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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 12, 23, 28 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
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.
Independent Claims
Claim(s) 1, 12, 23, 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MolavianJazi (US-20240040429) in view of Molavian (US-20220408464).
As to claim 1, 12, 23, 28: MolavianJazi teaches a user equipment (UE) for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (fig.3, [0036, 49]), configured to
receive, using radio resource control (RRC) signaling, configuration information indicating a list of a plurality of codepoints ([0222] UE-specific RRC indicates indexes, CIF values), wherein each codepoint of the plurality of codepoints indicates a respective subset of a configured set of cells ([0222, 254] CIF values correspond to multiple cells); receive a multi-cell scheduling downlink control information (DCI) communication including a co-scheduled cell indicator field that indicates a codepoint of the plurality of codepoints ([0221, 222, 314] MC-DCI, set-level CIF field indicates subset of scheduled cells), the codepoint indicating a plurality of cells that are scheduled by the DCI communication ([0218, 222] CIF field of 2 bits in a DCI format can provide a value that indicates the subset of scheduled cells);
and identify a plurality of bitwidths of one or more portions of a first field of the DCI communication ([0239, 314, 315] The UE is configured a cell-specific field in the DCI format, with N values corresponding to a first set of N co-scheduled cells, and B bits for each value), each bitwidth of the plurality of bitwidths corresponding to a respective cell of the plurality of cells, based at least in part on a configuration of the co-scheduled cell indicator field ([0239, 282, 292, 315, 316] bitwidth corresponding to each cell), wherein each bitwidth of the plurality of bitwidths is based on a quantity of the plurality of cells ([0281, 310, 311, 314] bit-width of the cell-specific DCI field can increase based on the ratio of a number of actually co-scheduled cells and a maximum supported/configured number of co-scheduled cells);
MolavianJazi may not explicitly teach and wherein a second field of the DCI communication that occurs directly after the first field begins after a total quantity of bits used for the first field, wherein a start bit of the second field is based at least in part on the quantity of the plurality of cells. However, Molavian and wherein a second field of the DCI communication ([0379, 380]) that occurs directly after the first field begins after a total quantity of bits used for the first field ([0379, 380] multiple field-blocks), wherein a start bit of the second field is based at least in part on the quantity of the plurality of cells ([0218, 227] DCI multi-cell scheduling; [0227, 0379, 380] start bit of second field based on number of cells).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement adaptive width, taught by Molavian, into the communication system, taught by MolavianJazi, in order to implement a well-known feature of a pre-defined protocol and reduce signaling overhead. In addition, it would have been obvious to combine MolavianJazi and Molavian in a known manner to obtain predictable results as the combination would not change the essence, quiddity, or functionality of the prior art references.
Dependent Claims
Claim(s) 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MolavianJazi (US-20240040429) in view of Molavian (US-20220408464).
As to claim 2, 13, 24: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the field includes at least one of a frequency domain resource allocation field, a modulation and coding scheme field, a new data indicator field, or a redundancy version field ([0231, 232, 323] FDRA, NDI, RV, MCS).
As to claim 3, 14, 25, 29: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors, to identify the bitwidth associated with the field, are configured to identify a necessary quantity of bits for the field in connection with the co-scheduled cell indicator field indicating a set of cells, of potential sets of cells that can be indicated by the co-scheduled cell indicator field, that maximizes the bitwidth ([0222, 324, 324] a CIF field of 2 bits in a DCI format can provide a value that indicates the subset of scheduled cells, maximum total bit-width).
As to claim 4, 15, 26: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 3, wherein, if the co-scheduled cell indicator field indicates a first set of cells, of the potential sets of cells, a first quantity of bits is associated with the field, and wherein, if the co-scheduled cell indicator field indicates a second set of cells, of the potential sets of cells, a second quantity of bits, different from the first quantity of bits, is associated with the field ([0281, 282, 325] the UE can be configured, for each field of the MC-DCI format, a same bit-width regardless of the set/number of co-scheduled cells or different bit-widths depending on the set/number of co-scheduled cells).
As to claim 5, 16, 27: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 4, wherein the first set of cells corresponds to the set of cells that maximizes the bitwidth, and wherein the second quantity of bits is less than the first quantity of bits ([0287, 325] a bit-width of the cell-specific/Type-2 field can be a maximum total bit-width across different cell combinations).
As to claim 6, 17, 31, 33: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein a total quantity of bits used for the first field is less than the plurality of bitwidths, resulting in a quantity of unused bits ([0318, 325]).
As to claim 8, 19, 32, 34: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 6, wherein the quantity of unused bits is included at an end of the DCI communication ([0291, 293] zeros can be appended to the end of the MC-DCI formats with smaller sizes so that their size becomes equal to the largest size).
As to claim 10, 21, 30: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the co-scheduled cell indicator field indicates one of multiple co-scheduled cell combinations associated with the DCI communication ([0321] an indicator of co-scheduled cells in a DCI format 0_X/1_X indicates a cell combination that is a strict subset of and has fewer cells than the set of cells configured for multi-cell scheduling), and wherein the one or more processors, to identify the bitwidth associated with the field, are configured to identify a quantity of bits necessary to schedule a co-scheduled cell combination, of the multiple co-scheduled cell combinations, that is associated with a maximum quantity of bits ([0324, 325] a bit-width of the cell-specific/Type-2 field can be a maximum total bit-width across different cell combinations configured for DCI 0_X/1_X).
Claim(s) 9, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MolavianJazi (US-20240040429), Molavian (US-20220408464) in view of Luo (US-20210168847).
As to claim 9, 20: MolavianJazi teaches the UE of claim 6.
MolavianJazi may not explicitly teach wherein two transport blocks are scheduled by the DCI communication, wherein the total quantity of bits used for the field is associated with a first transport block, of the two transport blocks, and wherein at least a portion of the quantity of unused bits is associated with a second transport block, of the two transport blocks. However, Luo teaches wherein two transport blocks are scheduled by the DCI communication ([0004, 6]), wherein the total quantity of bits used for the field is associated with a first transport block, of the two transport blocks ([0010, 181]), and wherein at least a portion of the quantity of unused bits is associated with a second transport block, of the two transport blocks ([0012, 182-184] an NDIO other than an NDI indicated by the original NDI field may be directly and completely indicated in the HARQ process number field or the RV field, so that no additional DCI overheads are required).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement sizing field using large bit requirement, taught by Luo, into the communication system, taught by MolavianJazi, in order to implement a well-known feature of a pre-defined protocol and ensure large enough space for various fields. In addition, it would have been obvious to combine MolavkianJazi and Luo in a known manner to obtain predictable results as the combination would not change the essence, quiddity, or functionality of the prior art references.
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW CHUNG SUK OH whose telephone number is (571)270-5273. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12p-8p.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Faruk Hamza can be reached at 5712727969. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDREW C OH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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