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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/05/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 12/08/2025 has been entered. Claims 1 and 28-30 are amended. Claim 2 is cancelled. Claims 1, 3-4, and 7-32 are pending and addressed below.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
In Independent claim 29, the claimed features "means for receiving", "means for transmitting", and "means for selecting" invoke 112 (f).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1, 3-4, 7-22, 24-26, and 28-32 are 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.
Regarding claims 1, and 28-30, expression “wherein a selection of the resource is forgone upon a successful decoding” lacks clarity as it is not clear whether the selection of a resource is forgone upon a successful decoding of a single codeward, multiple codewards or all codewards. The claim is, therefore, indefinite. Other claims are subjected to the same rejection by the virtue of their dependency on the above rejected claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1, 7, 9 and 28-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over IDS Reference, Sahin; Onur et al US 20140146756 A1, hereinafter Sahin, in view of Lei; Haipeng US 20250167926 A1, hereinafter Lei.
Regarding claims 1, 28, 29, and 30, Sahin teaches, a user equipment configured for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory configured to store instructions; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory (see Sahin Fig. 1B) and configured to execute the instructions to cause the user equipment to:
receive a private codeword and a plurality of common codewords, the plurality of common codewords including a first common codeword in a rate splitting scheme, wherein the private codeword comprises a first message for the user equipment and the first common codeword comprises a combination of one or more messages including a second message for the user equipment (Sahin: Abstract, [14]-[15], [32] teaches, receiving rate split Common and Private parts (= codewords, see [88]-[89]) of data in messages. Receiver receives multiple common parts), Sahin [15] teaches, receiving a first common part (=codeword) and a second common part, therefore, receiving plurality of common codewords,);
transmit a first feedback comprising an acknowledgment or negative- acknowledgment (ACK/NACK) indicating whether the private codeword is properly decoded (Sahin [15] teaches transmitting ACK/NACK (= first feedback) for the private part).
Sahin does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lei teaches, select a resource for a second feedback comprising NACK-only feedback based on a decoding success or failure of each common codeword of the plurality of common codewords, wherein the resource is selected upon a failed decoding, and wherein a selection of the resource is forgone upon a successful decoding; and transmit the second feedback using the resource (Lei [0005] “determine a PUCCH resource based on the HARQ-ACK feedback combination in response to at least one PDSCH transmission of the plurality of PDSCH transmissions being incorrectly decoded; and perform, with the transceiver, a PUCCH transmission with the PUCCH resource.”, [0062] “According to the above agreements, for multiplexing multiple NACK-only based feedbacks in one PUCCH, a BS needs to define up to 15 orthogonal PUCCH resources for a UE to select one PUCCH resource according to combinations of up to 4 TBs with NACK-only feedback. A mapping from NACK-only based feedback for up to 4 TBs to a specific PUCCH resource is needed so that both the BS and the UE have the same understanding on the HARQ-ACK feedback based on the specific PUCCH resource.”, [0088] “In the present disclosure, a UE is configured with NACK-only based HARQ-ACK feedback for a plurality of PDSCH transmissions from a BS. That is, the UE only transmits HARQ-ACK feedback when at least one HARQ-ACK information bit associated with at least one PDSCH transmission is NACK. When the UE correctly decodes all the PDSCH transmissions, or correctly decodes all the TBs carried by the PDSCH transmissions, the UE may not need to transmit any HARQ-ACK feedback.”. Common codewords are similar to TBs (Transport Block), as recited in Lei [62], transmitted over PDSCH (see Spec [129])).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin to include the features as taught by Lei above in order to provide methods for determining negative acknowledgment (NACK) only based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (ACK) codebook for, e.g., multicast and broadcast services (MBS) physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Lei [0001]).
