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 .
Reopening of Prosecution After Appeal Brief
In view of the Appeal Brief filed on 04/23/2026, PROSECUTION IS HEREBY REOPENED. See reasons set forth below.
To avoid abandonment of the application, appellant must exercise one of the following two options:
(1) file a reply under 37 CFR 1.111 (if this Office action is non-final) or a reply under 37 CFR 1.113 (if this Office action is final); or,
(2) initiate a new appeal by filing a notice of appeal under 37 CFR 41.31 followed by an appeal brief under 37 CFR 41.37. The previously paid notice of appeal fee and appeal brief fee can be applied to the new appeal. If, however, the appeal fees set forth in 37 CFR 41.20 have been increased since they were previously paid, then appellant must pay the difference between the increased fees and the amount previously paid.
A Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) has approved of reopening prosecution by signing below:
/DERRICK W FERRIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US20190104515) in view of 3GPP TS 38.213 V15.5.0 (herein after 3GPP) (cited on previous IDS filed 1//18/2022).
Regarding claim 1, 5, Li teaches A user equipment (UE) comprising: processing circuitry; and transmitting circuity, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to ([0176] “The device 1000 may be implemented by more or less components than those illustrated in FIG. 10. In addition, the processor 1010 and the transceiver 1020 and the memory 1030 may be implemented as a single chip according to another embodiment”)
transmit one or more physical uplink control channels (PUCCHs) for respective one or more scheduling requests (SRs) with SR transmission occasions ([0102] “the UE transmits HARQ-ACK and the specified SR using the PUCCH format carrying less than or equal to two bits. When L is less than or equal to 2, the base station can allocate the PUCCH format carrying two bits to the UE, so that the UE transmits L bits of HARQ-ACK and SR using the PUCCH format carrying two bits”)”) ([0101] “Generally, within one time unit, other UCI information, such as P-CSI, can be included in addition to HARQ-ACK and/or SR that require to be fed back. In one time resource, the transmission of UCI can also be multiplexed according to the total number of bits U. The UCI includes information of the K SR resources”) from the UE in a resource using a PUCCH format 2, a PUCCH format 3, or a PUCCH format 4 in a slot ([0082] “By determining a necessary PUCCH format on one time unit according to UCI information to be fed back currently, thereby a groups of PUCCH resources are determined… each group of resources can include one or more of PUCCH format 2, PUCCH format 3 and PUCCH format 4. Or, for the PUCCH format carrying more than two bits, one or more groups of PUCCH resources can be configured, each group of resources can include only one of PUCCH format 2, PUCCH format 3 and PUCCH format 4”),
eil(log2(K2+1)) the K2 being a total number of the SRs with([0101] “is equal to 1, the SR is indicated with one bit, when K is greater than 1, the SR is indicated with M bits. Or, when K is equal to 1, SR is indicated with one bit, when K is greater than 1, it is assumed that the UE needs to indicate an uplink resource request corresponding to one SR resource among the M SR resources, the number of bits of SR can be ceil(log2(M+1))”, [0102] “The specified SR can be configured by a higher layer signaling or can be obtained according to a certain priority policy. When the UE needs to transmit uplink resource requests of other SR resources among K SR resources, only PUCCH format carrying more than two bits can be used for transmission. The other SRs can be represented by K−1 bits, correspondingly, or it can be represented by ceil(log2(K−1)) assuming that the UE only needs to indicate an uplink resource request corresponding to one SR resource”, (Examiner’s Note: based on [0101] and [102] show specific SR (i.e. k value) is obtained based on a “Certain priority policy” can BRI as low priority ),
the PUCCH resource for the periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits with the PUCCH format 2, the PUCCH format 3, or the PUCCH format 4 in the slot ([0082] “By determining a necessary PUCCH format on one time unit according to UCI information to be fed back currently, thereby a groups of PUCCH resources are determined… each group of resources can include one or more of PUCCH format 2, PUCCH format 3 and PUCCH format 4. Or, for the PUCCH format carrying more than two bits, one or more groups of PUCCH resources can be configured, each group of resources can include only one of PUCCH format 2, PUCCH format 3 and PUCCH format 4”, [0058] “The UCI information cannot be limited to HARQ-ACK and SR, but can also include information, such as CSI or the like. According to 3GPP discussion, PUCCH format 0 is an SPUCCH format and can carry one or two bits, PUCCH format 1 is an LPUCCH format and can carry one or two bits, PUCCH format 2 is an SPUCCH format and carries more than two bits, PUCCH formats 3 and 4 are both LPUCCH formats and carry more than two bits”)).
