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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action, and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-13 and 17 responded on May 13, 2026 are pending, claims 1, 4-5, 8, 12-13 and 17 are amended, and claim 2 is canceled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 May 13, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 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
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, 6-13 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 10,470,194 B2, hereinafter "Kim") in view of Park et al. (US 12,335,052 B2, hereinafter "Park") .
Regarding claim 1, Kim discloses a telecommunication method comprising:
reporting terminal’s capability (Kim, Col. 22 line 1-2 The AR UE reports a plurality of possible combinations of a capability) comprising feeding back by the terminal to an access point a processing time required for the terminal to perform N ≥1 detection and decoding iteration(s) beyond a reference reception processing on at least one data packet to be transmitted during the communication by the access point and carried by a same physical channel (Kim, Col. 4 line 25-27; Col 14 line 57-60; Col. 15 line 28-32 a advanced receiver (AR) UE, a scheduling information of an interfering PDSCH being scheduled together with a desired PDSCH to assist interference cancellation (IC) capabilities of the advanced receiver; in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary; may report a capability of a maximum number of times of decoding the interference downlink control information of the terminal to the base station),
wherein a detection and decoding iteration of the N ≥ 1 detection and decoding iteration(s) performed by the terminal includes interference cancellation (Kim, Col. 15 line 27-33 in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary).
Kim does not explicitly disclose before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities (Park, col.23 line 27-28 the UE is able to support may be reported in UE capability to the BS in advance and Col 14 UE capability 1 and capability 2).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Regarding claim 6, Kim does not explicitly disclose wherein the method comprises determining a table of processing times by the terminal and the terminal feeds back the table to the access point.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the method comprises determining a table of processing times by the terminal and the terminal feeds back the table to the access point (Park, Col. 14 line 12-14 wherein the method comprises determining a table of processing times by the terminal and the terminal feeds back the table to the access point).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Regarding claim 7, Kim does not explicitly disclose wherein for a data packet transmission comprising multicarrier symbols the processing time is quantified as a number of multicarrier symbols.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein for a data packet transmission comprising multicarrier symbols the processing time is quantified as a number of multicarrier symbols (Park, table 3 and table 4 decoding time N1 (symbols)).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Regarding claim 8, Kim discloses comprising the terminal receiving the data packets by way of a PDSCH channel of a 5G access network (Kim, Col. 16 line 1-2 the configuration of PDCCH in the LTE(-A) system) (Park, Col. 2 various attempts to apply the 5G communication system to the IoT network are being made).
Regarding claim 11, Kim discloses the processing time for the N" iteration(s) is less than a time allotted to the terminal by the access point for feeding back an acknowledgement of receipt for the data packet (Kim, Col. 4 line 24-27; Col.15 line 34-37 the processor may report a capability of a maximum number of times of decoding the interference downlink control information of the terminal to the base station; an interference signal may be stably canceled when an interference packet is successfully decoded or when hard decision error probability of a coding symbol of an interference packet is less than a specific value).
Regarding claim 12, Kim discloses a telecommunication terminal comprising:
an iterative receiver having N ≥ 1 iteration(s) with soft detection and soft decoding of data packets transmitted by an access point (Kim, Col. 3 line 1-6 Col. 15 line 27-28 determining that the detected interference down link control information is valid when a resource block allocation field of the detected interference downlink control information includes or is the same as a resource block allocation field of the downlink control information for the terminal; in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance);
a receiver configured to receive a temporal indicator relating to a time allotted to the
terminal by the access point for feeding back an acknowledgement of receipt after at least one data packet has been decoded by the iterative receiver (Kim, Col. 13 line 4-7 HARQ ACK/NACK: This is a response signal to a downlink data packet on a PDSCH and indicates whether the downlink data packet has been successfully
received); and
a transmitter configured to:
reporting terminal’s capability (Kim, Col. 22 line 1-2 The AR UE reports a plurality of possible combinations of a capability) comprising feeding feed back to the access point a minimum processing time required for the terminal to perform N ≥ 1 detection and decoding iteration(s) beyond a reference reception processing on at least one data packet to be transmitted during the communication by the access point (Kim, Col. 4 line 25-27; Col 14 line 57-60; Col. 15 line 28-32 a advanced receiver (AR) UE, a scheduling information of an interfering PDSCH being scheduled together with a desired PDSCH to assist interference cancellation (IC) capabilities of the advanced receiver; in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary; may report a capability of a maximum number of times of decoding the interference downlink control information of the terminal to the base station; Col. 4 line 24-27; Col.15 line 27-32 the processor may report a capability of a maximum number of times of decoding the interference downlink control information of the terminal to the base station; in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary),
wherein a detection and decoding iteration of the N ≥ 1 detection and decoding iteration(s) performed by the terminal includes interference cancellation (Kim, Col. 15 line 27-33 in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary); and
transmit an acknowledgement of receipt after at least one data packet has been
decoded by the iterative receiver (Kim, Col. 13 line 4-7 HARQ ACK/NACK: This is a response signal to a downlink data packet on a PDSCH and indicates whether the downlink data packet has been successfully received).
