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 Arguments
Applicant's Arguments/Remarks filed 06/25/2026 (hereinafter Resp.) are fully considered hereinafter.
Applicant’s main argument is that Huang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0367284, by the same assignee (hereinafter Huang) does not disclose:
transmit a control message via PUCCH;
wherein the demodulation reference signal sequence is indicative of a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback; and
wherein the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,
because “the Office Action has not shown that the ‘one symbol’ of Huang discloses
transmitting ‘a control message’ that ‘comprises one or more demodulation reference signals’
in which ‘the demodulation reference signal sequence is indicative of a first part of a two-part
hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,’ and that ‘the first part of the two-part hybrid
automatic repeat request feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part hybrid
automatic repeat request feedback,’ as recited in independent claim 1” – See Resp.,9:¶2.
MPEP §2131 provides that “[a] claim is anticipated only if each and every element as set forth in the claim is found, either expressly or inherently described, in a single prior art reference” quoting Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 631 (Fed. Cir. 1987). Anticipation encompasses what one of ordinary skill in the art would have known at the effective filing date of the claimed invention – See, e.g., In re Baxter Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d 388 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (where examiner’s rejection of claims over a technical progress report which taught the same blood bag system but did not expressly disclose the presence of DEHP was upheld because one of ordinary skill in the art would have known that "commercial blood bags" meant bags containing DEHP); see also MPEP §2131.01(II) (providing that: “Extrinsic evidence may be used to explain but not expand the meaning of terms and phrases used in the reference relied upon as anticipatory of the claimed subject matter” citing generally to In re Baxter Travenol Labs.)
Here, the Huang reference discloses Orthogonal Frequency Divisional Multiple Access
(OFDMA)-based air interfaces on the uplink (UL) whereby each OFDMA symbol encompasses 12 sub-carriers and multiple 5G resource blocks – See [¶¶0048-49] and Fig. 5, therefore a plurality of bits of information may be carried by one symbol1 because a symbol encompasses multiple physical resource elements (REs).
Applicant seems unsettled by the possibility of carrying more than one bit of information in one OFDMA symbol carrying also DMRS(s). To be sure, Huang does not limit its embodiments to cases where DMRS(s) are sent only in one symbol – See, e.g., [¶0085] (“For example, the reference signal may be a DMRS with two symbols. In this case, the two symbols
may indicate whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission”); cf. [¶0083] (“For example, the reference signal may be a DMRS with one symbol. In this case, the single symbol may indicate whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission”). In addition, Huang gives plenty examples of “stacking” multiple pieces of control information in one symbol on the well-known in the art RE time-frequency raster shown in Fig. 52 wherein each slot comprises 7 symbols corresponding to the particular subcarrier spacing (SCS) used.
Applicant then argues that “the Office Action has not shown how the ‘reference signal that indicates whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission’ discloses ‘two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,’ let alone ‘a control message’ that ‘comprises one or more demodulation reference signals’” – See Resp., 9:¶2.
First, the Specification does not impart a special definition to the two-part HARQ feedback other than the first part of the two-part HARQ feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part HARQ feedback, as recited using the same language in the independent claims. Therefore, in examining the claims, the knowledge of a person of ordinary skills in the art applies, giving the claim language the broadest reasonable interpretation, in light of the Specification – See MPEP § 2131 (“To reject a claim as anticipated by a reference, the disclosure must teach every element required by the claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation. See, e.g., MPEP § 2114, subsections II and IV”). Huang discloses that ACK/NACK signaling may not present in the uplink transmission – See, e.g., [¶¶0085-86] meaning, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, that the way of encoding the DMRS may indicate a size “zero” or a size different from zero. Furthermore, like in In re Baxter Travenol Labs. supra, a person of ordinary skills in the art would be familiar with various HARQ feedback codebooks standardized by 3GPP including the two-part Type-3 HARQ-ACK codebook used for one-shot HARQ feedback –See, e.g., §9.1, 3GPP TS 38.213 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 18)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.213) (cited in prior art references of the Non-Final Office Action (NFOA)), providing, at page 117-118, that the UE determines “a size of a set of indicated HARQ process numbers
N
H
A
R
Q
,
c
D
L
,
i
n
d
for each indicated serving cell” and “[e]ach bit string provided by perHARQ corresponds to a serving cell in ascending order of serving cell index, and each bit from MSB to LSB within a bit string corresponds to a HARQ process number on a corresponding serving cell in ascending order of HARQ process number, where value '1' or value '0' indicate HARQ-ACK for the corresponding HARQ process number on the corresponding serving cell is included or not included in the Type 3 HARQ-ACK codebook, respectively.” This type of codebook aligns with the present disclosure – See Spec. [¶0071] (stating: “Assuming the original HARQ-ACK CB has N bits, the part one has N1 bits and part two has N2 bits. N1 may be fixed and may not be function of xN, where xN is the set of original HARQ-ACK bits before transformation into two-part HARQ feedback”). To be sure, Huang does not limit the ACK/NACK signaling in the uplink transmission to any type or format of feedback. Therefore, under in In re Baxter Travenol Labs. and the MPEP, the argument that the Huang reference does not disclose a two-part HARQ feedback, fails to persuade persuasive.
