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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/31/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but are believed to be moot, in view of the new grounds of rejection below, citing the new reference MURUGANATHAN.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 12-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0296715 A1 to Wang et al., in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2024/0015732 A1 to Muruganathan et al.
As to claim 18, Wang discloses A communication system comprising;a terminal; anda base station; wherein the terminal comprising a transmitter [that] transmits uplink control information on an uplink shared channel multiplexed with the uplink control information (Figs. 6-8: BS 810 and UE 820; paragraphs 127-133); and
a processor that multiplies a number of bits of the uplink control information by a factor in a process of processing the uplink control information (paragraphs 99-100, “resources used for a second UCI of a priority lower than that of the first UCI [“the uplink control information”] in PUSCH are pre-empted to provide additional bits for the first UCI at the user equipment in accordance with the UCI multiplexing rule”, teaching that the initial number of bits of the first UCI, i.e., “the ul control information” are increased to include the additional bits vacated by preempting the “second UCI”, meaning that the initial number of bits of the first UCI are “multiplie[d]” by a factor, teaching this limitation), and
the base station comprising a receiver [that] receives the uplink control information on the uplink shared channel multiplexed with the uplink control information (Figs. 6-8: BS 810 and UE 820; paragraphs 127-133); and
a processor that multiplies a number of bits of the uplink control information by a factor in a process of processing the uplink control information (paragraphs 99-100, “resources used for a second UCI of a priority lower than that of the first UCI [“the uplink control information”] in PUSCH are pre-empted to provide additional bits for the first UCI at the user equipment in accordance with the UCI multiplexing rule”, teaching that the initial number of bits of the first UCI, i.e., “the ul control information” are increased to include the additional bits vacated by preempting the “second UCI”, meaning that the initial number of bits of the first UCI are “multiplie[d]” by a factor, teaching this limitation; Fig. 8, paragraphs 127-132: “ST104, the BS 810 decodes UCI bits in accordance with a UCI MUXing rule which indicates how to process UCI bits to be transmitted”),
wherein the processor of the terminal applies the factor corresponding to a combination of a priority of the uplink control information (paragraphs 99-100, “resources used for a second UCI of a priority lower than that of the first UCI [“the uplink control information”, thus the priority of this “first UCI” teaching “a priority of the ul control information”] in PUSCH are pre-empted to provide additional bits for the first UCI at the user equipment in accordance with the UCI multiplexing rule”, thus teaching that the decision to increase/multiply the number of bits of the first UCI [the recited “the UCI”] depends on the priority of this first UCI, teaching this limitation).
Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose multiplies a number of bits of a first data unit by a coefficient in a rate matching of the first data unit; a combination of a priority of the UCI and a priority of the UL shared channel.
Muruganathan discloses multiplies a number of bits of a first data unit by a coefficient in a rate matching of the first data unit (paragraphs 248-250, 275-277, 290, all teaching “rate matching” by “repetition”, where “many coded bits appear twice in this case due to the low code rate” and where “every coded bit [may] appear twice after rate matching”, teaching this limitation to a PHOSITA, where the repetition coding in the case above would involve a coefficient of 2; further note that it is common knowledge that “repetition” type coding involves a “coefficient” that is in essence how many times the bits/data is repeated, thus further teaching the recited “coefficient”);
Indication of a combination of a priority of the UCI and a priority of the UL shared channel (paragraphs 177-185, disclosing “Both A-CSI [the recited “UCI”] and PUSCH [the recited “UL shared channel”] can be assigned a physical-layer priority (aka, PHY priority). Typically, two levels of PHY priorities are supported, namely, high priority and low priority”, teaching “a priority of the UCI and a priority of the UL shared channel”; further teaching in paragraphs 180-183 that a PUSCh carrying A-CsI only is “low priority”, teaching this limitation).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art that Muruganathan’s teachings may be combinable with Wang’s teachings to reject this claim. In particular, in Wang’s teaching of “a processor that multiplies a number of bits of the uplink control information by a factor in a process of processing the uplink control information”, the process of processing UCI can be embodied by Muruganathan’s teaching of “multiplies a number of bits of a first data unit by a coefficient in a rate matching of the first data unit” as applied to the UCI disclosed in Wang since the “first data unit” of Muruganathan may correspond to Wang’s UCI, and further since Wang’s “factor” closely corresponds to Muruganathan’s “coefficient”, to reject “a processor that multiplies a number of bits of the uplink control information by a coefficient in a rate matching of the uplink control information” in the terminal, and similarly for “a processor that indicates to multiply the number of bits of the uplink control information by the coefficient in the rate matching of the uplink control information” in the base station.
