DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/037484 filed on 05/17/2023 is presented for examination by the examiner.
Claims 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 17-20 were cancelled. Claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 10, 12, 14-16 are pending.
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,
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 03/06/2026 has been entered.
Priority
As required by M.P.E.P. 201.14(c), acknowledgement is made of applicant's claim for priority based on application filed on
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF KR10-2020-0163357 11/27/2020
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF KR10-2021-0150062 11/03/2021
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF KR10-2021-0166606 11/29/2021.
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see the Applicant's Remarks) with respect to the rejection(s) of
claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 10, 12, 14-16 have been fully considered and not persuasive. Examiner provide a new ground of rejections to address Applicant’s amendment/argument (See the updated claim rejections below.).
Allowable Subject Matters
Claims 6 and 14 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. Claims 7, 15-16 are also allowed since they depend on claims 6 and 14 respectively.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1, 10, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US 2024/0023118 A1) in view of XU et al. (US 2022/0272669 A1).
As per claim 1, Park discloses “An operation method of a terminal in a communication system, the operation method comprising:” [(claim 11), receive, from a base station, first downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein a format of the first DCI is for a unicast, receive, from the base station, second DCI scheduling a second PDSCH, wherein a format of the second DCI is for a multicast.] “receiving, from a base station, first downlink control information (DCI); receiving, from the base station, second DCI;” as [(claim 11), receive, from a base station, first downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein a format of the first DCI is for a unicast, receive, from the base station, second DCI scheduling a second PDSCH, wherein a format of the second DCI is for a multicast.] “receiving, from the base station, a first multicast physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) based on first scheduling information included in the first DCI; receiving, from the base station, a unicast PDSCH based on second scheduling information included in the second DCI;” [(claim 11), receive, from a base station, first downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein a format of the first DCI is for a unicast, receive, from the base station, second DCI scheduling a second PDSCH, wherein a format of the second DCI is for a multicast.] “generating, responsive to determining that frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheduling for the first multicast PDSCH and the unicast PDSCH is allowed, a first hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) sub-codebook for the first multicast PDSCH and a second HARQ-ACK sub-codebook for the unicast PDSCH;” [(claim 13), wherein the controller is further configured to transmit, to the base station, capability information indicating a capability of receiving FDMed PDSCHs. (claim 12), wherein the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH overlap each other in at least one symbol, and wherein the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH are frequency division multiplexed (FDMed). (claim 11), identify a first semi-static hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) codebook for the first PDSCH and a second semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook for the second PDSCH, concatenate the first semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook followed by the second semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook to obtain a semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook, and transmit, to the base station, the semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.]
Park does not explicitly disclose “multiplexing and transmitting, responsive to determining that the first HARQ- ACK sub-codebook and the second HARQ-ACK sub-codebook have the same priority, the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook and the second HARQ-ACK sub-codebook on an uplink channel to the base station”.
However, XU discloses “multiplexing and transmitting, responsive to determining that the first HARQ- ACK sub-codebook and the second HARQ-ACK sub-codebook have the same priority, the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook and the second HARQ-ACK sub-codebook on an uplink channel to the base station” as [(par. 0132), when the priority of the first HARQ-ACK codebook and the priority of the second HARQ-ACK codebook are the same. The two HARQ-ACK codebooks with the same priority level may thereby be multiplexed, so that the HARQ-ACK codebooks with the same priority level may be transmitted at the same time, and the latency is reduced.]
Park et al. (US 2024/0023118 A1) and XU et al. (US 2022/0272669 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate XU’s teaching into Park’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to reduce the transmission latency.
As per claim 10, Park in view of XU discloses “The operation method according to claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
Park discloses “wherein a type of the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook is configured independently of a type of the second HARO-ACK sub-codebook” as [(claim 13), wherein the controller is further configured to transmit, to the base station, capability information indicating a capability of receiving FDMed PDSCHs. (claim 12), wherein the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH overlap each other in at least one symbol, and wherein the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH are frequency division multiplexed (FDMed). (claim 11), identify a first semi-static hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) codebook for the first PDSCH and a second semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook for the second PDSCH, concatenate the first semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook followed by the second semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook to obtain a semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook, and transmit, to the base station, the semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.]
As per claim 12, as [see rejection of claim 1.]
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 of this title, 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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US Patent Publication # 2024/0023118 A1) in view of XU et al. (US 2022/0272669 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 2022/0131650 A1).
As per claim 2, Park in view of XU discloses “The operation method according to claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
Park in view of XU does not explicitly disclose “wherein one field or a combination of two or more fields included in the first DCI is used to indicate a priority of the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook”.
However, Chen discloses “wherein one field or a combination of two or more fields included in the first DCI is used to indicate a priority of the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook” as [(par. 0057), Determine priorities according to DAIs indicated by the DCI corresponding to the first HARQ-ACK codebook. The priorities are priorities of HARQ-ACK bits in the first HARQ-ACK codebook.]
Park et al. (US 2024/0023118 A1) and Chen et al. (US 2022/0131650 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Chen’s teaching into Park’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to allow a flexible HARQ-ACK scheme.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US Patent Publication # 2024/0023118 A1) in view of XU et al. (US 2022/0272669 A1) in view of Asia Pacific Telecom, “Enhancements on HARQ in NTN”, R1-2009059, October 26th – November 13th, 2020. (From Applicant’s IDS).
As per claim 4, Park in view of XU discloses “The operation method according to claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
Park in view of XU does not explicitly disclose “wherein one field or a combination of two or more fields included in the first DCI is used to indicate enabling or disabling of a HARQ-ACK feedback”.
However, Asia Pacific Telecom discloses “wherein one field or a combination of two or more fields included in the first DCI is used to indicate enabling or disabling of a HARQ-ACK feedback” as [(2.3.2), If the corresponding DCI indicates a HARQ process ID that is ‘disabling’ configured by a gNB, the UE may -alternative 3: keep the HARQ-ACK information bit(s) unchanged based on the decoding results. For these alternatives, the UE may report or drop the HARQ-ACK bits that NW has already known for the HARQ-disabled processes.]
Park et al. (US 2024/0023118 A1) and Asia Pacific Telecom, “Enhancements on HARQ in NTN”, R1-2009059, October 26th – November 13th, 2020. (From Applicant’s IDS) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Asia Pacific Telecom’s teaching into Park’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to allow a flexible HARQ-ACK scheme.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MANG HANG YEUNG whose telephone number is (571)270-7319. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rebecca Song can be reached on (571) 270-3667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANG HANG YEUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2417