Detailed Action
1. The Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 01/22/2024. In virtue of this communication, claims 1-15 are currently pending in this Office Action.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
3. Applicant’s claim for benefit of entering national stage 371 of application as ADS filed on 01/22/2024 under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.78 is acknowledged.
Claim Objections
4. Claims 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 14 are objected to because of the following informalities: ‘downlik’ shall be read as ‘downlink’ in claims 3, 7 and 14, ‘commmunication’ shall be read as ‘communication’ in claim 5, ‘informaiton’ shall be read as ‘information’ in claim 5 and 13, ‘ovlerap’ shall be read as ‘overlap’ in claims 11 and 14. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
7. Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang et al. Pub. No.: US 2021/0068140 A1 in view of Kou et al. Pub. No.: US 2022/0344747 A1.
Claim 1
Yang discloses a method (fig. 4 & 9-11 for transmitting PUSCH and UCI with rate-matching and coding scheme) of performing rate matching by a user equipment (UE) (UE in fig. 1-110 in a wireless communication system (wireless communication system in fig. 1), the method comprising:
determining, in a slot including both an uplink channel and a downlink channel (there are U and D, as to downlink and uplink, in slot n or n+1 in fig. 3), based on scheduling an end point of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in the uplink channel (par. 0099 for UE for receiving uplink grant scheduling for an PUSCH, par. 0100 for receiving in PDSCH, and see steps 405-420 in fig. 4), a number of coded modulation symbols of uplink control information (UCI) to be multiplexed to the PUSCH (see par. 0076 for rate-matching and coding scheme for multiplexing UCI, par. 0102 and 415-420 in fig. 4, UE identify UCI to be multiplexed on the uplink shared channel, i.e., PUSCH, and see par. 0103 for determining allocation for rate-matching and same code scheme for number of symbols that may vary based on repetition); and
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transmitting the PUSCH to which the UCI is multiplexed according to the determined number of coded modulation symbols (430 in fig. 4, see 905-910 in fig. 9 for number of symbols for transmitting on an uplink shared channel PUSCH and multiplexing with the same rate-matching and coding in step 920 in fig. 9, similarly, see fig. 10-11).
Although Yang does not disclose: “based on at least one of frequency resources of the downlink channel or a time from a start point of the slot to an end point of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in the uplink channel”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
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In fact, Yang discloses carrier aggregation for downlink and uplink (par. 0051), uplink grant conveyed in PDCCH (par. 0079), and a slot period in terms of symbols (fig. 3). What’s more, the claim limitations seems to be presented straight from the automatic translation, and thus, applicant is reminded to recite the claim in accordance with the scopes are meant to be claimed. See MPEP 2111. If reasonably interpretation is given to the addressing claim limitations, claim recites “ … or …” , fig. 3 of Yang would have rendered the claim limitation “a time from a start point of the slot to an end point of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in the uplink channel” obvious and it would have met the claim condition or requirement. However, to advance the prosecution, further evidence is provided herein. In particular, Kou teaches resource over frequency and time for PDCCH and PUSCH having some overlapped resource (fig. 5), slot structure with symbols for PUSCH and PDSCH in fig. 2.
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 multiplexing uplink control information on uplink shared channel transmission of Yang by providing signal transmission as taught in Kou to obtain the claimed invention. Such a modification would have provided a user equipment to receive configuration and transmit data or UCI on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) so that inter-multiplexing and intra-multiplexing would be reliable and low latency for an efficient wireless network as suggested in par. 0002-0004 of Kou.
Claim 2
Yang, in view of Kou, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the PUSCH is configured to periodically repeat (Yang¸ par. 0042 for scheduling PUSCH repetitions, and see formulas in par. 0082, fig. 3 for uplink as U and fig. 10-11 depict for first and second uplink transmission; Kou, fig. 5-8), and wherein the start point of the slot exists between a start point of the PUSCH and the end point of the PUSCH (Yang, the first uplink transmission slot in fig. 9-11;Kou, fig. 5-8) and the number of coded modulation symbols is determined based on a number of symbols transmissible from the start point of the slot to the end point of the PUSCH (Yang, a same rate-matching and the same coding scheme in 920 in fig. 9, 1040 in fig. 10 and 1120 in fig. 11; Kou, MCS in par. 0030 & 0086; accordingly the combined prior art would have rendered the claim obvious).
