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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/23/2026 has been entered.
Status of Application/Amendments/claims
Applicant’s amendment filed on 4/23/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 1 and 11 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined, of which claims 1 and 11 are independent.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 11 recite “an adjustment associated with the physical uplink channel to support a number of Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) bits” and “the supportable HARQ bits associated with the physical uplink channel”. The recitation “the supportable HARQ bits” have lack of antecedent basis in the claim. Further, it is unclear if two limitations underlined above refer to same number of HARQ bits or different. Dependent claims are rejected for same reasons.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims, the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-5, 7, 9-12, 14-15, 17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US 20130279480) in view of Hwang et al. (US 20190229883)
Regarding claim 1, Park teaches a method implemented in a network node configured to communicate with a wireless device (WD) (fig 27, para 45, 248: a method for transmitting an ACK/NACK signal in PUCCH format 3 by using spatial bundling according to an instruction from a base station in a system), the method comprising:
determining a channel condition of a physical uplink channel associated with the WD (s2720, fig 27; para 251: the BS recognizes a channel state through channel information transmitted from the MS (S2720), the BS recognizes an uplink channel state from an SRS (Sounding Reference Signal) transmitted via uplink or on the basis of a reception state of received data);
based on the channel condition, performing an adjustment associated with the physical uplink channel to support a number of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) bits (para 252-255: the BS determines a scheme of configuring HARQ ACK/NACK signals of the MS on the basis of the recognized channel state (S2730), on the basis of a channel state of the MS, if the channel state is poor, the BS may determine to perform spatial bundling until when a size of payload of all the HARQ ACK/NACK signals transmitted in a single uplink subframe reaches a particular size, in order to increase transmission power per bit. Also, on the basis of the channel state of the MS, when the channel state is worse than a predetermined reference value, the BS may determine to perform full bundling on HARQ ACK/NACK signals transmitted in a single uplink subframe).
Park teaches HARQ ACK/NACK transmission in PUCCH format 3 using spatial bundling. Park fails to teach determination of maximum number of HARQ bits and number of cells for UE. Hwang is directed to HARQ operation from UE in TDD-FDD cell based carrier aggregation.
Hwang further teaches determining, for WD configuration, a maximum number of HARQ bits and a quantity of cells for the WD to be configured with (para 157: in case that PUCCH format 3 is supported, maximum 20 bits of the HARQ-ACK is allowable, and the maximum number of the cells that are object of carrier aggregation may be configured based on the standard that the corresponding HARQ-ACK bit number does not exceed 20 bits; para 164: in the corresponding UL-DL configuration, in case that the remaining DL subframes of FDD are not used, the number of the HARQ-ACK bit (including using spatial bundling) is maximum 20 bits based on that 5 cells are aggregated) based on the supportable HARQ bits associated with the physical uplink channel (para 157; para 8-9: a maximum number of cells included in the CA may be limited such that the determined number of HARQ ACK/NACK bits does not exceed a maximum number of bits allowed in the PUCCH format; here, the supportable HARQ bits are 20 bits, thus the maximum bits and cells are configured based on the 20 bits for the uplink). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park with maximum HARQ bits being associated with number of cell as taught by Hwang for the benefit of supporting HARQ operation with FDD TDD based cells in carrier aggregation as taught by Hwang in Para 6-14.
Regarding claim 11, Park teaches a network node (base station, fig 26, 27) configured to communicate with a wireless device (WD) (fig 27, para 45, 248: a method for transmitting an ACK/NACK signal in PUCCH format 3 by using spatial bundling according to an instruction from a base station in a system), the network node comprising processing circuitry (fig 26; para 237: the BS 2620 may include a transceiver unit 2660, a storage unit 2680, and a controller 2670), the processing circuitry configured to cause the network node (para 245: the controller 2670 may transmit information required for performing spatial bundling of the MS and information required for configuring HARQ ACK/NACK signals to the MS through the transceiver unit 2660) to:
determine a channel condition of a physical uplink channel associated with the WD (s2720, fig 27; para 251: the BS recognizes a channel state through channel information transmitted from the MS (S2720), the BS recognizes an uplink channel state from an SRS (Sounding Reference Signal) transmitted via uplink or on the basis of a reception state of received data);
based on the channel condition, perform an adjustment associated with the physical uplink channel to support a number of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) bits (para 252-255: the BS determines a scheme of configuring HARQ ACK/NACK signals of the MS on the basis of the recognized channel state (S2730), on the basis of a channel state of the MS, if the channel state is poor, the BS may determine to perform spatial bundling until when a size of payload of all the HARQ ACK/NACK signals transmitted in a single uplink subframe reaches a particular size, in order to increase transmission power per bit. Also, on the basis of the channel state of the MS, when the channel state is worse than a predetermined reference value, the BS may determine to perform full bundling on HARQ ACK/NACK signals transmitted in a single uplink subframe).
