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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment to the claims filed on 02/06/2026 complies with the requirements of 37 CFR 1.121(c) and has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's Arguments/Remarks filed 02/06/2026 (hereinafter Resp.) are fully considered hereby.
First, Applicant argues that “The Office Action suggests that Wu teaches the ‘allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot’ limitation” – See Resp.,9:¶2. However, the last Office Action (hereinafter NFOA) clearly states, at page 10, that “Wu does not explicitly teach that: (1) one slot, i.e., one time interval of a physical channel, may contain more than one PDSCHs, at least one associated with an enabled HARQ process, and (2) the semi-static codebook is a Type-1 codebook, as known in the art,” with reference to Wu, Patent Application Publication No. 20230231665 (hereinafter Wu), and further introduces the teachings in Fakoorian et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0239011 (hereinafter Fakoorian) to remediate the deficiency of Wu. Therefore, this argument against Wu is based on Applicant’s oversight of the Office Action content, hence unpersuasive.
Second, Applicant argues that “Wu fails to teach or suggest allocating feedback spaces to PDSCHs. The reference also fails to teach or suggest disabled HARQ processes and at least one enabled HARQ process in the same slot” – See Resp.,9:¶4, with emphasis on Wu’s failing to teach or suggest, rather than on the substance of the argument against Wu. To be sure, Wu teaches both “allocating feedback spaces to PDSCHs” and transmitting the feedback of “disabled HARQ processes and at least one enabled HARQ process in the same slot” – See, e.g., [¶0077] (“When the terminal device generates the HARQACK codebook to be transmitted on slot n (or PUCCH1), the HARQ-ACK codebook may include 3-bit HARQ-ACK information, wherein each 1-bit HARQ-ACK information corresponds to the decoding result of a PDSCH, as shown in FIG. 3.”); see also NFOA, at page 9, citing to the same paragraph of Wu, wherein it would be obvious to any person of ordinary skills in the art that PDSCH transmission may be with HARQ processes disabled or enabled. Therefore, this argument also fails to persuade.
Third, Applicant argues that “Fakoorian fails to teach or suggest that the PDSCH #1 and PDSCH #2 are scheduled by a disabled HARQ process and an enabled HARQ process” because [¶0111] of Fakoorian et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0239011 (hereinafter Fakoorian) cited in the NFOA, at page 12, states: “In slot n-1, a NACK will be included to correspond to unused PDSCH occasion 310, and an ACK/NACK will be included to correspond to the third repetition of downlink transmission 320,” and “the words "unused" and "disabled" are two different concepts. The word ‘unused’ means not using, while "disabled" refers to turning off the retransmission function. Therefore, paragraph [0111] of Fakoorian also fails to teach or suggest that the unused PDSCH occasion 310 and downlink transmission 320 are scheduled by a disabled HARQ process and an enabled HARQ process in the same slot. In fact, the specification of Fakoorian does not even mention the words "disabled" and "enabled."” – See Resp., 10:¶¶2-3. Setting aside the erroneous definition of “disabled” when referring to the state of a HARQ processes1, here, Applicant is impermissibly conflating an “unused PDSCH occasion,” as disclosed in Fakoorian, with a “disabled HARQ process for PDSCH,” as taught in Wu, because any person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate the distinction between a PDSCH occasion, on the one hand, i.e., a set of resource elements allocated for a scheduled PDSCH transmission2 whereby those resources may or may not be used for an actual transmission of the scheduled PDSCH (which actual transmission may be a retransmission if configured), or may remain unused; and, on the other hand, an indication received by the UE in the DCI scheduling a PDSCH transmission associated with a HARQ process which HARQ process may further be configured as disabled. To be sure, Applicant’s Arguments/Remarks filed on 10/14/2025 clarified, at page 10, that “the ‘one slot’ is not a slot in which the generated HARQ-ACK codebook is transmitted” but “a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is successfully detected in the "one slot"” i.e., the Applicant has already established that the “one slot” in Amended Claim 1 is the time-domain interval where a scheduled PDSCH is decoded, i.e., where an actual PDSCH transmission is detected (or not detected) by the UE. Therefore, the conclusion that “Fakoorian fails to teach or suggest the feature "allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot, wherein the HARQ processes comprise a plurality of disabled HARQ processes and at least one enabled HARQ process, the plurality of disabled HARQ processes and the at least one enabled HARQ process exist in the slot" of amended claim 1” is premised on Applicant’s confusion of “PDSCH transmission occasions” of a PDSCH scheduled in a slot with the HARQ process associated/protecting the scheduled PDSCH transmission occasions in that slot, therefore the argument against Farookian is a fallacy. In addition, Farookian was searched as possible prior art based on Applicant’s own explanation of how an examiner should interpret the “one slot” in Amended Claim 1, as given in Applicant’s Arguments/Remarks filed on 10/14/2025 with this Office3 : that more than one PDSCH transmission are scheduled in the “one slot,” at least one with having its associated HARQ process enabled and the rest having their respective associated HARQ processes disabled. Otherwise said, Applicant has advocated that the distinction from Wu and references used by other Patent Offices4 is with the multiple PDSCH transmissions in the “one slot,” because each individual PDSCH transmission having a HARQ process in an enabled status or in a disabled status is a feature well known in the art, fully disclosed in Wu and at least obvious to a person of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the present Application. The additional argument that “Fakoorian does not even mention the words "disabled" and "enabled"” is inappropriate when Wu already discloses the enabled/disable HARQ process feature and one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Finally, Applicant argues that “By contrast [with Wu and Fakoorian] the present application, as exemplified by the feature "allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot, a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is successfully detected in the slot" is fundamentally directed to dynamically managing the allocation and size of the physical feedback space itself” – See Resp., 12:¶3 (emphasis added). In response to applicant's argument it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies emphasized above are not recited in the rejected claims. