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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/04/2025 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Previously presented 35 USC 112 rejections of claims 8-9 and 21-22 are withdrawn in response to the amendments. Previously presented 35 USC 103 rejections have been modified to include new reference, Jones (US 11,838,151), in response to the claim amendments.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 3, 5, 8-9, 11-12, 16-18 and 20-29 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5 , 8-9, 12, 16-18 and 21-29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 2019/0089489) in view of Takeda (US 2020/0100219), Kim (US 2021/0345362) and Jones (US 11,838,151).
Li disclose the following features.
Regarding claim 1, a communication method, comprising:
configuring, by a network device (see “base station” recited in paragraph [0103]), in advance association relationships between a plurality of control channels (see “multiple PDCCH grants’ recited in paragraph [0103]) to a terminal device (see “UE” recited in paragraph [0103]), wherein the association relationships between the plurality of control channels are configured to indicate that the plurality of control channels schedule a same data channel (see “a base station selecting and indicating a parameter to a UE that indicates multiple PDCCH grants are being transmitted at different times to grant the same PDSCH resource to the UE” recited in paragraph [0103] and see step 225, wherein the parameter is transmitted prior to the PDCCH grants at step 235);
receiving, by the terminal, the association relationships (see paragraph [0103] and step 225 in Fig. 2 as explained above);
determining, based on the first control channel:
a PUCCH resource (see “The control information may be transmitted in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and may include a grant identifying resources within a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) that have been allocated to transport the data information for the UE” recited in paragraph [0004]).
Regarding claim 3, a terminal device (see “UE” recited in paragraph [0103]), comprising: a processor, configured to:
receive association relationships between a plurality of control channels configured by a network device (see “base station” recited in paragraph [0103]), wherein the association relationships between the plurality of control channels are configured to indicate that the plurality of control channels schedule a same data channel (see “a base station selecting and indicating a parameter to a UE that indicates multiple PDCCH grants are being transmitted at different times to grant the same PDSCH resource to the UE” recited in paragraph [0103] and see step 225, wherein the parameter is transmitted prior to the PDCCH grants at step 235);
determine, based on the first control channel:
a PUCCH resource (see “The control information may be transmitted in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and may include a grant identifying resources within a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) that have been allocated to transport the data information for the UE” recited in paragraph [0004]).
Regarding claim 5, wherein, the processor is further configured to detect at least one control channel and determine the plurality of control channels based on the association relationships between the at least one control channel and other control channels; and the plurality of control channels comprise: the at least one control channel and other control channel scheduling the same data channel as the at least one control channel (see “at 240 the UE 205 may monitor for and receive) a repetition of grants corresponding to the first grant repetition configuration” recited in paragraph [0098], wherein the UE monitors each of the repetition of grants, that grants the same PDSCH as shown in paragraph [0103]).
Regarding claim 12, a network device (see “base station” recited in paragraph [0103]), comprising a processor, configured to:
configure association relationships between a plurality of control channels to a terminal device (see “UE” recited in paragraph [0103]), wherein the association relationships between the plurality of control channels are configured to indicate that the plurality of control channels schedule a same data channel (see “a base station selecting and indicating a parameter to a UE that indicates multiple PDCCH grants are being transmitted at different times to grant the same PDSCH resource to the UE” recited in paragraph [0103] and see step 225, wherein the parameter is transmitted prior to the PDCCH grants at step 235);
determine, based on the first control channel:
a PUCCH resource (see “The control information may be transmitted in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and may include a grant identifying resources within a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) that have been allocated to transport the data information for the UE” recited in paragraph [0004]).
