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 Amendment
The following is a final office action in response to applicant’s reply, filed on 02/17/2026, to the Non-Final Office Action mailed on 11/18/2025.
Claims 7, 9, and 11-12 are amended. Claims 7-12 are pending and addressed below.
Applicant has not made any significant amendment to the original presentation.
Applicant’s amendment has overcome objection to the tile, and claim interpretation under 112(f), previously set forth in the non-final office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
Claims 7 and 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by 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.
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).
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.
Regarding claim 9, NPL-M 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).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL-M, in view of Liu; Le et al US 20220116972 A1, hereinafter Liu.
Regarding claim 8, NPL-M teaches the terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claim 7.
NPL-M does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Liu teaches, wherein the downlink data channel is scheduled dynamically or semi-fixedly (Liu [108]-[110], teaches scheduling of multicast data for a UE group can be scheduled with “dynamic downlink shared channel” or “SPS (Semi-Persistent Scheduling) downlink shared channel”).
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 Liu above in order to provide efficient techniques to support successful reception and decoding of group-common transmissions at the multiple UEs (Liu [0004]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 02/17/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues in Remarks page 9 “Section 2.3 of MediaTek presents these as alternative system configurations, not as an assumption or condition at the terminal side for a retransmission. In other words, there is no teaching of a terminal that assumes, for the same retransmission operation, that "either group-common or UE-specific scheduling" may be applied.
In view of the above, MediaTek cannot support an anticipation rejection with respect to amended independent claim 7.”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant’s disclosure describes that gNB (network node) decides the type of retransmission, group-common or UE-specific, and terminal expects either retransmission type. As claim does not provide any specific or basis about “assume” at the terminal, under BRI, it is interpreted, in line with Spec, that terminal expects to receive either type. MediaTek describes the same way that different types of re-transmission are decided at the gNB, and terminal is expected/assumed to receive the retransmission of the selected type. If applicant means different interpretation for “assume” at the terminal, applicant is advised to provide in the claims the basis for assumptions by the terminal, supported in the original disclosure, to distinguish over prior art.
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.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475