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Here, Amended Claim 1 specifically requires “the feedback codebook is a Type-1 codebook” and the Specification discloses that “there is no association between information bits in the Type-1 codebook and the configuration mode of the HARQ processes used for scheduling the PDSCHs. Though the HARQ processes are configured to be disabled, the ACK information or the NACK information also needs to be fed back. Otherwise, the size of the codebook will change dynamically, which causes the Type-1 codebook to lose the robustness” – See [¶0039], whereby a person of ordinary skills in the art would know that Type-1 codebooks are “semi-static” – See, e.g., § 9.1.2, 3GPP TS 38.213 V16.2.0 (2020-06) “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.213) (specifying, at page 54-63, algorithms for Type-1 HARQ-ACK codebook determination which apply only “if the UE is configured with pdsch-HARQ-ACK-Codebook = semi-static”). Therefore, the feature “allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot, a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is successfully detected in the slot” has no teaching or suggestion or the slightest connection with the concept of “dynamically managing the allocation and size of the physical feedback space itself “ in the claimed codebook when the Specification itself acknowledges “there is no association between information bits in the Type-1 codebook and the configuration mode of the HARQ processes used for scheduling the PDSCHs” – See [¶0039] and any optimization of Type-1 codebook at least intimated in the Specification has to do with elimination of physical feedback space allocated to HARQ processes that are configured to be disabled and not with PDSCH scheduled with the HARQ process enabled – See, e.g., [¶0040] (“As shown in FIG. 3, in this embodiment, based on the Type-I codebook, the feedback spaces of the PDSCHs in the slot set whose HARQ processes with the configuration mode being the disabled configuration mode are eliminated”). Therefore, this last argument is nothing more than puffing with no persuasive power.
In sum, although examiner appreciates Applicant zealously advocating for distinguishing the claimed invention from Wu and Farookian, there is nothing added by the Amendment that would clearly point out the patentable novelty. In addition, deficiencies and contradictions in positioning the technical features of the claimed invention, as interpreted by a person of ordinary skills in the art, undermine the persuasiveness of arguments made. For these reasons, the §103 rejections are maintained.
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.
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 1-3, 5-6, 12-14, 16-17, and 23-24, as amended, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Wu, Patent Application Publication No. 20230231665 (hereinafter Wu) or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0239011 (hereinafter Fakoorian).
Regarding Amended Claim 1, Wu teaches feedback codebook generation method (a “manner of generating the codebook” – See [¶0197]; wherein the “HARQ-ACK codebook may be generated in multiple ways” – See [¶0214]), comprising:
determining a configuration mode of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) process, wherein the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises an enabled configuration mode and a disabled configuration mode (a “HARQ process can be configured to be enabled or disabled by configuring the HARQ process number as enabled or disabled state” – See [¶0089], whereby “the HARQ process corresponding to a disabled state includes at least one of the following situations:” – See [¶¶106-116] and “the HARQ process corresponding to an enabled state includes at least one of the following situations:” – See [¶¶0128-0137], and “the terminal device can detect the state of the HARQ process corresponding to the downlink transmission when generating the HARQ-ACK codebook”– See [¶0269]); and
generating a feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process, wherein the feedback codebook comprises feedback information corresponding to an enabled HARQ process (“generate an appropriate HARQ-ACK codebook according to the state of the HARQ process” – See [¶0269], whereby “the terminal device may also be configured by the network device that at least one HARQ process corresponds to an enabled state” – See [¶0096]),
wherein generating the feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises:
allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot (“[t]he network device schedules the terminal device to receive the PDSCH through the DCI, wherein the DCI includes indication information of an uplink feedback resource such as a PUCCH resource used to transmit the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the PDSCH” – See [¶0060] and “carrier aggregation scenario, the DCI may also include: . . . how many downlink transmissions are included in the HARQ feedback window up to the current DCI scheduling” – See [¶¶0068-69], e.g., “[a]s shown in FIG. 3, if . . .the DCI[s] schedule PDSCH1, . . . PDSCH2, . . . PDSCH3” – See [¶0071], i.e., here HARQ feedback window comprises 3 slots with one PDSCH transmission in each slot, and the allocated feedback spaces, i.e., “[t]he size K of the HARQ feedback bit group may be determined according to higher layer parameters” – See [¶0073], e.g., pdsch-HARQ-ACK-Codebook as known in the art5, for example “[w]hen the terminal device generates the HARQ-ACK codebook . . . the HARQ-ACK codebook may include 3-bit HARQ-ACK information, wherein each 1-bit HARQ-ACK information corresponds to the decoding result of a PDSCH, as shown in FIG. 3” – See [¶0077], i.e., feedback spaces are allocated to each of the PDSCHs scheduled by the respective HARQ processes; furthermore, a person of ordinary skills in the art would understand that PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 may be scheduled by DCI in the same time slot on different carriers/cells6, e.g., slot n-1 in Fig.3, whereby “for the network device, the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the downlink transmission may be received according to the DCI sent after the DCI for scheduling the downlink transmission” – See [¶0117])
