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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on September 9, 2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 5-8, 10, 14-16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pub. No. 2026/0255268 (hereinafter “Cheng”) in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2025/0253922 (hereinafter “Pan”).
Regarding claims 1 and 16, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests an apparatus and a method for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (see at least Fig. 1, UE 101), the apparatus and the method comprising:
a memory (see at least Figs. 9 and 10, memory 904G); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory and, based at least in part on information stored in the memory (see at least Figs. 9 and 10, CPU 904E coupled to the memory 904G), the at least one processor is configured to:
perform a measurement of at least one of a source node or a target node (see at least Fig. 1 and paragraphs 38 56-60, a UE performs a measurement of base station 111 and the UE may perform measurements in a neighbor cell); and
transmit UE assistance information (UAI) associated with power saving, coverage enhancement, reliability enhancement, measurements, sensing, channel sounding, and preferred configurations for a beam, a transmission reception point (TRP), or a cell in the target node (see at least paragraphs 18 and 39-44, the UE transmits assistance information to the base station 111 in several ways, where the assistance information includes information such as available RSRP, RSRQ, and SINR measurements for the cell and/or one or more beams, where the UE may send the assistance information using a new set of preambles/random access channel (RACH) occasions (ROs), where the assistance information may be sent using one or more designed sequences in a configured resource associated with the SSB, where the UE may only send the sequence when uplink is synchronized (e.g., after an uplink synchronization process has been performed), where the uplink control information (UCI) and channel state information (CSI) may also be included in this sequence, where the resource to send the sequence can be associated with an RO, where an SSB pattern is determined based on assistance information reported by the UE in order to achieve optimal network energy saving and, when an ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) service arrives, the assistance information can indicate that a different SSB pattern is desired, which is associated with reliability enhancement, where the assistance information report may include a mobility status of the UE, which is associated with coverage enhancement) based on a condition associated with at least one of a first measurement of the source node being below a first signal quality threshold or a second measurement of the target node being above a second signal quality threshold (see at least paragraphs 56 and 57, the UE reports the assistance information when a cell RSRQ is less than a threshold value).
Cheng discloses that the UE may send the assistance information using a set of preambles/ROs (see at least paragraph 41) but Cheng does not explicitly disclose a dedicated physical random access channel (PRACH) resource.
However, in an analogous art, Pan discloses or suggests that a WTRU may use PRACH/RACH occasion (RO) in order to send assistance information, where the WTRU may be configured with a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion (see at least paragraph 115, a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion corresponds to a dedicated PRACH resource).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement the dedicated PRACH occasion configuration, as taught by Pan, in to the invention of UE assistance information of Cheng in order to ensure the reliability of the transmission of the UE assistance information when initiating beam failure recovery (BFR).
Regarding claims 5 and 20, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the UAI includes a request for mobility enhancement at the UE (see at least paragraph 61, the assistance information report may include a mobility status of the UE, which is associated with an enhancement of the mobility of the UE). However, Cheng does not explicitly disclose that the request is for at least one of: a coverage or reliability enhancement of mobility-related downlink (DL) control information (DCI) or radio resource control (RRC) signaling, a measurement enhancement associated with additional measurement opportunities or increased accuracy, one or more of a channel sounding enhancement or a random access channel (RACH) enhancement for at least one of a link recovery, a beam failure recovery, or an RRC re-establishment, or the dedicated PRACH resource.
However, in an analogous art, Pan discloses or suggests that a WTRU may use PRACH/RACH occasion (RO) in order to send assistance information, where the WTRU may be configured with a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion (see at least paragraph 115, a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion corresponds to a dedicated PRACH resource).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement the dedicated PRACH occasion configuration, as taught by Pan, in to the invention of UE assistance information of Cheng in order to ensure the reliability of the transmission of the UE assistance information when initiating beam failure recovery (BFR).
Regarding claim 6, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the coverage or reliability enhancement is associated with at least one of an aggregation level, repetitions of a control resource set (CORESET), a slot aggregation, transport block (TB) repetitions, a scaling factor for the DCI or TBs, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) bundling scheme, an additional DMRS configuration, frequency hopping, physical resource block (PRB) interleaving, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) adaptation, a waveform adaptation, or a power adaptation (see at least paragraph 45, the base station may adapt its transmission of SSBs based on the assistance information received from the UE, where the base station may adapts SSBs with 2 wide beams to SSBs having 4 narrower beams, which corresponds to waveform adaptation).
Regarding claim 7, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the measurement enhancement is associated with at least one of requests for aperiodic and on-demand transmission of a beam-formed DL reference signal (RS), wherein the beam-formed DL RS is at least one of a NCD-SSB, channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CSI-RS), a tracking RS (TRS), or another DL RS in the source node or the target node (see at least paragraphs 21, 31, and 46, the UE receives a reference signal from the base station and performs configured measurements on the received reference signals, where the base station can save power by using more sparse reference signals during regular operation).
Regarding claim 8, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the channel sounding enhancement or the RACH enhancement is associated with an on-demand allocation of channel sounding reference signal (RS) or PRACH resources for a prioritized random access procedure (see at least paragraphs 16, 17, pattern, length, periodicity, and strength of the transmitted reference signals, where the UE performs measurements on reference signals to assess channel and signal quality of a serving cell and its neighboring cells).
