DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 12/01/2025. Claims 1 and through 20 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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, would be the same under either status.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 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 § 103
5. 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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Lei (US 2023/0319843 A1) in view of Yang et al. (US 2021/0112578 A1).
For claims 1, 9, and 17 Lei teaches a wireless device (Fig. 1 “wireless device 101”) comprising:
one or more processors (Fig. 5 “processor 506”); and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (Fig. 5 “Non-transitory computer-readable memory”), causes the wireless device to:
receive, via a first physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring occasion, a downlink control information (DCI) scheduling physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) receptions on a plurality of cells (paragraph 6 “DCI scheduling PDSCH on plurality of serving cells”),
wherein:
the DCI comprises a downlink assignment index (DAI) field with a value indicating an accumulative number of one or more pairs of: PDCCH monitoring occasion and cell with a smallest cell index among the plurality of cells (paragraph 32 “DCI includes DAI field with a value denoting accumulative PDCCH monitoring occasion pair(s)- the accumulative number may be incremented first in ascending order (smallest index) of the serving cell index and then in ascending order of the PDCCH monitoring occasion index”); and
transmit a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) codebook comprising feedback bits of the PDSCH receptions, wherein the HARQ-ACK codebook is based on the value (paragraph 56 “HARQ-ACK codebook bits according to indicated values”).
Although Lei teaches the accumulative number may be incremented first in ascending order (smallest index) of the serving cell index (see paragraph 32), Lei does not explicitly teach smallest cell index.
However, Yang teaches in this example, the BS may configure PDCCH
communication 2 to include a counter DAI and total DAI pair of (1,3) because PDSCH communication 2 is scheduled to be transmitted in cell 1. In this case, the counter DAI of PDCCH communication 2 is 1 because cell 1 is the lowest cell index associated with the PDCCH monitoring occasion (see Yang: pargraph 44).
Hence, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention in the art to use the teachings of Yang in the HARQ-ACK codebook method of Lei in order to design a lowest (smallest) cell index to be associated with the PDCCH monitoring occasion.
For claims 2, 10, and 18 Lei teaches the wireless device, wherein the instructions further cause the wireless device to:
receive, via a second PDCCH monitoring occasion, a second DCI indicating a second DAI field having a second value based on the value of the DAI (paragraph 32 “DCI includes DAI field with a value denoting accumulative PDCCH monitoring occasion pair(s)”); and
transmit, based on a timing order of the first PDCCH monitoring occasion and the second PDCCH monitoring occasion, a second HARQ-ACK codebook comprising second feedback bits corresponding to the DCI and the second DCI (paragraph 32 “DCI includes DAI field with a value denoting accumulative PDCCH monitoring occasion pair(s)”).
For claims 3 and 11 Lei teaches the wireless device of claim 2, wherein the DCI and the second DCI schedule the PDSCH receptions for at least two of the plurality of cells (paragraph 6 “plurality of DCI scheduling PDSCH on a plurality of cells”).
For claims 4 and 12 Lei teaches the wireless device of claim 2, wherein the HARQ-ACK codebook and the second HARQ-ACK codebook are a same HARQ-ACK codebook (paragraph 6 “generating HARQ-ACK based on first indication information and second indication information in the plurality of DCI formats; and transmitting HARQ-ACK codebook-having the same HARQ-ACK codebook is a design choice”).
For claims 5, 13, and 19 Lei teaches the wireless device, wherein the instructions further cause the wireless device to receive one or more radio resource control (RRC) messages indicating one or more DCI formats indicating one or more downlink resources for the PDSCH receptions on one or more of the plurality of cells (paragraph 3 “RRC includes DCI for PDSCH scheduling”).
For claims 6, 14, and 20 Lei teaches the wireless device, wherein the DCI comprises resource assignment fields indicating time resources and frequency resources for the PDSCH receptions on the plurality of cells (paragraph 42 “DAI indicate frequency and time resources for PDSCH”).
For claims 7 and 15 Lei teaches the wireless device wherein each PDSCH reception, of the PDSCH receptions, is scheduled on a respective cell of the plurality of cells (paragraph 32 “PDSCH receptions associated … up to current serving cells”).
For claims 8 and 16Lei teaches the wireless device, wherein the DAI field indicates a counter DAI (C-DAI) value (paragraph 30 “a DCI format may include at least one of a counter DAI field and a total DAI field”).
Conclusion
6. 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.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415