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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the block pertaining elements (100, 200, and 300) shown in Figure 1, elements (100 and 200) shown in Figure 4, and all the empty block elements shown in Figure 25 need to have descriptive labels in conformance with 37 CFR 1.84(n), 1.84(o), and/or 1.84(p). For example, a descriptive label of “Base Station” should be inserted into Figure 1 to properly describe element (100). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Objections
Claims 8 and 9 are objected to because of the following informalities:
8. (Proposed Amendment) The repeater according to claim [[1]] 7, wherein the control section determines, based on the information, the subcarrier spacing to be applied to the time resource for the signal in an access link.
9. (Proposed Amendment) The repeater according to claim [[1]] 7, wherein the control section applies a cyclic prefix of an active bandwidth of a link receiving the information, to a cyclic prefix of the time resource.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by MolavianJazi et al. (US 2023/0283348 A1), hereinafter “MolavianJazi”.
MolavianJazi relates to 3GPP 5G/NR communication systems, such as the system 100 shown in FIG. 1. A 3GPP 5G/NR communication system may include a network-controlled repeater (NCR) and a base station (BS).
As shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the NCR comprising: a transceiver of an NCR mobile termination (NCR-MT) entity configured to receive: first information for a list of spatial domain filters for an access link of an NCR forwarding (NCR-Fwd) entity corresponding to a list of time domain resources, second information for a set of spatial relations corresponding to reference signals (RSs) for transmission or reception on a control link (C-link) of the NCR-MT entity, and third information indicating an uplink (UL) direction or a downlink (DL) direction for each time domain resource from the list of time domain resources; a processor of the NCR-MT entity, operably coupled to the transceiver of the NCR-MT entity, the processor of the NCR-MT entity configured to determine: an UL time domain resource from the list of time domain resources based on the third information, a first spatial domain filter from the list of spatial domain filters, and a second spatial domain filter based on the second information; and a transceiver of the NCR-Fwd entity, operably coupled to the processor of the NCR-MT entity, the transceiver of the NCR-Fwd entity configured to: receive a radio frequency (RF) signal on the access link using the first spatial domain filter over the UL time domain resource, amplify the RF signal, and transmit the RF signal on a backhaul link of the NCR-Fwd entity using the second spatial domain filter over the UL time domain resource. Also see claim 8.
As shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the BS comprising: a transceiver configured to transmit to a network-controlled repeater mobile termination (NCR-MT) entity: first information for a list of spatial domain filters for an access link of a network-controlled repeater forwarding (NCR-Fwd) entity corresponding to a list of time domain resources, second information for a set of spatial relations corresponding to reference signals (RSs) for transmission or reception on a control link (C-link) of the NCR-MT entity, third information indicating an uplink (UL) direction, such as a physical uplink shared channel (PDSCH) in a slot or a downlink (DL) direction, such as a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in a slot for each time domain resource from the list of time domain resources; a processor operably connected to the transceiver, the processor configured to determine: an UL time domain resource from the list of time domain resources based on the third information, and a first spatial domain filter based on the second information; and the transceiver is further configured to receive a radio frequency (RF) signal on a backhaul link from the NCR-Fwd entity using the first spatial domain filter over the UL time domain resource. Also see claim 15.
MolavianJazi further teaches the first information indicates: a subcarrier spacing (SCS) for time domain resources within the list of time domain resources, and parameters for the time domain resources, and the parameters include: an index of a starting slot, an index of a starting symbol within the starting slot, and a number of symbols. See claims 5 and 12.
Regarding claim 7, MolavianJazi illustrates a repeater (a network-controlled repeater (NCR) comprising an NCR-MT (Mobile Termination) component and an NCR-Fwd (Forwarding/RU) component), comprising: a reception section that receives information related to a subcarrier spacing via a radio resource control message, the NCR-MT provides numerology configuration, such as Subcarrier Spacing (SCS) via RRC common or RRC dedicated signaling or system information (SIB), paragraphs [0088], [0091], [0109], [0148], and [0219]); and a control section that determines, based on the information, a subcarrier spacing to be applied to a time resource for a signal to be forwarded (the repeater’s internal processing circuitry/control section processes the RRC text to extract the specified 5G numerology parameter, which explicitly dictates the chosen subcarrier spacing. In NCR operations, the forwarding window attributes, such as the symbol duration, slot length, or boundary offsets, are mathematically bound to the selected reference SCS. The control section applies this parsed subcarrier spacing directly to the time resources (forwarding windows/slots) used by the RU to amplify and forward the signal, paragraphs [0343] and [0528]).
Regarding claim 8, wherein the control section determines, based on the information, the subcarrier spacing to be applied to the time resource for the signal in an access link. 3GPP explicitly structures the NCR as having a Control Link (C-link) and an Access Link. The RRC signaling dictates the beam and time-resource attributes applied directly to the NCR-Fwd transmission/reception on the access link.
Regarding claim 9, wherein the control section applies a cyclic prefix of an active bandwidth of a link receiving the information, to a cyclic prefix of the time resource (in NR (New Radio), such as the 3GPP 5G/NR, numerology is strictly tied to the active Bandwidth Part (BWP). 3GPP operational guidelines mandate that the forwarding attributes (SCS/CP) align with or default to the active BWP of the control link (the link receiving the RRC configuration) to maintain frame/slot alignment and avoid timing violations).