wherein the HARQ processes comprise a plurality of disabled HARQ processes and at least one enabled HARQ process7 (“the network device may configure part or all of the downlink HARQ processes of the terminal device to an enabled state or a disabled state through the indication information in the DCI” – See [¶0095] and “the terminal device may also be configured by the network device that at least one HARQ process corresponds to an enabled state” – See [¶0096]);
the plurality of disabled HARQ processes and the at least one enabled HARQ process exist in the slot, and a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is successfully detected in the slot (a “first duration may also be determined according to the position of the uplink feedback resource corresponding to the downlink transmission” – See [¶0118], whereby, if at least one enabled HARQ process exists within the first time duration “[a]fter the terminal device receives the downlink transmission through the HARQ process, it cannot receive the downlink transmission scheduled by the HARQ process again within the first duration” – See [¶0135], i.e., to recycle HARQ processes fast, the first time duration must be a minimum number of slots from the corresponding PDSCH transmissions for which there are allocated feedback spaces in the HARQ-ACK feedback codebook8, e.g., the next slot after the “one slot” where PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 was received, i.e., K1=1 in Fig. 3; furthermore, because “on the terminal device side, the data received in the two transmissions may be independently decoded” – See [¶0125] “the terminal device does not know that the currently received downlink transport block is a retransmission of a previously transmitted downlink transport block when performing physical layer processing” and “will treat the received downlink transmission block as a new transmission, or in other words, the terminal device will not perform HARQ combination on the downlink transmission block” – See [¶0127], therefore, when one PDSCH is transmitted with an enabled HARQ process and all others with a disabled HARQ process, for the PDSCHs with disabled HARQ processes “the network device receives the NACK information corresponding to the downlink transmission block transmitted in the HARQ process” – See [¶0126] while for “the HARQ process corresponding to an enabled state” – See [¶0128] the network devices “expects to receive the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the downlink transmission sent by the terminal device” – See [¶0130], i.e., a ACK if PDSCH transmission was successfully detected, and NACK otherwise; therefore, if the a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is NOT successfully detected in the slot, the codebook for the “one slot” will contain only NACKs and the codebook wastes resources, therefore a better algorithm for a Type-1 codebook must be used; see also Fakoorian, infra); and
inserting feedback information corresponding to a respective HARQ process in the slot into the feedback spaces to obtain the feedback codebook (“the HARQ-ACK code book may include HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the physical channel transmitted by the HARQ process in the enabled state. Optionally, the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the physical channel transmitted by the HARQ process in the disabled state may be included” – See [¶0194]; see also Example 2-2, wherein “the position of the uplink feedback resource can be determined according the HARQ feedback timing indication information corresponding to the physical channel to be transmitted later,” i.e., slot n-1 in Fig. 8 – See [¶0252] and “[i]t is assumed that the HARQ-ACK information feedback on [one] serving cell of the terminal device is based on TB feedback, wherein the maximum number of TB included in one HARQ process is 1, or one HARQ process corresponds to 1 bit of HARQ-ACK information” – See [¶0253] and wherein it can be equally assumed that each of the PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 are received in slot n-1 albeit on different serving cells/carriers); and
wherein feedback information corresponding to disabled HARQ processes in the slot is negative acknowledgment (NACK) information and the feedback codebook is a Type-1 codebook (“the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the physical channel transmitted by the HARQ process in the disabled state may be included” – See [¶0194], e.g., “for a HARQ process corresponding to a disabled state, after receiving a downlink transmission such as a downlink transmission block through the HARQ process, . . . the network device receives the NACK information corresponding to the downlink transmission block transmitted in the HARQ process” – See [¶0126], resulting in a fixed size codebook wherein each one HARQ process corresponds to 1 bit of HARQ-ACK information, as in Example 2-2 supra, because “[w]hen the terminal device performs HARQ-ACK feedback, it includes semi-static codebook feedback,” i.e. a Type-1 codebook as known in the art – See, e.g., § 9.1.2, 3GPP TS 38.213 V16.2.0 (2020-06) “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.213) specifying, at page 54-63, algorithms for Type-1 HARQ-ACK codebook determination which apply “if the UE is configured with pdsch-HARQ-ACK-Codebook = semi-static” and specifically noting, at page 55, “a UE capability for a number of PDSCH receptions in a slot according to [6, TS 38.214]” (emphasis added)). Therefore, with the above interpretation of the time interval when scheduled PDSCH are received by the terminal device, Amended Claim 1 is anticipated by Wu.
