DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The instant Office Action is in response to communication filed on 10/12/2025.
Claims 1-18 and 20 are pending. Claim 1 is the base independent claim. Claim 1 is amended.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/28/2025 was filed before the mailing date of the instant Office Action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments/Amendment
Regarding claim 1, Applicant files arguments with respect to the amendment in the Remark.
--In response, new grounds of rejection are made by the combination of Fakoorian and Papasakellariou/Lei based on the amended claim limitations. Upon further consideration, Fakoorian still applies to a portion of the independent claims because the amendment does not change the scope of this portion. The rest of the arguments have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the new reference being used in the current rejection.
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.
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 1-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Fakoorian et al (US 2020/0169962) in view of Papasakellariou (US 2022/0116157, at least supported by provisional application 63/089117) and/or in view of in view of Lei et al (US 2022/0053537), or in view of Yin et al (US 2023/0379916, supported by provisional application 63/082932).
Regarding claim 1, Fakoorian discloses a method, comprising:
receiving one or more transmissions from a network node (fig. 2 & par 110; base station 102-a may transmit one or more data packets 210 to UE 115-a);
generating one or more soft hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedbacks corresponding to the one or more transmissions (fig. 2 & par 111; e.g. if UE 115-a transmits '111' for the soft ACK/NACK feedback, base station 105-a may determine that the downlink transmission sent to UE 115-a was in good condition); and
transmitting the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks to the network node (fig. 2 & par 111; e.g. the proxy ACK/NACK feedback 220 may include a soft ACK/NACK feedback),
Although Fakoorian discloses using a subset of LLRs corresponding to the subset of bits for the partial decoding, the reference does not explicitly disclose the following subject matter:
wherein the generating of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises measuring one or more metrics on each codebook associated with the one or more transmissions, and wherein the one or more metrics comprise one or more of (examining note: since the claim shows a limitation in an alternative form, the prior art may teach either or both limitations, and this notice applies to subsequent occurrences of claim limitations that are in the alternative form): one or more codebook number (CN) updates; one or more LDPC processing cycles; one or more flipped bits between an input and an output of a LDPC decoder; a history of bits flipping per cycle of LDCP decoding; and a magnitude and a variance of LLR values post-receiving-combining or after de-ratematching.
However, it is obvious in view of Papasakellariou because:
In Papasakellariou, par 89, par 130, par 136, e.g. a soft ACK value based on one or more metrics such as a number of iterations for a LDPC decoder or soft log-likelihood metric values prior to decoding. Thus it at least reads on LDPC processing cycles or a magnitude and a variance of LLR values post-receiving-combining or after de-ratematching.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Although Papasakellariou discloses determining whether to report soft ACK values or report a ratio for a number of small ACK values over a total number of ACK values in a HARQ-ACK codebook, the reference does not seem to disclose one or more codebook number (CN) updates.
However, Lei discloses:
In Lei, par 71, e.g. a HARQ-ACK codebook index (HCI) may be included in each DL grant. The value of the HCI may be updated from one HARQ-ACK codebook to another. Thus it reads on updated codebook number.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Lei with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to trigger HARQ-ACK codebook (Lei, par 71).
Regarding claim 2, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein a report in the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises measured or estimated soft information in a form of a percentage value of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks which is a ratio of a measured or estimated value of the soft information to a maximum value of the soft information (par 129, par 137; e.g. a UE (such as the UE 116) to report a ratio between a number of ACK values with corresponding soft values that are smaller than a threshold over a total number of ACK values in a HARQACK codebook).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 3, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the soft information comprises information on one or more of (examining note: since the claim shows a limitation in an alternative form, the prior art may teach either or both limitations, and this notice applies to subsequent occurrences of claim limitations that are in the alternative form): a number of low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoding iterations; an amount of time needed to complete a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) decoding process; a log-likelihood ratio (LLR) value; an LLR variance; a number of flipped bits; and a raw bit error rate (BER) (par 89; The UE can determine a soft ACK value based on one or more metrics such as a number of iterations for a LDPC decoder, or soft log-likelihood metric values prior to decoding).
