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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/29/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 05/27/2026 has been entered. Claims 7 and 10-12 are amended. Claims 7-12 are pending and addressed below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over IDS reference, NPL MediaTek, R1-2008961, Discussion on NR MBS group scheduling for RRC_CONNECTED UEs, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #103-e, e-Meeting, October 26th – November 13th, 2020, hereinafter NPL-M, in view of HONG; Sung-pyo US 20220417906 A1 priority 20210215 (priority document supports the teachings of HONG cited below), hereinafter HONG.
Regarding claims 7, 10, 11 and 12, NPL-M teaches, a terminal comprising:
a receiver that receives data via a downlink data channel applying scheduling common to a group of terminals (NPL-M section 2.1 “Group-common PDCCH based group scheduling” and Fig.1, teaches receiving downlink data over PDSCH scheduled by Group-comm PDCCH for a group of terminals. As NPL-M is related to UE and base station, UE is known to have a receiver); and
a processor that assumes that either one of scheduling common to the group of terminals and scheduling specific to a terminal is applied in retransmission of the data (This limitation is interpreted, in light of the specification, as the terminal expecting to receive retransmitted data either via group scheduling or single UE scheduling. NPL-M entire section 2.3 “The combination between group scheduling and HARQ-ACK feedback”, Figure 5, teaches retransmission of data can be performed via group-common scheduling or UE specific scheduling. As NPL-M is related to UE and base station, UE is known to have a control processor).
NPL-M does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, HONG teaches, wherein a semi-persistent downlink data channel is activated and deactivated based on a downlink control channel common to the group of terminals (HONG [0131] “For example, the indication information may be indicated to the UE through the group common PDCCH. In this case, the identifier for indicating whether to activate the SPS for MBS data may be allocated …”, [0133] “As such, the base station may transfer the deactivation indication of semi-persistent scheduling through the group common PDCCH identified through the identifier used to indicate whether to activate semi-persistent scheduling for point-to-multipoint (PTM) transmission ....”).
With respect to claim 10, claim recites the identical features of claim 7 for a corresponding method. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 11, claim recites the identical features of claim 7 for a corresponding inter-working base station. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 12, claim recites the identical features of claim 7 for a system comprising the corresponding base station and the terminals. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of NPL-M to include the features as taught by HONG above in order to provide a method for a UE to efficiently process MBS data (HONG [0007]).
Regarding claim 8, NPL-M, in view of HONG, teaches the terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claim 7.
HONG further teaches, wherein the downlink data channel is scheduled dynamically or semi-fixedly (HONG [113] “In other words, to distinguish between dynamic resource scheduling and semi-persistent scheduling, each UE-specific PDCCH may be scrambled with a different identifier”).
Regarding claim 9, NPL-M, in view of HONG, teaches the terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claim 7.
NPL-M further teaches, wherein the processor applies a feedback that transmits both a positive acknowledgement and a negative acknowledgement to the downlink data channel (see NPL-M page 5, Proposal 6; Figure 8: “case 2 with ACK/NACK mode”, teaching a feedback by UEs with positive (ACK) and negative (NACK) acknowledgement, for MBS group (=UE group) downlink data).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 7 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zhou, US 20230071767 A1 - Group Scheduling Of Multicast And Broadcast Services.
LI, US 20230180269 A1 - MECHANISM OF SCHEDULING FOR BROADCAST AND GROUPCAST ON NEW RADIO UU INTERFACE.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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