However, in an interpretation where Wu does not explicitly teach that the claimed “one slot” (i.e., one time interval of receiving physical channels of one or more serving cells/carriers), may contain more than one PDSCHs, Fakoorian, like Wu, teaches a feedback codebook generation method (“generating a feedback codebook for reporting feedback for the one or more downlink transmissions” – See [¶0005] in a “wireless communication system 100 [that] may support communication with a UE 115 using carrier aggregation or multi-carrier operations” – See [¶0056] and Fig. 1, and “[p]hysical channels may be multiplexed on a carrier according to various techniques” including “frequency division multiplexing (FDM) techniques”– See [¶0065]) and specifically teaches Type-1 codebook (“FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a feedback configuration 200 that supports type-1 codebook construction” – See [¶0092]) transmitted “in a PUCCH or physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission in slot n+k” wherein “k may be a number of slots indicated by the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indicator (e.g., the offset reporting slot indicated by a K or K1 value) in a corresponding downlink control information (DCI) format, or provided by dl-DatatoUL-ACK if the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indicator field is not present in the DCI format” – See [¶0094]).
Fakoorian further teaches allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot (first “[t]he UEs 115 and the base stations 105 may wirelessly communicate with one another via one or more communication links 125 over one or more carriers” whereby “UE 115 may be configured with multiple downlink component carriers” – See [¶0056] and a “physical control channel and a physical data channel may be multiplexed on a downlink carrier,” i.e., 1 PDCCH and 1 PDSCH per carrier – See [¶0065], wherein “[o]ne or more numerologies for a carrier may be supported, where a numerology may include a subcarrier spacing (Δf)” – See [¶0061] and “Time intervals of a communications resource may be organized according to radio frames each having a specified duration (e.g., 10 milliseconds (ms)” – See [¶0062], “a frame may be divided ( e.g., in the time domain) into subframes, and each subframe may be further divided into a number of slots” and the number of slots and the number of symbols per slot “may depend on the subcarrier spacing or frequency band of operation” – See [¶0063], for example, “Slots 205 may be configured” with “a first downlink transmission 215 (e.g., PDSCH #1)” and “a second downlink transmission 220 (e.g., PDSCH #2)” on two separated carriers/cells9– See [¶0093] and Fig. 2, wherein PDSCH #1 and PDSCH #2 are actual PDSCH transmissions in the same slot 205-c, and there may be no repetitions configured in other slots because “NPDSCHrepeat may be assumed to be one” when no “value of the PDSCH aggregation or repetition factor (pdsch-AggregationFactor) . . . is provided or otherwise configured” to the UE – See [¶0094], and in case of multiple PDSCH occasions NPDSCHrepeat >1 and “the UE may generate the feedback codebook based on the last instance of each downlink transmission that was actually received and decoded” – See [¶0102]). It would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill sin the art that if the UE is configured with three downlink carriers, then three PDSCH transmissions can be scheduled and protected by three HARQ processes in the “one slot”.
Farookin teaches that “the UE may generate a feedback codebook for reporting feedback for the scheduled downlink transmissions that is populated based at least in part on . . . whether the scheduled downlink transmissions were successfully received and decoded by the UE” – See [¶0110], stating that “NPDSCHrepeat may always be considered as one and the ACK/NACK bit position for each PDSCH with repetitions may be tied with the last actual PDSCH reception” – See [¶0102], i.e., makes no distinction between a PDSCH transmission and a PDSCH transmission occasion.
Thus, Wu and Fakoorian each teaches feedback codebook generation method allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in one slot. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have understood that the Type-1 codebook encoding feedback method for multiple PDSCHs transmissions in one slot of a multi-carrier enabled UE, as taught by Fakoorian, could have been combined with the method of encoding a codebook for the plurality of disabled HARO processes and at least one enabled HARO process wherein at least one enabled HARQ process exists in the slot and a PDSCH scheduled by the at least one enabled HARQ process is successfully detected in the slot, as taught in Wu, because because both methods encode feedback information (e.g., 1 bit) for each PDSCH transmission whether the HARQ process associated with that transmission is enabled or disabled, i.e., for a Type-1 codebook as taught by Fakoorian, a NACK could be always transmitted for a disabled HARQ process as taught by Wu. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the combination through techniques known in the art. Finally, the combination achieves the predictable result of allowing sub-slot encoded codebooks to support ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) or mission critical communications where the UE is configured with carrier aggregation or multiple-carriers and also to dynamically manage the size of the Type-1 codebook by allowing the UE to consider PDSCH occasions configured to the UE by NPDSCHrepeat, as taught by Fakoorian.
