DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
2. Applicant’s election with traverse of claims 1-14 and 16-20 in the reply filed on 11/21/2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground that the claims in group I (claims 1-14 and 16-20) and group II (claim 21) share a common technical feature of using PUCCH resource by a UE to transmit NACK based HARQ-ACK feedback. The argument is not found persuasive because:
Group II includes only claim 21 and applicant has canceled claim 21. The cancellation of claim 21 renders the arguments moot. Moreover, the UE in Group I uses the PUCCH resources to transmit NACK based HARQ-ACK feedback. However, the base station in Group II does not use the PUCCH resources to transmit NACK based HARQ-ACK feedback. Therefore, using PUCCH resource by a UE to transmit NACK based HARQ-ACK feedback is not considered as a common technical feature shared by the claims in Group I and Group II.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Status of Claims
3. Claims 1-14, 16-20, and 22 are pending wherein claims 1, 16, and 20 are in independent form.
4. Claims 15 and 21 has been cancelled. Claim 22 has been added newly.
Duplicate claims warning
5. Applicant is advised that should claim 1 be found allowable, claim 16 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 706.03(k).
Claims 2 and 17, 5 and 18, 9 and 19 are also substantially duplicate claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
6. 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.
7. Claims 10 and 11 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.
Claim 10 recites, “the PUCCH resource is associated with a first PDSCH of the at least one PDSCH, the first PDSCH having a highest priority of the at least one PDSCH”. Under broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), “at least one PDSCH” is considered as one PDSCH. When, there is only one PDSCH, that PDSCH cannot be prioritized over any other PDSCH (because no other PDSCH is available) and therefore, it is not possible to identify the highest priority. As there is no other PDSCH (at least one PDSCH), it is not clear how to make a single PDSCH as a highest priority PDSCH when it cannot be prioritized.
Claim 10 further recites, “in response to at least two PDSCHs of the at least one PDSCH having a same highest priority”. Under broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), “at least one PDSCH” is considered as one PDSCH and “at least two PDSCHs” is considered as two PDSCH. It is impossible to obtain two PDSCHs (at least two PDSCHs) from one PDSCH (at least one PDSCH). Therefore, the claim limitation of having two PDSCHs within a single PDSCH is not clear.
Claim 11 depends upon claim 10 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
8. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
9. Claims 1-3, 5, 7, 9-13, 16-20, and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Awoniyi-Oteri et al (US 20210360668 A1, hereinafter referred to as Awoniyi-Oteri).
Re claim 1, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches a user equipment (UE) for wireless communication (UE 115, Fig. 2, Fig. 6, Fig. 10), comprising:
(i) at least one memory (1030, Fig. 10) (Par 0124, Par 0129); and
(ii) at least one processor (1040, Fig. 10) coupled with the at least one memory (1030, Fig. 10) (Par 0124, Par 0129-0130) and operable to cause the UE to:
(iii) receive, from a base station (BS) (base station 105, Fig. 2, Fig. 6), a plurality of physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) (receiving a plurality of SPS PDSCH, Fig. 2-6), wherein each PDSCH (each SPS PDSCH occasion, Fig. 3-5) of the plurality of PDSCHs (plurality of SPS PDSCH, Fig. 3-5) is associated with a corresponding physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource (each SPS PDSCH occasion is configured with a K1 value indicating the corresponding PUCCH resource for HARQ feedback, Fig. 3-5, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0088, Par 0092-0095, Par 0101, Par 0103) for the UE transmitting negative acknowledgement (NACK) based hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback (NACK only feedback for the plurality of SPS PDSCH occasions, Fig. 4-5, Par 0080, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0120);
(iv) determine a PUCCH resource for transmitting a NACK for the plurality of PDSCHs (determining PUCCH resource for HARQ feedback based on the K1 value associated with each SPS PDSCH) in response to at least one PDSCH of the plurality of PDSCHs being incorrectly decoded (SPS PDSCH unsuccessfully decoded) (Fig. 2-6, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0092-0093, Par 0095-0096, Par 0103); and
(v) transmit, to the BS, the NACK on the PUCCH resource (transmitting NACK only based feedback report, Fig. 4-5) (Par 0080, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0103, Par 0120).
