Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 & 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 & 14 recite “hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1%”. The word “hypothetical” doesn’t adequately describe the metes and bounds by which the invention is being claimed and as such, Examiner rejects the above stated claims under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
Dependent claims are rejected on the same grounds as the claim from which they depend from, by virtue of their dependency.
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(s) 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moroga et al. US 2018/0263061 A1 in view of Sun et al. US 2023/0028843 A1and Su et al. US 20180227880 A1.
Claims 1, 4 and 13:
Moroga discloses a user equipment comprising: one or more radio transceivers; and
hardware circuitry configured to (See fig. 17, transmitting and receiving section and processing section): determine a coverage enhanced level to be used for transmitting a random access preamble (See para 83, CE level); control the one or more radio transceivers to transmit the random access preamble (See para 83, “Upon receiving the PRACH from the UE…”. Also see fig. 6 msg 1);control the one or more radio transceivers to receive a random access response corresponding to the transmitted random access preamble (See para 83, “Upon receiving the PRACH from the UE, an eNB transmits downlink control information (DCI) for an RAR (Random Access Response) to the UE…”), the random access response being allocated by Machine Type Communication (MTC) Physical Downlink Control Channel (MPDCCH) (See para 83, “an RAR (Random Access Response) to the UE using an MPDCCH at a predetermined CE level”), a repetition level of the MPDCCH being based on the coverage enhanced level (See para 48, “the coverage enhancement level is configured so that, the repetition number varies depending on the CE level”).
With regards to claim 13, a non-transitory computer-readable medium (See para 187, computer-readable medium).
Moroga doesn’t disclose control the one or more radio transceivers to transmit a Msg3 carrying a Radio Resource Control (RRC) CONNECTION REQUEST message, the Msg3 including a quality report indicated by one or multiple bits, wherein the quality report provides at least one of the repetition level of the MPDCCH or an aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy a hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1%.
Sun discloses control the one or more radio transceivers to transmit a Msg3 carrying a Radio Resource Control (RRC) CONNECTION REQUEST message, the Msg3 including a quality report indicated by one or multiple bits (See para 211, “the CSI reporting may be performed on the reserved bits in the existing Msg3 message… on spare bit(s) of an RRC message in an RRC connection request message (RRCconnectionrequest)”).
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 system of Moroga with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga by including the feature of MSG3 carrying RRC request and quality information. The motivation to combine would have been to enable the network to have faster and earlier access to CSI for scheduling, beam selection and reduced retransmissions.
Sun further discloses that the quality report provides at least one of the repetition level of the MPDCCH or an aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy a hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1% (See para 200, “The CSI includes … information which may represent the channel state, e.g., an indication of a number of repetitions required to decode following channel at a specific BLER (such as 1% or 10%)”. Also see para 213, “may indicate that a specific BLER requirement (e.g., 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 system of Moroga with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga by including the feature of quality report’s repetition for block error rate of 1%. The motivation to combine would have been to improve quality.
Moroga and Sun do not disclose performing the steps when in idle mode.
Su discloses performing the steps when in idle mode (See para 69, “The RRC connection may be established by way of a random access channel (RACH) procedure performed while operating in an idle mode”).
t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Moroga in view of Sun with the teachings of Su to improve the method disclosed by Moroga in view of Sun by including the feature of performing steps in an Idle mode. The motivation for doing so would have been to connect to the network and finish communication.
Claims 7, 10 and 14:
Moroga discloses an infrastructure device comprising; one or more radio transceivers; and hardware circuitry configured to (See fig. 16, transmitting and receiving section and processing section): control the one or more radio transceivers to receive a random access preamble from (See para 83, CE level); control the one or more radio transceivers to transmit a random access response corresponding to the received random access preamble (See para 83, “Upon receiving the PRACH from the UE…”. Also see fig. 6 msg 1), the random access response being allocated by Machine Type Communication (MTC) Physical Downlink Control Channel (MPDCCH) (See para 83, “an RAR (Random Access Response) to the UE using an MPDCCH at a predetermined CE level”), a repetition level of the MPDCCH being based on the coverage enhanced level (See para 48, “the coverage enhancement level is configured so that, the repetition number varies depending on the CE level”).
With regards to claim 14, a non-transitory computer-readable medium (See para 187, computer-readable medium).
Moroga doesn’t disclose control the one or more radio transceivers to receive a Msg3 carrying a Radio Resource Control (RRC) CONNECTION REQUEST message, the Msg3 including a quality report indicated by one or multiple bits, wherein the quality report provides at least one of the repetition level of the MPDCCH or an aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy a hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1%.
Sun discloses control the one or more radio transceivers to receive a Msg3 carrying a Radio Resource Control (RRC) CONNECTION REQUEST message, the Msg3 including a quality report indicated by one or multiple bits (See para 211, “the CSI reporting may be performed on the reserved bits in the existing Msg3 message… on spare bit(s) of an RRC message in an RRC connection request message (RRCconnectionrequest)”),
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 system of Moroga with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga by including the feature of MSG3 carrying RRC request and quality information. The motivation to combine would have been to enable the network to have faster and earlier access to CSI for scheduling, beam selection and reduced retransmissions.
Sun further discloses that the quality report provides at least one of the repetition level of the MPDCCH or an aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy a hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1% (See para 200, “The CSI includes … information which may represent the channel state, e.g., an indication of a number of repetitions required to decode following channel at a specific BLER (such as 1% or 10%)”. Also see para 213, “may indicate that a specific BLER requirement (e.g., 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 system of Moroga with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga by including the feature of quality report’s repetition for block error rate of 1%. The motivation to combine would have been to improve quality.
Moroga and Sun do not disclose a user equipment which is in an idle mode.
Su discloses a user equipment which is in an idle mode (See para 69, “The RRC connection may be established by way of a random access channel (RACH) procedure performed while operating in an idle mode”).
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 system of Moroga in view of Sun with the teachings of Su to improve the method disclosed by Moroga in view of Sun by including the feature of performing steps in an Idle mode. The motivation for doing so would have been to connect to the network and finish communication.
Claims 2, 5, 8 & 11:
Moroga discloses that the coverage enhanced level is associated with the repetition level of the MPDCCH (See para 48, “the coverage enhancement level is configured so that, the repetition number varies depending on the CE level”)
Moroga doesn’t disclose that the aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy the hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1%.
Sun discloses that the aggregation level of the MPDCCH to satisfy the hypothetical MPDCCH block error rate of 1% (See para 200, “an indication of a number of repetitions required to decode following channel at a specific BLER (such as 1% or 10%)”. Also see paras 146-147, “when Rmax=2, Rmax/4=0.5 may represent that a PDCCH Aggregation Level (AL) is only required to be 1…the current Rmax is an Rmax required to satisfy 1% BLER”. Also see table 2).
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 system of Moroga in view of Su with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga in view of Su by including the feature of quality report’s aggregation level for block error rate of 1%. The motivation to combine would have been to improve quality.
Claim 3, 6, 9 & 12:
Sun discloses that the quality report is provided by a Medium Access Control (MAC) control element (MAC CE) (See paras 38-40, “carrying the CSI according to the predefined rule further includes: transmitting the CSI in one of: … a MAC Control Element (CE) or a new MAC CE”).
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 system of Moroga in view of Su with the teachings of Sun to improve the method disclosed by Moroga in view of Su by including the feature of quality report in MAC CE. The motivation would have been to reduce latency and signaling overhead.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HASHIM S BHATTI whose telephone number is (571)270-7748. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
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HASHIM S. BHATTI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2472
/HASHIM S BHATTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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