Second, Huang clearly shows in Fig. 5 a control message (UCI) that comprises one or more demodulation reference signals. A person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate that the DMRS does not occupy the whole symbol. i.e., all 12 subcarriers, but rather a small number of REs on that symbol (or symbols), as shown in Fig. 5 for other control information3. Furthermore, DMRS patterns on PUCCH channels are standardized by 3GPP – See, e.g., §6.3.2.1, 3GPP TS 38.211 V18.2.0 (2024-04), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical channels and modulation (Release 18)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.211, cited in the NFOA), showing in Table 6.3.2.1-1 at page 60 various PUCCH formats and their corresponding number of bits (in accord with Spec.[¶0068] showing the same table) wherein a DMRS may occupy one or more symbols as specified in §6.4.1.3 and may be mapped to a number of physical resources (REs) as specified in §6.4.1.1.3, at page 103, i.e., “resource elements
k
,
l
p
,
μ
in a slot on antenna port
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19
55
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” stating with the first OFDM symbol of the PUCCH transmission on the subcarriers, “assigned for PUCCH transmission according to [5, TS 38.213].”
Again, Huang does not restrict the type of PUCCH and/or the REs occupied by the DMRS(s) sent in the one or two symbols disclosed. Specifically, frequency-multiplexing DMRS with UCI on one symbol of a PUCCH so that to encode multiple bits of information is knowledge predating Huang and readily available to one of ordinary skills in the art. For example, Wang et al., “Uplink control channel for 5G new RAT,” 2017 (hereinafter Wang) discloses, at page 2:col2:¶1, that “The short-PUCCH consists of one OFDM symbol with the same subcarrier spacing as DL/UL data (i.e. the SCS for both PUCCH and DL/UL data is f0, where f0=15kHz). A demodulation reference signal (DMRS) and UCI are frequency division multiplexed (FDMed) on different subcarriers for the given symbol. The overhead ratio of the DMRS can be, e.g., 1/2, 1/4, or 1/6. Various UCI payloads can be easily attained” (emphasis added) as shown in Fig. 2 reproduced hereinafter:
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273
553
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Furthermore, the simulation in Wang specifically assumes that “the UCI is HARQ-ACK feedback for downlink data transmission” – See § III (A), p.3:col.1, in a “NR short-PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK” whereby the “[r]eceiver performs DMRS-based channel estimation, UCI symbol demodulation, and channel decoding” of the at least 8 bits carried in the UCI – See id.:col.2 and Table I. To be noted that Wang is a narrow interpretation of Huang because it specifically addresses the case of one or more demodulation reference signals frequency multiplexed with a control signal (UCI) on one OFDM symbol in a short PUCCH.
Applicant’s argument that Huang disclosure, referenced in the §102 rejection of the NFOA, does not teach “’one symbol’ to disclose ‘hybrid automatic repeat request feedback’ itself, let alone "a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback’” – See Resp., 10:¶1 fails to persuade in view of the caselaw, the MPEP and the extrinsic evidence available to explain( but not expand) the meaning of terms and phrases used in the reference relied upon. Therefore, the §102 rejection under Huang is maintained in this Final Office Action.
Regarding the §102 rejection of Claims 1-2 (in the alternative), 6-8, 13-14, 16-17, and 20 under Song et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20180242286 (hereinafter Song), Applicant argues that “a HARQ-ACK codebook size, as in Song, does not teach or suggest ‘a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,’ in which ‘the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,’ as recited in independent claim 1 . . . at least because a codebook size is not the same as ‘hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,’ let alone ‘a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback.’” – See Resp., p.11:¶2 While it is common sense obvious that a codebook size is not the same as a HARQ feedback, Examiner respectfully disagrees that the HARQ codebook size in Song would be different from a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback. As Applicant noted, Song first discloses “a HARQ-ACK codebook size that indicates how many ACK/NACK bits a UE should use for transmitting feedback without any indication or suggestion that this codebook size is ‘hybrid automatic repeat request feedback’” – See id.; see also Song:[¶0072] and Fig. 2, that is not the teaching of Song used in the NFOA at pages 9-10.
First, a person of ordinary skills in the art would easily appreciate that HARQ feedback (or HARQ-ACK) is a number of ACK/NACK bits, contrary to Applicant’s assertion.
Second, NFOA cites to Song:[¶¶0082-92] wherein “[t]he present disclosure also proposes several signaling methods to indicate the HARQ-ACK codebook size for PUCCH by the UE 10 to the BS 20”– See Song:[¶0076] (emphasis added) and Figs. 3-4, i.e., the HARQ feedback sent by the UE to the BS comprises a first part that is the HARQ feedback codebook size, anticipating the claimed limitation. Song is specific on this point – See [¶0094] (“the HARQ-ACK codebook size, is encoded and mapped to physical resources separately from the other control information (HARQ-ACK/SR/Periodic-CSI (P-CSI)) carried by PUCCH”) and [¶¶0100-01] (“The HARQ-ACK codebook size indicates the number of HARQ-ACK bits that the UE should encode for transmitting HARQ feedback to the BS” and “the BS may attempt to decode the indication of the HARQ-ACK codebook size first to get the HARQ-ACK codebook size, and then decode the other control information HARQ-ACK/SR/P-CSI”) cited at page 10-11 of the NFOA; accord Spec. [¶0071](“part two has a variable length depending on part one. The network entity 105 may first decode part one, then may determine the length of part two, decode part two, and determine the original HARQ-ACK CB”)
For the reasons above and the unchallenged fact that Song teaches the DMRS sequence being indicative of a first part, the size of the HARQ feedback, i.e., the size of part two of the HARQ feedback from the UE to the BS, Applicant’s argument against Song is unpersuasive and the §102 rejection under Song is maintained in this Final Action.
