DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
A preliminary amendment received on 7/26/2024 canceling claims 1-23 and adding claims 24-38 has been entered by the examiner.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 1/26/2024 and 8/12/2025 have been entered and considered by the examiner.
35 USC 112 CLAIM REJECTIONS
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.
Claim 29 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 29, it recites “receiving, from a network device, the first HARQ-ACK codebook”. Therefore, it is not clear to the Examiner how the network device listed in the preamble of the claim is to receive the first HARQ-ACK codebook from itself. It would appear that this claim needs to be amended so the codebook is received from a terminal device since it is the opposite end of the communication between the terminal device and the network device as shown in the other independent claims. Claim 24 shows the opposite direction of communications to that of claim 29 and this communications is with a terminal device. Fig. 1 shows the communications between a network device 120 and a terminal device and Fig. 7 and para. 0062 of the published application show that the terminal device transmits the HARQ feedback to the network device at step 730, thus the network device receives the HARQ codebook from the terminal device and not the same or different network device.
For purposes of examination, Examiner interprets the claims to read “receiving, from a terminal device, the first HARQ-ACK codebook”.
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 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 of this title, 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 24-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Islam et al (US2020/0228248 A1) in view of NTT (NTT DOCOMO, INC , "Discussion on HARQ-ACK feedback enhancements for Rel 17 URLLC", 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #104-e, e-Meeting, January 25-Feb 5, 2021, R1-2101612, pages 1-9 (11 pages total)) IDS submitted by Applicant.
Regarding claims 24 and 34, Islam teaches a method/ terminal device, performed by a terminal device (Abstract), the method comprising:
a processor configured to cause the terminal device to (Para. 0165):
determining a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource for transmitting a first Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) codebook (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; receiving first UL resource information that includes an indication of a first UL resource in a serving cell of a first hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK), the first HARQ-ACK associated with a first HARQ codebook);
determining a second PUCCH resource for transmitting the first HARQ-ACK codebook (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; receiving second UL resource information that includes an indication of a second UL resource in a serving cell of a second HARQ-ACK, the second HARQ-ACK associated with a second HARQ codebook); and
transmitting, to a network device, the first HARQ-ACK codebook with a first HARQ-ACK feedback on the second PUCCH resource (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; at 120, based on the first UL resource information and the second UL resource information, performing the second HARQ-ACK transmission using the second resource);
wherein: a second HARQ-ACK codebook with a second HARQ-ACK feedback is multiplexed on the second PUCCH resource, a priority of the first HARQ-ACK feedback is the same as a priority of the second HARQ-ACK feedback (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0037-0039 and 0197-0199; In one embodiment, if the UE is not configured or indicated with any associated priority or cannot resolve the priority levels (or if indicated/configured with same priority level) of the two HARQ-ACKs for which the UL resources overlap).
However, while Islam teaches the last symbol of resulting PUCCH resource is L1 and L2 symbols after the last symbols of original PUCCH resource for first and second HARQ-ACK (Fig. 4B; Para. 0038), he does not specifically disclose the first HARQ-ACK codebook is placed after the second HARQ-ACK codebook.
NTT teaches required Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (Introduction). He further teaches the first HARQ-ACK codebook is placed after the second HARQ-ACK codebook (Sec. 2.1, page 4; Deferred SPS HARQ-ACK bits are appended after non-deferred HARQ-ACK bits; i.e. the SPS HARQ-ACK reads on first HARQ-ACK and non-deferred HARQ-ACK reads on second HARQ-ACK).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings as in NTT with the teachings as in Islam. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (NTT at Introduction).
Regarding claims 25, 30, and 35, the combination of references Islam and NTT teach the limitations of the previous claims. Islam further teaches wherein the second PUCCH resource is determined based on downlink control information (DCI) (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0023, 0037-0039, and 0197-0199; UE would multiplex dynamic HARQ-ACK and/or SR and/or one or more CSI in a resource which is indicated by a PUCCH resource indication field in the DCI scheduling a PDSCH reception).