Regarding claim 4, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein a number of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks is less than a number of existing HARQ feedbacks based on a reduction in the number of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks in a period of N time units, and wherein a granularity of the N time units is a sub- slot, slot or radio frame (par 135-136; e.g. reporting can be per configured number of HARQ-ACK codebooks, or per configured number of actual HARQ-ACK information bits, or per an absolute time period).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 5, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein measurements of a soft HARQ feedback report per N time unit is based on one of:
N physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) from N sub-slots, N slots or N radio frames; one or more PDSCHs per N time unit, wherein the PDSCH is selected due to having a worst decoding performance or a best decoding performance; one or more PDSCHs having been successfully decoded; and one or more PDSCHs having been unsuccessfully decoded (par 133; e.g. the UE receives a PDSCH and correctly decodes a TB provided by the PDSCH. In step 1230, the UE determines whether a metric for the PDSCH reception or for the TB decoding operation is larger than the threshold).
Regarding claim 6, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein a processing timeline associated in preparing the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks is based on one or more of:
a user equipment (UE) capability; a numerology; an existing UE processing timeline plus an extension; a configuration of a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) position; a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) mapping type; a type or method of generating the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks; a type or method of reporting or signaling the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks;a soft HARQ feedback reporting granularity; a soft HARQ feedback reporting density; a number of symbols per PDSCH; a configured bandwidth part (BWP) size; and a period from an end of a last symbol of a PDSCH carrying a transport block (TB) or codeblock group (CBG) being acknowledged (par 150; e.g. mapping of the binary values to a number or percentage of NACK values can also be specified in a system operation or can be configured to a UE by higher layer signaling).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 7, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the generating and transmitting of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks is enabled or disabled based on a priority level of a HARQ acknowledgement (HARQ- ACK) feedback, and wherein the priority level is indicated in downlink control information (DCI) or configured in a radio resource control (RRC) signal (par 88; e.g. priority indicator field in a DCI format can be used to indicate a corresponding priority value; also par 90, the UE can transmit the PUCCH or PUSCH having the larger priority value and drop transmission of the PUCCH or PUSCH having the smaller priority value).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 8, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the generating and transmitting of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks is enabled or disabled based on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) scheduling mechanism by one or more of: enabling for a HARQ acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback or dynamic scheduling of a PDSCH; enabling for semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) of the PDSCH; enabling or disabling for a PDSCH scheduled by downlink control information (DCI) format 1_0, 1_1 or 1_2; and enabling or disabling per SPS configuration (par 93; e.g. UE can determine presence or absence of the SPS PDSCH reception and generate HARQ-ACK information only when the UE determines presence of the SPS PDSCH reception).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 9, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprise at least one soft acknowledgement (ACK) or at least one soft negative acknowledgement (NACK) or both the soft ACK and the soft NACK, wherein the soft ACK and the soft NACK are encoded using complementary sets of values based on a same number of representation, and wherein a specific value in the soft NACK indicates an unreported physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (par 135, par 150; e.g. the gNB can determine that a number of small ACK values is 0 or 1 when an indication for a percentage of small ACK values is less than 10%, and can determine that a number of small ACK values is 1 or 2 when an indication for a percentage of small ACK value is between 10% and 20%).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 10, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the generating of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises generating at least one soft acknowledgement (ACK) or at least one soft negative acknowledgement (NACK) or both the soft ACK and the soft NACK using (2^n - 1) values for outer loop link adaptation (OLLA) tracking, and wherein n denotes a value of the soft NACK (par 89; e.g. a gNB can then use the soft ACK values to perform OLLA for PDSCH transmissions to the UE, for example by computing a ratio of a sum for a number of NACK, small soft ACK, and possibly medium soft ACK values to a number of large soft ACK values; also par 136, par 149).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 11, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the generating of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises generating the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks using a type-2 or type-3 codebook (par 97; e.g. the HARQ-ACK codebook can be a Type-I HARQ-ACK codebook, a Type-2 HARQ-ACK codebook including a possible grouping of two Type-2 HARQ-ACK codebook, or a Type-3 HARQ-ACK codebook).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 12, Fakoorian discloses:
wherein the generating of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises generating at least one soft acknowledgement (ACK) or at least one soft negative acknowledgement (NACK) or both the soft ACK and the soft NACK, wherein bits of the soft ACK and the soft NACK are bundled by reporting a worst-case value responsive to both spatial bundling being configured and there being a decoding failure, and wherein a minimum or a mean of values representing reception quality is reported responsive to successful bundled decoding (par 111; e.g. if UE 115-a transmits a '001' for the soft ACK/NACK feedback, base station 105-a may determine that UE 115-a successfully received and decoded the downlink transmission but that the downlink transmission was close to failure).