Furthermore, Wang’s teaching of “wherein the processor of the terminal applies the factor corresponding to a combination of a priority of the uplink control information” and Muruganathan’s teaching of “coefficient” and “indication of a combination of a priority of the UCI and a priority of the UL shared channel”, are combinable to reject “wherein the processor of the terminal applies the coefficient corresponding to a combination of a priority of the uplink control information and a priority of the uplink shared channel”, in view of the close correspondence between Wang’s “factor” and Muruganathan’s “coefficient”, and the fact that the indicated combination/priority in Muruganathan involves both the UCI and the PUSCH, thus connecting this combination/priority with the UCI priority disclosed in Wang. This is further because the cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures featuring cqi/csi/UCI feedback mechanisms. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling therefor for communication status and quality feedback methods in wireless communication systems. (Muruganathan, paragraphs 68-93; Wang, paragraphs 1-9). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
As to claims 12,17,19, see rejection for claim 18.
AS to claim 13, Wang and Muruganathan teach the method as in the parent claim 12.
Wang further discloses
the processor applies the coefficient corresponding to the combination of the uplink control information having a first priority and the uplink shared channel having a second priority higher than the first priority. (paragraphs 99-100, “resources used for a second UCI [the recited “uplink control information” for this claim] of a priority lower than that of the first UCI [“the uplink shared channel” in for this claim”] in PUSCH are pre-empted to provide additional bits for the first UCI at the user equipment in accordance with the UCI multiplexing rule”, wherein the process/coefficient for this case would be 0/zero)
AS to claim 14, Wang and Muruganathan teach the method as in the parent claim 12.
Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the processor applies the coefficient corresponding to the combination of the uplink control information having a first priority and the uplink shared channel having a second priority lower than the first priority.
Muruganathan discloses wherein the processor applies the coefficient corresponding to the combination of the uplink control information having a first priority and the uplink shared channel having a second priority lower than the first priority. (paragraphs 177-184, disclosing that both the A-CSI and PUSCH may be assigned priorities, where the priority of the PUSCH may depend on “priority indicator” in the DCI, or the number of TRP the PUSCH is mapped to, that is, independently of the A-CSI/UCI, thus contemplating and encompassing the recited scenario).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art that Muruganathan’s teachings may be combinable with Wang’s teachings to reject this claim. This is because the cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures featuring cqi/csi/UCI feedback mechanisms. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling therefor for communication status and quality feedback methods in wireless communication systems. (Muruganathan, paragraphs 68-93; Wang, paragraphs 1-9). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
AS to claim 15, Wang and Muruganathan teach the method as in the parent claim 12.
Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein a range of the coefficient includes a value smaller than a predetermined range.
Muruganathan discloses wherein a range of the coefficient includes a value smaller than a predetermined range (paragraphs 248-250, 275-277, 290, all teaching “rate matching” by “repetition”, where “many coded bits appear twice in this case due to the low code rate” and where “every coded bit [may] appear twice after rate matching”, teaching this limitation to a PHOSITA, where the repetition coding in the case above would involve a coefficient of 2; further note that it is common knowledge that “repetition” type coding involves a “coefficient” that is in essence how many times the bits/data is repeated, thus further teaching the recited “coefficient”, where this ratio/”coefficient” clearly has an upper bound dependent on system parameters, teaching this limitation).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art that Muruganathan’s teachings may be combinable with Wang’s teachings to reject this claim. This is further because the cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures featuring cqi/csi/UCI feedback mechanisms. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling therefor for communication status and quality feedback methods in wireless communication systems. (Muruganathan, paragraphs 68-93; Wang, paragraphs 1-9). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
AS to claim 16, Wang and Muruganathan teach the method as in the parent claim 12.
Wang further discloses wherein the uplink control information is an acknowledgement. (paragraph 2)
AS to claim 20, Wang and Muruganathan teach the method as in the parent claim 12.
Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the priority of the uplink control information and the priority of the uplink shared channel are independent from each other, and can be same or different.
Muruganathan discloses wherein the priority of the uplink control information and the priority of the uplink shared channel are independent from each other, and can be same or different (paragraphs 177-184, disclosing that both the A-CSI and PUSCH may be assigned priorities, where the priority of the PUSCH may depend on “priority indicator” in the DCI, or the number of TRP the PUSCH is mapped to, that is, independently of the A-CSI/UCI, thus contemplating and encompassing the recited scenario).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art that Muruganathan’s teachings may be combinable with Wang’s teachings to reject this claim. This is because the cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures featuring cqi/csi/UCI feedback mechanisms. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling therefor for communication status and quality feedback methods in wireless communication systems. (Muruganathan, paragraphs 68-93; Wang, paragraphs 1-9). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
Conclusion
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/CHI TANG P CHENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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