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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 8 objected to because of the following informalities: Dependency of Claim 8 is not clear. The claim set of 06/30/2023 has not clearly depicted its dependency. It is assumed it depends from claim 1 for examination purposes.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-7, 10-13, 15-17 and 19-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (US 2019/0320431, “Huang”) in view of Iyer et al. (US 2022/0217760, “Iyer”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Huang unless otherwise mentioned.
Huang comprises the following features:
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim 1, a wireless device comprising:
one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors ([0051] “one or more components of UE 120 may be included in a housing. Controller/processor 240 of base station 110, controller/processor 280 of UE 120, and/or any other component(s) of FIG. 2 may perform one or more techniques associated with selectively multiplexing PUSCH and PUCCH communications”), cause the wireless device to,
based on an uplink control channel transmission with an uplink control information (UCI) ([0027] “the UE may multiplex a PUCCH communication (e.g., that includes uplink control information (UCI), such as acknowledgment or negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) feedback and/or the like) and a PUSCH communication. In some aspects, the UE may multiplex the PUCCH communication and the PUSCH communication by piggybacking the PUCCH communication in the PUSCH communication”) overlapping in time with at least one repetition of repetitions of an uplink shared channel transmission, transmit the UCI ([0085] “As shown by reference number 705, a UE 120 may determine that a PUSCH communication and a PUCCH communication are scheduled to overlap in one or more symbols.” See below Iyer for repetitions.) in:.
It is noted that while disclosing multiplexing or piggybacking UCI on PUSCH, Huang does not specifically teach about repetitions. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Iyer as follows;
a first repetition, of the repetitions, associated with a first spatial domain transmission filter ([Iyer, 0303] “FIG. 27B shows an example of mapping UCI to PUSCH repetitions targeted for different TRPs with UCI with common codebook is repeated for each TRP. FIG. 27B shows slot 2723 comprising mini-slots 2717 and 2718, which comprise the PDCCH 2711, gap 2712, DMRS 2714, PUSCH 2713, HARQ ACK UCI.sub.0 2715 (transmitted in beam B.sub.0 2719), and HARQ ACK UCI.sub.1 2716 (transmitted in beam B.sub.1 2720). In the example of FIG. 27B, another solution for piggybacking UCI on multi-TRP PUSCH is shown in which UCI.sub.Total in PUCCH 2721 (transmitted in beam B.sub.PUCCH 2722) may be encoded, modulated, and repeated in each of the PUSCH mini-slots 2717 and 2718.”); and
a second repetition, of the repetitions, associated with a second spatial domain transmission filter (See aforesaid [Iyer, 0303] for 2716 on 2718 PUSCH0 with 2720 B1 which teaches the second spatial domain transmission filer.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Huang’s UE procedure for piggybacking a PUCCH communication carrying UCI in an overlapping PUSCH communication by using the features of Iyer in order to enable each TRP to receive the UCI and improve robustness such that “Methods are described for identifying the priority of a transmission in the UL, handling intra-UE PDSCH collisions, supporting multiple HARQ ACK codebooks, enabling UCI on the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) for multiple priorities, PUSCH repetition, handling collision of HARQ IDs for a configured grant (CG) and a dynamic grant, and enabling MAC layer handling of intra-UE conflicts.” [Iyer, 0004].
Regarding claim 11, it is a base station claim corresponding to the device claim 1 in a reciprocal way, and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 20, it is a CRM claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitations, “a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors” ([0008] “a non-transitory computer-readable medium may store one or more instructions for wireless communication. The one or more instructions, when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment, may cause the one or more processors”), and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claims 2 and 12, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the instructions further cause the wireless device to multiplex the UCI in:
the first repetition; and the second repetition, wherein transmitting the first repetition and the second repetition is based on multiplexing the UCI (See aforesaid [Iyer, 0303 and Fig. 27B]).