Park teaches HARQ ACK/NACK transmission in PUCCH format 3 using spatial bundling. Park fails to teach determination of maximum number of HARQ bits and number of cells for UE. Hwang is directed to HARQ operation from UE in TDD-FDD cell based carrier aggregation.
Hwang further teaches determine, for WD configuration, a maximum number of HARQ bits and a quantity of cells for the WD to be configured with (para 157: in case that PUCCH format 3 is supported, maximum 20 bits of the HARQ-ACK is allowable, and the maximum number of the cells that are object of carrier aggregation may be configured based on the standard that the corresponding HARQ-ACK bit number does not exceed 20 bits; para 164: in the corresponding UL-DL configuration, in case that the remaining DL subframes of FDD are not used, the number of the HARQ-ACK bit (including using spatial bundling) is maximum 20 bits based on that 5 cells are aggregated) based on the supportable HARQ bits associated with the physical uplink channel (para 157; para 8-9: a maximum number of cells included in the CA may be limited such that the determined number of HARQ ACK/NACK bits does not exceed a maximum number of bits allowed in the PUCCH format; here, the supportable HARQ bits are 20 bits, thus the maximum bits and cells are configured based on the 20 bits for the uplink). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park with maximum HARQ bits being associated with number of cell as taught by Hwang for the benefit of supporting HARQ operation with FDD TDD based cells in carrier aggregation as taught by Hwang in Para 6-14.
Regarding claim 2 and 12, Park further teaches wherein the performing the adjustment comprises: applying a link adaptation to the physical uplink channel to support the number of HARQ bits to transmit on the physical uplink channel (S2740, fig 27; para 256: when the BS determines a scheme for configuring HARQ ACK/NACK signals to be performed by the MS, the BS transmits the information regarding the scheme for configuring the HARQ ACK/NACK signals to the MS through RRC signaling or may transmit the same to the MS on a PDCCH).
Regarding claim 4 and 14, Park teaches the limitation of performing adjustment to support number of HARQ bits on uplink channel, but fails to teach that the adjustment of number of cells.
Hwang further teaches wherein the performing the adjustment comprises: adjusting a number of cells configured to the WD (para 8: determining the number of HARQ ACK/NACK bits to be transmitted in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) format, a maximum number of cells included in the CA is limited such that the determined number of HARQ ACK/NACK bits does not exceed a maximum number of bits allowed in the PUCCH format). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park with adjustment to HARQ bits being associated with number of cell as taught by Hwang for the benefit of supporting HARQ operation with FDD TDD based cells in carrier aggregation as taught by Hwang in Para 6-14.
Regarding claim 5 and 15, Park teaches the limitation of performing adjustment to support number of HARQ bits on uplink channel, but fails to teach that the adjustment is of PDCCH monitoring window.
Hwang further teaches wherein the performing the adjustment comprises: adjusting a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring window for the WD (para 124: referring to FIG. 9, the base station may configure a PDCCH monitoring DL CC (monitoring CC) set, the PDCCH monitoring DL CC set consists of some of all of the aggregated DL CCs, and if cross-carrier scheduling is configured, the user equipment performs PDCCH monitoring/decoding only on the DL CCs included in the PDCCH monitoring DL CC set; here, as shown in fig 9, the PDCCH monitoring in the subframe (monitoring window) is adjusted to monitor only first DL CC). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park with adjustment to HARQ bits being associated with number of cell as taught by Hwang for the benefit of supporting HARQ operation with FDD TDD based cells in carrier aggregation as taught by Hwang in Para 6-14.
Regarding claim 7 and 17, Park further teaches wherein the determining the channel condition of the physical uplink channel comprises obtaining a measurement of the physical uplink channel (para 249: fig 27, the MS transmits channel information regarding the MS to the BS periodically or aperiodically via uplink (S2710), in transmitting the channel information regarding the MS to the BS, the MS may transmit measurement information regarding a channel state such as CQI/PMI/RI(CSI), or RSRP or RSRQ together).
Regarding claim 9 and 19, Park fails to teach, but Hwang further teaches wherein the number of HARQ bits to support is a maximum number of downlink HARQ bits associated with the WD (abstract: a maximum number of cells included in the CA may be limited such that the determined number of HARQ ACK/NACK bits does not exceed a maximum number of bits allowed in the PUCCH format). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park with adjustment to HARQ bits being associated with number of cell as taught by Hwang for the benefit of supporting HARQ operation with FDD TDD based cells in carrier aggregation as taught by Hwang in Para 6-14.
Regarding claim 10 and 20, Park further teaches wherein the adjustment to support the number of HARQ bits is performed when the channel condition of the physical uplink channel is unable to support the number of HARQ bits (para 14: In the determining of the mode of the spatial bundling, the spatial bundling mode may be determined such that when an uplink channel state is worse than a predetermined reference state, the MS performs spatial bundling on the entire CCs of a downlink subframe for transmitting HARQ ACK/NACK signals in a single uplink subframe, and when the uplink channel state is not worse than the predetermined reference state, the MS performs spatial bundling on some of CCs of the downlink subframe for transmitting HARQ ACK/NACK signals in a single uplink subframe).