Claim 16 recites a processor performing the functions recited in claim 1 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1. Awoniyi-Oteri teaches a UE comprising processor (1040, Fig. 10).
Claim 20 recites a method performing the functions recited in claim 1 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Re claims 2, 17, 22, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to generate a plurality of HARQ-ACK information bits for the plurality of PDSCHs (feedback report includes a plurality of HARQ-ACK feedback corresponding to the plurality of SPS PDSCH) (Fig. 3-6, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0089, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0102-0103).
Re claim 3, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches the PUCCH resource is associated with a PDSCH that is acknowledged with a first NACK among the plurality of HARQACK information bits (PUCCH resource is associated with SPS1/SPS2 based on K1 value configured for SPS1/SPS2) (Fig. 4-5, Par 0081-0082, Par 0086-0089, Par 0093, Par 0095-0096).
Re claims 5, 18, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to divide the plurality of HARQ-ACK information bits into at least one group of HARQ-ACK information bits according to a number of the plurality of PDSCHs (block feedback report created according to the number of PDSCHs); and perform, for each group of HARQ-ACK information bits of the at least one group of HARQ-ACK information bits, HARQ-ACK bundling among HARQ-ACK information bits in a corresponding group of HARQ-ACK information bits to generate a bundled HARQ-ACK information bit (block feedback report generated for the plurality of PDSCH) (Fig. 3-5, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0102-0103).
Re claim 7, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to divide the plurality of PDSCHs into at least one group of PDSCHs according to a number of the plurality of PDSCHs (block feedback report created according to the number of PDSCHs); and perform, for each of the at least one group of PDSCHs, HARQ-ACK bundling among HARQ-ACK information bits for one or more PDSCHs in a corresponding group of PDSCHs to generate a bundled HARQ-ACK information bit (block feedback report generated for the plurality of PDSCH) (Fig. 3-5, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0102-0103).
Re claims 9, 19, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches that the PUCCH resource for transmitting the NACK for the plurality of PDSCHs is determined based on bundled HARQ-ACK information bits for the at least one group of HARQ-ACK information bits (number of HARQ bits) and a mapping table (K1 value corresponding to the plurality of PDSCHs) (Fig. 2-6, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0092-0093, Par 0095-0096, Par 0102-0103, Par 0120).
Re claim 10, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches that the PUCCH resource is associated with a first PDSCH of the at least one PDSCH, the first PDSCH having a highest priority of the at least one PDSCH (in case of NACK only feedback, PUCCH resource is associated with the NACK feedback providing PDSCH (unsuccessfully decoded PDSCH SPS2, Fig. 5)) (Fig. 2-6, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0092-0093, Par 0095-0096, Par 0102-0103); or in response to at least two PDSCHs of the at least one PDSCH having a same highest priority (NACK feedback corresponding to the two PDSCHs SPS1, SPS2, Fig. 4), the PUCCH resource is associated with a second PDSCH (PUCCH resource corresponding to the K1 value configured for SPS2), the at least two PDSCHs comprising the second PDSCH (SPS1, SPS2) (Fig. 2-6, Par 0080-0082, Par 0086-0090, Par 0092-0093, Par 0095-0096, Par 0102-0103).
Re claim 11, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to receive, from the BS, a retransmission of the first PDSCH or the second PDSCH (retransmitting based on the feedback report) (Fig. 6, Par 0102-0103).
Re claim 12, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches no HARQ-ACK feedback for the plurality of PDSCHs is transmitted in response to the plurality of PDSCHs being correctly decoded (NACK only feedback does not provide feedback (ACK) for the correctly decoded PDSCH) (Fig. 4-5, Par 0080, Par 0093, Par 0096, Par 0120).
Re claim 13, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches that a single NACK for the plurality of PDSCHs is transmitted on the PUCCH resource (a single NACK (NAK corresponding to SPS2) is transmitted for the plurality of PDSCHs, Fig. 5, Par 0095-0096).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
10. 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.
11. Claims 4, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Awoniyi-Oteri as applied to claim 3 above and further in view Wong et al (US 20220368465, hereinafter referred to as Wong).
