DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 11/06/2025 has been entered.
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 .
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.
Claim Status
Claims 1 and 9 are amended.
No claims are added nor canceled.
Claims 1-16 are currently pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 11/06/2025 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. The amendments to the claims necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection discussed below.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-4 and 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alfarhan et al. (US 2023/0074723 A1, along with Provisional application No. 62/975,535) hereinafter “Alfarhan” in view of Muruganathan et al. (US 2023/0275705 A1, along with Provisional application No. 62/915,423) hereinafter “Muruganathan”.
Regarding claims 1 and 9, Alfarhan discloses Claim 1 of a method for handling hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-acknowledgement (ACK) feedback performed by a user equipment (UE) (see FIG. 1B; see ¶ [0027], WTRU/UE), and Claim 9 of a user equipment (UE) for handling hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-acknowledgement (ACK) feedback, comprising: at least one processor; and at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the UE to (see FIG. 1B; see ¶ [0027], WTRU/UE may include a processor and memory), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station (BS), a parameter for disabling a HARQ-ACK feedback for a HARQ process identifier (ID) (see ¶ [0097], HARQ feedback may be disabled by the network for some HARQ process(es) or HARQ PIDs, such as RRC or dynamic signaling);
receiving, from the BS, downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), the DCI indicating the HARQ process ID (see ¶ [0070] [0080], the WTRU may receive DCI indicating HARQ process IDs);
Although Alfarhan disclose a parameter for disabling a HARQ-ACK feedback for a HARQ process identifier (ID), but does not explicitly disclose the HARQ-ACK feedback has been disabled.
However, in the same analogues art, Muruganathan, discloses handling HARQ-ACK feedback in a Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) (see ¶ [0050], HARQ ACK/NACK feedback in an NTN network);
the DCI indicating the HARQ process ID for which the HARQ-ACK feedback has been disabled based on the parameter (see ¶ [0106], the UE is scheduled with a PDSCH with an activation/deactivation MAC CE command using a HARQ process that has feedback disabled. That is, the DCI, which schedules the PDSCH carrying the MAC CE command, indicates a HARQ process ID that corresponds to a feedback disabled HARQ process).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide the HARQ-ACK feedback has been disabled as taught by Muruganathan, in the system of Alfarhan, so that it would provide to enable/disable HARQ feedback configurable on a per UE and per HARQ process basis in order to adapt HARQ to non-terrestrial networks (Muruganathan: see ¶ [0032-35]).
The combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan discloses setting a HARQ-ACK bit associated with the HARQ process ID to a bit value representing a negative acknowledgement (NACK) (Alfarhan: see ¶ [0072] [0130], the HARQ codebook generated by the WTRU may include NACK bits associated with the HARQ processes/PID and Muruganathan: see ¶ [0105]); and
transmitting, to the BS, a HARQ-ACK codebook including the HARQ-ACK bit (Alfarhan: see ¶ [0072] [0130], the WTRU may transmit, to the BS, HARQ feedback that comprises the generated codebook).
Regarding claims 2 and 10, the combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan discloses wherein the parameter is received via radio resource control (RRC) signaling (Alfarhan: see ¶ [0097], HARQ feedback may be disabled by the network for some HARQ process(es) or HARQ PIDs, such as RRC or dynamic signaling and Muruganathan: see ¶ [0034]).
Regarding claims 3 and 11, the combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan discloses wherein the parameter includes a list of HARQ process IDs for indicating that HARQ-ACK feedbacks for the list of HARQ process IDs are disabled (Alfarhan: see ¶ [0097], HARQ feedback may be disabled by the network for some HARQ process(es) or HARQ PIDs, such as RRC or dynamic signaling and Muruganathan: see ¶ [0106], the DCI, which schedules the PDSCH carrying the MAC CE command, indicates a HARQ process ID that corresponds to a feedback disabled HARQ process).
Regarding claims 4 and 12, the combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan discloses wherein the HARQ-ACK codebook is transmitted on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (Alfarhan: see ¶ [0067] [0147], HARQ-ACK codebooks transmitted on PUCCH resource and Muruganathan: see ¶ [0056]).
Claims 5 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alfarhan in view of Muruganathan further in view of Hwang et al. (US 2019/0379489 A1) hereinafter “Hwang”.
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Alfarhan does not explicitly disclose obtaining an adjusted number of HARQ-ACK bits.
However, Hwang discloses obtaining an adjusted number of HARQ-ACK bits by precluding the HARQ-ACK bit associated with the HARQ process ID (see ¶ [0154], the number of HARQ-ACK bits may be adjusted); and
determining a transmission power for the PUCCH according to the adjusted number of HARQ-ACK bits (Hwang: see ¶ [0066], to control a transmission power; and Alfarhan: see ¶ [0122], the power setting may be determined as a function of the number of bits used to feedback HARQ-ACK).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide obtaining an adjusted number of HARQ-ACK bits as taught by Hwang, in the combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan, so that it would provide use of the UL resource of the same timing may reduce overhead when DCI for scheduling a PDSCH indicates a HARQ-ACK timing (Hwang: see ¶ [0085]).
Claims 6-7 and 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alfarhan in view of Muruganathan further in view of Si et al. (US 2021/0029679 A1) hereinafter “Si”.
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Alfarhan does not explicitly disclose a timing offset used in the NTN.
However, Si discloses receiving, from the BS, a timing offset used in the NTN, wherein the timing offset is associated with a time interval between the PDSCH and the transmission of the HARQ-ACK codebook (see ¶ [0038] [0170], the radio resource control message configures a table of possible timing offset between data transmission and HARQ response in NTN scenarios; and Alfarhan: see ¶ [0136], the WTRU may only select PUCCH and may determine the appropriate feedback resource allocation occasion based on the timing of the last DL transmission for which the feedback report is reporting feedback).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a timing offset used in the NTN as taught by Si, in the combined system of Alfarhan and Muruganathan, so that it would provide beneficial for some NTN scenarios by disabling HARQ feedback (Si: see ¶ [0170]).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, the combined system of Alfarhan, Muruganathan and Si discloses further comprising:
determining one candidate PDSCH reception occasions corresponding to the HARQ-ACK codebook according to the timing offset (Si: see ¶ [0038] [0170], the radio resource control message configures a table of possible timing offset between data transmission and HARQ response in NTN scenarios; and Alfarhan: see ¶ [0136], the WTRU may only select PUCCH and may determine the appropriate feedback resource allocation occasion based on the timing of the last DL transmission for which the feedback report is reporting feedback).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 16 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
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of the action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PETER CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-7241. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yemane Mesfin can be reached at (571) 272-3927. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PETER CHEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462