With respect to claim 28, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding method. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 29, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding user equipment. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 30, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding non-transitory computer-readable medium. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Regarding claim 7, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
Sahin further teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a first downlink control indication (DCI) comprising a first resource allocation for the reception of the private codeword; and receive a second DCI comprising a second resource allocation for the reception of the first common codeword (Sahin [138]-[139] teaches receiving PDCCHs (well known in the art to carry DCI comprising DL resources) for receiving downlink data of private and common parts of data).
Regarding claim 9, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
Sahin further teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a downlink control indication (DCI) comprising a first set of scheduling parameters for the reception of the private codeword and a second set of scheduling parameters for the reception of the first common codeword (see Sahin [138]-[139] teaches receiving PDCCHs (well known in the art to carry DCI comprising DL resources) for receiving scheduled downlink data of private and common parts).
Regarding claims 31 and 32, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE/method, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1 and 28.
Lei further teaches, wherein to select the resource for the second feedback based on the decoding success or failure of each common codeword of the plurality of common codewords, the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to:
map a pattern of decoding successes and failures for the plurality of common codewords to the resource from a pre-configured list of physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resources (see Table 1 in Lei [83] teaching, a list of mapping between PUCCH resources and decoding results of TBs (Transport block). TB carried over PDSCH is similar to codeword carried over PDSCH (see Spec [129])).
Claims 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Zhou; Hua et al US 20230071767 A1, hereinafter Zhou.
Regarding claim 10, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 9.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Zhou teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising an indication to utilize the NACK-only feedback for the first common codeword (Zhou [372] “In an example embodiment, a base station may transmit, to a wireless device, configuration parameters of an MBS configuration, the configuration parameters comprising a HARQ feedback type indication (and/or a HARQ feedback enabling/disabling indication) for the MBS configuration. … a second HARQ feedback type indicating that the wireless device transmits a HARQ NACK feedback in response to the MBS TB being unsuccessfully decoded or skips transmitting a HARQ ACK feedback in response to the MBS TB being successfully decoded (e.g., based on example embodiment described above with respect to FIG. 29B);”, [374] “In existing technologies, a base station may transmit, to a wireless device, configuration parameters (e.g., RRC messages and/or DCI) indicating whether HARQ feedback (e.g., the first HARQ feedback type as shown in FIG. 29A or the second HARQ feedback type as shown in FIG. 29B) is enabled.”, teaches RRC indication for NAC-only feedback for MBS (Multicast and Broadcast Service) TB (Transport Block) comprises common data for UEs, and therefore, teaching can be used for common codeword).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Zhou above in order to facilitate group scheduling of Multicast And Broadcast Services (see Zhou “Title”).
Regarding claim 11, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 9.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Zhou teaches, wherein the DCI further comprises a dynamic indication to utilize the NACK-only feedback for the first common codeword (see Zhou [374] “In existing technologies, a base station may transmit, to a wireless device, configuration parameters (e.g., RRC messages and/or DCI) indicating whether HARQ feedback (e.g., the first HARQ feedback type as shown in FIG. 29A or the second HARQ feedback type as shown in FIG. 29B) is enabled.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Zhou above in order to facilitate group scheduling of Multicast And Broadcast Services (see Zhou “Title”).
Claims 3-4, and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of YAO; Chunhai et al US 20230044542 A1, hereinafter Yao.
Regarding claim 3, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the second feedback uses a shared resource, configured to be shared by a plurality of devices to which the first common codeword is directed (Yao [0047] “In another approach, PUCCH resource allocation for NACK-only based HARQ-ACK feedback may be common to a group of UEs. For example, PUCCH resources for NACK-only based HARQ-ACK feedback may be shared by a group of UEs subscribed to different MBS sessions”, teaches sharing resources for NACK-only (=second feedback) in MBS (Multicast and Broadcast Service). As MBS data comprises common data for UEs, and therefore, teaching can be used for common codeword).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Regarding claim 4, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: transmit a capability information signal indicating a user equipment capability of using the NACK-only feedback for the first common codeword for the rate splitting scheme (Yao [4] “The operations include receiving user equipment (UE) capability information from a UE, the UE capability information indicating that the UE supports negative acknowledgement (NACK)-only based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-acknowledgement (ACK) feedback for multicast broadcast service (MBS)” teaches transmitting UE capability of NACK-only feedback in a case of MBS service. MBS service is known in the art to carry common data for multiple UEs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Regarding claim 12, Sahin, in view of Lei and Zhou, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 11.