Applicant’s arguments regarding the §103 rejections are unpersuasive at least because Applicant does not produce any evidence of “allowable features that have not been shown to be taught or suggested by Song, Wu, Huang, Papasakellariou, and Davydov, alone or in any combination” – See Resp., p.12:¶3 that would invalidate the prima facie case for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 made in the NFOA – See MPEP § 2142 (stating: “Once the examiner sets out this prima facie case, the burden shifts to the patentee to provide evidence, in the prior art or beyond it, or argument sufficient to rebut the examiner's evidence. The examiner then reaches the final determination on obviousness by weighing the evidence establishing the prima facie case with the rebuttal evidence” (emphasis added), citing ACCO Brands Corp. v. Fellowes, Inc., 813 F.3d 1361, 1365–66 (Fed. Cir. 2016)).
In sum, Applicant’s arguments are unpersuasive on the §102 and the §103 rejections and no amendments to the original claims were made, hence the rejections are maintained, and this action is made Final.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 10-11, and 15 are rejected, under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by Huang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0367284, by the same assignee (hereinafter Huang).
Regarding Claim 1, Huang teaches in Fig. 11 a user equipment (UE), comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code (“The processing system 1102 includes a processor 1106 coupled to a computer-readable medium/memory 1108. The processor 1106 is responsible for general processing, including the execution of software stored on the computer-readable medium/memory 1108. The software, when executed by the processor 1106, causes the processing system 1102 to perform the various functions described” – See [¶0126]) to cause the UE to:
receive one or more downlink shared channel messages (“At UE 120, antennas 252a through 252r may receive the downlink signals from base station 110” and “receive (RX) processor 258 may process ( e.g., demodulate and decode) the detected symbols, provide decoded data for UE 120 to a data sink 260, and provide decoded control information and system information to a controller/processor 280” – See [¶0057] and Fig. 1, whereby in “a DL-centric subframe or wireless communication structure . . . [t]he control portion 302 may include various scheduling information and/or control information corresponding to various portions of the DL-centric subframe” and “the control portion 302 may be a physical DL control channel (PDCCH)” –See [¶0061], while “[t]he DL data portion 304 may include the communication resources utilized to communicate DL data from the scheduling entity (e.g., . . .BS) to the subordinate entity (e.g., UE)” and “the DL data portion 304 may be a physical DL shared channel (PDSCH)” – See [¶0062] and Fig. 3); and
transmit a control message via an uplink control channel communication that comprises one or more demodulation reference signals in accordance with a demodulation reference signal sequence (“On the uplink, at UE 120, a transmit processor 264 may receive and process data from a data source 262 and control information” and “may also generate reference symbols for one or more reference signals” – See [¶0058] wherein “the reference signal may be a DMRS with one symbol” and “the single symbol may be a sequence (e.g., a DMRS sequence)” – See [¶0083] and Fig. 5 showing UCI multiplexed in frequency domain with DMRS whereby “when a UE is scheduled to transmit both control transmissions (e.g., PUCCH transmissions) and data transmissions (e.g., PUSCH transmissions), in the same wireless communication structure (e.g., a subframe), the UE may multiplex the control transmissions and the data transmissions,” in both time and frequency domain to “increase throughput” – See [¶0074]; in addition, “the reference signal may be a DMRS with two symbols” – See [¶0085]; see also 3GPP TS 38.211 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical channels and modulation (Release 18)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.211) specifying:
in § 4.4, at page 14, the NR resource element (RE) whereby “[e]ach element in the resource grid for antenna port
p
and subcarrier spacing configuration
μ
is called a resource element and is uniquely identified by
(
k
,
l
)
p
,
μ
where
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17
12
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is the index in the frequency domain and
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17
9
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refers to the symbol position in the time domain relative to some reference point,” i.e., corresponding to each square in Fig. 5 of Huang;
in § 6.3, at page 60-61, Table 6.3.2.1-1 showing PUCCH formats with up to 14 symbols, i.e., up to a full slot in Fig. 5 of Huang; and
in § 6.4.1.3, at page 102-105, DMRS signals for PUCCH, including generation of the reference signal sequence, number of DMRS symbols corresponding to each PUCCH format and the REs allocated to each DMRS sequence, e.g., one or more REs 525 in the symbol allocated for UCI/PUCCH shown in Fig. 5 of Huang)
wherein the demodulation reference signal sequence is indicative of a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback associated with the one or more downlink shared channel messages (“the single symbol may be a sequence (e.g., a DMRS sequence) having a cyclic shift or a phase ramping that indicates whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission” – See [¶0083] or “the UE 605 may generate the two [DMRS] symbols with a same cyclic shift and/or phase ramping or different cyclic shifts and/or phase rampings to indicate whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission” – See [¶0085] i.e., in the UCI multiplexed with the DMRSs in the same symbol(s) as easily understood by a person of ordinary skills in the art from Fig. 5 of Huang) and
wherein the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“the UE 605 may modulate the reference signal to deliver more than one bit of information, such as information indicating a quantity of ACK/NACK signaling bits transmitted by the UE 605,” e.g., “a first cyclic shift or a first phase ramping of the reference signal may indicate that ACK/NACK signaling is not present in the uplink transmission a second cyclic shift or a second phase ramping of the reference signal may indicate that one bit of ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission, a third cyclic shift or a third phase ramping of the reference signal may indicate that two bits of ACK/NACK signaling are present in the uplink transmission, a fourth cyclic shift or a fourth phase ramping of the reference signal may indicate that three bits of ACK/NACK signaling are present in the uplink transmission, and/or the like” – See [¶0087]).
