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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 02/06/2026 has been entered. Claims 1, 9, 13-14 and 16 have been amended. Claims 8 and 11-12 are canceled. Claims 1-7, 9-10 and 13-20 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 02/06/2026, have been fully considered and entered but they are not persuasive.
Main Argument
…. Such teachings relate to resource allocation or mapping decisions, not to the formation of a single PUCCH payload from distinct rate-matched output sequences.
Critically, none of the cited references discloses or suggests the specific payload
construction recited in the claims, namely that the PUCCH transmission comprises the second rate-matching output sequence appended to the first rate-matching output sequence. The cited art is silent as to any ordered concatenation of LP and HP rate-matched sequences within the transmitted PUCCH bitstream, and does not require that the LP rate-matching output follow the HP rate-matching output in the payload. At most, the references permit separate coding and transmission of different-priority UCI via different resources or mappings, which is materially different from the claimed append operation that enforces a deterministic ordering of rate- matched sequences within the PUCCH transmission. As such, the cited references fail to teach or render obvious the claimed requirement that the PUCCH transmission comprises the second rate- matching output sequence appended to the first rate-matching output sequence. …
Reply
Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Examiner agrees with the applicant that the PUCCH transmission comprises the second rate- matching output sequence and to the first rate-matching output sequence, which are encoded separately (FAKOORIAN [0050]).
In addition the cited prior-art teaches that afterwards, coded and rate-matched code words 236 and 238 are mapped to resources for respective UCI components in PUCCH (refer to Clause 6.3.1.6 of TS 38.212) (FAKOORIAN [0051]).
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One with ordinary skills in the art can define this process as appending/concatenating/adding G(2) to G(1).
The applicant did not provide any reasoning why it is not an obvious range optimization to one with ordinary skills in the art. Given that Prior-Art teaches the “general condition of the claimed invention", finding optimal range of operation is not a new invention unless the applicant can point out a criticality for using that range. Since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, …, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233. Please note that in the instant application, …, applicant has not disclosed any criticality for the claimed limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-7, 9-10 and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claims 1, 13, 14 and 16 recite “the second rate matching output sequence appended to the first rate matching output sequence”, there is no direct support for the term “appended”, applicant is advised to use terminology from the specification such as “concatenated”.
Regarding claims 2-7, 9-10, 14-15 and 17-20 dependent claims are rejected based on their dependency from the rejected claims 1, 13, 14 and 16.
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 1-6, 9-10 and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LI et al. (US 20210321394 A1) hereinafter LI, in view of FAKOORIAN et al. (US 20240048288 A1) hereinafter FAKOORIAN.
Regarding claim 1,
LI teaches a user equipment (UE), comprising:
at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the UE to (a terminal, including a processor, a memory, and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, [0010], Fig. 6):
receive information indicating a first code rate and a second code rate, wherein the first code rate is associated with multiplexed high priority (HP) uplink control information (UCI) bits and the second code rate is associated with multiplexed low priority (LP) UCI bits (In the case that UCIs with different priorities are transmitted on the same target channel, UCIs with different priorities are separately encoded and then transmitted on the target channel, [0025]; DCI corresponding to the UCI transmission indicating high priority and DCI corresponding to the UCI transmission indicating low priority, [0037][0041]; The terminal determines the number of PRBs used by the URLCC HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate and the low priority HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate (the determined PRB number is less than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource configured by RRC [0069]);
determine a number of physical resource blocks (PRBs) for a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission based at least on the first code rate, a number of multiplexed HP UCI bits, the second code rate, a number of multiplexed LP UCI bits, and a maximum number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission (The terminal determines the number of PRBs used by the URLCC HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate and the low priority HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate (the determined PRB number is less than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource configured by RRC [0069]); and
transmit the PUCCH transmission in the number of PRBs (the determined PRB number is less than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource [0069]; a terminal transmits UCI on the PUCCH [0021]).
However LI teaches encoding and rate matching [0022], LI did not explicitly teach performing encoding of the multiplexed HP UCI bits to generate first coded bits; performing encoding of the multiplexed LP UCI bits to generate second coded bits; performing rate matching of the first coded bits to generate a first rate matching output sequence; and performing rate matching of the second coded bits to generate a second rate matching output sequence, wherein the PUCCH transmission comprises the first rate matching output sequence and the second rate matching output sequence and wherein the PUCCH transmission comprises the second rate matching output sequence appended to the first rate matching output sequence.
