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 § 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.
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 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.
Claims 29-30, 39, 41, 43, and 48 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee) and US 20220039016 (Terry).
Regarding claim 48, Tseng teaches or suggests a terminal device (¶ 33), comprising:
processing circuitry; memory containing instructions executable by the processing circuitry whereby the terminal device is operative (¶ 135) to:
detect a number of uplink transmission failures when using configured grants on a first Listen Before Talk (LBT) channel (¶¶ 45, 46, 129);
trigger a scheduling request (SR) to request an uplink grant responsive to detecting the number of uplink transmission failures when using grants (¶¶ 110, 127, 129); and
transmit the SR to a network node on a second LBT channel (¶¶ 45, 46, 129, 131).
Tsang does not expressly disclose but Bi teaches or suggests the number of uplink transmission failures as preconfigured (claims 14 and 31). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system and Bi’s preconfiguring to allow the number to be configured ahead of time to save time vis-à-vis configuring on the fly.
Tsang does not expressly disclose but Lee teaches or suggests the uplink transmission failures comprises expiration of a configured grant timer associated with the uplink transmission (¶¶ 210, 219, 233, 238). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, and Lee’s expiration to efficiently receive/transmit uplink/downlink data and/or uplink/downlink control information and to overcome delay or latency.
Tsang does not expressly disclose but Lee teaches or suggests the uplink transmission failures comprises expiration of a configured grant timer associated with the uplink transmission (¶¶ 210, 219, 233, 238). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, and Lee’s expiration to efficiently receive/transmit uplink/downlink data and/or uplink/downlink control information and to overcome delay or latency.
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Terry teaches or suggests cancelling a pending SR on the second LBT channel responsive to determining that at least one LBT process is successful on the first LBT channel or receiving a positive acknowledgment of an uplink transmission on the first LBT channel (¶¶ 451-52). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, and Terry’s stopping to avoid processing unnecessary SRs.
Regarding claims 29 and 41, the latter combination teaches or suggests the claimed limitations as explained supra, mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claims 30 and 43, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the uplink transmission failures comprise: a Listen Before Talk (LBT) failure; a negative acknowledgement received after an uplink transmission; neither positive nor negative acknowledgement is received after an uplink transmission; and/or expiration of a configured grant retransmission timer associated with the uplink transmission (Tseng ¶ 129, Lee ¶¶ 210, 219, 233, 238). A rationale to do so would have been for the same reason as for claim 48.
Regarding claim 39, Tseng teaches or suggests receiving an uplink grant from the network node (¶¶ 100, 120). A rationale to do so would have been for the same reason as for claim 48.
Claims 32 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and 20210409182 (Lee 182).
Regarding claim 32, Tsang does not expressly disclose but Lee 182 teaches or suggests the uplink transmission is performed with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process, the negative acknowledgement is a HARQ NACK, and the positive acknowledgement is a HARQ ACK (¶ 82). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Lee 182’s HARQ in order to reduce latency.
Regarding claim 36, the latter combination teaches or suggests the SR is transmitted via a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) or a Random Access Channel (RACH) procedure to the network node (Lee ¶ 176). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, and Lee 182’s channel to convey Uplink Control Information.
Claim 31, 42, and 44 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and US 20190158257 (Sano).
Regarding claims 31 and 44, Tsang teaches or suggests consecutive transmission failures (¶ 77). Tseng does not expressly disclose but Sano teaches or suggests the preconfigured number of uplink transmission failures comprise consecutive uplink transmission failures (¶ 60). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Sano’s consecutive UL failures to identify underlying systemic issues or patterns that might not be apparent when looking at isolated failures.
Regarding claim 42, the latter combination teaches or suggests receiving at least part of the uplink transmission with respective configured grant from the terminal device (Sano ¶ 60). A rationale to do so would have been for the same reason as for claim 48.
Claims 33 and 45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and US 20180368156 (Agiwal).
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Agiwal teaches or suggests wherein the SR is triggered per SR configuration; and wherein the SR configuration is associated with: Listen Before Talk (LBT) channel, LBT sub-band, bandwidth part (BWP), cell, carrier, cell group, service, Logic Channel (LCH), and/or Logical Channel Group (LCG) (¶ 14). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Agiwal’s configuration to support a higher data transfer rate.
Claims 34 and 46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and US 10917918 (Yerramalli).
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Yerramalli teaches or suggests transmitting a report indicating a SR triggering cause to the network node (claim 16). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Yerramalli’s report to inform the system of failures.
Claims 37 and 47 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi), US 20220039016 (Terry), further in view of US 20190349983 (Loehr).
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Loehr teaches or suggests receiving at least one updated configured grant from the network node (abs.) It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Loehr’s updated to adapt to changes.
Claim 38 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and US 20200275475 (Bhattad).
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Bhattad teaches or suggests wherein the at least one updated configure grant is per Listen Before Talk (LBT) channel, LBT sub-band, bandwidth part (BWP), cell, or carrier. (¶¶ 91, 93, 107, 109). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Bhattad’s basis to ensure compatibility.
Claim 40 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180332501 (Tseng) in view of US 20160065439 (Bi) further in view of US 20200351037 (Lee), US 20220039016 (Terry), and US 20220015175 (Wu).
Tseng does not expressly disclose but Wu teaches or suggests the number of uplink transmission failures are counted with assistance of a timer (¶¶ 64, 71). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Tseng’s system, Bi’s preconfiguring, Lee’s expiration, Terry’s stopping, and Wu’s time to accurately identify failures.
Response to Arguments
The arguments have been fully considered. The applicant argues that “There is no teaching or suggestion that a terminal device, such as the UE in Terry, detects uplink transmission failures on a first LBT channel and transmits SRs on a second, different LBT channel, as recited in the claims.” (Resp. 11.)
The arguments are not commensurate with the limitations of the independent claims for at least two reasons. First, the second LBT channel is not limited to being “different” than the first LBT channel. Second, the uplink transmission failures are not recited as being “on” the first LBT channel; it is configured grants that are recited as being “on” the first LBT channel.
Other Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure. Specifically, Fan determines an uplink BWP whose PUCCH resource is used to transmit a HARQ feedback (Summary).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lance Leonard Barry whose telephone number is (571)272-5856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 700-430 ET 730-1630.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to email the Examiner.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ario Etienne can be reached on 571-272-4001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/LANCE LEONARD BARRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
Prosecution Insights