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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 07/19/2024 and 09/17/2024 have been placed in record and considered by the examiner.
Summary
This action is in reply to Applicant’s Amendments and Remarks filed on 06/04/2026.
Claims 1-6 and 12-17 are pending.
Claims 7-11 are canceled.
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 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, 12 and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as anticipated by Zhou et al. (WO 2020032695 A1, of IDS, hereinafter ‘ZHOU’).
Regarding claim 1, ZHOU teaches an apparatus for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 22 UE 2200), comprising:
a processor;
memory coupled with the processor; and
instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor (
Fig. 22 UE 2200 with Processor 220,
[0918] As shown in FIG. 22, the UE 2200 includes a processor(processing unit or controller) 2201, which may be a single unit or a combination of multiple units for performing different steps of the methods of the present disclosure; a memory 2202 storing computer executable instructions, which, when executed by the processor 2201, cause the UE 2200 to perform the method of the present disclosure 1, Memory 2202) to cause the apparatus to:
receive a grant scheduling a multi-transport block uplink transmission by the UE, the multi-transport block uplink transmission comprising two or more transport blocks associated with a common hybrid automatic repeat/request (HARQ) process identifier (
Fig. 3, [402] According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, for a scenario where one DCI schedules one HARQ process, the existing LTE mechanism is reused, in which the HARQ ID is explicitly indicated in the DCI. The multiple HARQ IDs of the multiple transport blocks scheduled by the DCI are the same. FIG. 3 shows an example in which the HARQ ID carried by the DCI is #0.
[0635] base station … transmits DCI carrying uplink grant information, and the UE obtains an indication of initial transmission/retransmission from the NDI field carried by the DCI.
See also Fig. 15 1501, 1502,
[678] FIG. 15 schematically illustrates a flowchart of a method 1500 at a base station of transmitting and/or receiving a transport block according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 15, the method 1500 may include a step 1501 in which a base station generates information for scheduling multiple transport blocks; and step 1502 in which the base station receives and/or transmits a transport block(s) based on the information for scheduling multiple transport blocks.); and
perform the multi-transport block uplink transmission according to the grant (
Implied from Fig. 3, [402, 678] cited above.).
Regarding claim 3, ZHOU teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
apply, based at least in part on the grant, a time gap between successive transmissions of the two or more transport blocks during the multi-transport block uplink transmission (
[331] the interval between the time domain resources used by the multiple transport blocks scheduled by the DCI is greater than 0.
[623] a start subframe of transmitting the PUSCH for the first time being Subframe (n+k0+kl), and resource positions of the two adjacent PUSCH transmissions being adjacent in the time domain, or there being a gap of a length L in the time domain between the resource positions of the two adjacent PUSCH transmissions, or a resource position of each PUSCH transmission being periodic in the time domain with a period of T.).
Regarding claim 4, ZHOU teaches the apparatus of claim 3, wherein a presence, a duration, or both, of the time gap are based on at least one of a UE capability reported by the UE, an access technology associated with the multi-transport block uplink transmission, a number of repetitions scheduled for at least one of the two or more transport blocks, or a combination thereof (
[692] The existing mechanism supports that a gap is configured between multiple consecutive subframes for uplink transmission or downlink transmission. The mechanism is mainly applied in a scenario with a larger number of repetitions, so as to enable the UE to avoid a crystal oscillator frequency offset caused by change of the transmitter temperature due to consecutive transmissions/receptions).
Regarding claim 5, ZHOU teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
identify, based at least in part on the grant, an interleaving pattern defined across one or more repetitions of at least the two or more transport blocks across a time domain, wherein performing the multi-transport block uplink transmission comprises transmitting the one or more repetitions of at least the two or more transport blocks according to the interleaving pattern (
Fig. 26, [682] When scheduling of multiple uplink transport blocks or multiple downlink transport blocks by the DCI is supported, one method is using an interleaved transmission mode between multiple different scheduled transport blocks ….. This transmission method may be used for PUSCH and/or PDSCH. FIG. 26 shows an example of an interleaved transmission method when DCI schedules 4 transport blocks….. an interleaved transmission is to transmit part of data of a next transport block in the (N+1)-th subframe to the 2N-th subframe after part of data of a transport block is transmitted in N consecutive subframes, and so on, part of data of
each transport block being transmitted cyclically, until all the transmissions are completed.
[684] According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, for transmitting data of the same transport block in every N consecutive subframes in the interleaved transmission method, N is indicated or determined by …. DCI transmitted by the base station ….) .