FAKOORIAN teaches performing encoding of the multiplexed HP UCI bits to generate first coded bits; performing encoding of the multiplexed LP UCI bits to generate second coded bits (the first HARQ 113, the second HARQ 115 are encoded separately from each other [0051]; Fig. 2D);
performing rate matching of the first coded bits to generate a first rate matching output sequence; and performing rate matching of the second coded bits to generate a second rate matching output sequence (Rate matching is also applied to code words 236 and 238 respectively [0051]; Fig. 2D), wherein the PUCCH transmission comprises the first rate matching output sequence and the second rate matching output sequence (Afterwards, coded and rate-matched code words 236 and 238 are mapped to resources for respective UCI components in PUCCH (refer to Clause 6.3.1.6 of TS 38.212) [0050][0051], Fig. 2D).
FAKOORIAN further teaches the second rate matching output sequence appended “concatenated” to the first rate matching output sequence “112” (coded and rate-matched code words 236 and 238 are mapped to resources for respective UCI components in PUCCH (refer to Clause 6.3.1.6 of TS 38.212 [0051], Fig. 2D).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of FAKOORIAN to the teachings of LI. The motivation for such an addition would be for efficient and reliable transmission of UCI for various applications (FAKOORIAN [0002]).
Regarding claim 2,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
LI further teaches receiving information indicating the maximum number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission (the determined PRB number is less than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource [0069]).
Regarding claim 3,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features with respect to claim 1, as outlined above.
LI further teaches wherein the number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission is determined as a minimum number of PRBs that provides a total number of resource elements (REs) required for multiplexing the HP UCI bits and the LP UCI bits in response to the total number of REs required for multiplexing the HP UCI bits and the LP UCI bits not being greater than a number of REs provided by the maximum number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission (the determined PRB number is less than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource configured by RRC, [0069]);
the number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission is the same as the maximum number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission in response to the total number of REs required for multiplexing the HP UCI bits and the LP UCI bits being greater than a number of REs provided by the maximum number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission (If the terminal uses the maximum number of PRBs for PRB transmission and still exceeds the above respective code rate (in this case, the terminal needs more PRBs), the terminal uses the maximum code rate to transmit high-priority HARQ-ACK and discards some low-priority -Level HARQ-ACK bits or compressed HARQ-ACK bits of low priority HARQ-ACK bits (e.g., code block group (CBG) granularity HARQ-ACK back to transmission block (TB) granularity HARQ-ACK (Determine the number of feedbackHARQ-ACK bits according to the number of TB); or, bind HARQ-ACK to meet the HARQ-ACK bit rate requirement of eMBB, [0070]. LI handles the case of the determined PRB being above the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource, by discarding or compressing some low-priority -Level HARQ-ACK bits, which will obviously reduce the required PRB to be than or equal to the maximum PRB number of the PUCCH resource.
Regarding claim 4,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features with respect to claim 3, as outlined above.
LI further teaches wherein the total number of resource elements REs} required for multiplexing the HP UCI bits and the LP UCI bits is determined based on the first code rate, the number of multiplexed HP UCI bits, the second code rate, the number of multiplexed LP UCI bits, and a modulation scheme for the PUCCH transmission (When low-priority HARQ-ACK and high-priority HARQ-ACK 2 are multiplexed and transmitted on one PUCCH, low-priority HARQ-ACK and high-priority HARQ-ACK 2 are coded separately, and the two use different code rates to determine their Number of REs used. When the low-priority HARQ-ACK is multiplexed and transmitted on the URLLC PUCCH, the high-priority HARQ-ACK2 uses the maxcoderate (maximum code rate) corresponding to the PUCCH resource configured by RRC to determine the RE it occupies. eMBB HARQ adopts the protocol or RRC The configured scaling factor (first scaling factor) determines that its code rate is maxcoderate*scaling factor, for example, scaling factor=0.1. The terminal determines the number of PRBs used by the URLCC HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate and the low priority HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate [0069]).
Regarding claim 5,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
LI further teaches determine the number of the multiplexed HP UCI bits, wherein the multiplexed HP UCI bits comprise at least HP hybrid automatic repeat request- acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information bits; and determine the number of the multiplexed LP UCI bits, wherein the multiplexed LP UCI bits comprise LP HARQ-ACK information bits (When low-priority HARQ-ACK and high-priority HARQ-ACK 2 are multiplexed and transmitted on one PUCCH, low-priority HARQ-ACK and high-priority HARQ-ACK 2 are coded separately, and the two use different code rates to determine their Number of REs used. When the low-priority HARQ-ACK is multiplexed and transmitted on the URLLC PUCCH, the high-priority HARQ-ACK2 uses the maxcoderate (maximum code rate) corresponding to the PUCCH resource configured by RRC to determine the RE it occupies. eMBB HARQ adopts the protocol or RRC The configured scaling factor (first scaling factor) determines that its code rate is maxcoderate*scaling factor, for example, scaling factor=0.1. The terminal determines the number of PRBs used by the URLCC HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate and the low priority HARQ-ACK bit number and its bit rate [0069]).
