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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 2, 4-9, 11-13, 16-18, and 20-22 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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Apple (“On HARQ Enhancements for NTN”, R1-2006521, 8/28/2020) in view of Sony (“Discussion on delay-tolerant HARQ for NTN”, R1-1912349, 11/22/2019).
For claims 1, 9, 16, 17, and 22; Apple discloses: determining whether to perform an HARQ feedback operation for a reception result of a data according to a state (Section 2.1: for data with high reliability and relaxed latency requirements, the HARQ feedback should be supported), indicated by a radio resource control (RRC) message, of an HARQ processes of the terminal being configured (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if HARQ process number is configured with disabled HARQ feedback) and downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling the data (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if …dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling); determining whether an HARQ transmission is required according to an indication of a target information field in the DCI in response to the HARQ process of the terminal being configured in an enabled state (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if HARQ process number is configured with disabled HARQ feedback or if dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling).
Apple does not expressly disclose mac ce feedback, but Apple does disclose the need to consider high reliability data and harq enablement; Sony from similar fields of endeavor teaches: an HARQ feedback operation for a reception result of a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) (Section 2.1: The reliability of the traffic. For traffic with a high reliability requirement, HARQ shall be enabled, otherwise, HARQ can be disabled to improve the efficiency. For example, SRBs which carry RRC signalling and packets which carry the MAC CE require high reliability). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Sony in the HARQ enablement as described by Apple. The motivation is to improve signaling overhead by reusing existing DCI fields.
For claims 2 and 18; Apple discloses: wherein, determining whether to perform the HARQ feedback operation for the reception result of the MAC CE according to a state, indicated by a radio resource control (RRC) message, of the HARQ processes of the terminal being configured and the DCI for scheduling the MAC CE, comprises: determining whether the HARQ transmission is required according to a state, indicated by the RRC signaling, of the HARQ process of the terminal being configured(Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if HARQ process number is configured with disabled HARQ feedback) and the DCI for scheduling the MAC CE (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if …dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling); determining to perform the HARQ feedback operation for the reception result of the MAC CE in response to the DCI indicating that the HARQ transmission is required; or determining not to perform the HARQ feedback operation for the reception result of the MAC CE in response to the DCI indicating that the HARQ transmission is not required (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if …dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling).
For claims 4 and 20; Apple discloses: determining that the HARQ transmission is required in response to the target information field indicating a first value; or determining that the HARQ transmission is not required in response to the target information field indicating a second value. (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: One straightforward way is to add a bit field in DCI to indicate whether HARQ feedback is enabled or disabled …NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if HARQ process number is configured with disabled HARQ feedback or if dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling).
For claims 11; Apple discloses: determining that the indication information of the target information field is a first value in response to requiring to indicate the terminal to perform the HARQ transmission; or determining that the indication information of the target information field is a second value in response to not requiring to indicate the terminal to perform the HARQ transmission. (Section 2.1, Proposal 1: One straightforward way is to add a bit field in DCI to indicate whether HARQ feedback is enabled or disabled …NTN supports dynamic enabling/disabling of HARQ feedback. The HARQ feedback is disabled if HARQ process number is configured with disabled HARQ feedback or if dynamically indicated by layer-1 signaling).
Claim(s) 5, 12, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Apple in view of Sony as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Shrestha et al. (US 2021/0266957) (“Shrestha”).
For claims 5, 12, and 21; Apple discloses the subject matter in claim 2 as described above in the office action. Apple discloses: determining whether the HARQ transmission is required according to scrambling information of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) of the DCI (Section 2.1: The RNTI based scheme for dynamic enabling/disabling HARQ feedback can also be considered. For example, a new RNTI is used to indicate HARQ feedback is disabled, or a RNTI mask on different DCI CRC positions to indicate HARQ feedback is disabled).
