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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 15, 16, 18 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 § 112
Claims 15, 16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 15 recites the limitation "the PUCCH" in line 26. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. There is similar problem with claim 16.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 15, 16 provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 21-23 of copending Application No. 18019480 in view of LEE et al. (US 20220191882) and GAO et al. (US 20220369347 with foreign app. CN 201910731339.1 filed on 08/08/2019).
Regarding claims 15, 16, the copending Application No. 18019480 teaches
A user equipment (UE) (claim 21), comprising:
a processor configured to:
determine a higher priority physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource for multiplexing uplink control information (UCI) with different priorities on a PUCCH (claim 21), wherein: the UCI with different priorities comprises first UCI with a high priority and second UCI with a low priority (claim 21),
encode the UCI with different priorities by separately encoding the first UCI and the second UCI based on a first maximum code rate for the first UCI and a second maximum code rate for the second UCI, respectively (claim 21), wherein the first maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate are separately configured for the higher priority PUCCH resource (claim 21), and
multiplex the encoded UCI with different priorities on the determined higher priority PUCCH resource (claim 21); and
transmitting circuitry configured to transmit the multiplexed UCI with different priorities on the PUCCH (claim 21).
However, the copending Application No. 18019480 does not explicitly teach wherein the higher priority PUCCH resource is selected from higher priority PUCCH resources based on a payload size of the first UCI and a payload size of the second UCI;
But, LEE et al. (US 20220191882) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the higher priority PUCCH resource is selected from higher priority PUCCH resources based on a payload size of the first UCI and a payload size of the second UCI (par. 287, 288, 294, the range of the payload associated with the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element may be configured differently based on the priority of the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element);
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of the copending Application No. 18019480 to multiplex on to the higher priority PUCCH.
The motivation would have been to improve efficiently communicating with high density nodes or high density UEs is required (LEE par. 5).
However, the copending Application No. 18019480 does not teach the first UCI is a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements (HARQ-ACK) with or without a Scheduling Request (SR), and the second UCI is a HARQ-ACK without an SR.
But, GAO et al. (US 20220369347) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches the first UCI is a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements (HARQ-ACK) with a Scheduling Request (SR) (par. 57, 58, 60, the first UCIs include… only HARQ-ACK, or HARQ-ACK+SR), and the second UCI is a HARQ-ACK without an SR (par. 57, 58, 60, The second UCI includes at least one of…HARQ-ACK; HARQ-ACK without an SR).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GAO in the system of the copending Application No. 18019480 and LEE to multiplex HARQ-ACK with SR and HARQ-ACK without SR.
The motivation would have been to improve transmission delay and transmission performance.
Claim 18 provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 21-23 of copending Application No. 18019480 in view of LEE et al. (US 20220191882), GAO et al. (US 20220369347 with foreign app. CN 201910731339.1 filed on 08/08/2019), and GUO et al. (US 20170324519, herein as GUO ‘519).
Regarding claim 18, the copending Application No. 18019480 teaches the UE according to claim 15, wherein each of the first maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate (claim 21).
However, the copending Application No. 18019480 does not teach wherein the maximum code rate is configured to be at most 0.8.
But, GUO et al. (US 20170324519) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the maximum code rate is configured to be at most 0.8 (par. 148, a predefined coding rate threshold of 0.8 may be set for decoding of redundancy version packet RV3 478 alone).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GUO ‘519 in the system of the copending Application No. 18019480, LEE, and GAO to define maximum coding rate.
The motivation would have been to encode with no or few residual block errors exist in the recovered information bits.
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 15, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOU et al. (US 20230077055, herein as GOU ‘055) in view of ISLAM et al. (provisional app. 63019059 filed on 05/01/2020 claimed priority by US 20210250134), LEE et al. (US 20220191882), and GAO et al. (US 20220369347 with foreign app. CN 201910731339.1 filed on 08/08/2019).
Regarding claims 15, 16, GOU et al. (US 20230077055) teaches
A user equipment (UE) (par. 6, UE), comprising:
a processor (par. 6, UE) configured to:
determine a higher priority physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource for multiplexing uplink control information (UCI) with different priorities on a PUCCH (par. 50, 57, which satisfies that the finally used PUCCH resource is the PUCCH resource having the higher priority…If the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are multiplexed and transmitted in one PUCCH resource… then the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently, and encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is mapped into the PUCCH resource first and then encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is mapped into remaining resources in the PUCCH resource), wherein: the UCI with different priorities comprises first UCI with a high priority and second UCI with a low priority (par. 57, If the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are multiplexed and transmitted in one PUCCH resource… then the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently, and encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is mapped into the PUCCH resource first and then encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is mapped into remaining resources in the PUCCH resource),
the PUCCH resource is selected based on a payload size of one of the HARQ-ACKs (par. 47, 49, 57, 58, the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently, and encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is mapped into the PUCCH resource first and then encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is mapped into remaining resources in the PUCCH resource; the complete payload size of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority and the payload size of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is less or equal to the remain resource in the PUCCH resource), the first UCI is a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements (HARQ-ACK) with a higher priority, and the second UCI is a HARQ-ACK with lower priority (par. 57, If the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are multiplexed and transmitted in one PUCCH resource… then the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently, and encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is mapped into the PUCCH resource first and then encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is mapped into remaining resources in the PUCCH resource),
encode the UCI with different priority by separately encoding the first UCI and the second UCI based on a first maximum code rate for the first UCI (par. 57, 58, then the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently…if the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is encoded and modulated at a configured maximum bit rate r, and the encoded and modulated information requires more resources than the remaining resources, then HARQ-ACK codebook information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is discarded until the information encoded and modulated at the configured maximum bit rate r is exactly used all the remaining resources; the complete payload size of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority and the payload size of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is less or equal to the remain resource in the PUCCH resource; if all the information encoded and modulated at the configured bit rate r cannot be carried in the remaining resources, the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is encoded and modulated at a bit rate r1 and it is ensured that the encoded and modulated information exactly occupies all the remaining resources and implicitly indicating the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is encoded and modulated at a bit rate that occupies resources with the payload size of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority), and
multiplex the encoded UCI with different priority (par. 57, If the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are multiplexed and transmitted in one PUCCH resource… then the two HARQ-ACK codebooks are encoded and modulated independently, and encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the higher priority is mapped into the PUCCH resource first and then encoded and modulated information of the HARQ-ACK codebook having the lower priority is mapped into remaining resources in the PUCCH resource); and
transmitting circuitry configured to transmit the multiplexed UCI with different priority on the PUCCH (par. 28, 30, 57, 58, the pieces of information to be transmitted is multiplexed in one PUCCH resource for transmission).