Sahin, Lei and Zhou do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: transmit a capability information signal indicating a user equipment capability to utilize the dynamic indication to utilize the NACK-only feedback (Yao [45] teaches gNB dynamically initiating NACK-only feedback, based on indicated UE capability (see [4]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Zhou to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Regarding claim 13, Sahin, in view of Lei and Zhou, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 11.
Sahin, Lei and Zhou do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising a configuration enabling the dynamic indication to utilize the NACK-only feedback (Yao [41], [46] teaches, RRC configures PUCCH allocation for NACK-only feedback for MBS. Configured PUCCH resources are dynamically used for NACK-only feedback).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Zhou to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Claims 8, 15-16, 20-21, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of SUH; Yong Hak et al US 20220400475 A1, hereinafter Suh.
Regarding claim 8, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 7.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Suh teaches, wherein the first DCI further comprises a first feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the first feedback; and wherein the second DCI further comprises a second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (Suh [110]-[114] teaches DCI comprising HARQ feedback resource allocation, in case of transmitting common and private codewords (see Abstract).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Suh above in order to support a rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) scheme (Suh [0001]).
Regarding claim 15, Sahin, in view of Lei, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 9.
Sahin and Lei do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Suh teaches, wherein the DCI further comprises a first feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the first feedback, the at least one processor being further configured to cause the user equipment to determine a second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (Suh [110]-[114] teaches DCI comprising HARQ feedback resource allocation, in case of transmitting common and private codewords (see Abstract).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei to include the features as taught by Suh above in order to support a rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) scheme (Suh [0001]).
Regarding claim 16, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Suh further teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a first radio resource control (RRC) message comprising a slot offset for the second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (see Suh [114] teaching slot offset K1 for feedback resource, and [62] suggests RRC can be used for transmitting UE parameters, like K1 slot offset).
Regarding claim 20, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Suh further teaches, wherein the DCI further comprises a dynamic slot assignment for the second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (Suh [110], [113], [114] teaches, DCI comprises K1 indicating a dynamic slot assignment of feedback resource for common message information (see Abstract).)
Regarding claim 21, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 20.
Suh further teaches, wherein the dynamic slot assignment for the second feedback resource allocation indicates one of a first slot offset relative to a slot of the first common codeword, or a second slot offset relative to a slot of the first feedback resource allocation (see Suh [113, [114] K1 indicates slot offset).
Regarding claim 24, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Suh further teaches, wherein the DCI further comprises a dynamic resource assignment for the second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (Suh [110]-[114] teaches DCI comprising HARQ feedback resource allocation, in case of transmitting common and private codewords (see Abstract).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei and Zhou and Yao, as applied to claim 13 above, and further in view of Lee; Youngdae et al US 20230189298 A1, hereinafter Lee.
Regarding claim 14, Sahin, in view of Lei and Zhou and Yao, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 13.
Sahin and Lei and Zhou and Yao do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lee teaches, wherein the configuration separately enables the dynamic indication per bandwidth part (BWP), per component carrier (CC), or per DCI format (Lee [9] “second PUCCH configuration information related to NACK-only based HARQ-ACK reporting for a multicast PDSCH, for each one or more uplink bandwidth parts (BWPs) configured for the terminal”, teaches dynamic NACK-only resource indication for each BWP, for multicast).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Zhou and Yao to include the features as taught by Lee above in order to provide a method of transmitting and receiving HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat and request)-ACK (acknowledgement) information in a wireless communication system (Lee [0002]).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of Wang; Xuelong US 20230050170 A1, hereinafter Wang.