Regarding claims 3 and 13, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the instructions further cause the wireless device to receive one or more messages comprising one or more configuration parameters indicating a repetition type ([Iyer, 0306] “FIG. 28A shows an example of PUSCH repetition with scheduling request indicator (SRI) cycling 2800. FIG. 28A shows slots 2810 and 2811 comprising the PDCCH 2801, gap 2802, SRI.sub.1 2803, SRI.sub.2 2804, SRI.sub.3 2806, and SRL 2807. In the example of FIG. 28A, each repetition within the set of repetitions 2805 within a CG or dynamic grant may correspond to a different SRI (e.g., SRI 2803, SRI 2804, SRI 2806, and SRI 2807), TCI state and/or precoder, so that the UE may transmit each PUSCH within the repetition in a different spatial direction (to a different TRP). Thus, the UE may cycle through different SRIs, TCI states, and/or precoders to complete the repetition set. In the example of FIG. 28A, the SRIs (e.g., SRI 2803, SRI 2804, SRI 2806, and SRI 2807), TCI states, and/or precoders for the repetition may be configured for the UE through the RRC (at least for Type-1 CG, and possibly for Type-2 CG).”).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the at least one repetition comprises both: the first repetition; and the second repetition (See aforesaid [Iyer, 0303 and Fig. 27B]).
Regarding claims 6 and 16, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the at least one repetition comprises one of the first repetition or the second repetition ([Iyer, 0292] “the UCI may not be split between repetitions but mapped fully on to one of the PUSCH repetitions. The repetition that may carry the UCI may be the one that overlaps with the PUCCH corresponding to that UCI.”).
Regarding claims 7 and 17, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the second repetition occurs or is after the first repetition (See [Iyer, Fig. 27B] for the second slot.).
Regarding claims 10 and 19, the wireless device of claim 1 and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the UCI comprises at least one of: hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) (See [Iyer, Fig. 27B]); scheduling request; and channel-state-information (CSI) report (These alternatives are not examined.).
Claim(s) 4, 8-9, 14 and 18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (US 2019/0320431, “Huang”) in view of Iyer et al. (US 2022/0217760, “Iyer”) and further in view of Choi et al. (US 2023/0199759, “Choi”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Huang unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claims 4 and 14, it is noted that while disclosing multiplexing or piggybacking UCI on PUSCH, Huang does not specifically teach about repetition types. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Choi as follows;
the wireless device of claim 3 and the base station of claim 13, respectively, wherein the repetition type is: a PUSCH repetition Type A; or a PUSCH repetition Type B ([Choi, 0177] “The term “continuously” represents that a PUSCH is transmitted again on a symbol immediately after a symbol on which one PUSCH is ended. Such a method may be referred to as mini-slot-level PUSCH repeated transmission or PUSCH repetition type B, and the above-described repeated transmission method of 3GPP NR release 15 may be referred to as a slot-level PUSCH repeated transmission method or PUSCH repetition type A.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Huang’s UE procedure for piggybacking a PUCCH communication carrying UCI in an overlapping PUSCH communication by using the features of Choi in order to implement the repeated PUSCH transmission using a recognized NR PUSCH-repetition type such that “receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) for scheduling repeated transmission of the PUSCH” [Choi, 0011].
Regarding claims 8 and 18, the wireless device of claim and the base station of claim 1, respectively, wherein the first repetition is an earliest repetition among the at least one repetition ([Choi, 0192] “Referring to FIG. 14, when a resource for transmitting a PUCCH and a resource for repeatedly transmitting a PUSCH overlap with each other on at least one symbol, an UCI to be transmitted through the PUCCH may be multiplexed and transmitted in a PUSCH repetition located at the foremost in time among all PUSCH repetitions of a PUSCH including overlapping PUSCH repetitions.”).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Choi are the same as for claim 4.
Regarding claim 9, the wireless device of claim 1, wherein the second repetition is an earliest repetition among one or more second repetitions, of the repetitions ([Choi, 0193] “UCI that is control information to be transmitted from the user equipment to the base station may be always multiplexed on a PUSCH repetition located at the foremost in time among all PUSCH repetitions”), associated with the second spatial domain transmission filter (See aforesaid [Iyer, 0303]).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of Choi are the same as for claim 4.
Conclusion
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/HARRY H KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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