DETAILED ACTION
Status of Case
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is in response to the RCE filed on 5/29/2026.
Claims 1-30 are pending.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/29/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 5/29/2026 with respect to the pending claims have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
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, 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, 26, 28, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shen (USPAN 2022/0015124) in view of Babich (USPAN 2020/0328844) and Liu (USPAN 2023/0239883).
Consider claims 1 and 28, Shen discloses an apparatus for wireless communications at a first wireless device, comprising: a processor; memory coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the apparatus (see figure 7, wherein disclose dis a processor 710, memory 709, and instructions stored in said memory), and a corresponding method for wireless communications at a first wireless device (see figures 4-5, reproduced below for convenience) to:
participate in a communication, with a second wireless device, of an indication of a processing capability of either the first wireless device or the second wireless device, the processing capability relating to support, by either the first wireless device or the second wireless device, of decoding of wireless communications that are encoded, wherein the indication of the processing capability is indicative of one or more minimum time thresholds to decode and respond to corresponding network-encoded communications, and wherein the communication is a transmission by the first wireless device or a reception at the first wireless device; transmit data; and receive a feedback message associated with transmission of the data in accordance with the processing capability (see paragraph 102: “In this embodiment of the present disclosure, a HARQ-ACK process fed back by a transport block-level (TB-level) may be supported. In this process, each TB corresponds to feedback of one HARQ-ACK bit, supports multiple DL HARQ processes of each terminal, and also supports a single DL HARQ process of each terminal. The terminal may indicate minimum HARQ processing time capability of the terminal, where the minimum HARQ processing time means minimum time required from receiving of downlink data to corresponding HARQ-ACK transmission timing. The eMBB and the URLLC can support asynchronous and adaptive Downlink HARQ. For a terminal. HARQ-ACK feedbacks of multiple PDSCHs may be transmitted in one UL data/control area in terms of time, thereby forming a HARQ-ACK codebook in UL. In addition, timing between receiving of a PDSCH and a corresponding ACK/NACK may be specified in the DCI. For the timing, refer to PDCSCH-to-HARQ timing indicators in DCI 1_0 and DCI 1_1.”).
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Shen does not specifically disclose communications that are encoded in accordance with a network-encoding protocol, and transmitting data as part of a network-encoding procedure, where the data is network-encoded or is to be network-encoded, and decoding the message.
Babich discloses communications that are encoded in accordance with a network-encoding protocol, and transmitting data as part of a network-encoding procedure, where the data is network-encoded or is to be network-encoded, and decoding the message (see figure 5, reproduced below for convenience, wherein disclosed is step 405, wherein data is encoded and modulated, step 410 where the data is transmitted, step 430, where the data is received, and step 425, where the data is decoded and demodulated; also, see paragraph 104: the time to receive the encoded user message is less than a maximum acceptable decoder processing time).
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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 Shen and combine it with the noted teachings of Babich. The motivation to combine these references is to provide an improved method for data to be corrected decoded with reduced overhead and reduced delay and jitter (see paragraphs 1-4 of Babich).
Shen does not specifically disclose that the network-encoded communication corresponds to application of the network-encoding protocol to a plurality of transport blocks.
Liu discloses that the network-encoded communication corresponds to application of the network-encoding protocol to a plurality of transport blocks (see paragraph 124: “The wireless communications system 100 support network coding schemes to increase system capacity and improve resource utilization in a network. Network coding, for example, may enable multiple transport blocks to be encoded into a single network coding packet for transmission”).
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 Shen and combine it with the noted teachings of Liu. The motivation to combine these references is to provide an improved method for granting resources for network coding procedures (see paragraphs 1-3 of Liu).
Consider claims 26 and 30, Shen discloses an apparatus for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising: a processor; memory coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the apparatus (see figure 7, wherein disclose dis a processor 710, memory 709, and instructions stored in said memory), and a corresponding method for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (see figures 4-5, reproduced below for convenience) to:
transmit an indication of a processing capability of the UE to support decoding of wireless communications that are encoded, wherein the indication of the processing capability is indicative of one or more minimum time thresholds for the UE to decode and respond to corresponding network-encoded communications; receive one or more messages; and transmit a response message responsive to the one or more messages in accordance with the processing capability of the UE (see paragraph 102: “In this embodiment of the present disclosure, a HARQ-ACK process fed back by a transport block-level (TB-level) may be supported. In this process, each TB corresponds to feedback of one HARQ-ACK bit, supports multiple DL HARQ processes of each terminal, and also supports a single DL HARQ process of each terminal. The terminal may indicate minimum HARQ processing time capability of the terminal, where the minimum HARQ processing time means minimum time required from receiving of downlink data to corresponding HARQ-ACK transmission timing. The eMBB and the URLLC can support asynchronous and adaptive Downlink HARQ. For a terminal. HARQ-ACK feedbacks of multiple PDSCHs may be transmitted in one UL data/control area in terms of time, thereby forming a HARQ-ACK codebook in UL. In addition, timing between receiving of a PDSCH and a corresponding ACK/NACK may be specified in the DCI. For the timing, refer to PDCSCH-to-HARQ timing indicators in DCI 1_0 and DCI 1_1.”).
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Shen does not specifically disclose communications that are encoded in accordance with a network-encoding protocol, and transmitting data as part of a network-encoding procedure, where the data is network-encoded or is to be network-encoded, and decoding the message.
Babich discloses communications that are encoded in accordance with a network-encoding protocol, and transmitting data as part of a network-encoding procedure, where the data is network-encoded or is to be network-encoded, and decoding the message (see figure 5, reproduced below for convenience, wherein disclosed is step 405, wherein data is encoded and modulated, step 410 where the data is transmitted, step 430, where the data is received, and step 425, where the data is decoded and demodulated; also, see paragraph 104: the time to receive the encoded user message is less than a maximum acceptable decoder processing time).
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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 Shen and combine it with the noted teachings of Babich. The motivation to combine these references is to provide an improved method for data to be corrected decoded with reduced overhead and reduced delay and jitter (see paragraphs 1-4 of Babich).
Shen does not specifically disclose that the network-encoded communication corresponds to application of the network-encoding protocol to a plurality of transport blocks.
Liu discloses that the network-encoded communication corresponds to application of the network-encoding protocol to a plurality of transport blocks (see paragraph 124: “The wireless communications system 100 support network coding schemes to increase system capacity and improve resource utilization in a network. Network coding, for example, may enable multiple transport blocks to be encoded into a single network coding packet for transmission”).
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 Shen and combine it with the noted teachings of Liu. The motivation to combine these references is to provide an improved method for granting resources for network coding procedures (see paragraphs 1-3 of Liu).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-25, 27, and 29 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jamal Javaid whose telephone number is 571-270-5137 and email address is Jamal.Javaid@uspto.gov.
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/JAMAL JAVAID/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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