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 Amendment
The reply with claim amendment filed on 12/03/2025 has been entered. Claims 1, 10, and 15 are now pending.
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.
Claims 1, 10, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (US 2024/0089973 A1, “Zhang”) in view of Singh et al. (WO 2024/099921, “Singh”).
Regarding claim 1:
Zhang discloses a user equipment (UE) (e.g., Fig. 3, 300), comprising:
receiving circuitry (e.g., Fig. 3, 316) configured to determine a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) with a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) overlaps with a configured grant (CG) physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with UCI; transmitting circuitry (e.g., Fig. 3, 316) configured to encode a joint sequence with the UCI and the HARQ-ACK by appending bits for the HARQ-ACK to bits of the UCI, and multiplex the joint sequence on the CG PUSCH, in a case that priority of the HARQ-ACK is the same as the UCI, wherein the priority of the UCI is the same as the CG PUSCH (e.g., [0062], [0073], [0076], [0077], Fig. 4A, 4B, 6A, 6B).
Zhang is silent regarding unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI).
Singh teaches a CG-PUSCH with unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI) ([0038]-[0048], [0052]-[0054], Fig. 4 and 5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Zhang based on Singh so that the UCI is unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI), in order to improve resource efficiency of the system with unused allocated uplink resources.
Regarding claim 10:
Singh discloses a base station (gNB) (e.g., 2, 200), comprising:
transmitting circuitry (e.g., Fig. 2, 208) to determine a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) with a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) overlaps with a configured grant (CG) physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with UCI; and receiving circuitry (e.g., Fig. 2, 208) configured to decode a joint sequence with the UCI and the HARQ-ACK by appending bits for the HARQ-ACK to bits of the UCI, and the joint sequence on the CG PUSCH is multiplexed, in a case that priority of the HARQ-ACK is the same as the UCI, wherein the priority of the UCI is the same as the CG PUSCH (e.g., [0062], [0073], [0076], [0077], Fig. 4A, 4B, 6A, 6B).
Zhang is silent regarding unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI).
Singh teaches a CG-PUSCH with unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI) ([0038]-[0048], [0052]-[0054], Fig. 4 and 5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the inventio to modify the system of Zhang based on Singh so that the UCI is unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI), in order to improve resource efficiency of the system with unused allocated uplink resources.
Regarding claim 15:
Singh discloses a method by a user equipment (UE) (e.g., Fig. 10, UE QQ200,) comprising:
determining a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) with a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) overlaps with a configured grant (CG) physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with UCI; encoding a joint sequence with the UCI and the HARQ-ACK by appending bits for the HARQ-ACK to bits of the UCI, and multiplex the joint sequence on the CG PUSCH, in a case that priority of the HARQ-ACK is the same as the UCI, wherein the priority of the UCI is the same as the CG PUSCH (e.g., [0062], [0073], [0076], [0077], Fig. 4A, 4B, 6A, 6B).
Zhang is silent regarding unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI).
Singh teaches a CG-PUSCH with unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI) ([0038]-[0048], [0052]-[0054], Fig. 4 and 5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Zhang based on Singh so that the UCI is unused transmission PUSCH occasion uplink control information (UTO-UCI), in order to improve resource efficiency of the system with unused allocated uplink resources.
Response to Arguments
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 over Singh
Applicant’s arguments with respect to independent claims 1, 10, and 15 have been considered but are moot in view of a new ground of rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Zhang and Singh.
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 Alvin ZHU whose telephone number is (571)270-1086. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 6am-9am and 2pm-7pm.
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/BO HUI A ZHU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465