Therefore Claim 1 is anticipated by Huang.
Regarding Claim 2, dependent from Claim 1, Huang further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit, via the control message, the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“Additionally, . . . one or more dedicated resource elements may indicate the communications (e.g., downlink grants) to which the ACK/NACK signaling corresponds ( e.g., a bitmap that maps ACK/NACK signals to downlink grants),” i.e., the second part of the HARQ-ACK feedback, e.g., “signaling a bitmap of 1101 may indicate that the UE 605 sends ACK/NACK signaling for the first, second, and fourth downlink grants, and that the UE 605 missed the third downlink grant” – See [¶0094]; see also §9.2, 3GPP TS 38.213 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 18)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.213) providing at page 123 that “UCI types reported in a PUCCH include HARQ-ACK information,” i.e., the UCI multiplexed with the DMRS indicating the size, i.e., a first part of a HARQ-ACK feedback, as shown in Fig. 5 of Huang, comprises the effective feedback bitmap, i.e., part-two of a two-part HARQ feedback ).
Therefore, Claim 2 is anticipated by Huang.
Regarding Claim 10, dependent from Claim 1, Hong further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: encode and transmit a first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback indicating that the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero (when “the reference signal may be a DMRS with one symbol . . . a second cyclic shift is shown as CS(N/2), indicating a cyclic shift of N/2, where N is a length of the sequence . . . may indicate that ACK/NACK signaling is not present in the uplink transmission” – See [¶¶0083-84], i.e., the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero).
refrain from transmitting a set of control resource elements in the uplink control channel communication based at least in part on the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback indicating that the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero (“when ACK/NACK signaling is not present in an uplink transmission, the UE 605 may include uplink data in the first set of REs and the second set of REs . . . where the second set of REs would otherwise be used for ACK/NACK signaling if ACK/NACK signaling were present in the uplink transmission” and “the base station 610 may decode the uplink data from the first set of REs (e.g., uplink data REs) and the second set of REs ( e.g., ACK/ NACK signaling REs)” – See [¶0091], i.e., the UE refrains from transmitting a set of control resource elements in the uplink control channel communication based at least in part on the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero and transmits UL data on those REs; alternatively, “the UE 605 and/or the base station 610 may enable or disable the indication of ACK/NACK signaling using a reference signal” so that “network resources may be conserved” – See [¶0092], e.g., when HARQ-ACK codeword size is zero).
Therefore, Claim 10 is anticipated by Hong.
Regarding Claim 11, dependent from Claim 1, Huang further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit, via the uplink control channel communication, the one or more demodulation reference signals via a set of two or more resource elements in a same symbol (“the reference signal may be a DMRS with one symbol” – See [¶0083] and “the UE 605 may generate a reference signal that indicates whether the ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission, and may transmit the reference signal” – See [¶0082] when the “UE is scheduled to transmit control transmissions (e.g., PUCCH transmissions)” – See [¶0074], whereby a person of ordinary skills in the art would know that one OFDM symbol has more resource elements – See, e.g., Fig. 5; see also ),
wherein the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback indicates that the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero (“UE 605 may modulate the reference signal in the time domain (e.g., using a cyclic shift) or in the frequency domain (e.g., using phase ramping, such as phase ramping with a slope of pi) . . . reference signal to deliver one bit of information,” e.g., “ACK/NACK signaling is not present in the uplink transmission” – See [¶0087], i.e., the size of the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is zero).
Therefore, Claim 11 is anticipated by Huang.
Regarding Claim 15, dependent from Claim 1, Huang further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit capability signaling that indicates a capability of the UE to use the demodulation reference signal sequence to indicate the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“processors and modules at base station 110, may perform or direct operations of UE 120 to perform acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signaling using a reference signal” – See [¶0059], including DMRS, e.g., “UE 605 may use 1 bit of information ( e.g., a binary indication of whether ACK/NACK signaling is present in the uplink transmission) to modulate half of the entries of the base DMRS sequence (e.g., shown as "Y"). In this way, the UE 605 may modulate the reference signal in the time domain (e.g., using a cyclic shift) or in the frequency domain (e.g., using phase ramping, such as phase ramping with a slope of pi)” – See [¶0087]; furthermore, “the UE 605 and/or the base station 610 may enable or disable the indication of ACK/NACK signaling using a reference signal” so that “network resources may be conserved” – See [¶0092] and, when used, “the dedicated resource elements may be modulated using a dedicated modulation order (e.g., QPSK), which may be signaled (e.g., in an RRC message)” – See [¶0093], therefore, at least the UE’s capability to use reference signals for ACL/NACK indication, including frequency modulation used by the UE, must be transmitted to the BS4)
wherein transmission of the control message via the uplink control channel communication is based at least in part on the capability signaling (“[o]n the uplink, at UE 120, . . .[t]ransmit processor 264 may also generate reference symbols for one or more reference signals. The symbols from transmit processor 264 may be precoded by a TX MIMO processor 266 if applicable, further processed by modulators 254a through 254r (e.g., for DFT-s-OFDM, CP-OFDM, and/or the like), and transmitted to base station 110” to be “processed by demodulators 232, detected by a MIMO detector 236 if applicable, and further processed by a receive processor 238 to obtain decoded data and control information sent by UE” – See [¶0058]).
