DETAILED ACTION
This communication is response to the application filed 12/20/2023. Claims 1-7 are pending and presented for examination. A preliminary amendment submitted on 12/20/2023 is acknowledged and entered.
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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/20/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 3 and 5 are objected to because of the following informalities: “CRC” and “TC-RNTI” recited in the claim should be written in full at the first occurrence. For example, CRC should be written as cyclic redundancy check (CRC) in the first occurrence. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2020/0404652 to Matsumura et al. (hereafter Matsumura) in view of US 2021/0360616 to Yi et al. (hereafter Yi).
Regarding claim 1, Matsumura discloses a user equipment (UE) (see Matsumura, Fig 16 and Fig 17), comprising:
reception circuitry configured to receive, from a base station, system information including a first radio resource control (RRC) parameter, wherein the first RRC parameter provides one or more physical uplink control channel (PUCCH resources (see Matsumura, ¶ 0011: a user terminal has a transmission section that transmits uplink control information by using an uplink control channel, a receiving section that receives system information, including an index value that is set from among a plurality of index values that at least indicate different numbers of resources for the uplink control channel; ¶ 0036: Resources (for example, PUCCH resources) that are used to transmit this uplink control channel are allocated by using higher layer signaling and/or downlink control information (DCI). Here, higher layer signaling may refer to, for example, a least one of RRC (Radio Resource Control) signaling, system information (for example, at least one of RMSI (Remaining Minimum System Information), OSI (Other System Information), MIB (Master Information Block) and SIB (System Information Block)); ¶ 0068: the system information to include index values that indicate one or more PUCCH resources is RMSI), and to receive a physical downlink control channel(PDCCH with a downlink control information (DCI) format scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (see Matsumura, ¶ 0190: Downlink control information (DCI), including PDSCH and PUSCH scheduling information, is communicated by the PDCCH); and
transmission circuitry configured to transmit, on a PUCCH resource included in the one or more PUCCH resources, a PUCCH with hybrid automatic repeat request -acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information in response to the PDSCH received (see Matsumura, ¶ 0048: In response to the higher layer control message, the radio base station transmits a contention resolution message (message 4), by using the PDSCH; ¶ 0049: The user terminal transmits an HARQ-ACK, in response to this message 4, to the radio base station, by using the PUCCH; ¶ 0050: UCI to include an HARQ-ACK in response to message 4 needs to be transmitted, and the problem then lies in how the user terminal should select the PUCCH resource to use to transmit this UCI; ¶ 0051: select a PUCCH resource to use to transmit UCI from one or more PUCCH resources (also referred to as “PUCCH resource candidates,” “PUCCH resource set,” etc.) that are indicated by an index value (also referred to as “given field value,” “given value,” etc.) in system information (for example, RMSI), based on a bit value (also referred to as “given field value,” “index value,” “given value,” etc.) in DCI; ¶ 0070: a user terminal selects the PUCCH resources to use to transmit UCI from one or more PUCCH resources indicated by an index value in RMSI (also referred to as “given field,” “RMSI index,” etc.) based on at least one of a bit value in DCI and an implicit value), wherein
whether or not to transmit the PUCCH using frequency hopping is determined based on whether the system information includes a second RRC parameter, the second RRC parameter being an indication of whether hopping is used or not for the PUCCH transmission (see Matsumura, ¶ 0105: Information that shows whether or not frequency hopping is enabled for the PUCCH (frequency hopping (FH) information); ¶ 0116: each PUCCH resource includes the number of symbols in a slot, the starting symbol index, the initial CS interval, information to show whether or not frequency hopping is enabled; ¶ 0131-0133; ¶ 0136).
Matsumura does not explicitly disclose intra-slot frequency hopping.
However, Yi discloses whether or not to transmit the PUCCH using intra-slot frequency hopping is determined based on whether the system information includes a second RRC parameter, the second RRC parameter being an indication of whether intra-slot frequency hopping is used or not for the PUCCH transmission (see Yi, ¶ 0252: a wireless device may apply/use intra-slot hopping for a PUCCH transmission based on intra-slot frequency hopping being enabled (e.g., based on the intraSlotFrequencyHopping parameter). The wireless device may determine a quantity of DMRS symbols for a PUCCH transmission based on whether the PUCCH is enabled with intra-slot frequency hopping and a PUCCH length. The wireless device may determine a first quantity of DMRS symbols for a first PUCCH not enabled with intra-slot hopping. The wireless device may determine a second quantity of DMRS symbols for a first hop of a second PUCCH enabled with intra-slot hopping; ¶ 0371: the wireless device may receive one or more radio resource control (RRC) messages indicating configuration parameters for a cell. The configuration parameters may indicate: a first physical resource block (PRB) of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource; a second PRB of the PUCCH resource; and a hopping pattern for the first PRB and the second PRB of the PUCCH resource. The wireless device may send, via the PUCCH resource and based on the hopping pattern, uplink control information (UCI)…… The hopping pattern may indicate that intra-slot frequency hopping is enabled. A first indicator of the first PRB may be different from a second indicator of the second PRB. The sending the UCI may comprise sending the at least the first portion of the UCI and sending the at least the second portion of the UCI via a same slot based on the hopping pattern indicating that intra-slot frequency hopping is enabled; ¶ 0376).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the intra-slot frequency hopping as taught by Yi and incorporate it into the frequency hopping of Matsumura to provide advantages such as improved reliability and decreased latency (see Yi, ¶ 0004).
