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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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.
Claims 1-7, 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ohseki (US 20180206220).
Regarding claim 1, Ohseki discloses a terminal (fig. 1), comprising:
control circuitry (figs. 2-4, CPU), which, in operation, configures (fig. 5, 503), based on information on a configuration of a first resource for a first type terminal ([0025-35], some terminal apparatuses do not support shortening of the RTT, and the RTTs of such terminal apparatuses are 4 ms, that is, a first type of apparatus, a base station apparatus notifies the terminal apparatus of the value of an index corresponding to the RTT used by the terminal apparatus; the terminal apparatus specifies an index h of a resource to be used to transmit an HARQ-ACK based on the index of the CCE assigned to the apparatus when the RTT is 4 ms), a second resource different from the first resource for a second type terminal (fig. 5, 502, 503, if the RTT used by the terminal apparatus is not 4 ms but x ms, that is, the second apparatus type, the terminal apparatus receives a notification of an index Npucch(x) corresponding to an RTT of x ms; transmits an HARO-ACK using a resource corresponding to an index Npucch(x)+h, here the second resource is the resource corresponding to an index Npucch(x)+h); and
transmission circuitry, which, in operation, transmits a signal in the second resource ([0025-35], fig. 5, 504, transmits an HARO-ACK using a resource corresponding to an index Npucch(x)+h).
Claims 11-13 are rejected similarly as claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control circuitry configures the second resource based on the information on the configuration and information on a difference between the first resource and the second resource ([0025-35], using a resource corresponding to an index Npucch(x)+h).
Regarding claim 3, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 2, wherein the second resource includes one resource block configured based on the difference and a resource block configured at one of edges in a bandwidth part allocated for the first type terminal ([0035][0060][0064], possible value ranges of the indices may be set for the lengths of the plurality of RTTs not to overlap each other. Here, in order not to overlap, the edge of the bandwidth part must be considered. Even if the start indices (edge) of the CCEs are the same, the index used as a reference index when specifying the index of a resource for transmission of an HARQ-ACK is different for each RTT).
Regarding claim 4, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 2, wherein the second resource includes a plurality of certain resource blocks configured based on the difference and each of a plurality of first resource blocks included in the first resource, the plurality of certain resource blocks being referred to as a plurality of second resource blocks ([0034-35], the base station apparatus may notify the terminal apparatus of, for example, a difference value Npucch_offset23=Npucch(2)−Npucch(3) between Npucch(2) corresponding to an RTT of 2 ms and Npucch(3) corresponding to an RTT of 3 ms and a difference value Npucch_offset34=Npucch(3)−Npucch(4) between Npucch(3) and Npucch(4) corresponding to an RTT of 4 ms).
Regarding claim 5, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 4, wherein the plurality of second resource blocks is configured in different slots from one another ([0004][0034-35] [0064], possible value ranges of the indices may be set for the lengths of the plurality of RTTs not to overlap each other; resources include ono-overlap or different time slot).
Regarding claim 6, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 2, wherein the second resource includes one or a plurality of certain slots configured based on the difference and a first slot included in the first resource, the plurality of certain slots being referred to as a plurality of second slots ([0004][0034-35], the base station apparatus may notify the terminal apparatus of, for example, a difference value Npucch_offset23=Npucch(2)−Npucch(3) between Npucch(2) corresponding to an RTT of 2 ms and Npucch(3) corresponding to an RTT of 3 ms and a difference value Npucch_offset34=Npucch(3)−Npucch(4) between Npucch(3) and Npucch(4) corresponding to an RTT of 4 ms; resources include time slots).
.
Regarding claim 7, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 6, wherein the transmission circuitry repeatedly transmits the signal by using the plurality of second slots ([0003], the signal at the time of retransmission may be the same as the signal transmitted before retransmission. It is a common practice that the device may transmit repeatedly the same signal using the available resources to increase robustness. Note, claim 6 uses selective language, if claim 6 selects the first option, that is, the second resource includes only one slot, there is no need to exam this claim).
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.
Claim(s) 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohseki in view of Qiao (US 20240380531).
Regarding claim 8, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 1,
Ohseki does not explicitly disclose a size of at least one of a time domain and/or a frequency domain for each slot in the second resource is different from a size of a hop in a slot in the first resource (Qiao, [0130], the number of time-domain symbols within the slot or the size of the slots is divided by the number of hops to obtain the time-domain length of the hop. Here, if the number of hops is greater than or equal to 2, the size of the slot and the size of the hop in a slot is different).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of allocation of resources as given by Ohseki with the teachings given by Qiao. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve coverage capability (Qiao, [0043]).
Claim(s) 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohseki in view of Yang (US 20210100004).
Regarding claim 9, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 1,
Ohseki does not explicitly disclose a value of a cyclic shift corresponding to the second resource is a value obtained by adding an offset to a value of a cyclic shift configured in the first resource.
Yang discloses a value of a cyclic shift corresponding to the second resource is a value obtained by adding an offset to a value of a cyclic shift configured in the first resource (Yang, claim 15, identifying at least one second cyclic shift to apply to a second repetition of the PUCCH transmission using an index (or offset) subsequent to the first index in the set of cyclic shift indexes).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of allocation of resources as given by Ohseki with the teachings given by Yang. The motivation for doing so would have been to increase coverage and reliability (Yang, [0030]).
Regarding claim 10, Ohseki discloses the terminal according to claim 1,
Aa does not explicitly disclose wherein a candidate for a combination of parameters and information identifying the candidate are associated with each other, the parameters including both the information on the configuration and information on the second resource.
Yang discloses wherein a candidate for a combination of parameters and information identifying the candidate are associated with each other, the parameters including both the information on the configuration and information on the second resource (Yang, [0081], Table 1, the index provided by the base station 105-a may correspond to a particular row in a table, where the UE 115 can obtain the necessary information for identifying a set of PUCCH resources that could be used for transmitting the HARQ-ACK message. Here, the resources can include the first and second resources).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of allocation of resources as given by Ohseki with the teachings given by Yang. The motivation for doing so would have been to increase coverage and reliability (Yang, [0030]).
Conclusion
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/ZHENSHENG ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474