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 .
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.
Claim(s) 12-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Zhang et al. (Zhang), U.S. Publication No. 2019/0013903.
Regarding Claim 12, Zhang discloses a method for determining a slot resource
for retransmission, wherein the method is performed by a network side device (i.e., eNB; see figure 3) and comprises:
determining slot formats corresponding respectively to a plurality of slot resources, wherein the slot formats comprise an uplink slot (shown in figure 3), a downlink slot (shown in figure 3) and a flexible/special slot (shown in figure 3) (i.e., allocating an air interface resource for a data transmission, the network device usually delivers, by using a downlink control message, information that may indicate a time domain resource and/or a frequency domain resource therefore, slot formats are determined; see paragraphs [0064]-[0065]); and
determining a plurality of slot resources with slot formats which are the uplink slot and the flexible/special slot as at least one available slot resource, and determining the at least one available slot resource as the slot resource for retransmission (i.e., the eNB fails to decode the data after receiving the initially transmitted data, the eNB feeds back a negative acknowledgement (NACK) message to the UE in an (n+8)th subframe to trigger the UE to retransmit the data on a subsequent frequency domain resource having same subframes. In some possible cases, the eNB allocates a new uplink air interface resource used for a retransmission to the UE again when feeding back the NACK. After receiving the NACK and/or an uplink resource allocation message fed back by the eNB, the UE retransmits the data in an (n+12)th subframe therefore, at least one available slot resource for retransmission is determined; see paragraph [0065] and shown in figure 3).
Regarding Claim 13, Zhang discloses further comprising: monitoring uplink
information which is blindly retransmitted by a User Equipment (UE) in the slot resource for retransmission (see paragraph [0065]).
Regarding Claim 14, Zhang discloses further comprising: sending uplink grant
information for blind retransmission to a UE, wherein the uplink grant information for the blind retransmission is configured to schedule retransmission of uplink information (see paragraph [0064]).
Regarding Claim 15, Zhang discloses further comprising: sending indication
information to a UE, wherein the indication information is configured to indicate a maximum common set for at least one UE in a cell where the UE resides in (see paragraph [0073]) or a maximum common set for at least one UE in a same beam direction.
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) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Priyanto et al. (Priyanto), U.S. Publication No. 2022/0256611.
Regarding Claim 16, Zhang discloses the method as described above. Zhang
fails to disclose wherein uplink information is a message 3 (Msg3). Priyanto discloses wherein uplink information is a message 3 (Msg3) (see paragraph [0101]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to consider Priyanto’s invention with Zhang’s invention to further reduce latency and signaling as described in Priyanto.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-11, 17, 23, 30 and 34 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Prior art, such as, Cao et al. (Pub No. 2021/0105104) discloses a first user
equipment (UE) is configured to receive from a base station a signaling comprising indication of one or more time-frequency resources and an indicator indicating a time gap, and transmit a transport block (TB) to a second UE using the one or more time-frequency resources. For each of the time-frequency resources, the first UE monitors a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback from the second UE, using a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) resource; and transmits to the base station a HARQ feedback report signal based on the HARQ feedback or absence thereof, in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), using a single PUCCH resource determined based on the time gap from a last one of the PSFCH resources. See abstract.
Prior art, such as, Zhang discloses an air interface resource scheduling and allocation technology in the wireless communications field. In a resource scheduling and allocation method, a network device allocates, by using a downlink control information, an air interface resource used for N data transmissions to same user equipment, the downlink control information includes information about the air interface resource used for the N data transmissions, and N is an integer greater than 1. See abstract.
Prior art fails to disclose “A method for determining a slot resource for blind retransmission, wherein the method is performed by User Equipment (UE) and the method comprises: determining uplink grant information for the blind retransmission, wherein the uplink grant information for the blind retransmission is configured to schedule retransmission of uplink information; obtaining slot formats corresponding respectively to a plurality of slot resources, wherein the slot formats comprise at least one of an uplink slot, a downlink slot and a flexible/special slot; selecting at least one available slot resource from the uplink slot and the flexible/special slot among the plurality of slot resources according to the uplink grant information for the blind retransmission and the slot formats; and determining an actual available slot resource from the at least one available slot resource to perform the blind retransmission of the uplink information.” as required in independent claim 1.
Prior art fails to disclose “A method for determining a slot resource for blind retransmission, wherein the method is performed by a network side device and the method comprises: determining downlink grant information for the blind retransmission, wherein the downlink grant information for the blind retransmission is configured to schedule retransmission of downlink information; determining slot formats corresponding respectively to a plurality of slot resources, wherein the slot formats comprises an uplink slot, a downlink slot and a flexible/special slot; selecting at least one available slot resource from the downlink slot and the flexible/special slot among the plurality of slot resources according to the downlink grant information for the blind retransmission and the slot formats; determining an actual available slot resource from the at least one available slot resource; and performing the blind retransmission of the downlink information to User Equipment (UE) using the actual available slot resource.” as required in independent claim 17.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHANTELL LAKETA HEIBER whose telephone number is (571)272-0886. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Anthony Addy, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-7795. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHANTELL L HEIBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645
January 24, 2026