Li does not teach in a case that there is a positive SR with high priority in an overlapping PUCCH, the transmitting circuitry is configured to transmit the PUCCH for the positive SR with the high priority and drop the transmission of the PUCCH for a CSI reporting,
in a case that there is no positive SR with the high priority to be reported, the transmitting circuitry is configured to transmit combined uplink control information (UCI) bits, having periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits and SR information bits, in the PUCCH for a CSI reporting using a PUCCH resource for the periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits with the PUCCH format 2, the PUCCH format 3, or the PUCCH format 4, and a number (OSR) of the SR information bits is ceil(log2(K2+1)) the K2 being a total number of the SRs with low priority configurations only PUCCH resources of which overlap with .
3GPP teaches in a case that there is a positive SR with high priority in an overlapping PUCCH, the transmitting circuitry is configured to transmit the PUCCH for the positive SR with the high priority and drop the transmission of the PUCCH for a CSI reporting (page 58 lines 1-20 “A UE multiplexes HARQ-ACK information, with or without SR, and CSI resport(s) in a same PUCCH if the UE is provided simultaneousHARQ-ACK-CSI; otherwise, the UE drops the CSI report(s) and includes only HARQ-ACK information, with or without SR, in the PUCCH. If the UE would transmit multiple PUCCHs in a slot that include HARQ-ACK information and CSI report(s), the UE expects to be provided a same configuration for simultaneousHARQ-ACK-CSI each of PUCCH formats 2, 3, and 4”),
in a case that there is no positive SR with the high priority to be reported, the transmitting circuitry is configured to transmit combined uplink control information (UCI) bits, having periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits and SR information bits, in the PUCCH for a CSI reporting using a PUCCH resource for the periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits with the PUCCH format 2, the PUCCH format 3, or the PUCCH format 4, and a number (OSR) of the SR information bits is ceil(log2(K2+1)) the K2 being a total number of the SRs with low priority configurations only PUCCH resources of which overlap with (page 62 lines 1-20 “a UE is configured to transmit
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SRs in a slot, as determined by a set of schedulingRequestResourceId, with SR transmission occasions that would overlap with a transmission of a PUCCH with HARQ-ACK information from the UE in the slot or with a transmission of a PUCCH with CSI report(s) from the UE in the slot”, page 62 lines 31-42 “If a UE would transmit a PUCCH with
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CSI report bits in a resource using PUCCH format 2 or PUCCH format 3 or PUCCH format 4 in a slot,
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bits representing corresponding negative or positive SR, in ascending order of the values of schedulingRequestResourceId, are prepended to the CSI information bits as described in Subclause 9.2.5.2 and the UE transmits a PUCCH with the combined
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UCI bits in a resource using the PUCCH format 2 or PUCCH format 3 or PUCCH format 4 for CSI reporting. An all-zero value for the
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bits represents a negative SR value across all
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SRs”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the Li2 to incorporate the teachings of 3GPP. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to increase the efficiency of the system.