Regarding claim 13, Fakoorian discloses:
wherein the generating of the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprises appending channel state information (CSI) to a codebook that uses a generation based on soft acknowledgements (ACKs), and wherein the appended CSI is based on aggregated measurements over multiple codeblock groups (CBGs), transport blocks (TBs) or physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) (par 104, par 127; e.g. receive data (e.g., ACK/NACK feedback, CSI) from the UE 115; also par 4, par 89-91, par 116).
Regarding claim 14, Fakoorian discloses:
wherein a set of PDSCH data packets involved in the aggregated measurements is same as a set of data packets acknowledged in the codebook (par 90; e.g. wireless device may support same-slot HARQ feedback (e.g., ACK/NACK feedback), where the device may provide HARQ feedback in a specific slot for data received in a previous symbol in the slot).
Regarding claim 15, Fakoorian discloses:
wherein a set of PDSCH data packets involved in the aggregated measurements comprises a set of most-recently received packets in a sequence (par 130; e.g. the base station 105 may determine that the most recent feedback contained an ACK (e.g., with a represented strength of the ACK with the soft ACK/NACK feedback).
Regarding claim 16, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprise a negative acknowledgement (NACK) with complementary information indicating one or more of: a failure due to a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) miss or a failure in physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) decoding; a decoding failure or a near-miss; demodulation reference signal (DMRS)-based information about a failure or data-based quality information on a near-miss; and one or more codebooks (CBs) failed (par 111; e.g. the UE determines whether the UE correctly decodes more than one TB for the configured SPS PDSCH receptions. When the UE does not correctly decode more than one a TB, the UE, in step 940, multiplexes HARQ-ACK information with NACK value).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
Regarding claim 17, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Yin discloses:
wherein the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprise a negative acknowledgement (NACK) with complementary information on the NACK and being part of a same HARQ codebook as the NACK with placeholder bits appended to a number of HARQ feedbacks sufficient for a single NACK (par 86; e.g. The 2 bits of high priority HARQ-ACK can be bundled into 1 bit first by an AND function. The low priority HARQ-ACK bit may then be appended to the bundled high priority HARQ-ACK. The joint HARQ-ACK has 2 bits and may be reported on a high priority PUCCH resource with PUCCH format 0 or format 1).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to ensure no information loss for the low priority HARQ-ACK (Yin, par 91).
Regarding claim 18, Fakoorian discloses:
wherein the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks comprise a negative acknowledgement (NACK) with complementary information on the NACK and being part of a HARQ codebook that is a first scheduled after the NACK is reported to and decoded by the network node (par 116; e.g. UE 115-a may report proxy ACK/NACK feedback 220 based on an intermediate decoding, in addition to reporting the normal ACK/NACK feedback 215 (e.g., standard ACK/NACK feedback, default ACK/NACK feedback, etc.). In one example, UE 115-a may report proxy ACK/NACK feedback after three iterations of decoding).
Regarding claim 20, the reference does not explicitly disclose the dependent subject matter, however Papasakellariou discloses:
wherein a reference modulation coding scheme (MCS) used in generating the one or more soft HARQ feedbacks is either a latest physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) successfully received with a same codebook or a MCS level per PDSCH for which a change in a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is reported (par 154; e.g. the determination of the MCS offset can be based on UE implementation aspects and include parameters such as a SINR associated with a PDSCH reception providing the TB, or on values of log-likelihood metrics for the TB decoding).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Papasakellariou with the electronic system of Fakoorian. One is motivated as such to reduce redundancy (Papasakellariou, par 2).
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 YAOTANG WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4023. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-18:00 ET (M, W, TH & alternate F).
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409