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
Applicant’s amendment, filed on 04/13/2026, has been entered and carefully considered.
Claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 18-20 and 26-27 have been amended and Claims 1-7, 10-16, 19-21 and 26-28 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 10, 19 and 26 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.
Applicant amended the independent claims significantly, which necessitates the new ground rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-7, 10-16, 19-21, 26-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al (US 2021/0219329 A1) in view of He et al (US 2023/0156736 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 19, Zhou teaches a method/device performed by a User Equipment (UE) for communicating with a network node in a wireless communications network, the method comprising:
receiving a downlink control information(DCI) from the network node ([0187], “receiving DCI (Downlink Control Information) for scheduling multiple transport blocks”, also see Fig. 2a, “DCI”), the DCI comprising information for generating a first number of first communications over a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) ([0187], “receiving the multiple transport block based on scheduling information included in the DCI”, [0273], also see Fig. 2a, DL DATA A via PDSCH) and a second number of second communications over a physical uplink shared channel(PUSCH) ([0273], multiple UL data transmission are transmitted via PUSCH based on DCI; also see Fig. 2a) wherein a sum of the first and second numbers is greater than two (see Fig. 2a, UL/DL DATA A, UL/DL DATA B, UL/DL DATA C); and
using the information in the DCI to communicate with the network node in the wireless communications network ([0650], “the UE transmits the PUSCH according to the scheduling information carried in the DCI”, [0651]).
Zhou doesn’t explicitly disclose that a communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a first number of repetitions and another communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a second number of repetitions.
He teaches that a communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a first number of repetitions and another communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a second number of repetitions (Fig. 4, [0036], “The method includes, at 410, receiving, from a base station, control information that indicates i) time domain resources for communication of at least two physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or at least two physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmissions and ii) at least one repetition number indicating a number of times each of the at least two PDSCH/PUSCH transmissions is repeated”, Fig. 2A, Repetition number R0 and R1 in the figure).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Zhou’s multiple-transmission scheduling to include the per-communication repetition numbers taught by He, in order to improve transmission reliability and coverage for the scheduled PDSCH/PUSCH communications. Both references address scheduling multiple PDSCH/PUSCH transmissions via DCI in NR, so the combination amounts to applying a known repetition technique to a known multi-transmission scheduling scheme to yield the predictable result of more reliable multi-transmission scheduling.
Regarding claim 10, 26, Zhou teaches a method/device performed by a network node for communicating with a User Equipment (UE) in a wireless communications network, the method comprising:
transmitting a downlink control information (DCI) to the UE, the DCI comprising information for generating a first number of first communications over a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and a second number of second communications over a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) ([0273], Fig. 2a, multiple UL/DL Data transmission scheduled by DCI), wherein a sum of the first and second numbers is greater than two (see Fig. 2a, UL/DL DATA A, UL/DL DATA B, UL/DL DATA C); and
using the information in the DCI to communicate with the UE in the wireless communications network ([0650], “the UE transmits the PUSCH according to the scheduling information carried in the DCI”, [0651]).
Zhou doesn’t explicitly disclose that a communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a first number of repetitions and another communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a second number of repetitions.
He teaches that a communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a first number of repetitions and another communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications comprising a second number of repetitions (Fig. 4, [0036], “The method includes, at 410, receiving, from a base station, control information that indicates i) time domain resources for communication of at least two physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or at least two physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmissions and ii) at least one repetition number indicating a number of times each of the at least two PDSCH/PUSCH transmissions is repeated”, Fig. 2A, Repetition number R0 and R1 in the figure).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Zhou’s multiple-transmission scheduling to include the per-communication repetition numbers taught by He, in order to improve transmission reliability and coverage for the scheduled PDSCH/PUSCH communications. Both references address scheduling multiple PDSCH/PUSCH transmissions via DCI in NR, so the combination amounts to applying a known repetition technique to a known multi-transmission scheduling scheme to yield the predictable result of more reliable multi-transmission scheduling.
Regarding claim 2, 11, 20 and 27, Zhou in view of He further teaches that any one or more out of:
a first communication from the first number of the first communications comprises at least two repetitions (Zhou, [0555], a value of the number of repetitions is indicated in the DCI, and all the PDSCHs scheduled by the DCI use the same number of repetitions”);
a second communication from the second number of the second communications comprises at least two repetitions ([0456], “The number of repetitions of the uplink PUSCH transmission scheduled by the base station for the UE is a set of given values”).
Regarding claim 3, 12, 21 and 28, Zhou in view of He further teaches that the information in the DCI specifies that a time gap is included between any one or more out of:
different communications from the first number of the first communications; different communications from the second number of the second communications; at least one communication from the first number of the first communications and at least one communication from the second number of the second communications (Zhou, page 26, see Table 2, “Time Domain Resource/Scheduling Delay: Time Domain The time domain resources are indicated Resource/ by a scheduling delay field. Scheduling Delay Scheduling Field 1, indicating a scheduling delay/gap/time Delay interval between DCI and the first PDSCH/PUSCH Scheduling Delay Field 2, indicating a scheduling delay/gap/time interval between every two PDSCHs/PUSCHs Scheduling Delay Field 3, indicating a scheduling delay/gap/time interval between each PDSCH/PUSCH and corresponding HARQ- ACK feedback).
Regarding claim 4, 13, Zhou in view of He further teaches that the information in the DCI specifies that any one out of the first number of the first communications, the first number of repetitions of the first number of the first communications, the second number of the second communications, and the second number of repetitions of the second number of the second communications overlap in any one or more out of:
a time domain but not in a frequency domain;
the frequency domain but not in the time domain;
partly in the time domain and partly in the frequency domain (Zhou, [0067], “resources used by the full duplex UE for transmitting and/or receiving the multiple transport blocks are overlapped or partially overlapped or non-overlapped in the time domain in a frequency division duplex scenario”).
Regarding claim 5, 14, Zhou in view of He further teaches that the information in the DCI specifies different parameters for allocating the first number of the first communications over the PDSCH and the second number of the second communications over the PUSCH (Zhou, [0516], page 26, see Table 2).
Regarding claim 6, 15, Zhou in view of He further teaches that the information in the DCI specifies that a communication from any one out of the first number of the first communications and the second number of the second communications is allocated using any one or more out of:
a same Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) identifier (ID) (Zhou, page 26, see table 2, HARQ ID – “When the number of HARQ processes is N and N = 1, this field indicates an ID of this HARQ process”);
a same Modulation and Coding Scheme(MCS) (Zhou, see table 2, “Frequency Domain Reusing the indication method in the Resources/MCS/ existing mechanism, and all of the transport Repetitions blocks using the same frequency domain resource/MCS/repetition times”).
Regarding claim 7, 16, Zhou in view of He further teaches that the information in the DCI specifies any one or more out of:
a HARQ Acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) of a communication from the first number of the first communications is to be sent in a corresponding communication from the second number of the second communications; and a HARQ-ACK of a communication from the second number of the second communications is to be sent in a corresponding communication from the first number of the first communications (Zhou, [0099]-[0106], “the information indicated in the DCI dedicated to indicating the ACK/NACK feedback for the one or more UEs”, [0185], [0399], [0452]-[0453], [0406], [0407]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. 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 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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/SIMING LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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