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) 53-72 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. In regards to the new claims 53-72, Andersson did does disclose a time domain resource allocation, but does not disclose the quantity of slots and they also disclose a slot format indicator for UL, but does not disclose for other types. The newly added secondary reference Moon discloses a slot format that can indicator the types such as DL, UL, flex and a TDRA that indicates number of slots.
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 53-72 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andersson et al. (WO 2020165835 A1, hereinafter Andersson) in view of MOON et al. (US 20200162208 A1, hereinafter Moon).
Regarding claims 53, 58, 63, and 68 Andersson discloses:
Receiving a slot format indicated by a network device (Paragraph [0061], “In some embodiments, an SFI, slot format indicator, DCI message is used to determine which symbols are used for UL transmission.”)
receiving a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) parameter indicated by the network device, wherein the PUSCH parameter includes a time domain parameter, (Paragraph [0053], “receiving a configuration message that includes transmit format data corresponding to a multiple segment transmission on a physical shared channel, the transmit format data comprising at least one of transport block size data, TBS, determination data, redundancy version, RV, determination data, starting point and length of PUSCH transmission data, time domain resource allocation, TDRA, table data, and/or demodulated reference signal, DMRS data.” These are PUSCH parameters including time domain parameter.)
and sending data carried on a first PUSCH in the N slots, (paragraph [0141], “In some embodiments, to allocate RVs to the different segments for different transmission opportunities the following procedure is followed. First the segment with longest length (as counted in OFDM symbols or DFT-S-OFDM symbols) is found. If there is more than one segment with the longest length, then one of them is chosen by a predefined rule. E.g. the first segment is chosen.” To determine whether to send data carried on which segment, there is a procedure to find which one has the TXOP.)
wherein the data is obtained by performing channel coding on a transport block (TB), and a size of the TB is determined based on available symbols in the N slots; (Paragraph [0310], “Some embodiments provide channel coding considerations when comparing mini slot based repetitions and multi-segment PUSCH.” And paragraph [0128-0132], “Let mo be the number of useful symbols occupied by the PUSCH in the first slot. Let mi be the number of useful symbols occupied by the PUSCH in the second slot. Let m= min(13, mo+mi). Perform TBS determination based on m symbols… where N symb.i i.sup.s the number of symbols of the PUSCH allocation in the slot i, i.sup.s the number of Res for DM-RS per PRB in the scheduled duration including the overhead of the RS CDM groups without data for slot i, and the sum is over all slots in the transmission.” These paragraph discloses TB size determination based on the number of symbols of the PUSCH allocated in the slot.)
wherein N is a positive integer greater than 1. (paragraph [0138] table. The RV field and slot format of the table determines this first information, showing the number of segments, the start, and the length of the segment in n slot. The length of segment is also > 1.)
Andersson does not fully disclose:
wherein the slot format indicates a type of each symbol in a slot;
and the time domain parameter includes information indicating a quantity of slots N;
determining the quantity of slots N based on the time domain parameter;
determining N slots based on the quantity of slots N and the slot format;
Moon discloses:
wherein the slot format indicates a type of each symbol in a slot; (Paragraph [0066], “A slot (e.g., slot format) may be composed of a combination of one or more of downlink duration, flexible duration or unknown duration (hereinafter collectively referred to as ‘flexible duration’), and an uplink duration.” And paragraph [0067], “The slot format may be configured semi-statically by higher layer signaling (e.g. radio resource control (RRC) signaling).” The slot format indicator in Andersson only discloses symbols for UL transmission as disclosed in his paragraph [0040] and it is inherent that it could disclose other slot types, but Moon explicitly discloses this.)
and the time domain parameter includes information indicating a quantity of slots N; determining the quantity of slots N based on the time domain parameter; (Paragraph [0127], “the base station may inform the terminal of resource allocation information for a plurality of PUSCH instances. For example, the base station may signal time domain resource allocation information for each PUSCH instance to the terminal. In this case, unlike Method 110, the base station may inform the terminal of information indicating the number of slots aggregated for the PUSCH transmission.” This time domain resource indicates number of slots.)
determining N slots based on the quantity of slots N and the slot format; (Paragraph [0066], “A slot (e.g., slot format) may be composed of a combination of one or more of downlink duration, flexible duration or unknown duration (hereinafter collectively referred to as ‘flexible duration’), and an uplink duration.” And paragraph [0067], “The slot format may be configured semi-statically by higher layer signaling (e.g. radio resource control (RRC) signaling)” and Paragraph [0127], “the base station may inform the terminal of resource allocation information for a plurality of PUSCH instances. For example, the base station may signal time domain resource allocation information for each PUSCH instance to the terminal. In this case, unlike Method 110, the base station may inform the terminal of information indicating the number of slots aggregated for the PUSCH transmission.” This time domain resource indicates number of slots and slot format indicates type.)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the slot format indicator and time domain resource allocation of Andersson with Moon’s slot quantity and type. One would have been motivated to do this to increase UE traffic coordination and dynamic traffic adaptation.
Specifically regarding claims 63 and 68 Andersson discloses:
A memory coupled to processor for UE and network (Paragraph [0168], “Wireless device UE may also include a processor circuit 1403 (also referred to as a processor) coupled to the transceiver circuit, and a memory circuit 1405 (also referred to as memory) coupled to the processor circuit.” And paragraph [0170], “The network node may also include a processor circuit 1503 (also referred to as a processor) coupled to the transceiver circuit, and a memory circuit 1505 (also referred to as memory) coupled to the processor circuit.”)
Regarding claims 54, 59, 64, and 69 Andersson discloses:
wherein L symbols starting from a start symbol S in each slot of the N slots are available symbols, where both of S and L are positive integers and are indicated by the network device. (Paragraph [0283], “one UL grant scheduling two or more PUSCH repetitions that can be in one slot, or across slot boundary in consecutive available slots; one UL grant scheduling two or more PUSCH repetitions in consecutive available slots, with one repetition in each slot with possibly different starting symbols and/or durations;”)
Regarding claims 55, 60, 65 and 70 Andersson discloses:
wherein the N slots are consecutive slots. (Paragraph [0283], “one UL grant scheduling two or more PUSCH repetitions that can be in one slot, or across slot boundary in consecutive available slots; one UL grant scheduling two or more PUSCH repetitions in consecutive available slots, with one repetition in each slot with possibly different starting symbols and/or durations;”)
Regarding claims 56, 61, 66 and 71 Andersson discloses:
wherein the PUSCH parameters are carried in a radio resource control (RRC) signaling. (Paragraph [0124], “In addition to the RRC configuration of time domain resource allocation of PDSCH and PUSCH” and paragraph [0154], “In some embodiments RRC signaling is used to determine which symbols are used for UL transmission.” And paragraph [0060], “Some embodiments provide that a radio resource control, RRC, signal provides the initial RV for the initial PUSCH segment”)
Regarding claims 57, 62, 67, and 72 Andersson discloses:
wherein the available symbols do not include a downlink symbol, and the available symbols do not include a flexible symbol for downlink-to-uplink conversion. (Paragraph [0102], “ …is a block diagram illustrating potential variations of an NR slot structure according to some embodiments herein. As illustrated, variations may include a DL-only transmission with a late start, a DL-heavy transmission with an UL part, an UL-heavy transmission with DL control, and a UL-only transmission.”)
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.
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/NAM P. CAO/Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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