Regarding claim 10, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests an apparatus for wireless communication at a source node (see at least Fig. 1, base station 111), comprising:
a memory (see at least Figs. 9 and 10, memory 904G); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory and, based at least in part on information stored in the memory (see at least Figs. 9 and 10, CPU 904E coupled to the memory 904G), the at least one processor is configured to:
configure, for a user equipment (UE), a configuration to provide UE assistance information (UAI) associated with power saving, coverage enhancement, reliability enhancement, measurements, sensing, channel sounding, request for dedicated physical random access channel (PRACH) resource, and preferred configurations for a beam, a transmission reception point (TRP), or a cell in a target node based on a condition associated with at least one of a first measurement of the source node being below a first signal quality threshold or a second measurement of the target node being above a second signal quality threshold (see at least paragraphs 18, 30, 32, and 39-44, the base station transmits a UE assistance configuration used to configure a UE to report assistance information, where the UE transmits assistance information to the base station 111 in several ways, where the assistance information includes information such as available RSRP, RSRQ, and SINR measurements for the cell and/or one or more beams, where the UE may send the assistance information using a new set of preambles/random access channel (RACH) occasions (ROs), where the assistance information may be sent using one or more designed sequences in a configured resource associated with the SSB, where the UE may only send the sequence when uplink is synchronized (e.g., after an uplink synchronization process has been performed), where the uplink control information (UCI) and channel state information (CSI) may also be included in this sequence, where the resource to send the sequence can be associated with an RO, where an SSB pattern is determined based on assistance information reported by the UE in order to achieve optimal network energy saving and, when an ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) service arrives, the assistance information can indicate that a different SSB pattern is desired, which is associated with reliability enhancement, where the assistance information report may include a mobility status of the UE, which is associated with coverage enhancement); and
receive, from the UE, the UAI based on the configuration (see at least paragraphs 34 and 35, the UE reports the assistance information to the base station according to a timer configured by the base station).
Regarding claim 14, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the UAI includes a mobility enhancement request for the UE (see at least paragraph 61, the assistance information report may include a mobility status of the UE, which is associated with an enhancement of the mobility of the UE). However, Cheng does not explicitly disclose that the request includes at least one of: a coverage or reliability enhancement of mobility-related downlink (DL) control information (DCI) or radio resource control (RRC) signaling, a measurement enhancement associated with additional measurement opportunities or increased accuracy, one or more of a channel sounding enhancement or a random access channel (RACH) enhancement for at least one of a link recovery, a beam failure recovery, or an RRC re-establishment, or the dedicated PRACH resource.
However, in an analogous art, Pan discloses or suggests that a WTRU may use PRACH/RACH occasion (RO) in order to send assistance information, where the WTRU may be configured with a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion (see at least paragraph 115, a dedicated periodic PRACH occasion corresponds to a dedicated PRACH resource).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement the dedicated PRACH occasion configuration, as taught by Pan, in to the invention of UE assistance information of Cheng in order to ensure the reliability of the transmission of the UE assistance information when initiating beam failure recovery (BFR).
Regarding claim 15, Cheng discloses, teaches, or suggests that the coverage or reliability enhancement is associated with at least one of an aggregation level, repetitions of a control resource set (CORESET), a slot aggregation, transport block (TB) repetitions, a scaling factor for the DCI or TBs, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) bundling scheme, an additional DMRS configuration, frequency hopping, physical resource block (PRB) interleaving, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) adaptation, a waveform adaptation, or a power adaptation (see at least paragraph 45, the base station may adapt its transmission of SSBs based on the assistance information received from the UE, where the base station may adapts SSBs with 2 wide beams to SSBs having 4 narrower beams, which corresponds to waveform adaptation).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Pan as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2024/0381429 (hereinafter “Alfarhan”).
Regarding claim 9, Chen, as modified by Pan, discloses all of the subject matter of the invention of claim 8 but Chen, as modified by Pan, does not explicitly disclose that the PRACH resources are configured in an uplink (UL) bandwidth part (BWP) associated with a default DL BWP or an active DL BWP.
However, in an analogous art, Alfarhan discloses, teaches, or suggests that the PRACH resources are configured in an uplink (UL) bandwidth part (BWP) associated with a default DL BWP or an active DL BWP (see at least paragraphs 150-155, a WTRU may switch its active UL and/or DL BWP to the initial BWP or another BWP containing valid PRACH resources).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement the technique, as taught by Alfarhan, in to the invention of Cheng, as modified by Pan, in order to improve the random access procedure.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 11-13, and 17-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Pub. No. 2025/0081280 (Wu) discloses a UE transmitting an RRC indication message, which is a UEAssistanceInformation message, when a signal strength/quality of the cell is below a threshold (see at least paragraphs 101 and 102).
U.S. Pub. No. 2025/0168925 (Gupta et al.) discloses capability negotiation between a UE and a network, where the network configures the UE to provide assistance information via RRCReconfiguration message in the event a measured signal strength/quality meeting a threshold (see at least paragraphs 92-94).
U.S. Pub. No. 2026/0067190 (Wu et al.) discloses a UE transmitting a UE assistance information message if the downlink signal strength/quality is below a threshold due to a satellite moving away from the UE (see at least paragraphs 90-94).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Pawaris Sinkantarakorn whose telephone number is (571)270-1424. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hadi Armouche can be reached at (571) 270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PAO SINKANTARAKORN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409 10/14/2026
