be configured by repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and with repetitionNumber (see Zhu [0144]). “Throughout the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the first PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the first DM-RS(s) for PDSCH reception(s) in the first DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI…and the second PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the second PDSCH DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0713]). “The UE could follow (e.g., according to network's configuration/indication via…dynamic DCI based L1 signaling)…to determine the association between one or more of the indicated TCI states/pairs of TCI states…and/or first (or second) PDSCH DM-RS(s) in the first (or second) DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0725]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP and Zhu to further clarify how to implement the 3GPP protocol. Including Zhu’s teachings would flexibly accommodate various services and applications in 5G or NR mobile communications (see Zhu [0017]).
Regarding claim 9, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 8, wherein, based on the number of repetitions being equal to two (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocatioin, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’ indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation and DM-RS port(s) within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port(s)’, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”), the receiving the PDSCH reception comprises receiving the PDSCH reception using:
a first TCI state of the two TCI states in a starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two TCI states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’, the UE is expected to receive two PDSCH transmission occasions, where the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH transmission occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1” | 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with…repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation…, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”); and
a second TCI state of the two TCI states in a second starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two TCI states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’, the UE is expected to receive two PDSCH transmission occasions, where …The second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion, and the second PDSCH transmission occasion shall have the same number of symbols as the first PDSCH transmission occasion. If the UE is configured by the higher layers with a value K in StartingSymbolOffsetK, it shall determine that the first symbol of the second PDSCH transmission occasion starts after K symbols from the last symbol of the first PDSCH transmission occasion. If the value K is not configured…, K=0 shall be assumed by the UE” | 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with…repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation…, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”).
Regarding claim 10, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 8, wherein the number of repetitions is greater than two (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation…When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation is larger than two, the UE may be further configured to enable cyclicMapping or sequentialMapping in tciMapping”).
Regarding claim 11, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 10, wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise a TCI mapping parameter set to indicate cyclic mapping (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation is larger than two, the UE may be further configured to enable cyclicMapping or sequentialMapping in tciMapping. When cyclicMapping is enabled, the first and second TCI states are applied to the first and second PDSCH transmission occasions, respectively, and the same TCI mapping pattern continues to the remaining PDSCH transmission occasions”).
Regarding claim 12, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 11, wherein the receiving the PDSCH reception comprises receiving the PDSCH reception using:
a first TCI state of the two TCI states in a starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When cyclicMapping is enabled, the first and second TCI states are applied to the first and second PDSCH transmission occasions, respectively”);
a second TCI state of the two TCI states in a second starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When cyclicMapping is enabled, the first and second TCI states are applied to the first and second PDSCH transmission occasions, respectively”); and
using a same TCI state mapping pattern for remaining PDSCH transmission occasions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When cyclicMapping is enabled,…the same TCI mapping pattern continues to the remaining PDSCH transmission occasions”).
Regarding claim 13, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 10, wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise a TCI mapping parameter set to indicate sequential mapping (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation is larger than two, the UE may be further configured to enable cyclicMapping or sequentialMapping in tciMapping…When sequentialMapping is enabled, the first TCI state is applied to the first and second PDSCH transmission occasions, and the second TCI state is applied to the third and fourth PDSCH transmission occasions, and the same TCI mapping pattern continues to the remaining PDSCH transmission occasions”).
Regarding claim 14, 3GPP-Zhu disclosed the method of claim 13, wherein the receiving the PDSCH reception comprises receiving the PDSCH reception using:
a first TCI state of the two TCI states in a starting PDSCH transmission occasion and in a second starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When sequentialMapping is enabled, the first TCI state is applied to the first and second PDSCH transmission occasions”);
a second TCI state of the two TCI states in a third starting PDSCH transmission occasion and in a fourth starting PDSCH transmission occasion (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When sequentialMapping is enabled,…the second TCI state is applied to the third and fourth PDSCH transmission occasions”); and
using a same TCI state mapping pattern to remaining PDSCH transmission occasions (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When sequentialMapping is enabled,…the same TCI mapping pattern continues to the remaining PDSCH transmission occasions”).