Re claim 4, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to perform retransmission based on the feedback report (Par 0103). Therefore, it is evident that the UE receives a plurality of retransmissions if the feedback report includes a plurality of NACK.
Although Awoniyi-Oteri indicates retransmission based on feedback report, but Awoniyi-Oteri does not explicitly disclose to receive, from the BS, a retransmission of the PDSCH and additional retransmissions of one or more PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs with corresponding HARQ-ACK information bits later than the first NACK among the plurality of HARQ-ACK information bits.
Wong teaches to receive, from the BS, a retransmission of the PDSCH (retransmission of transport block 2 , 434) and additional retransmissions of one or more PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs (retransmission of transport block 4 , 436) with corresponding HARQ-ACK information bits (NACK for transport block 4 occurs later than transport block 2) later than the first NACK (NACK corresponding to the transport block 2) among the plurality of HARQ-ACK information bits (Fig. 7, Fig. 12, Par 0052, Par 0097-0099).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Awoniyi-Oteri by including the function to receive, from the BS, a retransmission of the PDSCH and additional retransmissions of one or more PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs with corresponding HARQ-ACK information bits later than the first NACK among the plurality of HARQ-ACK information bits, as taught by Wong for the purpose of efficiently retransmitting transport blocks in response to a feedback report, as taught by Wong (Par 0007).
Re claim 6, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to perform retransmission based on the feedback report (Par 0103). Therefore, it is evident that the UE receives a retransmission if the feedback report includes a NACK.
Although Awoniyi-Oteri indicates retransmission based on feedback report, but Awoniyi-Oteri does not explicitly disclose to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit for a group of HARQ-ACK information bits being an additional NACK, a retransmission of PDSCH associated with the group of HARQ-ACK information bits.
Wong teaches to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit (HARQ feedback 422, Fig. 7) for a group of HARQ-ACK information bits being an additional NACK (NACK for transport block 4), a retransmission of PDSCH associated with the group of HARQ-ACK information bits (retransmission of transport block 4, 436) (Fig. 7, Fig. 12, Par 0052, Par 0097-0099).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Awoniyi-Oteri by including the function to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit for a group of HARQ-ACK information bits being an additional NACK, a retransmission of PDSCH associated with the group of HARQ-ACK information bits, as taught by Wong for the purpose of efficiently retransmitting transport blocks in response to a feedback report, as taught by Wong (Par 0007).
Re claim 8, Awoniyi-Oteri teaches to perform retransmission based on the feedback report (Par 0103). Therefore, it is evident that the UE receives a retransmission if the feedback report includes a NACK.
Although Awoniyi-Oteri indicates retransmission based on feedback report, but Awoniyi-Oteri does not explicitly disclose to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit for a group of PDSCHs being an additional NACK, а retransmission of PDSCH in the group of PDSCHs.
Wong teaches to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit for a group of PDSCHs (HARQ feedback 422 for TBs 1-4, Fig. 7) being an additional NACK (NACK for transport block 4), а retransmission of PDSCH in the group of PDSCHs (retransmission of transport block 4, 436) (Fig. 7, Fig. 12, Par 0052, Par 0097-0099).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Awoniyi-Oteri by including the function to receive, from the BS and in response to the bundled HARQ-ACK information bit for a group of PDSCHs being an additional NACK, а retransmission of PDSCH in the group of PDSCHs, as taught by Wong for the purpose of efficiently retransmitting transport blocks in response to a feedback report, as taught by Wong (Par 0007).
12. Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Awoniyi-Oteri as applied to claim 1 above and further in view Lee et al (US 20250039888, hereinafter referred to as Lee).
Re claim 14, Awoniyi-Oteri does not explicitly disclose that different PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs are associated with different PUCCH resources.
Lee teaches that different PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs are associated with different PUCCH resources (different PUCCH resource for each PDSCH) (Par 0235, Par 0237-0238).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Awoniyi-Oteri by including the function that different PDSCHs of the plurality of PDSCHs are associated with different PUCCH resources, as taught by Lee for the purpose of “efficiently performing wireless signal transmission/reception procedures”, as taught by Lee (Par 0004).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARUN UR R CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)270-3895. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kwang B Yao can be reached at 5712723182. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/HARUN CHOWDHURY/Examiner, Art Unit 2473