Regarding claims 26, 31, and 36, the combination of references Islam and NTT teach the limitations of the previous claims. NTT further teaches wherein: the second PUCCH resource is determined based on semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) HARQ-ACK deferral information, and the second PUCCH resource is determined as a next available PUCCH resource, in a case where the first PUCCH resource overlaps with a downlink symbol (Sec. 2.1, page 2; For the definition of “next available PUCCH resource”, at least TDD collision and latency limitation need to be considered). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings as in NTT with the teachings as in Islam. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (NTT at Introduction).
Regarding claims 27, 32, and 37, the combination of references Islam and NTT teach the limitations of the previous claims. Islam further teaches wherein: the second PUCCH resource is determined based on downlink control information (DCI), in a case where both semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) HARQ-ACK deferral information for determining the second PUCCH resource is configured and the DCI indicating the second PUCCH resource is received (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0023, 0037-0039, and 0197-0199; UE would multiplex dynamic HARQ-ACK and/or SR and/or one or more CSI in a resource which is indicated by a PUCCH resource indication field in the DCI scheduling a PDSCH reception).
Regarding claims 28, 33, and 38, the combination of references Islam and NTT teach the limitations of the previous claims. NTT further teaches wherein the first HARQ-ACK feedback is for a semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (Sec. 2.1, page 4; Deferred SPS HARQ-ACK bits are appended after non-deferred HARQ-ACK bits; i.e. the SPS HARQ-ACK reads on first HARQ-ACK and non-deferred HARQ-ACK reads on second HARQ-ACK). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings as in NTT with the teachings as in Islam. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (NTT at Introduction).
Regarding claim 29, Islam teaches a method, performed by a network device (Abstract), the method comprising:
determining a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource for a first Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) codebook (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; receiving first UL resource information that includes an indication of a first UL resource in a serving cell of a first hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK), the first HARQ-ACK associated with a first HARQ codebook);
determining a second PUCCH resource for the first HARQ-ACK codebook (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; receiving second UL resource information that includes an indication of a second UL resource in a serving cell of a second HARQ-ACK, the second HARQ-ACK associated with a second HARQ codebook); and
receiving, from a network device, the first HARQ-ACK codebook with a first HARQ-ACK feedback on the second PUCCH resource (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0039 and 0197-0199; at 120, based on the first UL resource information and the second UL resource information, performing the second HARQ-ACK transmission using the second resource);
wherein: a second HARQ-ACK codebook with a second HARQ-ACK feedback is multiplexed on the second PUCCH resource, a priority of the first HARQ-ACK feedback is the same as a priority of the second HARQ-ACK feedback (Figs. 1-3; Paras. 0037-0039 and 0197-0199; In one embodiment, if the UE is not configured or indicated with any associated priority or cannot resolve the priority levels (or if indicated/configured with same priority level) of the two HARQ-ACKs for which the UL resources overlap).
However, while Islam teaches the last symbol of resulting PUCCH resource is L1 and L2 symbols after the last symbols of original PUCCH resource for first and second HARQ-ACK (Fig. 4B; Para. 0038), he does not specifically disclose the first HARQ-ACK codebook is placed after the second HARQ-ACK codebook.
NTT teaches required Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (Introduction). He further teaches the first HARQ-ACK codebook is placed after the second HARQ-ACK codebook (Sec. 2.1, page 4; Deferred SPS HARQ-ACK bits are appended after non-deferred HARQ-ACK bits; i.e. the SPS HARQ-ACK reads on first HARQ-ACK and non-deferred HARQ-ACK reads on second HARQ-ACK).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings as in NTT with the teachings as in Islam. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide Physical Layer feedback enhancements for meeting URLLC requirements (NTT at Introduction).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENT KRUEGER whose telephone number is (303)297-4238. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00-5:00 MT.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Thier can be reached on (571) 272-2832. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KENT KRUEGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474