Therefore, Claim 15 is anticipated by Hong.
In sum, Claims 1-2, 10-11 and 15, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §§(a)(1)&(a)(2) as anticipated by Huang.
Claims 1-2, 6-8, 13-14, 16-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Song et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20180242286 (hereinafter Song).
Regarding Claim 1, Song teaches in Figs. 12 and 14, a user equipment (UE), comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code (“The computer program modules could essentially perform the actions of the flow illustrated in . . . FIG. 3, to emulate the UE 1200” – See [¶0201] “which when executed in the processing unit causes the device to perform the actions described . . . in conjunction with the figures mentioned” – See [¶0202] and the “computer program may be carried by a computer program product connected to the processor. The computer program product may comprise a computer readable medium on which the computer program is stored” – See [¶0203]) to cause the UE to:
receive one or more downlink shared channel messages (“The method 300 may be applied in a scenario where the UE is to transmit HARQ feedback to the corresponding BS, in response to data transmission from the BS” – See [¶0077] and Fig. 3, step S310, wherein a person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate that BS transmits data on a PDSCH); and
transmit a control message via an uplink control channel communication (“To support up to 32 carriers in DL, the Uplink Control Information (UCI) feedback, e.g. Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ)-Acknowledgement (ACK) bits will increase significantly” therefore “new Physical Uplink Control CHannel (PUCCH) format(s) supporting larger payload is necessary. Similarly, the increased number of UCI bits also motivates the enhancements on UCI feedback on Physical Uplink Shared CHannel (PUSCH)” – See [¶0007] whereby “the exact relationship between the number of HARQ-ACK bits and the transmitted signals can be referred to as an encoding codebook of a CA PUCCH scheme” – See [¶0011] and “the transmitting unit 1230 [of the UE] is further configured to: map the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to a PUCCH DMRS sequence; and transmit the PUCCH DMRS sequence as the indication of the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to the BS” – See [¶0159])
that comprises one or more demodulation reference signals in accordance with a demodulation reference signal sequence5 (“the UE maps the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to a PUCCH DMRS sequence” – See [¶0082], and “when the number of PUCCH reference symbols NRSPUCCH per slot is larger than one, the different DMRS sequences can use different cyclic shifts,” e.g., “[b]ased on the HARQ-ACK codebook size the cyclic shifts are selected as in shown in Table 2” – See [¶0088]; or “the UE maps the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to an orthogonal sequence for the PUCCH DMRS sequence” – See [¶0089] and Table 3, e.g., “when the number of PUCCH reference symbols NRSPUCCH per slot is larger than one, an orthogonal sequence can be applied to, e.g. by being multiplied to, the DMRS sequence” – See [¶0090] where “rα(n) is the reference signal sequence, i.e. the DMRS sequence, w(m) is the orthogonal sequence, NRSPUCCH is the number of reference symbols per slot and MscPUCCH is the length of reference signal sequence” – See [¶0091] and “[t]he orthogonal sequence w(m) is mapped to one or a group of HARQ-ACK codebook sizes {NHARQ-AcK} in a semi-static manner” – See [¶0092])
wherein the demodulation reference signal sequence is indicative of a first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback associated with the one or more downlink shared channel messages (“the HARQ-ACK codebook size,” i.e., the first part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback “is encoded and mapped to physical resources separately from the other control information (HARQ-ACK/SR/Periodic-CSI (P-CSI)) carried by PUCCH” and “[t]he indication may be implicit determined by a mapping as described above” – See [¶0094], e.g., “the HARQ-ACK codebook size may be determined based on Table 1 [or 3] and PDCCH[/PDSCH] detection may be done accordingly by assuming this HARQ-ACK codebook size” – See [¶0107] and [¶0109], i.e., the interpretation of feedback associated with the one or more downlink shared channel messages is made based on the HARQ-ACK feedback size indicated by the DMRS sequence cyclic shift or orthogonal sequence for the DMRS sequence), and
wherein the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is indicative of a size of a second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“The HARQ-ACK codebook size indicates the number of HARQ-ACK bits that the UE should encode for transmitting HARQ feedback to the BS” – See [¶0100] and “the BS may attempt to decode the indication of the HARQ-ACK codebook size first to get the HARQ-ACK codebook size, and then decode the other control information HARQ-ACK/SR/P-CSI” – See [¶0111], i.e., the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback).
Therefore, Claim 1 is anticipated in the alternative by Song.