Regarding claim 17, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a second radio resource control (RRC) message comprising a resource indicator for a resource within an assigned slot for the second feedback resource allocation for the transmission of the second feedback (Wang [51], [52] “The PUCCH resource indicator can be indicated within the DCI_X, which is an alternative way to convey the information to the UE, when it is not delivered to the UE via RRC message MCCHConfiguration.”, teaches RRC message may comprise resource indicator for NACK-only HARQ within a slot (see [52] “…the HARQ feedback timing in unit of subframe or slot…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Wang above in order to group-scheduling for new radio (NR) multicast service (Wang [0002]).
Claims 18 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of Yao.
Regarding claim 18, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a second radio resource control (RRC) message comprising information indicating a list of resources within an assigned slot for the second feedback resource allocation; and select a resource for the second feedback based on the indicated list of resources, and based on a decoding success or failure of each common codeword of a plurality of common codewords (Yao [43], [46]-[47], teaches RRC configuring PUCCH feedback resource for NACK-only (=second feedback) feedback for multicast (=common codeword).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Regarding claim 26, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 24.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yao teaches, wherein the at least one processor, being configured to cause the user equipment to determine the second feedback resource allocation, is further configured to cause the user equipment to: select a resource for the second feedback based on the dynamic resource assignment for the second feedback resource allocation, and based on a decoding success or failure of each common codeword of a plurality of common codewords (see Yao [4] “…configuring the UE with a first set of PUCCH resources for NACK-only based HARQ-ACK feedback…”, for selecting a resource for NACK-only feedback (= second feedback) for multi-cast data. As multi-cast data comprises common data for UEs, and therefore, teaching can be used for common codeword).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Yao above in order to provide New Radio (NR) Multicast Broadcast Service (MBS) (Yao [0001]).
Claims 19, 22 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of Lee.
Regarding claim 19, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 15.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lee teaches, wherein the processor, being configured to cause the user equipment to determine the second feedback resource allocation, is further configured to cause the user equipment to determine that the second feedback resource allocation corresponds to a same slot as the first feedback resource allocation (see Lee [277] “PUCCH resource(s) (=feedback resource) for a NACK only based HARQ-ACK(s) (=second feedback) and an ACK/NACK based HARQ-ACK(s) (=first feedback) are all allocated to the same slot,”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Lee above in order to provide a method of transmitting and receiving HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat and request)-ACK (acknowledgement) information in a wireless communication system (Lee [0002]).
Regarding claim 22, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 20.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lee teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising a configuration enabling the dynamic slot assignment for the second feedback resource allocation per bandwidth part (BWP), per component carrier (CC), or per DCI format (Lee [102], [309] teaches RRC comprises BWP configuration, PUCCH feedback resource configuration, and [9], [316] teaches PUCCH resource allocation per BWP, and [186] teaches K1 (=dynamic slot assignment). Therefore, RRC configuration enables dynamic slot allocation per BWP).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Lee above in order to provide a method of transmitting and receiving HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat and request)-ACK (acknowledgement) information in a wireless communication system (Lee [0002]).
Regarding claim 25, Sahin, in view of Lei and Suh, teaches the UE, as outlined in the rejection of claim 24.
Sahin and Lei and Suh do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lee teaches, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the user equipment to: receive a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising a configuration enabling the dynamic resource assignment for the second feedback resource allocation per bandwidth part (BWP), per component carrier (CC), or per DCI format (Lee [102], [309] teaches RRC comprises BWP configuration, PUCCH feedback resource configuration, and [9], [316] teaches PUCCH feedback resource allocation per BWP. Therefore, RRC configuration enables dynamic feedback resource assignment per BWP).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Sahin and Lei and Suh to include the features as taught by Lee above in order to provide a method of transmitting and receiving HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat and request)-ACK (acknowledgement) information in a wireless communication system (Lee [0002]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 23 and 27 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Wang, WO 2023122097 A1- RATE-SPLITTING CONTROL IN A WIRELESS NETWORK.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475