Regarding claim 6, ZHOU teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the grant comprises a UE-specific downlink control information grant to the UE (
[428] a) For a single-HARQ capable UE, after the multiple transport blocks for which one HARQ process is scheduled by the DCI, other HARQ processes cannot be scheduled, and the UE does not need to monitor various types of physical downlink search space (PDCCH) or physical downlink search space candidates in any subframe between the end subframe of the DCI and the end subframe of the last transport block scheduled by the DCI. The PDCCH herein may also be an EPDCCH, an MPDCCH, or an NPDCCH.
[429] For example, for a UE-specific PDCCH, if the UE detects the DCI format of the NPDCCH ending at Subframe n, and the DCI format is used to schedule the multiple transport blocks using one HARQ process).
Regarding claim 12, the claim is interpreted mutatis mutandis of claim 1 and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 1.
Regarding claim 14, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 3.
Regarding claim 15, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 4.
Regarding claim 16, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 5.
Regarding claim 17, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 6.
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 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.
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.
Claims 2 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (WO 2020032695 A1, of IDS, hereinafter ‘ZHOU’) in view of Deogun et al. (US 20210014890 A1, hereinafter ‘DEOGUN’).
Regarding claim 2, ZHOU teaches the apparatus of claim 1.
ZHOU does not expressly disclose identify, based at least in part on the grant, the two or more transport blocks for the common HARQ process identifier and at least an additional transport block for a different HARQ process identifier (
Although ZHOU (Fig. 3, [402], Fig. 4, [403, 404], Fig. 26, [682]) discloses DCI grant scheduling UL TBs associated with same HARQ process Ids, DCI grant scheduling m UL TBs corresponding sequentially to with 0, 1, …. m-1 HARQ process Ids, and DCI scheduling of an interleaved pattern of different UL TBs which indicates, to a person skill in the art, of a possible interleaving pattern of TBs of a common HARQ process identifier a different HARQ process identifier).
In an analogous art, DEOGUN teaches identify, based at least in part on the grant, the two or more transport blocks for the common HARQ process identifier and at least an additional transport block for a different HARQ process identifier (
See, Fig. 11, Based on scheduling Grant 1110, UL transmission of HARQ process H3 is repeated after H4, H1, H2,
In the scheme 1100, a BS (e.g., the BSs 105, 204, 304, and 500) transmits a scheduling grant 1110 including multiple contiguous HARQ transmission (Tx) occasions 1120 for a UE (e.g., the UEs 115, 202, 302, and/or 400) to transmit HARQ data. For example, the BS may communicate UL data with the UE using multiple parallel HARQ processes (e.g., the HARQ processes 312). In the scheme 1100, the BS may schedule multiple HARQ transmission occasions 1120 for each HARQ process and may associate each HARQ transmission occasion 1120 to one HARQ process. For simplicity of illustration and discussions, FIG. 11 illustrates the scheduling for four HARQ processes H1, H2, H3, and H4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to take the technique of multi-grant scheduling for HARQ communications in a shared radio frequency spectrum of DEOGUN to system of scheduling multiple transmission using DCI of ZHOU in order to take the advantage of providing a method for providing UL scheduling grant indicating one or more transmission occasions and transmit one or more UL transmissions during the one or more transmission occasions repeating a transmission of HARQ data as needed to increase the decoding success probability at the BS and with minimal interference in the shared channel (DEOGUN: [0008, 0039, 0074]).
Regarding claim 13, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth for claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Bae et al. (US 20230309090 A1), describing METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING UPLINK CHANNEL, USER DEVICE, PROCESSING DEVICE, STORAGE MEDIUM AND COMPUTER PROGRAM, AND METHOD FOR RECEIVING UPLINK CHANNEL, AND BASE STATION
Wang; M. (US 20230039648 A1), describing transport Block Repetition With Multiple Uplink Configured Grant Configurations
Xiong et al. (US 20220116999 A1), describing METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING A SIGNAL IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Rastegardoost et al. (US 20210144743 A1), describing METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING UPLINK CHANNEL, USER DEVICE, PROCESSING DEVICE, STORAGE MEDIUM AND COMPUTER PROGRAM, AND METHOD FOR RECEIVING UPLINK CHANNEL, AND BASE STATION
Ying et al. (US 20190053211 A1), describing PROCEDURES, BASE STATIONS AND USER EQUIPMENTS FOR UPLINK TRANSMISSION WITHOUT GRANT
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/SHAH M RAHMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413
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