Regarding claim 15, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 1 above. 3GPP disclosed, as recited in claim 15: A method comprising:
sending, by a base station (see Zhu combination below), one or more configuration parameters, wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 43: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to M TCI-state configurations within the higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with DCI intended for the UE”):
a transmission configuration indication (TCI) state parameter indicating a list of TCI states for both uplink reception and downlink transmission (see 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations, within the higher layer parameter dl-OrJoint-TCIStateList in PDSCH-Config for providing a reference signal for the quasi co-location for DM-RS of PDSCH and DM-RS of PDCCH in a BWP/CC, for CSI-RS, and to provide a reference, if applicable, for determining UL TX spatial filter for dynamic-grant and configured-grant based PUSCH and PUCCH resource in a BWP/CC, and SRS”), and
a repetition scheme parameter set to indicate a time-domain multiplexing (TDM) scheme (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by the higher layer parameter repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ ”);
sending (see Zhu combination below) first downlink control information (DCI) configured to schedule a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, wherein the first DCI comprises an antenna port field indicating one or more demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) ports within one code division multiplexing (CDM) group (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by…indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions”); and
based on the repetition scheme parameter indicating the TDM scheme and based on the antenna port field indicating the one or more DM-RS ports within one CDM group, sending (see Zhu combination below) the PDSCH transmission in a number of PDSCH transmission occasions, wherein the number is based on at least one of: a number of TCI states indicated by a TCI selection field in the first DCI (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 17: “When a UE is configured by the higher layer parameter repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and indicated DM-RS port-s- within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port-s-‘, the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is derived by the number of TCI states indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ of the scheduling DCI”); or an absence of a TCI selection field in the first DCI.
Although 3GPP disclosed a UE can be configured according to the variety of parameters described in the claim limitations and citations above, 3GPP did not explicitly disclose an actual implementation according to the 3GPP configurations, i.e. “sending, by a base station” the configuration parameters, a first DCI, and a PDSCH. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the 3GPP protocol would be implemented by a wireless device and base station.
However in a related art, Zhu disclosed “a user equipment (UE), comprising: a transceiver configured to receive: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states…and second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for receiving one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively” (see Zhu claim 1) and “a base station (BS), comprising:…transceiver configured to transmit: in downlink control information (DCI), first information indicating a plurality of transmission configuration indication (TCI) states,…wherein the plurality of TCI states includes joint or downlink TCI states, second information in a configuration for a control resource set (CORESET) indicating one or more of the plurality of TCI states to use for reception of one or more of the plurality of PDCCHs in the CORESET, respectively; and the one or more PDCCHs for reception based on the one or more TCI states, respectively” (see Zhu claim 9). “A UE could be indicated/provided/configured by the network, e.g., via one or more TCI fields in a DCI…one or more (e.g., M>1 or N>1, or M=2/N=2) TCI states/pairs of TCI states for UE-dedicated reception on PDSCH/PDCCH or dynamic-grant/configured-grant based PUSCH and all of dedicated PUCCH resources in a multi-TRP system, wherein each indicated TCI state (or pair of TCI states) could correspond to a joint DL and UL TCI state (e.g., provided by higher layer parameter DLorJointTCI-State)” (see Zhu [0561]). The UE is also able to be configured by repetitionScheme set to ‘tdmSchemeA’ and with repetitionNumber (see Zhu [0144]). “Throughout the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the first PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the first DM-RS(s) for PDSCH reception(s) in the first DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI…and the second PDSCH(s) could correspond to all PDSCH(s)/PDSCH reception(s)…or the second PDSCH DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0713]). “The UE could follow (e.g., according to network's configuration/indication via…dynamic DCI based L1 signaling)…to determine the association between one or more of the indicated TCI states/pairs of TCI states…and/or first (or second) PDSCH DM-RS(s) in the first (or second) DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI” (see Zhu [0725]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP and Zhu to further clarify how to implement the 3GPP protocol. Including Zhu’s teachings would flexibly accommodate various services and applications in 5G or NR mobile communications (see Zhu [0017]).
Regarding claim 16, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 3 above. 3GPP-Zhu disclosed, as recited in claim 16: The method of claim 15, further comprising sending second DCI indicating two TCI states for both uplink reception and downlink transmission (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE can be configured with a list of up to 128 TCI-State configurations, within the higher layer parameter dl-OrJoint-TCIStateList in PDSCH-Config” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 45: “After a UE receives a higher layer configuration of dl-OrJointTCI-StateList with more than one TCI-State as part of a Reconfiguration with sync procedure”, i.e. second DCI || examiner notes that the phrasing “indicating two states for both uplink transmission and downlink reception” can be interpreted such that there are two states for UL and two states for DL, but it can also be interpreted such that there are two states that are applicable to both UL and DL, or it can also be interpreted such that there is one state for UL and one state for DL for a total of two TCI states).