Claim 3
Yang, in view of Kou, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein some of the PUSCH overlaps the downlink channel (Yang, PUSCH overlaps with the PUCCH; Kou, fig. 5, PDCCH and PUSCH overlapped in fig. 5), and wherein the number of coded modulation symbols is determined based on a number of subcarriers transmissible in a bandwidth of a part of the PUSCH which does not overlap the downlik channel (Yang, a number of symbols different from the length L in par. 0108 and fig. 9-11 explain the steps that PUSCH does not overlap with PDSCH or PDCCH or downlink channel; Kou, fig. 9A-B for downlink and uplink not to be overlapped like 3 symbols for PDCCH and 5 symbols for PUSCH, 8 symbol for second resource in fig. 5 and see fig. 7 for spacing 15 kHz of subcarrier or 30 kHz in 14 symbols in par. 0092; for these reasons, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the combined prior art to perform equally well to the claim).
Claim 4
Yang, in view of Park, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the downlink channel configured in the slot is a channel for downlink transmission configured for the UE (Yang, slot n & n+1 includes U for uplink and D for downlink; Park, fig. 9A-B, downlink slot and uplink slot) or a deactivated downlink bandwidth part (BWP) configured for the UE and a channel for downlink transmission configured for another UE (Yang, from UE to UE as 135 in fig. 1; Park, BWP in par. 0030 and see fig. 5-10; accordingly, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious to meet the claim requirement; see evidence for BWP in fig. 4 of Park Pub. No.: 2020/0344747 A1; it’s to note that claim requirement include an alternative feature).
Claim 5
Yang discloses a method (fig. 4 & 9-11 for transmitting PUSCH and UCI with rate-matching and coding scheme) of performing rate matching by a base station (BS) (base station 105-b in fig. 5) in a wireless commmunication system (wireless communications system in fig. 1), the method comprising:
configuring, in an arbitary slot, an uplink channel including a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) and a downlink channel (there are U and D, as to downlink and uplink, in slot n or n+1 in fig. 3); and
receiving, from a user equipment (UE), the PUSCH to which uplink control informaiton (UCI) is multiplexed in the slot (see par. 0076 for rate-matching and coding scheme for multiplexing UCI, par. 0102 and 430 in fig. 4, UE identify UCI to be multiplexed on the uplink shared channel, i.e., PUSCH, and see par. 0103 for determining allocation for rate-matching and same code scheme for number of symbols that may vary based on repetition),
wherein a number of coded modulation symbols of the PUSCH is determined based on a time from a start point of the slot to an end point of the PUSCH (see par. 0076 for rate-matching and coding scheme for multiplexing UCI, par. 0102 and 410-425 in fig. 4, UE identify UCI to be multiplexed on the uplink shared channel, i.e., PUSCH, and see par. 0103 for determining allocation for rate-matching and same code scheme for number of symbols that may vary based on repetition).
Although Yang does not disclose: “based on at least one of frequency resources of the downlink channel or a time from a start point of the slot to an end point of the PUSCH”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
In fact, Yang discloses carrier aggregation for downlink and uplink (par. 0051), uplink grant conveyed in PDCCH (par. 0079), and a slot period in terms of symbols (fig. 3). What’s more, the claim limitations seems to be presented straight from the automatic translation, and thus, applicant is reminded to recite the claim in accordance with the scopes are meant to be claimed. See MPEP 2111. If reasonably interpretation is given to the addressing claim limitations, claim recites “ … or …” , fig. 3 of Yang would have rendered the claim limitation “a time from a start point of the slot to an end point of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in the uplink channel” obvious and it would have met the claim condition or requirement. However, to advance the prosecution, further evidence is provided herein. In particular, Kou teaches resource over frequency and time for PDCCH and PUSCH having some overlapped resource (fig. 5), slot structure with symbols for PUSCH and PDSCH in fig. 2.
