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 .
Status of the Claims
Based to the Applicant’s REMARKS and Amendment filed on 04/16/2026, this office action considers -
Claims 1, 6-8, 13-15 and 19-20 are pending; and
Claims 2-5, 9-12, 16-18 are canceled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and remarks, filed 04/16/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 6-8, 13-15 and 19-20 has been considered, but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant presented argument that Ericsson does not disclose, teach or suggest, at least, the above-labeled Feature A "wherein the CSI or the SR or both have the same priority as the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK'' of the present application. Further, Ericsson does not disclose, teach or suggest multiplexing of CSI and HARQ-ACK on a second PUCCH when time domain resources for the first PUCCH (on which the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK are multiplexed) and a PUCCH carrying channel state information (CSI) overlaps, because –
Ericsson discloses "[when] HARO-ACK feedback for multicast need be jointly transmitted together with that of unicast, and maybe even together with CSI, PUCCH format 3 or 4 which can convey more bits need be chosen," that is, in Ericsson, HARQ-ACK and CSI can be transmitted together at the same time.
The Applicant further added that Regarding the priority of HARQ-ACK and CSI, Proposal 16 of Ericsson further recites: "[i]f the capacity of P UCCH is not enough to transmit all bits from unicast and multicast, then HARO feedback bits has higher priority compared to CSI feedback."
Therefore, according to Ericsson, the HARQ-ACK has higher priority than CSI when HARQ-ACK and CSI are transmitted together at the same time, which implies that when the capacity is not sufficient, and CSI is discarded. (REMARKS, Page 12)
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
First, the Examiner presents that Ericsson Proposal 16 provides a conditional feature disclosing when available PUCCH resource is not enough, only then to treat CSI as lower priority, which is redundant and not relevant to amended claim 1.
Second, the Examiner notes that the Applicant recognized that Ericsson discloses "[when] HARO-ACK feedback for multicast need be jointly transmitted together with that of unicast, and maybe even together with CSI, PUCCH format 3 or 4 which can convey more bits need be chosen," that is, in Ericsson, HARQ-ACK and CSI can be transmitted together at the same time.
The above, explicitly indicates HARQ-ACKs for multicast and Unicast are treated equal priority with CSI, and therefore PUCCH format 3 or 4 is to be used for conveys the feedbacks along with CSI, as required by amended claim 1 Feature A.
Therefore, amended claim 1, and similarly claims 8 and 15 are rejected.
Dependent claims 6-7, 13-14 and 19-20, being dependent on claims 1, 8 and 15 are also rejected for the same reason as above.
NOTICE for all US Patent Applications filed on or after March 16, 2013
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of pre-AIA 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.
Claims 1-3, 6-10, 13-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Ericsson (Rl-2105915 “Discussion on reliability mechanisms for NR MBS”, of IDS, hereinafter ‘ERICSSON’).
Regarding claim 1, ERICSSON teaches a method for handling overlapping of physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) time domain resources (
Page 1, UE
(Construed, as well known in the art, implicit to comprise a processor, a memory, and a program stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor, wherein when the program is executed by the processor)
Pages 1-12:
2.1 HARQ mechanism for PTM scheme 1
Agreement:
Page 1:
For ACK/NACK based feedback if supported for RRC_CONNECTED UEs receiving multicast, UE can be optionally configured a separate PUCCH-Config for multicast. Otherwise, PUCCH-Config for unicast applies….), wherein the method comprises:
in a case that a first hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) and a second HARQ-ACK of the same priority are present and time domain resources for a PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK and a PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK overlap, or that the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK are in a same time unit and a terminal does not support transmission of PUCCHs of two HARQ-ACKs of the same priority in one time unit, multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK onto one PUCCH (
Page 10:
Proposal 13 When multicast and unicast or multicast and multicast traffic can be FDMed in a slot, multicast traffic scheduled by one G-RNTI is treated as coming from a virtual carrier, and the HARQ codebook construction rule before R-17 can be reused for this joint type-1 HARQ-ACK codebook.
Page 12:
When UE is required to send HARQ-ACK feedback for both multicast and unicast traffic, and the transmission time is overlap, then HARQ-ACK feedback for multicast and unicast traffic are multiplexed into one PUCCH resource when they are configured with same priority….
if UE support to transmit more than one PUCCH with HARQ-ACK feedback per slot, then it is of course beneficial to let UE transmit the HARQ-ACK feedback for both multicast and unicast traffic in one slot. If UE cannot support to transmit two HARQ-ACK feedback, then it is better to apply the multiplexing rule as defined in Proposal 17 when multicast and unicast is configured with same priority.