Regarding Claim 2, dependent from Claim 1, further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit, via the control message, the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“The UE 10 and/or the encoding unit 1120 is configured to encode the number of HARQ-ACK bits indicated by the HARQ-ACK codebook size . . . for the data received in the data transmission from the BS 12” – See [¶0146] and, at the BS, “[t]he decoding unit 1320 is configured to decode the HARQ feedback from the UE by using the HARQ-ACK codebook size indicated by the obtained indication” – See [¶0179] and Fig. 7, showing mapping for HARQ-ACK codebook size encoded in DMRS sequence together with HARQ-ACK A/N sent by the UE in one UCI on the PUCCH).
Therefore, Claim 2 is anticipated in the alternative by Song.
Regarding Claim 6, dependent from Claim 1, Song further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the demodulation reference signal sequence is indicative of the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback based at least in part on
the demodulation reference signal sequence being a first sequence type of a set of candidate sequence types (“the UE maps the determined HARQ ACK codebook size to a PUCCH DMRS sequence” – See [¶0082] and “the UE transmits the PUCCH DMRS sequence as the indication of the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to the BS” – See [¶0083] or “the UE maps the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to an orthogonal sequence for the PUCCH DMRS sequence, e.g., as shown in Table 3” – See [¶0089] wherein if “rα(n) is the reference signal sequence, i.e. the DMRS sequence, w(m) is the orthogonal sequence” – See [¶0091], i.e., DMRS sequences and DMRS orthogonal sequences are used),
having a first cyclic shift of a set of candidate cyclic shifts (“Based on the HARQ-ACK codebook size, the cyclic shift of the PUCCH DMRS sequence is selected according to the mapping table as exemplified in Table 1” – See [¶0087] and Table 1 showing NCS HARQ-ACK
values corresponding to HARQ-ACK codebook sizes),
having a first hopping identifier of a set of candidate hopping identifiers,
being associated with an initialization identifier of a set of candidate initialization identifiers, or having a first scrambling identifier of a set of candidate scrambling identifiers.
Because claim limitations are recited in the alternative, Claim 6 is anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 7, dependent from Claim 6, further teaches the UE of claim 6, wherein, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
receive control signaling that indicates a mapping of a set of values associated with the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback to the set of candidate sequence types, the set of candidate cyclic shifts, the set of candidate hopping identifiers, the set of candidate initialization identifiers, or the set of candidate scrambling identifiers, or any combination thereof, wherein transmission of the control message via the uplink control channel communication is based at least in part on the control signaling (“Table 1 shows an exemplary mapping from a HARQ-ACK codebook size to cyclic shift of the PUCCH DMRS sequence” wherein “HARQ-ACK codebook size is determined based on the total number of DL (E)PDCCH assignments” and “the UE may be able to detect that certain DL (E)PDCCH assignments have been missed if there is a numbering field in the DL DCI,” e.g., “extend the current downlink assignment index (DAI) scheme to indicate the total number of DL assignment sent by the BS” wherein “the DAI value VDAI DL in the last DL (E)PDCCH assignment received by the UE can be used to derive the total number of DL (E)PDCCH assignments” – See [¶0086] then “ncs HARQ-ACK can be selected according to the mapping between DAI value and cyclic shift as shown in Table 1” – See [¶0087] i.e., the DAI indicated in the received DCI indicates a mapping of a set of values associated with the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback to the set of candidate cyclic shifts as shown in Table 1.)
Therefore, Claim 7 is anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 8, dependent from Claim 7, further teaches the UE of claim 7, wherein:
the control signaling indicates the mapping for a component carrier, for an uplink control channel configuration, for an uplink control channel format, or for an uplink control channel resource and the uplink control channel communication is associated with the component carrier, the uplink control channel configuration, the uplink control channel format, or the uplink control channel resource. (“The DCI messages may comprise a bit field specifically indicating which group of carriers has been scheduled,” e.g., “assume that there are three different groups configured. Then there will be three bits in the bit field, each corresponding to one of the groups. If a bit is set to zero it means that none of the carriers in the corresponding group is scheduled, and no HARQ should be fed back for carriers in this group” and “the UE 10 determines the number of bits for each group that has at least one carrier scheduled by multiplying the number of carriers in the group with the number of layers, and then adding resulting products together” to determine the HARQ-ACK codebook size,” e.g., “with three groups of five carriers each and two layer transmission, if the bit field is set to 101 there are 10 HARQ bits to feedback for group 1, 0 for group 2 and 10 for group 3. The HARQ codebook size is then 20” and “alternatively, the bit field may be the DAI field” – See [¶0059] and “to enable a reliable decoding at the BS side, the order of the HARQ bits may be given as follows: HARQ-ACK bits are ordered by an index per carrier and group that they belong to” – See [¶0062]; therefore, the mapping for a component carrier to the uplink control channel communication, i.e., first part and/or the second part of a two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback associated with downlink messages on the one or more carriers, is/are indicated by the DCI; furthermore, “PUCCH format 3 was introduced for CA and TDD, when there are multiple downlink transmissions, either on multiple carriers or multiple downlink subframes, but single uplink, either single carrier or single uplink subframe, for HARQ-ACK, SR and CSI feedback” and “the PUCCH format 3 resource is also represented by a single scalar index from which the orthogonal sequence and the resource-block number can be derived” – See [¶0008], i.e., PUCCH format 3 may be used for the uplink control channel communication6).