In sum, Amended Claim 1 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Claim 2, dependent from Amended Claim 1, Wu further teaches receiving slot set information (“the NR system supports dynamic determination of the HARQ feedback timing . . . through the DCI” – See [¶0060]; whereby “HARQ feedback timing indicator information (e.g., PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indicator) [is] used to dynamically determine the time domain position of uplink feedback resources, such as the time slot of PUCCH resources used for HARQ feedback, usually represented by K1” – See [¶0063]; and “the HARQ feedback timing indication information is used to indicate the values in the HARQ feedback timing set” – See [¶0064]), wherein the slot set information comprises:
a slot comprised in each slot set (e.g., Slots sets n-3 to n in Fig. 3, whereby one PDSCH transmits 1 TB in one slot, i.e., a slot is comprised in each slot set, and “the HARQ feedback timing indication information Kl included in the above DCis all indicates that the feedback time unit is time slot n” – See [¶0071]; and when “the upper layer configures the PDSCH to transmit up to 2 TBs, then one HARQ feedback bit group includes K=2 HARQ-ACK feedback bits” still in slot n, corresponding to two slots in each one slot set for each one PDSCH transmission configured with HARQ process feedback – See [¶0074]), and
a configuration mode of a HARQ process corresponding to a respective slot set (“the network device may configure part or all of the downlink HARQ processes of the terminal device to an enabled state or a disabled state through the indication information in the DCI” – See [¶0095]; and [w]hen the terminal device generates the HARQACK codebook to be transmitted on slot n (or PUCCH1), the HARQ-ACK codebook may include 3-bit HARQ-ACK information, wherein each 1-bit HARQ-ACK information corresponds to the decoding result of a PDSCH, as shown in FIG. 3” – See [¶0077], wherein “[f]or the HARQ process corresponding to enable state . . . for a terminal device, feedback is required, and for a network device, it is expected to receive feedback from the terminal device” – See [¶¶0098-99] and “there are . . . three feedback methods for downlink transmission using a disabled HARQ process” – See [¶¶0156-59]).
Therefore, Claim 2 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Claim 3, dependent from Claim 2, Wu further teaches wherein the generating the feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises:
allocating feedback spaces to physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) scheduled by HARQ processes in each slot in a slot set whose HARQ processes are with the configuration mode being the enabled configuration mode (“the terminal device can determine information such as the HARQ-ACK feedback codebook corresponding to the downlink transmission, the PUCCH resource used to feed back the HARQ-ACK information, and the time slot for feeding back the HARQ-ACK information” See [¶0070]; wherein if “one PDSCH can transmit at most two transport block TBs, . . . one TB corresponds to 1 bit of HARQ-ACK feedback information” – See [¶0072]; “then one HARQ feedback bit group includes K=2 HARQ-ACK feedback bits” – See [¶0074]; and the HARQ-ACK feedback bits are allocated in Slot n because when “the HARQ process corresponding to enable state . . . for a terminal device, feedback is required, and for a network device, it is expected to receive feedback from the terminal device” – See [¶¶0098-99]); and
inserting feedback information corresponding to a respective HARQ process in each slot into the feedback spaces to obtain the feedback codebook (“[a]fter the terminal device receives the PDSCH, the decoding result of the PDSCH (Acknowledge (ACK) information or Negative Acknowledge, NACK) information) fed back to the network device through the PUCCH resource”– See [¶0060] and “the terminal device generates the HARQ-ACK codebook to be transmitted on slot n (or PUCCH1), the HARQ-ACK codebook may include [up to] 3-bit HARQ-ACK information, wherein each 1-bit HARQ-ACK information corresponds to the decoding result of a PDSCH, as shown in FIG. 3” – See [¶0077], e.g., the HARQ codebook in Example 3-2 of Embodiment 3 contains one bit, corresponding to the enabled HARQ process, and does not contain feedback for PDSCH with HARQ process feedback disabled – See [¶¶0259-61] and Fig. 9).
Therefore, Claim 3 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Claim 5, dependent from Amended Claim 1, Wu further teaches wherein the feedback codebook does not comprise feedback information corresponding to HARQ processes in a slot whose all HARQ processes are with the configuration mode being the disabled configuration mode (e.g., in Fig. 3, when PDSCH1 process in slot n-3 is HARQ disabled, the “HARQ-ACK codebook does not include any information related to the first HARQ-ACK feedback bit corresponding to the first physical channel, that is, the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the first physical channel occupies no position in the first HARQ-ACK codebook” – See [¶0159], feedback mode 3; see also [¶¶0259-61] (disclosing Example 3-2 of Embodiment 3, wherein the unified codebook does not contain feedback for PDSCH with HARQ process feedback disabled).
Therefore, Claim 5 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Claim 6, dependent from Amended Claim 1, Wu further teaches wherein generating the feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises:
allocating a feedback space to a PDSCH scheduled by each enabled HARQ process (e.g., “One TB or one CBG corresponds to 1 bit of HARQ-ACK feedback information, therefore, one PDSCH can correspond to one HARQ feedback bit group” – See [¶0072] and the 1 bit of HARQ-ACK feedback is calculated only when the corresponding PDSCH is HARQ enabled), and
allocating no feedback space to a PDSCH scheduled by a disabled HARQ process (e.g., Example 3-2 of Embodiment 3, explained in Regarding Claims 3 and 5, supra); and
inserting feedback information corresponding to a respective enabled HARQ process into the feedback space to obtain the feedback codebook (e.g., Example 3-2 of Embodiment 3, wherein the unified codebook contains only feedback for PDSCH with HARQ process feedback enabled and no space allocated for PDSCH scheduled by a disabled HARQ process – See [¶¶0259-61] and Fig. 9).