Claims 3, 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. in view of Hwang et al. in further view of Nikaein (US 20120033750)
Regarding claim 3 and 13, Park in view of Hwang teaches the limitations of the parent claim, including adjustment to number of HARQ bits on uplink channel, but fails to teach that the adjustment to number of bits is based on power headroom report. Nikaein is directed to transport block size adjustment based on the current condition of uplink channel.
Nikaein further teaches wherein the performing the adjustment comprises: adjusting the number of bits based at least in part on a power headroom report from the WD (para 8: the information sent from the UEs to the Node-B 102 in order for the Node-B 102 to allocate the grants comprises (i) the Total E-DCH Buffer Status (TEBS) which provides information on the amount of data at the UE waiting to be transmitted on the uplink channel, and (ii) the UE power headroom (UPH)). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park in view of Hwang with channel condition for allocation being power headroom of UE as taught by Nikaein for the benefit of improving the efficiency of data transfer between the Node-B and the UE as taught by Nikaein in Para 39.
Claims 6, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. in view of Hwang et al. in further view of Lee et al. (US 20200136763)
Regarding claim 6 and 16, Park in view of Hwang teaches the limitations of the parent claim, including determining a channel condition of a physical uplink channel, but fails to teach the channel condition being determined based on BLER. Lee is directed to method for performance metric based HARQ ACK/NACK feedback.
Lee further teaches wherein the determining the channel condition of the physical uplink channel is based at least in part on a target block error rate (BLER) (para 150: HARQ bundling is performed in the spatial/time/carrier/frequency domain, the HARQ-ACK bundling may be performed for each target service, quality of service (QoS), BLER requirement, and/or latency requirement, the bundling may be applied to HARQ-ACKs with the target BLER less than a threshold). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park in view of Hwang with adjustment to HARQ bits being associated with BLER as taught by Lee for the benefit of efficiently providing HARQ-ACK/NACK feedback as taught by Lee in Para 19.
Claims 8, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. in view of Hwang et al. in further view of Baldemair et al. (US 20180110014)
Regarding claim 8 and 18, Park in view of Hwang teaches the limitations of the parent claim, including determining a channel condition of a physical uplink channel by obtaining measurement.
Park further teaches the physical uplink channel is a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (para 73: A PUCCH (Physical uplink control channel) carries a HARQ ACK/NAK signal with respect to a downlink transmission, a scheduling request, a sounding reference signal (SRS), and uplink control information such as CQI)).
Park in view of Hwang does not limit the uplink channel measurement to SNR/SINR. Baldemair is directed to adjustment of transmit control power of uplink as function of HARQ bits.
Baldemair further teaches wherein the measurement is a measurement of a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) (fig 3-11 illustrate SNR based on number of A/N bits; para 86: the operating SINR increase for PUCCH Format 3 with SORTD (transmit diversity) may be modeled for all ACK/NACK payload sizes with the same linear function, the eNB 16 may instruct the UE 12 to either apply a single function or a combination of functions for h (nCQI, nHARQ) depending on the payload size in the PUCCH format 3 signal (with transmit diversity) to be transmitted by the UE 12). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine HARQ bits adjustment based on the channel condition as taught by Park in view of Hwang with adjustment to HARQ bits being associated with SINR as taught by Baldemair for the benefit of enabling the UE to more accurately establish transmit power of its PUCCH signal as taught by Baldemair in abstract.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to Park and Hwang reference not teaching the amended claim limitations of claim 1 (page 8) have been fully considered but are not persuasive. The applicant argues that Hwang teaches standard design limits of maximum 20 bits and 5 cells for PUCCH format 3 and does not teach adjustment with physical uplink channel and determining specific configuration. The applicant further argues that claim 1 as amended requires that same network node, after determining channel condition and performing an adjustment associated with the physical uplink channel to support number of HARQ bits, further determines for WD configuration, a maximum number of HARQ bits together with a quantity of cells for the WD to be configured with. The examiner respectfully disagrees. It is noted above with respect to 35 USC 112(b), that the recited limitation of “to support a number of HARQ bits” and “the supportable HARQ bits” are unclear if they refer to same or different number of bits. In the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of specification, supportable bits for WD configuration could be different than the adjustment to support number of bits, and further, the adjustment to support bits and determining WD configuration could be performed separately and in different order. The Park reference teaches HARQ ACK/NACK transmission in PUCCH format 3 using spatial bundling and also teaches the spatial bundling configuration of HARQ bits based on channel condition. Park fails to teach determination of maximum number of HARQ bits and number of cells for UE. The Hwang reference teaches based on the PUCCH format, how many bits are “supportable”. And based on that, the configuration of maximum number of bits and quantity of cell are adjusted or determined. Thus, Park in view of Hwang appear to teach the argued claim limitation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RINA C PANCHOLI whose telephone number is (571)272-2679. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-4pm.
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/RINA C PANCHOLI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477 6/3/2026
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