Kim does not explicitly disclose before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities (Park, col.23 line 27-28 the UE is able to support may be reported in UE capability to the BS in advance and Col 14 UE capability 1 and capability 2).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Regarding claim 17, Kim discloses a telecommunication method comprising:
receiving terminal’s capability (Kim, Col. 22 line 1-2 The AR UE reports a plurality of possible combinations of a capability) comprising by an access point a feedback from the terminal relating to a processing time required for the terminal to perform N ≥ 1 detection and decoding iteration(s) beyond a reference reception processing on at least one data packet to be transmitted by the access point and carried during the communication by a same physical channel (Prakash, [0082, 94] the base station 110 (i.e. AP) may monitor for ACK/NACK feedback, corresponding to the downlink data communication, using a timing indicated by the processing time; a base station 110 may transmit an initial transmission with a less complex modulation and coding scheme (MCS) (and therefore target a better error rate) as compared to a retransmission, thus requiring performance of fewer iterations of a decode cycle of a decoder of the UE 120 (i.e. N ≥1 detection and decoding iteration)).
Kim does not explicitly disclose before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses before a communication between a terminal and an access point is set up, informing the access point by the terminal of the terminal's capabilities (Park, col.23 line 27-28 the UE is able to support may be reported in UE capability to the BS in advance and Col 14 UE capability 1 and capability 2).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Regarding claim 9, Kim discloses wherein the method comprises the access point scheduling a repetition mechanism for transmitted data packets by taking into account the minimum processing time required by the terminal for performing N’ ≥ 1 iteration(s) (Kim, Col. 15 line 27-33 in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary).
Regarding claim 10, Kim discloses wherein the method comprises the access point transmitting to the terminal a temporal indicator relating to a time allotted to the terminal by the access point for feeding back an acknowledgement of receipt after at least one data packet has been decoded by an iterative receiver of the terminal (Kim, Col. 13 line 4-7 HARQ ACK/NACK: This is a response signal to a downlink data packet on a PDSCH and indicates whether the downlink data packet has been successfully
received).
Regarding claim 13, Kim discloses an access point, comprising:
a receiver configured to receive terminal’s capability (Kim, Col. 22 line 1-2 The AR UE reports a plurality of possible combinations of a capability) comprising the feedback from a terminal relating to a minimum processing time required for the terminal to perform N ≥ 1 decoding iteration(s) beyond a reference reception processing on at least one data packet to be transmitted during the communication by the access point (Kim, Col. 4 line 25-27; Col 14 line 57-60; Col. 15 line 28-32 a advanced receiver (AR) UE, a scheduling information of an interfering PDSCH being scheduled together with a desired PDSCH to assist interference cancellation (IC) capabilities of the advanced receiver; in an iterative decoding interference cancellation receiver known to have highest performance, since a UE decodes an interference signal and regenerates an interference signal in order to cancel interference, all information for decoding the interference signal is necessary; may report a capability of a maximum number of times of decoding the interference downlink control information of the terminal to the base station); and
a transmitter configured to:
transmit data packets to the terminal (Prakash, [0083] the base station 110 (i.e. AP) may transmit, and the UE 120 may receive, a downlink data communication); and transmit a temporal indicator relating to a time allotted to the terminal by the access
point for feeding back an acknowledgement of receipt after at least one data packet has
been decoded by the iterative receiver (Kim, Col. 13 line 4-7 HARQ ACK/NACK: This is a response signal to a downlink data packet on a PDSCH and indicates whether the downlink data packet has been successfully
received).