Apple does not expressly disclose, but Shrestha from similar fields of endeavor teaches: determining whether the HARQ transmission is required according to the DCI received in response to an HARQ process of the terminal being configured in a disabled state (paragraph 11, 42, 329, 331: the DCI message includes the indication to enable the HARQ feedback… the UE may transmit, to a base station, a random access message associated with a random access procedure, where a HARQ feedback is disabled for the random access procedure… the UE may transmit acknowledgment information for the first downlink data channel transmission carrying the contention resolution MAC-CE based on an indication to enable the HARQ feedback). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Shrestha in the HARQ enablement as described by Apple. The motivation is to improve signaling overhead.
Claim(s) 6, 7, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Apple in view of Sony in view of Shrestha as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Wu et al. (US 2023/0379097) (“Wu”).
For claims 6 and 13; Apple discloses the subject matter in claim 5 as described above in the office action.
Apple does not expressly disclose, but Wu from similar fields of endeavor teaches: determining whether the HARQ transmission is required according to the scrambling information of the CRC of the DCI received, comprises: determining that the HARQ transmission is required in response to the scrambling information indicating that the CRC of the DCI is scrambled based on an MAC CE radio network temporary identity (RNTI); or determining that the HARQ transmission is not required in response to the scrambling information indicating that the CRC of the DCI is not scrambled based on an MAC CE RNTI (paragraph 202-203, 281: DCI for scheduling PDSCH with HARQ feedback function enabled and DCI for scheduling PDSCH with HARQ feedback function disabled, and both have the same DCI format, i.e., have the same DCI payload size, and it is determined whether the corresponding PDSCH needs to perform HARQ feedback by at least one of the following methods: (1) monitoring physical downlink control channel PDCCH by using different cell radio network temporary identification C-RNTI values to determine whether the corresponding PDSCH needs to perform HARQ feedback). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Wu in the HARQ enablement as described by Apple. The motivation is to improve signaling overhead.
For claims 7; Apple discloses the subject matter in claim 5 as described above in the office action.
Apple does not expressly disclose, but Wu from similar fields of endeavor teaches: determining whether the HARQ transmission is required according to the scrambling information of the CRC of the DCI received, comprises: determining that the HARQ transmission is required in response to the scrambling information indicating that the CRC of the DCI is scrambled based on a first predetermined scrambling sequence; or determining that the HARQ transmission is not required in response to the scrambling information indicating that the CRC of the DCI is scrambled based on a second predetermined scrambling sequence (paragraph 202-203, 281: DCI for scheduling PDSCH with HARQ feedback function enabled and DCI for scheduling PDSCH with HARQ feedback function disabled, and both have the same DCI format, i.e., have the same DCI payload size, and it is determined whether the corresponding PDSCH needs to perform HARQ feedback by at least one of the following methods: (1) monitoring physical downlink control channel PDCCH by using different cell radio network temporary identification C-RNTI values to determine whether the corresponding PDSCH needs to perform HARQ feedback). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Wu in the HARQ enablement as described by Apple. The motivation is to improve signaling overhead.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Apple in view of Sony as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Park et al. (US 12,484,057) (“Park”).
For claims 8; Apple discloses the subject matter in claim 2 as described above in the office action.
Apple does not expressly disclose, but Park from similar fields of endeavor teaches: performing HARQ feedback on a time-frequency resource position indicated by the DCI according to the reception result of the MAC CE in response to determining to perform the HARQ feedback operation for the reception result of the MAC CE (column 14, lines 24-59: A slot timing between A and B is indicated by a field in DCI from a set of values. In addition, NR supports different minimum HARQ processing times between UEs. The HARQ processing time includes a delay between a DL data reception timing and a corresponding HARQ-ACK transmission timing and a delay between a UL grant reception timing and a corresponding UL data transmission timing). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Park in the HARQ enablement as described by Apple. The motivation is to improve latency.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Lim et al. (US 2022/0312337); Lim discloses the terminal may use multiple SRIs or TPMIs indicated by multiple pieces of DCI, to map a transmission beam and a transmission precoder to each activated repeated PUSCH transmission of configured grant according to a transmission beam mapping method.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN D BLANTON whose telephone number is (571)270-3933. The examiner can normally be reached 7am-6pm EST, Mon-Thu.
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/JOHN D BLANTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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