Regarding claim 10, MolavianJazi illustrates a base station (a base station comprising: a transceiver... a processor recited in claim 15), comprising: a control section that determines information related to a subcarrier spacing to be applied to a time resource for a repeater to forward a signal (a processor operably connected to the
transceiver, the processor configured to determine... and ...the first information indicates: a subcarrier spacing (SCS) for time domain resources within the list of time domain resources.... The processor functions as the control section, the “information related to a subcarrier spacing” relates to the first information which explicitly indicates an SCS for time-domain resources, and the “repeater to forward a signal” relates to the NCR-Fwd (Forwarding) entity and its time-domain resource configurations); and a transmission section that transmits the information to the repeater via a radio resource control message (a transceiver configured to transmit to a network-controlled repeater mobile termination (NCR-MT) entity: first information... The transceiver functions as the transmission section and the “information” relates to the first information which includes the SCS, the NCR-MT functions as the repeater, which is the control-plane interface of the network-controlled repeater. In 3GPP 5G/NR, a list of spatial domain filters, SCS configurations, and time-domain resource parameters (like slot indices and symbols) are semi-static configurations exclusively carried via RRC (Radio Resource Control) messages).
Regarding claim 11, claim 11 recites a radio system comprising the combined features of the base station and the repeater recited in claims 10 and 7, for the same reasons set forth above with respect to claims 7 and 10.
Regarding claim 12, claim 12 is a method claim, and its features are analogous to those of apparatus claim 7 for the reasons described above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ashworth et al. (US 2020/0212994 A1) relates to a repeater 120 in FIG. 1b configured to improve the quality of wireless communication by amplifying, filtering, and/or applying other processing techniques via a signal amplifier 122 to uplink signals communicated from a wireless device 110 to a base station 130 and/or downlink signals communicated from the base station 130 to the wireless device 110, amplify or boost uplink signals and/or downlink signals bi-directionally, and receive a slot format per slot over a number of slots as indicated by one or more higher layer parameters via higher layer signaling (such as RRC signaling).
Rastegardoost et al. (US 2020/0351729 A1) relates to a base station may configure a wireless device with one or more resource sets (e.g., time-frequency resources/occasions) for control transmissions (e.g., PUCCH transmissions.) A wireless device may receive PDCCH and/or PDSCH in a DL BWP, for example, based on a configured subcarrier spacing and/or CP length for the DL BWP. A wireless device may send/transmit PUCCH messages and/or PUSCH messages in an UL BWP, for example, based on a configured subcarrier spacing and/or CP length for the UL BWP.
TANG (US 2020/0359379 A1) relates to a device for information transmission, comprising: a processor; and a memory storing computer readable instructions executable by the processor, wherein the processor is configured to: receive, through an input interface, first information from a network device through a first time-domain resource on a first carrier, wherein the first time-domain resource is in a first downlink transmission burst and the first information is used to indicate time-domain resource information of a first transmission burst according to a first subcarrier spacing, and the first carrier is an unlicensed carrier; and determine the time-domain resource information of the first transmission burst according to the first information, wherein the time-domain resource information of the first transmission burst comprises at least one of: a start of the first transmission burst; an end of the first transmission burst; a channel occupancy duration; or a slot format.
Jiao et al. (US 2022/0199096 A1) relates to a radio access network device uses first dedicated radio resource control signaling to configure a data transmission resource that is used for initial transmission and that is indicated by using the first parameter, and uses second dedicated radio resource control signaling to configure a data transmission resource that is used for retransmission and that is indicated by using the first parameter. In this way, the data transmission resource used for retransmission and the data transmission resource used for initial transmission are separately indicated, to effectively distinguish between use of the data transmission resources and effectively use the data transmission resources. The initial transmission resource configuration parameter includes time domain resource location information, frequency domain resource location information, a quantity of transmission repetition times, a quantity of data transmission processes, a waveform parameter (the waveform parameter is used to indicate a waveform used for sending uplink data, for example, a cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM) or a single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA)), a power control parameter, and the like. The retransmission resource configuration parameter may include only one or more of time domain resource location information, frequency domain resource location information, or a quantity of transmission repetition times, and does not include a quantity of data transmission processes, a waveform parameter, and a power control parameter.
Muruganathan et al. (US 2022/0216944 A1) relates to a method for repeating a Transport Block (TB) over multiple transmission occasions. The method includes exchanging specific signaling between a wireless device (e.g., a user equipment) and a network node (e.g., a base station) to repeat same or different redundancy versions of the TB in multiple non-overlapping transmission occasions (e.g., mini-slots) corresponding to multiple Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) states and having different start positions. More specifically, the network node transmits a Time Domain Resource Allocation (TDRA) to indicate the multiple non-overlapping transmission occasions and the wireless device receives the TDRA indicating the multiple non-overlapping transmission occasions. Accordingly, the wireless device can receive repetition of the TB according to the TDRA. By indicating transmission occasions in the TDRA, it is possible to efficiently schedule multiple transmission occasions over the multiple TCI states, thus helping to improve efficiency, reliability, and coverage in a wireless communications network.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Young T. Tse whose telephone number is (571)272-3051. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 10:30am-7pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh M Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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