Proposal 17: …. If UE can only transmit one PUCCH with HARQ, multiplex multicast and unicast HARQ feedback into one PUCCH resource if they are configured with same priority.), wherein
the first HARQ-ACK comprises a HARQ-ACK for a group-common physical downlink shared channel PDSCH and/or a HARQ-ACK for a group-common PDCCH, and the second HARQ-ACK comprises a HARQ-ACK for a unicast PDSCH and/or a HARQ-ACK for a unicast PDCCH (
Page 3:
.... PDSCHs received by one G-RNTI.
Page 5:
.... PDCCH scrambled by a G-RNTI ....
Page 8:
.... Type-2 HARQ-ACK codebook ... Within the joint codebook, the first part is the codebook of unicast, then follow the codebooks of multicast in increasing order of G-RNTI.
For type-1 HARO-ACK feedback .....
...... the agreement regarding construction of type-1 HARQ-ACK codebook in 104e .....
For ACK/NACK based feedback if supported for multicast, construction of Type-1 HARQ-ACK codebook based on the union of the PDSCH TDRA sets of the unicast service and the multicast service (if they are separately configured)., at least of the same priority, is supported.
Page 10:
Proposal 13 When multicast and unicast or multicast and multicast traffic can be FDMed in a slot, multicast traffic scheduled by one G-RNTI …..
Page 12:
When UE is required to send HARQ-ACK feedback for both multicast and unicast traffic, and the transmission time is overlap ….
Page 13:
…. multicast PDSCH ….
Page 14:
…. UE specific PDCCH …. .. group common PDCCH ….
(It is construed from multicast traffic indicates the traffic is a group-common traffic or user data over PDSCH or control data over PDCCH respective indicated by G-RNTI, and similarly unicast traffic indicates a unicast user data over PDSCH or control data over PDCCH));
wherein the multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK onto one PUCCH (
Page 12:
When UE is required to send HARQ-ACK feedback for both multicast and unicast traffic, and the transmission time is overlap, then HARQ-ACK feedback for multicast and unicast traffic are multiplexed into one PUCCH resource when they are configured with same priority….
See also Proposal 17 cited for claim 1.) comprises:
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK onto one PUCCH according to a preset rule (
Page 12:
…. HARQ-ACK feedback for multicast and unicast traffic are multiplexed into one PUCCH resource when they are configured with same priority), wherein
the preset rule comprises any one of the following:
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK onto a first PUCCH, and in a case that time domain resources for the first PUCCH and a PUCCH carrying channel state information (CSI) and/or a scheduling request (SR) overlap, multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK as well as the CSI and/or the SR onto a second PUCCH, wherein the CSI or the SR or both have the same priority as the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK (
Page 11:
FFS the priority between HARQ-ACK feedback for multicast and other UC! for unicast {SR, CSI} or PUSCH for unicast.
Page 12:
The rule to select the corresponding PUCCH resource can be similar as what is defined before R17. First decide the PUCCH resource set according to the number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits, second determine the specific PUCCH resource according to PRI in DCI Here, the number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits is the sum of both multicast and unicast traffic. PUCCH configuration for multicast may only include configuration for PUCCH formats 0/1, i.e. for the case when there is fewer number of HARQ bits for multicast needing be transmitted. When HARQ-ACK feedback for multicast need be jointly transmitted together with that of unicast, and maybe even together with CSI, PUCCH format 3 or 4 which can convey more bits need be chosen. Since PUCCH format 3 or 4 may only be configured in unicast configuration, it is therefore more reasonable to use the PRI from the last DCI of unicast to indicate PUCCH resource.
Proposal 16 When multicast and unicast traffic has same priority and their PUCCH resource for HARQ feedback is overlap in time, the HARQ feedback from multicast and unicast traffic can be multiplexed. ….. the specific PUCCH resource is determined by the PRI in DCI associated with unicast traffic. If the capacity of PUCCH is not enough to transmit all bits from unicast and multicast, then HARQ feedback bits has higher priority compared to CSI feedback.
(Construed that when HARQ-ACKs for multicast, Unicast traffic overlaps and CSI is jointly sent over an DCI indicated format 3 or 4 PUCCH resource set using unicast configuration all considered having same priority when PUCCH resource capacity is enough, as required by above limitation of amended claim 1.