Li does not disclose the following features: regarding claims 1, 3 and 12, determining one first control channel from the plurality of control channels scheduling the same data channel; determining a first PUCCH resource that carries a HARQ feedback information of the data channel, wherein the first control channel is a control channel of the plurality of control channels and designated from all control channels associated with a smallest identifier of all identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels, wherein types of identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels comprise at least one of: a CORESET ID and a search space ID; wherein before the determining, based on the first control channel, the PUCCH resource that carries the HARQ feedback information of the data channel, the communication method further comprises: receiving, by the terminal device, a first resource indication message sent by the network device when the network device schedules the data channel through the plurality of control channels, wherein the first resource indication message comprises: a time slot offset of data, which is indicated in the first control channel, to the PUCCH resource, and a resource indication of the PUCCH; wherein the determining, based on the first control channel, the PUCCH resource that carries the HARQ feedback information of the data channel, comprising: determining, by the terminal device, a feedback time slot of the PUCCH based on a resource of the data channel and the time slot offset of data, which is indicated in the first control channel, to the PUCCH resource ; and determining, by the terminal device, a PUCCH resource based on the resource indication of the PUCCH and the feedback time slot of the PUCCH; regarding claims 8 and 16, wherein the first control channel is the k-th control channel in an ordering result, the ordering result is obtained by placing candidate control channels based on detection time points of the candidate control channels, and the k is an integer greater than or equal to 1; and the candidate control channels are the plurality of control channels, or the candidate control channel are all control channels, which are associated with a first identifier and are part of the plurality of control channels; regarding claim 9, wherein a first identifier is determined by one of: predetermined based on a standard; dynamically indicated by the network device; semi-statically indicated by the network device; or statically indicated by the network device; regarding claim 17, wherein the first identifier is determined by one of: predetermined based on a standard; or configured by the network device; regarding claim 18, a sending module, configured to indicate the first identifier, the second identifier, and the third identifier to a terminal device by one of following ways: dynamically indicated by the network device; semi-statically indicated by the network device; and statically indicated by the network device; regarding claims 21-22 and 25-27, wherein the first identifier is the smallest identifier of all identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels; regarding claims 23 and 28, wherein the k-th control channel comprises: a last one of the plurality of control channels; regarding claims 24 and 29, wherein the k-th control channel comprises: a first one of the plurality of control channels.
Takeda discloses the following features.
Regarding claims 1, 3 and 12, determining one first control channel from the plurality of control channels scheduling the same data channel (see “the user terminal may detect a plurality of second sub-part DCIs, which schedule the same data (for example, PDSCH), by monitoring the above predetermined resource. In this case, the user terminal may select one of the plurality of second sub-part DCIs and decode the second sub-part DCI that is selected” recited in paragraph [0088]; and see “second-part DCI (PDCCH (NR-PDCCH))” recited in paragraph [0063]).
Kim discloses the following features.
Regarding claims 1, 3 and 12, wherein the first control channel is a control channel of the plurality of control channels and designated from all control channels associated with a smallest identifier of all identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels (see “multiple DL control channels…In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]), wherein types of identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels comprise at least one of: a CORESET ID (see “CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]) and a search space ID.
Regarding claims 8 and 16, wherein the first control channel is k-th control channel in an ordering result, the ordering result is obtained by placing candidate control channels based on detection time points of the candidate control channels, and k is an integer greater than or equal to 1 (see “the terminal may determine one subset using the PRI obtained from the most recently-detected DL control channel among the DL control channel (i) , the DL control channel (j) and the DL control channel (k)” recited in paragraph [0092], wherein the most recently received DL control channel must be determined from the ordering of the control channels based on the timing of receiving the control channel while being the kth received control channel with k greater than or equal to 1); and the candidate control channels are the plurality of control channels (see “the terminal may determine one subset using the PRI obtained from the most recently-detected DL control channel among the DL control channel (i) , the DL control channel (j) and the DL control channel (k),” recited in paragraph [0092]), or the candidate control channel are all control channels, which are associated with a first identifier and are part of the plurality of control channels.
Regarding claims 9, wherein a first identifier is determined by one of the following ways: predetermined based on a standard (see “In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]); dynamically indicated by the network device; semi-statically indicated by the network device; or statically indicated by the network device.
Regarding claim 17, wherein a first identifier is determined by one of: predetermined based on a standard (see “In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]); or configured by the network device.
Regarding claim 18, wherein the transmitter is further configured to indicate the first identifier, the second identifier, and the third identifier to a terminal device by one of following ways: dynamically indicated by the network device (see “The serving base station may dynamically change the DL BWP according to a status of DL traffic. In order to generate a HARQ-ACK for this by the terminal and feedback it to the serving base station, it is necessary to use the PRI and the DL CCE included in the DL control channel for allocating the DL data channel. In this case, the index representing the UL control channel resource may be applied to the UL BWP forming a pair with the DL BWP indicated or changed by the DL control channel. At this time, the serving base station may transmit a BWP index to the terminal by including the BWP index in all DL control channels” recited in paragraph [0109]); semi-statically indicated by the network device; and statically indicated by the network device.
Regarding claims 21-22 and 25-27, wherein the first identifier is the smallest identifier of all identifiers associated with the plurality of control channels (see “multiple DL control channels…In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]).
Regarding claims 23 and 28, wherein the k-th control channel comprises: a last one of the plurality of control channels (see “multiple DL control channels…In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]).
Regarding claims 24 and 29, wherein the k-th control channel comprises: a first one of the plurality of control channels (see “multiple DL control channels…In this case, it is possible to apply a rule of selecting one UL control channel resource by selecting the DL control channel having the lowest or highest CORESET index” recited in paragraph [0094]).
Jones discloses the following features.