Therefore Claim 6 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian
Regarding Amended Claim 12, Wu teaches a feedback codebook receiving method, comprising:
configuring a configuration mode of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) process wherein the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises an enabled configuration mode and a disabled configuration mode (“the network device may configure part or all of the downlink HARQ processes of the terminal device to an enabled state or a disabled state through the indication information in the DCI” – See [¶0095]; wherein “HARQ process can be configured to be enabled or disabled by configuring the HARQ process number as enabled or disabled state” – See [¶0089]); and
receiving a feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process (“the terminal device can detect the state of the HARQ process corresponding to the downlink transmission when generating the HARQ-ACK codebook, and further generate an appropriate HARQ-ACK codebook according to the state of the HARQ process, thereby avoiding the ambiguous understanding of the HARQ-ACK feedback codebook between the network device and the terminal device” – See [¶0269]),
wherein the feedback codebook has the same features and limitations as those recited in Amended Claim 1 using the same language.
Because Amended Claim 1 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian, Amended Claim 12 is also anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Claims 13 -14, and 16-17, dependent from Amended Claim 12, they merely recite the same limitations as required by Claims 2-3, and 5-6, respectively, recited with the same language, only from the perspective of receiving the generated codebook. Because Claims 2-3, and 5-6 and Amended Claim 12 are each anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian, each of the Claims 13-14 and 16-17 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Regarding Amended Claim 23, Wu teaches a communication node comprising a memory, a processor (e.g., communication device 600 in Fig. 13; and “the communication device 600 may specifically be the mobile terminal/terminal device of the embodiment of the present application” – See [¶0415]), and a computer program which is stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor (“[t]he steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be . . . implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software module can be located in a mature storage medium in the field such as random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory or electrically erasable programmable memory, and register. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory, and completes the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware” – See [¶0424]),
wherein the processor, when executing the computer program, implements a feedback codebook generation method (“processing unit 520, configured to generate a first HARQ-ACK codebook according to the state of [a] HARQ process” – See [¶0367]) wherein the feedback codebook generation method comprises: executing the steps of Amended Claim 1. Because Amended Claim 1 is anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian, Amended Claim 23 is also anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative, obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
In sum, Claims 1-3, 5-6, 12-14, 16-17, and 23-24, as amended, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Wu or, in the alternative under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian.
Claims 9-10 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Wu in view of Fakoorian as applied to Amended Claim 1 and 12 above, and further in view of of 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #102-E, R1-2007311:6, Title:”Summary#3 of AI 8.4.3 for HARQ in NTN,” Source: Moderator (ZTE), August 2020 (hereinafter 3GPP R1-2007311) and the documents included by reference in 3GPP R1-2007311.
Regarding Claim 9, dependent from Amended Claim 1, although both Wu and Fakoorian teach generating the Type-1/semi-static codebook based on UE feedback on the multiple scheduled PDSCH transmissions with HARQ processes in the enabled state, Wu in view of Fakoorian does not teach the method further comprising receiving process group information comprising enabled HARQ processes comprised in each group .
However, § 3.1, 3GPP R1-2007311: 6-10 discloses proposals for receiving process group information comprising enabled HARQ processes comprised in each group; and receiving downlink control information (DCI), wherein the DCI is used for indicating a group which needs to report feedback information (considering grouping by enabled HARQ processes, “two set of HARQ process can be constructed with enabling and disabling the HARQ feedback, respectively [MTK],” wherein [MKT] references 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #102e, R1-2005497:3, Title: “HARQ in NR-NTN,” Source: Media Tek, August 2020 (hereinafter 3GPP R1-2005497) proposing that “the network configures 2 HARQ process pools as illustrated in Figure 1,” whereby “Pool#1 has 8 HARQ process 0, 1, .., 7 with UL HARQ feedback enabled and Pool#2 has 8 HARQ processes 8, 9, .., 15 with UL HARQ feedback disabled” and “[o]n reception of the DCI, the UE can check whether the HARQ process ID is in HARQ Pool#1 or #2” – See §2.4, 3GPP R1-2005497:3-4; see also “But from [OPPO, Apple]’s view, either RRC configured or L1 signaling based enabling/disabling for each HARQ process can be considered” 3GPP R1-2007311:6, referencing 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #102e, R1-2006031, Title: “Discussion on HARQ enhancement,” Source: OPPO, November 2020, (hereinafter 3GPP R1-2006031) wherein an increased number of HARQ processes is proposed and multiple HARQ processes are grouped by time period as shown in Fig. 3, whereby “the RTT is divided into 4 periods, each period is allocated with an index, e.g., from 00 to 11, so 3-bit HARQ PN field in the DCI is required. The HARQ process number can be derived by the 2-bit period index and the 3-bit HARQ PN field in the DCI” so that “if UE is scheduled transmission in the first period with the HARQ PN field indicating ‘101’, the UE can determine the scheduled HARQ process number is 5 (‘00101’). If UE is scheduled transmission in the third period with the HARQ PN field indicating ‘101’, the UE can determine the scheduled HARQ process number is 21 (‘10101’)” – See § 2.3, 3GPP R1-2006031: 2-3, thereby allowing for each group to contain enabled HARQ processes).