Regarding claim 2, Matsumura in view of Yi discloses the UE according to claim 1, Matsumura does not explicitly disclose wherein the DCI format is a DCI format 1_0 with CRC scrambled by a TC-RNTI.
However, Yi discloses wherein the DCI format is a DCI format 1_0 with CRC scrambled by a TC-RNTI (see Yi, ¶ 0182: DCI having CRC parity bits scrambled with a temporary cell RNTI (TC-RNTI) may indicate a contention resolution (e.g., a Msg 3 analogous to the Msg 3 1313 shown in FIG. 13A); ¶ 0183: ) DCI format 1_0 may be used for scheduling of a PDSCH in a cell. DCI format 1_0 may be a fallback DCI format (e.g., with compact DCI payloads).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the above teaching as taught by Yi and incorporate it into the system of Matsumura to provide advantages such as improved reliability and decreased latency (see Yi, ¶ 0004).
Regarding claim 3, Matsumura in view of Yi discloses the UE according to claim 1, wherein the UE is not configured with dedicated PUCCH resource configuration by the base station (see Matsumura, ¶ 0040: he user terminal may select a single PUCCH resource set, from among the K PUCCH resource sets configured, based on given rules (for example, based on the payload size of UCI (or “UCI payload size”)). The UCI payload size may be the number of UCI bits, not including the cyclic redundancy code (CRC) bits).
Yi also discloses wherein the UE is not configured with dedicated PUCCH resource configuration by the base station (see Yi, ¶ 0191: The base station may send/transmit configuration parameters to the wireless device for a plurality of PUCCH resource sets, for example, using an RRC message. The plurality of PUCCH resource sets (e.g., up to four sets in NR, or up to any other quantity of sets in other systems) may be configured on an uplink BWP of a cell. A PUCCH resource set may be configured with a PUCCH resource set index, a plurality of PUCCH resources with a PUCCH resource being identified by a PUCCH resource identifier (e.g., pucch-Resourceid), and/or a number (e.g. a maximum number) of UCI information bits the wireless device may send/transmit using one of the plurality of PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource set. The wireless device may select one of the plurality of PUCCH resource sets, for example, based on a total bit length of the UCI information bits (e.g., HARQ-ACK, SR, and/or CSI) if configured with a plurality of PUCCH resource sets. The wireless device may select a first PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “0,” for example, if the total bit length of UCI information bits is two or fewer. The wireless device may select a second PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “1,” for example, if the total bit length of UCI information bits is greater than two and less than or equal to a first configured value. The wireless device may select a third PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “2,” for example, if the total bit length of UCI information bits is greater than the first configured value and less than or equal to a second configured value. The wireless device may select a fourth PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “3,” for example, if the total bit length of UCI information bits is greater than the second configured value and less than or equal to a third value (e.g., 1406, 1706, or any other quantity of bits)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the above teaching as taught by Yi and incorporate it into the system of Matsumura to provide advantages such as improved reliability and decreased latency (see Yi, ¶ 0004).
Thus, having plurality of PUCCH resources to select from by the UE instead of a dedicated PUCCH resources is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art based on design preference to achieve efficient use of resources.
Regarding claim 4, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 1. Applicant is merely claiming the transmission side of the invention.
Regarding claim 5, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 2.
Regarding claim 6, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 7, it is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 1. Although phrased as a method claim, the claim is nevertheless simple repetitions of the subject matter of claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2022/0304015 to Yi et al. discloses determining a PUCCH resource set from a plurality of PUCCH resource sets, the UE may determine a PUCCH resource from the PUCCH resource set for UCI (HARQ-ACK, CSI, and/or SR) transmission. The UE may determine the PUCCH resource based on a PUCCH resource indicator in a DCI (e.g., with a DCI format 1_0 or DCI for 1_1) received on a PDCCH. A three-bit PUCCH resource indicator in the DCI may indicate one of eight PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource set. Based on the PUCCH resource indicator, the UE may transmit the UCI (HARQ-ACK, CSI and/or SR) using a PUCCH resource indicated by the PUCCH resource indicator in the DCI.
US 2020/0059332 to Takeda et al. discloses a user terminal can determine whether to enable or disable intra-slot frequency hopping based on information reported from the radio base station. For example, the radio base station reports information about whether to enable or disable intra-slot frequency hopping to the user terminal by using higher layer signaling (for example, RRC signaling, broadcast signal and so forth) and/or downlink control information (DCI).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RASHEED GIDADO whose telephone number is (571)270-7645. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8AM-5PM EST.
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, Ricky Ngo can be reached at 571-272-3139. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/RASHEED GIDADO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2464