Kim does not explicitly disclose before a communication between a terminal and the access point is set up, information from the terminal of the terminal's capabilities.
Park from the same field of endeavor discloses before a communication between a terminal and the access point is set up, information from the terminal of the terminal's capabilities (Park, col.23 line 27-28 the UE is able to support may be reported in UE capability to the BS in advance and Col 14 UE capability 1 and capability 2).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified PDSCH processing time disclosed by Kim and report minimize processing time disclosed by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve system networks, technologies for advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device to device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving networks, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like are also being developed in the 5G communication system (Park, Col. 1).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 10,470,194 B2, hereinafter "Kim") in view of Park et al. (US 12,335,052 B2, hereinafter "Park") as applied to claim above, and further in view of Suzuki et al.(US 2004/0042492 A1, hereinafter "Suzuki").
Regarding claim 3, Kim in view of Park does not explicitly disclose wherein minimum the processing time determined per iteration is the same for all iterations.
Suzuki from the same field of endeavor disclose wherein the processing time determined per iteration is the same for all iterations (Suzuki, [0025] Particularly for packet traffic in a mobile environment this might not be the best solution since a call set-up might be required quite regularly. Thus, the number of different UE capabilities needs to be as small as possible (i.e. same for all iteration)).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Suzuki’s system for processing time into Kim’s PDSCH process time as modified by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve over synchronous feedback transmission schemes (Suzuki, [abstract]).
Claim(s) 4-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 10,470,194 B2, hereinafter "Kim") in view of Park et al. (US 12,335,052 B2, hereinafter "Park") as applied to claim above, and further in view of Lee et al. (US 2020/0053789 A1, hereinafter "Lee").
Regarding claim 4, Kim in view of Park discloses wherein the terminal is capable of processing interference between users for an MU-MIMO transmission but does not explicitly disclose method comprises the terminal feeding back one additional processing time per iteration on the basis of a number of interfering users processed by the iterative decoding with interference cancellation, this additional time taking into account a structure of a multiuser receiver of SIC, PIC or hybrid type.
Lee from the same field of endeavor discloses the terminal feeding back one additional processing time per iteration on the basis of a number of interfering users processed by the iterative decoding with interference cancellation, this additional time taking into account a structure of a multiuser receiver of SIC, PIC or hybrid type (Lee, [0063] Fig. 6-7 The receiver of each NOMA system may demodulate the multi-user data using various MUD schemes. For example, the MUD schemes may include … successive interference cancellation (SIC), parallel interference cancellation (PIC), …. There may be a difference in demodulation complexity and processing time delay according to each demodulation scheme or the number of attempts of repeated demodulation).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Lee’s system for interference cancellation into Kim’s PDSCH process time as modified by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve contention-based UL transmission and reception performance by adaptively changing a mapping scheme between codewords for UL data and DMRSs according to collision between DMRSs transmitted by an OMA scheme (Lee, [0017]).
Regarding claim 5, Kim in view of Park discloses wherein the method comprises using a table of processing times by terminal type but does not explicitly disclose the minimum processing time is fed back by the terminal by indicating its SIC, PIC or hybrid type.
Lee from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the method comprises using a table of processing times by terminal type and the minimum processing time is fed back by the terminal by indicating its SIC, PIC or hybrid type (Lee, [0063] Fig. 6-7 The receiver of each NOMA system may demodulate the multi-user data using various MUD schemes. For example, the MUD schemes may include …successive interference cancellation (SIC), parallel interference cancellation (PIC), …. There may be a difference in demodulation complexity and processing time delay according to each demodulation scheme or the number of attempts of repeated demodulation).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Lee’s system for interference cancellation into Kim’s PDSCH process time as modified by Park with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve contention-based UL transmission and reception performance by adaptively changing a mapping scheme between codewords for UL data and DMRSs according to collision between DMRSs transmitted by an OMA scheme (Lee, [0017]).
Conclusion
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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