Therefore, Claim 9 is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian, and further in view of 3GPP R1-2007311.
Regarding Claim 10, dependent from Claim 9, Wu in view of Fakoorian further teaches the method according to claim 9, wherein generating the feedback codebook according to the configuration mode of the HARQ process comprises:
allocating a feedback space to each HARQ process in the group which needs to report the feedback information; and inserting feedback information corresponding to a respective HARQ process into the feedback space to obtain the feedback codebook (feedback method 2 of WU teaches that “when the terminal device receives the first physical channel transmitted by the first HARQ process in the disabled state, and receives the second physical channel transmitted by the second HARQ process in the enabled state” – See [¶0191] “the HARQ-ACK codebook may include HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the physical channel transmitted by the HARQ process in the enabled state” and only “[o]ptionally, the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the physical channel transmitted by the HARQ process in the disabled state may be included” – See [¶0194], e.g., “HARQ-ACK codebook includes occupancy information of the HARQ-ACK feedback bit corresponding to” the slots with a HARQ process disabled, whereby the codebook uses “uses NACK as an example to describe the occupancy information” – See [¶0158])
whereby HARQ processes may be grouped as described in Regarding Claim 9, supra, and “the UE may generate a type-1 feedback codebook based on the SPS configuration provided by the base station” – See Fakoorian:[¶0104] whereby “a NACK will be included to correspond to unused PDSCH occasion 310” only if a HARQ-enabled process is scheduled in the same slot, and “an ACK/NACK will be included to correspond to” the HARQ-enabled process in the group – See [¶0111], and the SPS configuration may contain the 4 periods scheduled by DCI and described in 3GPP R1-2007311, supra.
Therefore, Claim 10 is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian, and further in view of 3GPP R1-2007311.
Regarding Claims 20-21, dependent from Amended Claim 12, each claim only recites the limitations required by Claims 9-10, respectively, only from the perspective of the network device method disclosed in Amended Claim 12. Because each of Claims 9-10 and 12, as amended, is obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian and further in view of 3GPP R1-2007311, Claims 20-21 are also obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian and further in view of 3GPP R1-2007311.
In sum, Claims 9-10 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being obvious over Wu in view of Fakoorian and further in view of 3GPP R1-2007311.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Fakoorian et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20210314033, disclosing Type-1 codebook;
Lei et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20250055604, disclosing process group information wherein the process group information comprises: enabled HARQ processes comprised in each group;
Muruganathan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0376844 disclosing Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) codebook construction with enabling or disabling of HARQ Acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback per HARQ process;
Ye et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20240023135 discloses methods, devices and computer readable storage media for HARQ-ACK codebook handling wherein each HARQ feedback configuration indicates whether HARQ feedback is enabled or disabled for a corresponding HARQ process;
Peng et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20230283441 discloses method and apparatus for HARQ feedback codebook whereby the base station sends control information, where the control information includes time unit aggregation information and DAI indication information, and the DAI indication information includes at least one type of T-DAI indication information and C-DAI indication information;
Nam et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20200228174 discloses methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses that support enhanced feedback with a dynamic codebook wherein when generating the HARQ-ACK codebook, the UE may determine a codebook size based on a number of the information bits included within the HARQ-ACK codebook;
3GPP TS 38.213 V16.2.0 (2020-06) “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 16)”;
3GPP TS 38.214 V16.3.0 (2020-09), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for data (Release 16),” disclosing PDSCH repetitions and reasons for cancellations of PDSCH transmissions in some PDSCH occasions/slots;
3GPP TS 38.321 V16.1.0 (2020-07),” Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification (Release 16)”;
3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #102-e, R1-2006465, Title: "On HARQ enhancements for NTN," Source: Ericsson, August 2020;
3GPP TS 38.331 v16.2.0 (2020-09), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification (Release 16)”;
3GPP TS 38.211 V16.2.0 (2020-06), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical channels and modulation (Release 16)”;
3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #102e, R1-2005827, Title:” Text proposals for HARQ enhancement for NR-U,” Source: Lenovo, Motorola Mobility, August 2020;
3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #102e, R1-2007311, Title: “Summary#3 of AI 8.4.3 for HARQ in NTN,” Source: Huawei, August 2020.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/L.G.G./ Examiner, Art Unit 2478
/JOSEPH E AVELLINO/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2478
1 “For the downlink HARQ process configured to be disabled, the network device can reuse the HARQ process for data transmission without receiving the corresponding HARQ-ACK information fed back by the terminal device for the TB transmitted” – See Wu:[¶0080]; see also §5.3.2, 3GPP TS 38.321 V16.1.0 (2020-07),” Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.321).