Regarding claim 17, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 4 above. 3GPP-Zhu disclosed, as recited in claim 17: The method of claim 16, wherein the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is equal to two based on:
the TCI selection field in the first DCI being set to a value indicating to use the two TCI states for the PDSCH transmission (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “When a UE configured by the higher layer parameter PDSCH-config that indicates at least one entry contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’ indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation and DM-RS port(s) within one CDM group in the DCI field ‘Antenna Port(s)’, the same SLIV is applied for all PDSCH transmission occasions across the repetitionNumber consecutive slots, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion” | Zhu [0691]: “for N=2 or M=2, the indicator could be a one-bit indicator with “0” (or “1”) indicating that the first indicated TCI state/pair of TCI states could be applied/used for receiving first (or second) PDSCH DM-RS(s) in the first (or second) DM-RS CDM group indicated by the antenna ports field in a DCI”); or
the TCI selection field being absent in the first DCI, wherein the absence of the TCI selection field indicates to use the two TCI states for the PDSCH transmission.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP and Zhu to further clarify how to implement the 3GPP protocol. Including Zhu’s teachings would flexibly accommodate various services and applications in 5G or NR mobile communications (see Zhu [0017]).
Regarding claim 18, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 5 above. 3GPP-Zhu disclosed, as recited in claim 18: The method of claim 17, wherein the first DCI does not comprise the TCI selection field based on the one or more configuration parameters not comprising a TCI selection parameter that indicates a presence of a TCI selection field in a DCI format, and wherein the first DCI has the DCI format (examiner notes that the claim language is confusing | see 3GPP section 5.1 UE procedure for receiving the physical downlink shared channel, page 13: “When a UE is not indicated with a DCI that DCI field "Time domain resource assignment indicating an entry which contains repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation, and it is indicated with two TCI states in a codepoint of the DCI field Transmission Configuration Indication' and DM-RS port(s) within two CDM groups in the DCIfield 'Antenna Port(s)' and it is not configured with higher layer parameter sfnSchemePdsch, the UE may expect to receive a single PDSCH where the association between the DM-RS ports and the TCI states are as defined in Clause 5.1.6.2”).
Regarding claim 19, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 6 above. 3GPP-Zhu disclosed, as recited in claim 19: The method of claim 16, wherein the number of PDSCH transmission occasions is equal to one based on the TCI selection field in the first DCI being set to:
a first value indicating to use a first TCI state of the two TCI states for the PDSCH transmission (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1.1 Determination of the resource allocation to be used for PDSCH, page 19: “Either a default PDSCH time domain allocation…is applied, or the higher layer configured pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationList or pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationListForMultiPDSCH or pdsch-TimeDomainAllocationListDCI-1-2 is applied” | 3GPP section 5.1.5 Antenna ports quasi co-location, page 44: “The UE receives an activation command…used to map up to 8 TCI states and/or pairs of TCI states, with one TCI state for DL channels/signals and/or one TCI state for UL channels/signals to the codepoints of the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ for…a set of CCs/DL BWPs and if applicable, for a set of CCs/UL BWPs” | 3GPP 5.2.1.5.1 Aperiodic CSI Reporting/Aperiodic CSI-RS when triggering PDCCH and the CSI-RS have the same numerology, page 80: “the UE applies the first one of two TCI states corresponding to the lowest TCI codepoint among those mapped to two TCI states and applicable to the PDSCH within the active BWP of the cell”); or
a second value indicating to use a second TCI state of the two TCI states for the PDSCH transmission.
Regarding claim 20, the claim contains the limitations, substantially as claimed, as described in claim 7 above. 3GPP-Zhu disclosed, as recited in claim 20: The method of claim 15, further comprising: sending, in the number of PDSCH transmission occasions, the PDSCH transmission (see 3GPP section 5.1.2.1 Resource allocation in time domain, page 18: “If two states are indicated by the DCI field ‘Transmission Configuration Indication’ together with the DCI field ‘TimeDomain resource assignment’…, the first TCI state is applied to the first PDSCH transmission occasion and resource allocation in time domain for the first PDSCH occasion follows Clause 5.1.2.1. When the value indicated by repetitionNumber in PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocation equals to two, the second TCI state is applied to the second PDSCH transmission occasion”).
Conclusion
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/ANGELA WIDHALM DE RODRIGUEZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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