Therefore, Claim 8 is anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 13, dependent from Claim 1, Song further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein using the demodulation reference signal sequence to indicate the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (e.g., “Table 1 shows an exemplary mapping from a HARQ-ACK codebook size to cyclic shift of the PUCCH DMRS sequence” based on “extend[ing] the current downlink assignment index (DAI) scheme” – See [¶0086]) is based at least in part on
a size of a hybrid automatic repeat request feedback codebook associated with the one or more downlink shared channel messages (“Each DCI message may comprise the DAI field and the indication of the HARQ-ACK codebook size transmitted in the DAI field of each DCI message may indicate the same first value for the set of carriers” – See [¶0053] and “[t]he first value may indicate the HARQ-ACK codebook size for the group” – See [¶0055])
a size of the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback (“it is assumed that the HARQ-ACK codebook size is determined based on the total number of DL (E)PDCCH assignments that should have been received by the UE” and “the UE may be able to detect that certain DL (E)PDCCH assignments have been missed if there is a numbering field in the DL DCI,” e.g., “the current downlink assignment index (DAI) scheme to indicate the total number of DL assignment sent by the BS” – See [¶0086]),
one or more resources associated with the uplink control channel communication (“the one or more PUCCH resource elements are dedicated for transmitting the indication of the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size” – See [¶0123])
a format of the uplink control channel communication,
a priority of the hybrid automatic repeat request feedback codebook,
whether the control message includes a scheduling request,
whether the control message includes channel state information feedback, or a combination thereof.
Because the limitations of Claim 13 are recited in the alternative, Claim 13 is anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 14, dependent from Claim 1, Song further teaches the UE of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
receive control signaling that configures the UE to indicate the first part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback via the demodulation reference signal sequence, wherein transmission of the control message via the uplink control channel communication is based at least in part on the control signaling (when “a cyclic shift ncs HARQ-ACK of a PUCCH DMRS sequence is mapped to a group of HARQ-ACK codebook sizes {NHARQ-AcK} in a semi-static manner” – See [¶0085] (emphasis added), the UE receives control signaling through RRC indicating the mapping in Table 1; furthermore, “the BS may try to extract the received PUCCH DMRS in time domain based on cyclic shifts, by assuming that there is no DL (E)PDCCH assignment missing” and “the extracted reference signal energy is below a predefined detection threshold, the BS determines that at least one DL (E)PDCCH assignment is missed by the UE UE and will then extract the received PUCCH DMRS by assuming another cyclic shift. The BS will repeat the above operation until one PUCCH DMRS sequence is found” – See [¶0107], i.e., transmission of the control message via the uplink control channel communication to the BS is based at least in part on the control signaling configuring the UE semi-persistently).
Therefore Claim 14 is anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 16, Song also teaches a method for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (“the present disclosure is to provide an efficient way of handling control channels and to provide improved signaling methods for indicating the HARQ-ACK codebook size for a UE” – See [¶0020] and Figs. 3-7), comprising: the steps executed by the UE of Claim 1, recited with the same language and no other limitations. Because Claim 1 is anticipated by Song, Claim 16 is also anticipated by Song
Regarding Claims 17, dependent from Claim 16, the claim recites the same limitations as Claim 2, using the same language, only applied to the steps of the method in Claim 16. Because Claims 2 and 16 are anticipated by Song, Claim 17 is also anticipated by Song.
Regarding Claim 20, also teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communications, the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors (“there is provided a computer program product storing instructions that when executed, cause one or more computing devices of the user equipment or the base station to perform the method of any one of the first to the fourth aspects” – See [¶0025] whereby “the computer program product may be a flash memory, a Random-access memory (RAM), a Read-Only Memory (ROM), or an EEPROM,” i.e., a non-transitory computer-readable medium – See [¶0203]) to: execute the steps executed by the UE of Claim 1, recited with the same language and no other limitations. Because Claim 1 is anticipated by Song, Claim 20 is also anticipated by Song.
In sum, Claims 1-2, 6-8, 13-14, 16-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 (a)(2) as anticipated by Song.
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.
Claims 3-4 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song as applied to Claim 2 and 17 above, and further in view of Wu et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0222387 (hereinafter Wu).
Regarding Claim 3, dependent from Claim 2, Song further teaches the UE of claim 2, wherein, to transmit the control message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to:
transmit the control message comprising a set of control resource elements (“a transmitting unit 1230 configured to transmit an indication of the determined HARQ-ACK codebook size to the BS on one or more Physical Uplink Control Channel, PUCCH, resource elements” – See [¶0167] and Figs.1a and 7, whereby the REs belong to a control channel, PUCCH). Although Song teaches that the UE also encodes the second part of HARQ-ACK feedback to be transmitted to the BS (“The UE 10 and/or the encoding unit 1120 is configured to encode the number of HARQ-ACK bits indicated by the HARQ-ACK codebook size . . . for the data received in the data transmission from the BS 12” – See [¶0146]), Song does not teach wherein the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is jointly encoded on the set of control resource elements with a scheduling request or channel state information feedback, or both.