Ericsson also discloses if indicated PUCCH resource set not enough for multicast HARQ, Unicast HARQ and CSI, then CSI is considered lower priority and not included, which is an additional feature of Ericsson not required by amended claim 1));
Regarding claim 8, ERICSSON teaches a terminal, comprising: a processor, a memory, and a program stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor, wherein when the program is executed by the processor (
Page 1, UE
(Construed, as well known in the art, implicit to comprise a processor, a memory, and a program stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor, wherein when the program is executed by the processor)
Pages 1-12:
2.1 HARQ mechanism for PTM scheme 1
Agreement:
Page 1:
For ACK/NACK based feedback if supported for RRC_CONNECTED UEs receiving multicast, UE can be optionally configured a separate PUCCH-Config for multicast. Otherwise, PUCCH-Config for unicast applies….).
Further, claim 8 is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 1 and rejected for the same reason as claim 1.
Regarding claim 15, ERICSSON teaches a non-volatile readable storage medium, wherein the non-volatile readable storage medium stores a program or instructions, and when the program or instructions are executed by a processor of a terminal (
Page 1, UE
(Construed, as well known in the art, implicit to UE or terminal comprise a non-volatile readable storage medium stores a program or instructions which are executed by a processor of the UE or terminal)
Pages 1-12:
2.1 HARQ mechanism for PTM scheme 1
Agreement:
Page 1:
For ACK/NACK based feedback if supported for RRC_CONNECTED UEs receiving multicast, UE can be optionally configured a separate PUCCH-Config for multicast. Otherwise, PUCCH-Config for unicast applies….).
Further, claim 15 is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 1 and rejected for the same reason as claim 1.
Regarding claim 6, ERICSSON teaches the method according to claim 2, wherein in a case that the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK of the same priority as well as the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK of different priorities are present and time domain resources for a PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK and a PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK that are of different priorities overlap, the method further comprises:
canceling, by the terminal, transmission of a PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of a first priority and/or a PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority;
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK of a second priority and the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority onto a sixth PUCCH according to the preset rule (
Pages 10-11:
The following agreement were made in RAN1#104e and RAN1#104b-e
RAN1#104-e
Agreement
The priority for HARQ-ACK feedback for RRC_CONNECTED UE receiving multicast can be,
• Lower, higher than or equal to the HARQ-ACK feedback for unicast
Agreement
For the cases of HARQ-ACK feedback (at least for ACK/NACK based feedback) is available for multicast and unicast for a given UE receiving multicast, for determining the PUCCH resource,
• Support multiplexing for the same priority and prioritizing for different priorities at !east when the corresponding PUCCH resources overlap in time ln a slot);
or
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority and the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority onto a seventh PUCCH according to the preset rule;
in a case that time domain resources for the seventh PUCCH and a PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority overlap, and/or that time domain resources for the seventh PUCCH and a PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority overlap, canceling, by the terminal, transmission of the seventh PUCCH;
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority and the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority onto an eighth PUCCH according to the preset rule;
or
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority and the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority onto a ninth PUCCH according to the preset rule;
multiplexing, by the terminal, the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority and the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority onto a tenth PUCCH according to the preset rule; and
in a case that time domain resources for the ninth PUCCH and the tenth PUCCH overlap, canceling, by the terminal, transmission of the ninth PUCCH; wherein
the second priority is higher than the first priority.
Regarding claim 7, ERICSSON teaches the method according to claim 6, wherein the case that the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK of the same priority as well as the first HARQ-ACK and the second HARQ-ACK of different priorities are present comprises any one of the following:
the terminal configures or schedules the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority, the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority, and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority (
Page 11:
The priority for HARQ-ACK feedback for RRC_CONNECTED UE receiving multicast can be,
• Lower, higher than or equal to the HARQ-ACK feedback for unicast
Agreement
For the cases of HARQ-ACK feedback (at least for ACK/NACK based feedback) is available for multicast and unicast for a given UE receiving multicast, for determining the PUCCH resource,
• Support multiplexing for the same priority and prioritizing for different priorities at !east when the corresponding PUCCH resources overlap in time ln a slot);
the terminal configures or schedules the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority, the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority, and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority;
the terminal configures or schedules the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority, the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority, and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority;
the terminal configures or schedules the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority, the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority, and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority; and
the terminal configures or schedules the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the first priority, the PUCCH carrying the first HARQ-ACK of the second priority, the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the first priority, and the PUCCH carrying the second HARQ-ACK of the second priority.
Regarding claim 13, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 6.
Regarding claim 14, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 7.
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 6.
Regarding claim 20, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 7.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Yoshioka et al. (US 12537654 B2), describing Terminal, Radio Communication Method, And Base Station
Papasakellariou; Aris (US 20240172212 A1), describing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT REPORT FOR RECEPTION OF CONTROL INFORMATION
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHAH M RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-8951. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30AM-5:30PM PST.
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/SHAH M RAHMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413
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