Regarding claim 6,
LI and FAKOORIAN teaches all the features with respect to claim 5, as outlined above.
LI does not explicitly teach wherein the HP UCI bits further comprise HP UCI cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits, HP scheduling request (SR) bits, or a combination thereof.
FAKOORIAN teaches wherein the HP UCI bits further comprise HP UCI cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits, HP scheduling request (SR) bits, or a combination thereof (the UCI component can include a channel state information (CSI), a scheduling request (SR), a high priority (HP) CSI, a HP persistent or semi-persistent (P/SP) CSI, a HP SR, … [0006][0050]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of FAKOORIAN to the teachings of LI. The motivation for such an addition would be for efficient and reliable transmission of UCI for various applications (FAKOORIAN [0002]).
Regarding claim 9,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features with respect to claim 1, as outlined above.
LI further teaches determining a total output sequence length at least based on the number of PRBs for the PUCCH transmission; and determining a first length of the first output sequence based on the total output sequence length, the number of the multiplexed HP UCI bits, the first code rate ([0069]), and a modulation scheme for the PUCCH transmission “achieve reliability of high-priority UCI and improve resource utilization by defining or configuring coding schemes and code rates for the pieces of UCI of different priorities to be transmitted on the same target channel” [0085], wherein the first output sequence is generated based on the first length ([0069]).
LI did not explicitly teach performing rate matching of the first coded bits to generate a first rate matching output sequence.
FAKOORIAN teaches performing rate matching of the first coded bits to generate a first rate matching output sequence (Rate matching is also applied to code words 236 and 238 respectively… Afterwards, coded and rate-matched code words 236 and 238 are mapped to resources for respective UCI components in PUCCH (refer to Clause 6.3.1.6 of TS 38.212) [0050][0051], Fig. 2D).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of FAKOORIAN to the teachings of LI. The motivation for such an addition would be for efficient and reliable transmission of UCI for various applications (FAKOORIAN [0002]).
Regarding claim 10,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features with respect to claim 9, as outlined above.
LI further teaches determining a second length of the second output sequence based on the total rate matching output sequence length and the first length ([0069]).
LI did not explicitly teach performing rate matching of the first coded bits to generate a first rate matching output sequence.
FAKOORIAN teaches performing rate matching of the second coded bits to generate a second rate matching output sequence (Rate matching is also applied to code words 236 and 238 respectively… Afterwards, coded and rate-matched code words 236 and 238 are mapped to resources for respective UCI components in PUCCH (refer to Clause 6.3.1.6 of TS 38.212) [0050][0051], Fig. 2D).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of FAKOORIAN to the teachings of LI. The motivation for such an addition would be for efficient and reliable transmission of UCI for various applications (FAKOORIAN [0002]).
Regarding claim [13] “method at UE”, claims [14-15] “base station”, and claims [16-20] “processor”, are rejected under the same reason as claims [1-5] “UE”, where LI teaches a base station [0023][0066][0071], a method performed at the UE and a processor “in UE”, Fig 1 and 6.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LI in view of WANG et al. (CN 114501642 A) hereinafter WANG.
Regarding claim 7,
LI and FAKOORIAN teach all the features with respect to claim 5, as outlined above.
LI and FAKOORIAN do not explicitly teach wherein the LP UCI bits further comprise LP UCI cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits.
WANG teaches wherein the LP UCI bits further comprise LP UCI cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits (Method 3:… The OLP ACK is the payload size of the low priority level HARQ-ACK codebook, LLP UCI is the size of the CRC of the low priority, ..., P. 5, paragraphs 3-4).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of WANG to the teachings of LI and FAKOORIAN. The motivation for such an addition would be to accurately determine a threshold for multiplexing the number of available resource elements of the low priority UCI and the number of available resource elements in the high priority PUCCH (WANG, P. 5, Paragraph 2).
Conclusion
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 AYMAN A ABAZA whose telephone number is (571)270-0422. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8-5. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Deborah Reynolds, can be reached at 571-272-0734. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/AYMAN A ABAZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465