Regarding claim 9, A gNB comprising: processing circuitry; and receiving circuity, wherein the gNB configures a UE to transmit one or more physical uplink control channels (PUCCHs) for respective one or more scheduling requests (SRs) with SR transmission occasions that overlap with a transmission of a PUCCH with periodic/semi-persistent Channel State Information (CSI) from the UE in a resource using a PUCCH format 2, a PUCCH format 3, or a PUCCH format 4 in a slot, in a case that there is a positive SR with high priority in an overlapping PUCCH, the receiving circuitry is configured to receive the PUCCH for the positive SR with the high priority and the transmission of the PUCCH for a CSI reporting is dropped, in a case that there is no positive SR with the high priority to be reported, the receiving circuitry is configured to receive combined uplink control information (UCI) bits, having periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits and SR information bits, in the PUCCH for a CSI reporting using a PUCCH resource for the periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits with the PUCCH format 2, the PUCCH format 3, or the PUCCH format 4, and a number (OSR)of the SR information bits ceil(log(Ka+1)), the K2 being a total number of the SRs with low priority configurations only PUCCH resources of which overlap with the PUCCH resource for the periodic/semi-persistent CSI information bits with the PUCCH format 2, the PUCCH format 3, or the PUCCH format 4 in the slot (Examiner’s Note: Claim 9 is rejected similarly as claim 1, for being opposite part).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/23/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s Argument 1
Appellant states on pp. 9-12 of their Brief that Claim 1 is allowable over the combination of Li, Huawei and Li2 because the combination fails to teach all features of the claim. Specifically, the combination of Li, Huawei and Li2 fails to teach at least " a number (OSR) of the SR information bits is ceil(log2(K2+1)). the K2 being a total number of the SRs with low priority configurations”.
Examiner’s Response 1
Examiner respectfully disagrees. See updated rejection. Li and Huawei are no longer relied upon. Li2 is now called Li and newly added reference 3GPP is used.
The combination of Li and 3GPP teaches a number (OSR) of the SR information bits is ceil(log2(K2+1)). the K2 being a total number of the SRs with low priority configurations.
Li is relied upon to show In paragraph 102, Li teaches that for PUCCH formatting, SR can be obtained according to a certain priority policy. When the UE needs to transmit requests for SR resources among K SR resources, only the PUCCH format is used.
[0101]“The information of the K SR resources can be K bits of information, or the number of SR bits which is actually necessary to be fed back by the UE can be f(K)=ceil(log.sub.2(K+1)). Or, when K is equal to 1, the SR is indicated with one bit, when K is greater than 1, the SR is indicated with M bits. Or, when K is equal to 1, SR is indicated with one bit, when K is greater than 1, it is assumed that the UE needs to indicate an uplink resource request corresponding to one SR resource among the M SR resources”.
So Li show the correct equation and then [102] to show specific SR (i.e. k value) is obtained based on a “Certain priority policy” we can conclude that is equal to a low priority configuration.
3GPP is relied upon to show (page 62 lines 1-20 “a UE is configured to transmit
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SRs in a slot, as determined by a set of schedulingRequestResourceId, with SR transmission occasions that would overlap with a transmission of a PUCCH with HARQ-ACK information from the UE in the slot or with a transmission of a PUCCH with CSI report(s) from the UE in the slot”, page 62 lines 31-42 “If a UE would transmit a PUCCH with
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bits representing corresponding negative or positive SR, in ascending order of the values of schedulingRequestResourceId, are prepended to the CSI information bits as described in Subclause 9.2.5.2 and the UE transmits a PUCCH with the combined
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UCI bits in a resource using the PUCCH format 2 or PUCCH format 3 or PUCCH format 4 for CSI reporting. An all-zero value for the
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bits represents a negative SR value across all
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SRs”).
No patentable weight is being given to “low priority configurations” because the term has no definition/meaning in the claim and applicant’s specification does not define “low priority configurations” as anything in particular because low and high priority configurations are defined as the same.
“[0041] In one implementation, when a PUCCH is configured for periodic/semi-persistent CSI with normal BLER requirements (e.g., BLER being 10{circumflex over ( )}−2 or less) with PUCCH format 2 or PUCCH format 3 or PUCCH format 4, a UE may count all SR configurations (e.g., a total number (K.sub.1) of SRs with all priority configurations (e.g., high and low priority configurations)), whose PUCCH resources overlap with the PUCCH resource for periodic/semi-persistent CSI with normal BLER requirements with PUCCH format 2 or PUCCH format 3 or PUCCH format 4 in the slot”
Applicant’s Argument 2
Applicant argue similar reasons for claims 5 and 8.
Examiner’s Response 2
See response above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEITH TRAN-DANH FOLLANSBEE whose telephone number is (571)272-3071. The examiner can normally be reached 10am -6 pm M-Th.
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/K.T.F./Examiner, Art Unit 2411
/DERRICK W FERRIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2411
Prosecution Insights