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 multiplexing uplink control information on uplink shared channel transmission of Yang by providing signal transmission as taught in Kou. Such a modification would have provided a user equipment to receive a configuration and transmit data or UCI a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) so that inter-multiplexing and intra-multiplexing would be reliable and low latency for an efficient wireless network as suggested in par. 0002-0004 of Kou.
Claim 6-8
Claims 6-8 are method claims at the base station side corresponding to the claims 2-4 at the UE side. All of the limitations of claims 6-8 are found reciting the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 2-4. Accordingly, claims 6-8 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejections of claims 2-4 set forth above.
Claim 9
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Claim 9 is a UE claim corresponding to method claim 1. All of the limitations in claim 9 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations of claim 1. Accordingly, claim 9 can be considered obvious by the rationales applied to the claim rejection of claim 1 set forth above. Additionally, Yang discloses a user equipment (UE) (UE 115-b in fig. 4 and fig. 5-8) in a wireless communication system (wireless communication system of fig. 1), the UE comprising: a transceiver (transceiver 820 in fig. 8) configured to transmit and receive a signal (as depicted in fig. 4, UE would transmit and receive via antenna); and a processor coupled with the transceiver (processor 840 couple to transceiver 820 in fig. 8),
Claim 10-12
Claims 10-12 are UE claims corresponding to the claims 2-4. All of the limitations of claims 10-12 are found reciting the same scopes of the respective limitations in claims 2-4. Accordingly, claims 10-12 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejections of claims 2-4 set forth above.
Claim 13
Claim 13 is a base station claim corresponding to method claim 5. All of the limitations in claim 13 are found reciting for the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations of claim 5. Accordingly, claim 13 can be considered obvious by the rationales applied in the rejection of claim 5 set forth above. Additionally, Yang discloses a base station (BS) (BS 105-b in fig. 4) in a wireless communication system (wireless communication system of fig. 1), the BS comprising: a transceiver (base station in fig. 1 & 4 would include at least a MIMO capable transceiver as explained in par. 0070-0071) configured to transmit and receive a signal (as depicted in fig. 4, BS would transmit and receive via MIMO as explained in par. 0070-0071); and a processor coupled with the transceiver (as depicted in fig. 1 & 4, the BS would include at least a typical processor and see par. 0071-0072),
Claim 14
Yang, in view of Kou, discloses the BS of claim 13, wherein the PUSCH is configured to periodically repeat (Yang¸ par. 0042 for scheduling PUSCH repetitions, and see formulas in par. 0082, fig. 3 for uplink as U and fig. 10-11 depict for first and second uplink transmission; Kou, fig. 5-8),
wherein the start point of the slot exists between a start point of the PUSCH and the end point of the PUSCH (Yang, the first uplink transmission slot in fig. 9-11;Kou, fig. 5-8) and the number of coded modulation symbols is determined based on a number of symbols transmissible from the start point of the slot to the end point of the PUSCH (Yang, a same rate-matching and the same coding scheme in 920 in fig. 9, 1040 in fig. 10 and 1120 in fig. 11; Kou, MCS in par. 0030 & 0086),
wherein some of the PUSCH overlaps the downlink channel (Yang, PUSCH overlaps with the PUCCH; Kou, fig. 5, PDCCH and PUSCH overlapped in fig. 5), and
wherein the number of coded modulation symbols is determined based on a number of subcarriers transmissible in a bandwidth of a part of the PUSCH which does not ovlerap the downlik channel (Yang, a number of symbols different from the length L in par. 0108 ; Kou, 3 symbols for PDCCH and 5 symbols for PUSCH, 8 symbol for second resource in fig. 5 and see fig. 7 for spacing 15 kHz of subcarrier or 30 kHz in 14 symbols in par. 0092).
Claim 15
Claim 15 is a base station claim corresponding to method claim 8 which recites the same scopes of claim 4. All of the claim limitations in claim 15 are found reciting the same scopes of the respective limitations of claim 8 or claim 4. Accordingly, claim 15 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claim 8, i.e., see the rejection to claim 4 set forth above.
Contact Information
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAN HTUN whose telephone number is (571)270-3190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7 AM - 5 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jinsong Hu can be reached on 5712723965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643