Regarding claims 1, 3 and 12, determining a first PUCCH resource that carries a HARQ feedback information of the data channel (see “As described earlier, when the RF nodes schedule PDSCH transmissions, the PUCCH resource used by the UE to send HARQ feedback depends on the position of the Control Channel Element (CCE) used to send the PDCCH, the number of CCEs in the CORESET used for PDCCH and a 3-bit index included in the DCI. Using the methods described earlier, the RF node scheduling the PDSCH transmission can choose the 3-bit index in such a way that the UE will select a PUCCH resource that is spatially linked to a NZP-CSI-RS resource transmitted by that RF node” recited in column 102, lines 7-28), wherein before the determining, based on the first control channel, the PUCCH resource that carries the HARQ feedback information of the data channel, the communication method further comprises: receiving, by the terminal device, a first resource indication message sent by the network device when the network device schedules the data channel through the plurality of control channels, wherein the first resource indication message comprises: a time slot offset of data, which is indicated in the first control channel, to the PUCCH resource (see “The RF nodes also schedule the HARQ transmissions by indicating a time offset (in slots) in the DCI. In 3GPP R15, UE can send a 1- or 2-bit HARQ feedback using Format 0 or Format 1 PUCCH” recited in column 102, lines 7-28; wherein the DCI is sent on the PDCCH, which represents the claimed first control channel), and a resource indication of the PUCCH (see “UE is RRC configured by the MNC with up to 32 PUCCH resources in a PUCCH resource set 0… the PUCCH resource used by the UE to send HARQ feedback depends on the position of the Control Channel Element (CCE) used to send the PDCCH, the number of CCEs in the CORESET used for PDCCH and a 3-bit index included in the DCI” recited in column 102, lines 7-28);
wherein the determining, based on the first control channel, the PUCCH resource that carries the HARQ feedback information of the data channel, comprising: determining, by the terminal device, a feedback time slot of the PUCCH based on a resource of the data channel and the time slot offset of data, which is indicated in the first control channel, to the PUCCH resource (see “The RF nodes also schedule the HARQ transmissions by indicating a time offset (in slots) in the DCI. In 3GPP R15, UE can send a 1- or 2-bit HARQ feedback using Format 0 or Format 1 PUCCH” recited in column 102, lines 7-28; wherein the DCI is sent on the PDCCH, which represents the claimed first control channel); and determining, by the terminal device, a PUCCH resource based on the resource indication of the PUCCH and the feedback time slot of the PUCCH (see “UE is RRC configured by the MNC with up to 32 PUCCH resources in a PUCCH resource set 0… the PUCCH resource used by the UE to send HARQ feedback depends on the position of the Control Channel Element (CCE) used to send the PDCCH, the number of CCEs in the CORESET used for PDCCH and a 3-bit index included in the DCI” recited in column 102, lines 7-28).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Li using features, as taught by Takeda, Kim and Jones, in order to quickly determine data scheduling information (see paragraph [0089] of Takeda); in order to determine one DL control channel among the DL control channels successfully received (see paragraph [0095] of Kim); and in order to schedule the HARQ transmission while reducing overhead transmission (see column 102, lines 7-28 of Jones).
Claim(s) 11 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li, Takeda, Kim and Jones as applied to claims 3 and 12 above, and further in view of Zhang (US 2022/0278807).
Li, Takeda, Kim and Jones disclose the features as shown above.
Li does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 11, determine a C-DAI of the data channel and a T-DAI of the data channel based on the first control channel; or determine the location of the HARQ feedback information of the data channel in the HARQ codebook based on the C-DAI of the data channel and the T-DAI of the data channel; regarding claim 20, determine a C-DAI of the data channel and a T-DAI of the data channel based on a receiving time point of the first control channel, a serving cell index corresponding to the first control channel, and the CORESET pool index.
Zhang discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 11, determine a C-DAI of the data channel and a T-DAI of the data channel based on the first control channel (see “processing of a DAI in one PDCCH” recited in paragraph [0306]; see “PDSCHi-(C-DAI, T-DAI) indicates the value of (C-DAI, T-DAI) included in the PDCCH scheduling PDSCH(i)” recited in paragraph [0336], which discloses the processing of the control channel PDCCH to determine the C-DAI and T-DAI); or determine the location of the HARQ feedback information of the data channel in the HARQ codebook based on the C-DAI of the data channel and the T-DAI of the data channel.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Li, Takeda, Kim and Jones using features, as taught by Zhang, in order to determine at least one of a bit sequence of HARQ-ACK information or a number of bits of HARQ-ACK information (see paragraph [0094] of Zhang).
Conclusion
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/JUTAI KAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2473