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 .
This Office Action is in response to Application filed on November 02, 2023 in which claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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) 1 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. EP 3962159A1 in view of YANG et al. US 2019/0363832A1.
Regarding claim 1, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. disclose “a method of wireless communication of a user equipment (UE)” by providing a user terminal and a radio communication method in a next-generation mobile communication system (See Title; Paragraph 0001), comprising: “receiving, from a base station, a common configuration indicating a set of candidate repetition factors for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmissions” (Paragraph 0038 describing in Fig. 2, the UE receives information indicating the repetition factor K (for example, aggregationFactorUL or aggregationFactorDL) by higher layer layer signaling. In this case, the UE controls the repetition reception of each PDSCH or the repetition transmission of each PUSCH based on the semi-statically configured repetition factor K); “determining a particular repetition factor based on the common configuration” (Paragraph 0010 describing a reception section that receives information regarding one or more repetition factor candidates that are configured corresponding to a time domain resource allocated to a physical shared channel; and a control section that selects a specific repetition factor candidate based on a codepoint of a given field included in downlink control information used for scheduling the physical shared channel). It is noted however, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. did not specifically detail the aspects of “receiving, from the base station, a contention resolution message in a random access procedure; and transmitting an acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) of the contention resolution message in a PUCCH in accordance with the particular repetition factor” as recited in the instant claim 1. On the other hand, YANG et al. achieved the aforementioned claimed features (See YANG et al. (Figures 8, 9, 12; Paragraphs 0025, 0027, 0089-0093, 0098-0099). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated the ACK/NACK (Uplink Acknowledgement/Negative Acknowledgement) transmission mechanism of YANG et al. into the communication system of TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. because that would have enhanced the versatility of YANG et al. by allowing it to effectively performing operations of transmission and reception of a wireless signal.
Regarding claim 18, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. disclose “an apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being a user equipment (UE), comprising: a memory; and at least one processor coupled to the memory” by providing a user terminal and a radio communication method in a next-generation mobile communication system (See Title; Paragraph 0001), and configured to: “receive, from a base station, a common configuration indicating a set of candidate repetition factors for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmissions” (Paragraph 0038 describing in Fig. 2, the UE receives information indicating the repetition factor K (for example, aggregationFactorUL or aggregationFactorDL) by higher layer layer signaling. In this case, the UE controls the repetition reception of each PDSCH or the repetition transmission of each PUSCH based on the semi-statically configured repetition factor K); “receive, from the base station, a specific configuration for selecting a particular repetition factor from the set of candidate repetition factors or a set of default candidate repetition factors” (Paragraph 0038 describing in Fig. 2, the UE receives information indicating the repetition factor K (for example, aggregationFactorUL or aggregationFactorDL) by higher layer layer signaling. In this case, the UE controls the repetition reception of each PDSCH or the repetition transmission of each PUSCH based on the semi-statically configured repetition factor K); “determine the particular repetition factor based on the common configuration and/or the specific configuration” (Paragraph 0010 describing a reception section that receives information regarding one or more repetition factor candidates that are configured corresponding to a time domain resource allocated to a physical shared channel; and a control section that selects a specific repetition factor candidate based on a codepoint of a given field included in downlink control information used for scheduling the physical shared channel). It is noted however, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. did not specifically detail the aspects of “receive, from the base station, a contention resolution message in a random access procedure; and transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) of the contention resolution message in a PUCCH in accordance with the particular repetition factor” as recited in the instant claim 18. On the other hand, YANG et al. achieved the aforementioned claimed features (See YANG et al. (Figures 8, 9, 12; Paragraphs 0025, 0027, 0089-0093, 0098-0099). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated the ACK/NACK (Uplink Acknowledgement/Negative Acknowledgement) transmission mechanism of YANG et al. into the communication system of TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. because that would have enhanced the versatility of YANG et al. by allowing it to effectively performing operations of transmission and reception of a wireless signal.
As per claims 19, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. disclose “wherein the common configuration is received in a system information block (SIB)” (See TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. describing synchronization signal may be, for example, at least one of a primary synchronization signal (PSS) and a secondary synchronization signal (SSS). A signal block including SS (PSS or SSS) and PBCH (and DMRS for PBCH) may be referred to as an SS/PBCH block, an SS Block (SSB), and the like. Note that the SS, the SSB, or the like may also be referred to as a reference signal).
Regarding claim 20, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. disclose “a computer-readable medium storing computer executable code for wireless communication of a user equipment (UE)” by providing a user terminal and a radio communication method in a next-generation mobile communication system (See Title; Paragraph 0001), comprising code to: “receive, from a base station, a common configuration indicating a set of candidate repetition factors for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmissions” (Paragraph 0038 describing in Fig. 2, the UE receives information indicating the repetition factor K (for example, aggregationFactorUL or aggregationFactorDL) by higher layer layer signaling. In this case, the UE controls the repetition reception of each PDSCH or the repetition transmission of each PUSCH based on the semi-statically configured repetition factor K); “receive, from the base station, a specific configuration for selecting a particular repetition factor from the set of candidate repetition factors or a set of default candidate repetition factors” (Paragraph 0038 describing in Fig. 2, the UE receives information indicating the repetition factor K (for example, aggregationFactorUL or aggregationFactorDL) by higher layer layer signaling. In this case, the UE controls the repetition reception of each PDSCH or the repetition transmission of each PUSCH based on the semi-statically configured repetition factor K); “determine the particular repetition factor based on the common configuration and/or the specific configuration” (Paragraph 0010 describing a reception section that receives information regarding one or more repetition factor candidates that are configured corresponding to a time domain resource allocated to a physical shared channel; and a control section that selects a specific repetition factor candidate based on a codepoint of a given field included in downlink control information used for scheduling the physical shared channel). It is noted however, TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. did not specifically detail the aspects of “receive, from the base station, a contention resolution message in a random access procedure; and transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) of the contention resolution message in a PUCCH in accordance with the particular repetition faction” as recited in the instant claim 20. On the other hand, YANG et al. achieved the aforementioned claimed features (See YANG et al. (Figures 8, 9, 12; Paragraphs 0025, 0027, 0089-0093, 0098-0099). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated the ACK/NACK (Uplink Acknowledgement/Negative Acknowledgement) transmission mechanism of YANG et al. into the communication system of TAKEDA KAZUKI et al. because that would have enhanced the versatility of YANG et al. by allowing it to effectively performing operations of transmission and reception of a wireless signal.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-17 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: the prior art of record failed to show “receiving, from the base station, a specific configuration for selecting the particular repetition factor from the set of candidate repetition factors or a set of default candidate repetition factors, wherein the particular repetition factor is determined based on the common configuration and/or the specific configuration, wherein the set of candidate repetition factors is the common configuration received from the base station, and the set of default candidate repetition factors is predefined configuration”. These claimed features would render the claim 2 allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims 1, 18 and 20 and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/FRANTZ COBY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2459
February 10, 2026
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