However, GUO ‘055 does not explicitly teach the PUCCH resource is determined based on a payload size of the first UCI and a payload size of the second UCI,
separately encoding the first UCI and the second UCI based on a first maximum code rate for the first UCI and a second maximum code rate for the second UCI, respectively, wherein the first maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate are separately configured.
But, ISLAM in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches the PUCCH resource is determined based on a payload size of the first UCI and a payload size of the second UCI (page 29, the third PUCCH resource is obtained based on a configuration of a codebook of the first and second codebook that can have a varying payload size of HARQ-ACK bits),
encode the UCI with different priority by separately encoding the first UCI and the second UCI based on a first maximum code rate for the first UCI and a second maximum code rate for the second UCI, respectively (pages 8, 9, 10, Low and high priority HARQ-ACK bits are encoded separately and mapped to different resources in a PUCCH transmission….two maximum code rates can be configured for use in mapping low and high priority HARQ-ACK bits separately,), wherein the first maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate are separately configured (fig. 2, page 9, 10, two maximum code rates can be configured for use in mapping low and high priority HARQ-ACK bits separately,).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by ISLAM in the system of GUO ‘055 to multiplex HARQ-ACKs.
The motivation would have been to increase throughput, coverage, and robustness and reduce latency.
However, GUO ‘055 does not explicitly teach the higher priority PUCCH resource is selected from higher priority PUCCH resources; Wherein the maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate are separately configured for the higher priority PUCCH resource; Multiplex the encoded UCI on the determined higher priority PUCCH resource;
But, LEE et al. (US 20220191882) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches determine a higher priority PUCCH resource (par. 287, 288, the range of the payload associated with the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element may be configured differently based on the priority of the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element); the higher priority PUCCH resource is selected from higher priority PUCCH resources based on a payload size of the first UCI and a payload size of the second UCI (par. 287, 288, 294, the range of the payload associated with the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element may be configured differently based on the priority of the PUCCH resource set configured for each channel-related element);
Wherein the maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate are separately configured for the higher priority PUCCH resource (par. 277, 286, when a separate independent PUCCH resource (or resource set) is configured/operated for different channel-related elements, a maximum coding rate for UCI may be set for each PUCCH resource (set)/PUCCH format configured for each channel-related element);
Multiplex the encoded UCI on the determined higher priority PUCCH resource (par. 293, 294, multiplex on the priority PUCCH resource);
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of GUO ‘055 and ISLAM to multiplex on to the higher priority PUCCH.
The motivation would have been to improve efficiently communicating with high density nodes or high density UEs is required (LEE par. 5).
However, GUO ‘055 does not teach the first UCI is a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements (HARQ-ACK) with or without a Scheduling Request (SR), and the second UCI is a HARQ-ACK without an SR.
But, GAO et al. (US 20220369347) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches the first UCI is a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements (HARQ-ACK) with a Scheduling Request (SR) (par. 57, 58, 60, the first UCIs include… only HARQ-ACK, or HARQ-ACK+SR), and the second UCI is a HARQ-ACK without an SR (par. 57, 58, 60, The second UCI includes at least one of…HARQ-ACK; HARQ-ACK without an SR).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GAO in the system of GUO ‘055, ISLAM, and LEE to multiplex HARQ-ACK with SR and HARQ-ACK without SR.
The motivation would have been to improve transmission delay and transmission performance.
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOU et al. (US 20230077055, herein as GOU ‘055), ISLAM et al. (provisional app. 63019059 filed on 05/01/2020 claimed priority by US 20210250134), LEE et al. (US 20220191882), and GAO et al. (US 20220369347 with foreign app. CN 201910731339.1 filed on 08/08/2019) as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of GUO et al. (US 20170324519, herein as GUO ‘519).
Regarding claim 18, ISLAM teaches the UE according to claim 15, wherein each of the first maximum code rate and the second maximum code rate is configured to be at most r (pages 8, 9, 10, Low and high priority HARQ-ACK bits are encoded separately and mapped to different resources in a PUCCH transmission….two maximum code rates can be configured for use in mapping low and high priority HARQ-ACK bits separately,).
However, GUO ‘055 does not teach wherein the maximum code rate is configured to be at most 0.8.
But, GUO et al. (US 20170324519) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the maximum code rate is configured to be at most 0.8 (par. 148, a predefined coding rate threshold of 0.8 may be set for decoding of redundancy version packet RV3 478 alone).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GUO ‘519 in the system of GUO ‘055 and ISLAM, LEE, and GAO to define maximum coding rate.
The motivation would have been to encode with no or few residual block errors exist in the recovered information bits.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 08/06/2026
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