2 See, e.g., 3GPP TS 38.214 V16.3.0 (2020-09), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for data (Release 16),” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.214) specifying, in § 5.1.2.3, at page 21-23, physical resource block for PDSCH, stating that “each PDSCH transmission occasion shall follow the Clause 7.3.1 of [4, TS 38.211] with the mapping to resource elements determined by the assigned PRBs for corresponding TCI state of the PDSCH transmission occasion,” and in § 5.1.2.1, explaining configuration of PDSCH transmission occasions, specifically their time-domain resource allocation, i.e., concerning symbols and slots, based on “the higher layer parameter RepetitionScheme-r16” setting, whereby the RepetitionScheme is configured by RRC to the UE – See, e.g., 3GPP TS 38.331 v16.2.0 (2020-09), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.331), specifying at page 496, the PDSCH-Config information element containing repetitionSchemeConfig to “Configure the UE with repetition schemes,” and at page 503-504, the PDSCH-TimeDomainResourceAllocationList containing the repetitionNumber parameter that “Indicates the number of PDSCH transmission occasions for slot-based repetition scheme in IE RepetitionSchemeConfig” further specified at page 568.; see also §§ 4.3 &4.4, 3GPP TS 38.211 V16.2.0 (2020-06), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical channels and modulation (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.211) explaining the frame, slot, symbol, and resource element structure in OFDM transmissions well known in the art, and further, § 7.3.1, specifying symbol level resource allocation for PDSCH transmission occasion.
3 Applicant makes the same assertion in responding to actions from the Korean and Japanese Patent Offices, see, e.g., Applicant’s Response to Korean Intellectual Property Office files on 04/02/2026, stating, at page “the enabled harq process and the disable harq process are present together in the same one slot” when the reference used in the Offiec action shows only one PDSCH with “disable harq process exists in the slot (n-3)” and only one PDSCH with “enabled harq process exists in the slot (n-1)” and other slots, i.e., Applicant contends that the novelty in the present Application is that two PDSCHs may be scheduled in one slot, one with HARQ process enabled and one with HARQ process disabled.
4See, e.g., 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #102-e, R1-2006465, Title: "On HARQ enhancements for NTN," Source: Ericsson, August 2020; cited also in the NFOA; see also 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #102-e, Title: “Discussion on HARQ enhancement for NTN,” Source: Huawei, HiSilicon, August 2020.
5 See, e.g., 3GPP TS 38.331 v16.2.0 (2020-09), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification (Release 17)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.331), disclosing, at page 510, pdsch-HARQ-ACK-Codebook and pdsch-HARQ-ACK-CodebookList parameters of the PhysicalCellGroupConfig Information Element “used to configure cell-group specific L1 parameters,” indicating whether “PDSCH HARQ-ACK codebook is either semi-static or dynamic. This is applicable to both CA and none CA operation (see TS 38.213 [13], clauses 9.1.2 and 9.1.3)” and there may be “at least two simultaneously constructed HARQ-ACK codebooks. Each configuration in the list is defined in the same way as pdsch-HARQ-ACK-Codebook (see TS 38.212 [17], clause 7.3.1.2.2 and TS 38.213 [13], clauses 7.2.1, 9.1.2, 9.1.3 and 9.2.1)”.
6 See, e.g., § 5.4.2.1, 3GPP TS 38.321 V16.1.0 (2020-07),” Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification (Release 16)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.321) disclosing, at page 43, that “The MAC entity includes a HARQ entity for each Serving Cell with configured uplink . . . which maintains a number of parallel HARQ processes.”
7 Wu explains that disabling a majority of HARQ processes for PDSCH transmissions is useful in NTN where the RTT of signal transmission is very large but the number HARQ protected transmissions is limited by the maximum number of HARQ processes that can be used at once, e.g., 8 or 16 – See [¶0080] (“For the downlink HARQ process configured to be disabled, the network device can reuse the HARQ process for data transmission without receiving the corresponding HARQ-ACK information fed back by the terminal device for the TB transmitted in the HARQ process. Therefore, the network device can use the disabled HARQ process to schedule multiple data packets for the terminal device, thereby reducing the impact of the RTT”)
8 See, e.g., § 9.2.3, 3GPP TS 38.213 infra, explaining, at page 81, the UE procedure for reporting HARQ-ACK, stating that “the PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator field values map to {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8} [slots]” or “a set of number of slots provided by dl-DataToUL-ACK, or dl-DataToUL-ACKForDCIFormat1_2” depending on the DCI received by the UE, e.g., “the UE provides corresponding HARQ-ACK information in a PUCCH transmission within slot
n
+
k
, where
k
is a number of slots and is indicated by the PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator field in the DCI format, if present, or provided by dl-DataToUL-ACK, or by dl-DataToUL-ACKForDCIFormat1_2 for DCI format 1_2.
k
=
0
corresponds to the last slot of the PUCCH transmission that overlaps with the PDSCH reception.”
9 Fakoorian even teaches that “a device may support same-slot HARQ feedback, where the device may provide HARQ feedback in a specific slot for data received in a previous symbol in the slot” – See [¶0089]
Prosecution Insights