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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 20-21 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: None of the prior art of the record explicitly teaches or fairly suggests all of the claimedlimitation, especially the limitation of “ receiving group common DCI, the group common DCI containing first indication information for indicating a serving cell to which a transmit power control (TPC) command in the group common DCI is applied; determining, based on the first indication information, the serving cell to which the TPC command in the group common DCI is applied; and in case that the specific cell where the PUCCH resource is located is the serving cell indicated by the first indication information, applying the TPC command included in the group common DCI to a power control of a PUCCH for transmitting the UCI”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 16-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang US 20200267597 in view of YOSHIOKA CN 114342505 Takeda US 20220110066
16. A method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
receiving configuration information; identifying, based on the configuration information, at least two serving cells for transmitting uplink control information (UCI) in different serving cells, the at least two serving cells including a primary cell and a specific cell (Huang: [0157-0259] the first device is instructed, indicated and/or configured to transmit UCI comprising one or more HARQ-ACKs on a cell. The cell is a primary cell (PCell) and/or a primary secondary cell (PSCell));
receiving downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the DCI includes a field indicating a cell on which a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is located (Huang: [0380] receives a first DCI scheduling a PDSCH);
determining a semi-static hybrid automatic repeat request - acknowledgement (HARQ- ACK) codebook for PDSCHs based on a set of slot timing values (Huang: [0116-0120, 0181] “9.1.2 Type-1 HARQ-ACK Codebook Determination” This subclause applies if the UE is configured with PDSCH-HARQ-ACK-Codebook=semi-static. A UE reports HARQ-ACK information for a corresponding PDSCH reception or SPS PDSCH release only in a HARQ-ACK codebook that the UE transmits in a slot indicated by a value of a PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator field in a corresponding DCI format 1_0 or DCI format 1_1); and
transmitting the UCI including the semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook based on the PUCCH (Huang: [0116-0120, 0182] transmit corresponding HARQ-ACK information in a PUCCH in slot n_U),
wherein, in response to the field in the DCI indicating the specific cell, the set of slot timing values is associated with the specific cell and the UCI is transmitted on the specific cell (Huang: [0057-0060, 0130-0132, 0164] 9.2.1 PUCCH Resource Sets).
Huang merely discloses the term “a specific cell”YOSHIOKA further teaches a specific cell (YOSHIOKA: Condition 5 - a specific cell (e.g., PCell, or PUCCH-SCell)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Huang’s invention in order to set a specific cell to which a PUCCH (or a PUCCH) is transmitted, and a time slot timing value k designated by the HARQ timing indicator field, as taught by YOSHIOKA.
Takeda further teaches the field in the DCI indicating the specific cell (Takeda: fig. 3-6 [0006-0008, 0033, 0058, 0075-0117] TPC command field value is used as a PUCCH resource indicator (an ACK/NACK resource indicator (ARI) or an ACK/NACK resource offset (ARO)))
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Huang’s invention in order to receives a plurality of pieces of DCI each including a first field value to be used for control of a transmission power of an UCI and a second field value to be used to determine a resource for the UCI, as taught by Takeda.
17. The method according to claim 16, further comprising: receiving second DCI scheduling a PDSCH; and determining the PUCCH resource based on one of the DCI and the second DCI (Huang: [0005, 0391]).
18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the one of the DCI and the second DCI is one of:
a last received DCI among the DCI and the second DCI,
the last received DCI containing information for indicating the specific cell associated with the PUCCH resource among the at least two serving cells, among the DCI and the second DCI,
a first received DCI among the DCI and the second DCI, or
the first received DCI containing the information among the DCI and the second DCI (Huang: [0005, 0222].
19. The method according to claim 16, wherein, in case that the DCI includes information for indicating the specific cell associated with the PUCCH resource among the at least two serving cells, the set of slot timing values is associated with the specific cell (YOSHIOKA: condition 5). Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into Huang’s invention in order to set a specific cell to which a PUCCH (or a PUCCH) is transmitted, and a time slot timing value k designated by the HARQ timing indicator field, as taught by YOSHIOKA.
Regarding claims 22-30, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 16-21, where the difference used is a “device/base station” with a processor and a memory (Huang: Referring to FIG. 2-4, the device 300 includes a processor 308, a memory 312) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims arid interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected/objected for similar reasons as stated above.
Response to Amendment
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 16-30 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
The examiner stresses that the claims are too broad and require detail or specialization of the steps as recited in the claims. Alone and as claimed, the limitations are too open.
Examiner has cited particular portions of the references as applied to each claim limitation for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Regarding all other arguments presented by applicant, the arguments are substantially the same as those which have already been addressed above and in the interest of brevity; the Examiner directs the applicant to those responses above.
Remark:
In addition, an interview could expedite the prosecution.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sulaiman Nooristany whose telephone number is 571-270-1929. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday thru Friday: 8:30am to 5:00pm (EST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeff Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SULAIMAN NOORISTANY/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
Prosecution Insights