Wu teaches “a UE encodes uplink control information (UCI) in a new radio (NR) network” – See [¶0008] whereby “UCI may include different information and being transmitted using different PUCCH formats” – See [¶0007] and “an encoder 205 encodes the UCI information bits to codewords, modulator 204 modulates the encoded UCI bits to modulation symbols, OFDMA circuit2 09 maps the modulation symbols onto REs to be transmitted as OFDM signals over PUCCH, configuration and control circuit 221 receives configuration information for encoding and modulation parameters and adjusts the UCI bitstream codeword size to be a multiple of the PUCCH modulation order such that the UCI bitstream is mapped to an integer number of modulated REs” – See [¶0023], i.e., various UCI as taught is jointly encoded for transmission on an integer number of PUCCH REs – See, e.g., Fig. 3.
Wu further teaches wherein the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is jointly encoded on the set of control resource elements with a scheduling request or channel state information feedback, or both (“Depending on what kind of information the UCI in PUCCH carries, PUCCH is classified into various formats,” e.g., “HARQ-ACK and SR using PUCCH format la or 1b” – See [¶0024] and line 2 in Fig. 3 showing joint encoding in one UCI codeword of HARQ-ACK and SR7, wherein “the UCI codeword size EUCI to be transmitted over PUCCH depending on the UCI content and PUCCH format” and “[t]he encoded UCI bits and then modulated to create complex-valued modulation symbols . . . are finally mapped onto corresponding REs of PRBs for OFDM signal transmission” – See [¶0025]).
Thus, Song and Wu each discloses sending the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback on PUCCH control resource elements. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have understood that the joint encoding of HARQ-ACK feedback codeword bits and a SR transmission occasion in a UCI codeword size EUCI to be transmitted over PUCCH REs, as taught by Wu, could have been substituted for the sending the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback on PUCCH in Song because both provide for sending uplink control information to the base station uplink control information (UCI) including Hybrid Automatic ReQuest (HARQ) ACK/NACK, Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) feedback, and scheduling requests (SRs ) whereby the UCI is carried by a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution through techniques known in the art. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of eliminating unnecessary processing for bit alignment to RE size as well as to utilize every bit in a modulated RE by adjusting the UCI codeword size so that the UCI codeword size is always a multiple of PUCCH modulation order, as taught by Wu.
Therefore, Claim 3 is obvious over Song in view of Wu.
Regarding Claim 4, dependent from Claim 2, Song does not teach jointly encoding two parts CSI feedback on the PUCCH REs carrying the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback.
However, Wu further teaches the UE configured like shown in Fig. 3 in acenarios 7 or 8, to:
transmit a first part of the control message comprising a first set of control resource elements that include the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback,
wherein the second part of the two-part hybrid automatic repeat request feedback is jointly encoded on the first set of control resource elements with a scheduling request or a first part of two-part channel state information feedback, or both (“Consider PUCCH format 3, where UCI includes HARQ-ACK and CSI with both CSI part1 and CSI part2” – See [¶0036] and Fig. 4 wherein “UCI Bitstream #1 is adjusted to contain a multiple of PUCCH modulation order Qm to ensure integer number of modulation symbols and to enable parallel processing, as depicted by 421” – See [¶0038]); and
transmit a second part of the control message comprising a second set of control resource elements that include a second part of the two-part channel state information feedback (“[i]f there are two UCI bit streams to be transmitted, then the first Bitstream #1 includes the HARQ-ACK and CSI part1, and the second Bitstream #2 includes CSI part2 as depicted in FIG. 4,” e.g., “Bitstream #1 has a total of 384 information bits of HARQ-ACK+CSI-part1” – See [¶0036] whereby the second bitstream is sent in a second set of control resource elements that include a second part of the two-part channel state information feedback as shown in Fig. 4). Because the methods at the UE in Wu and Song are combinable based on standard formats of PUCCH transmissions, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute in the two parallel bitstream transmissions on first and second set of PUCCH REs of Wu for the PUCCH UCI transmission in Song, according to known methods in the art, to yield the predictable result of the UCI codeword size for each UCI bitstream to be even and simplify transmission, as taught in Wu.
Therefore, Claim 4 is obvious over Song in view of Wu.
Regarding Claims 18-19, dependent from Claim 17, anticipated by Song, each claim recites the same limitations as Claims 3-4, using the same language, only applied to the steps of the method in Claim 17. Because Claim 17 is anticipated by Song and Claims 3-4 are obvious over Song in view of Wu, Claims 18-19 are obvious over Song in view of Wu.
In sum, Claims 3-4 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Song in view of Wu.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Akkarakaran et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0393828 (same assignee) discloses a DMRS sequence may be configured to communicate uplink control information (UCI) in an uplink (UL) communication;
Khoshnevisan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0184044 (same assignee) discloses UE scheduled to transmit feedback that may include a first hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback portion corresponding to a first, fixed quantity of bits and a second HARQ feedback portion corresponding to a second, variable quantity of bits and determining respective quantities of resource elements (REs) corresponding to the first and second quantities of bits;
Khoshnevisan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0096983 (same assignee) discloses UE reporting of quantity of HARQ ACKs in bundled ACK codebook;
Khoshnevisan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0096945 (same assignee) discloses two part HARQ ACK for compressing HARQ ACK payload;
Khoshnevisan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0096949 (same assignee) discloses concatenating HARQ ACK bits with two part HARQ ACK compression;
Khoshnevisan et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0096942 (same assignee) discloses segmented two part HARQ ACK for compressing HARQ ACK payload;
Huang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0150214 (same assignee), discloses lossless compression for HARQ ACK codebooks with different BLER;
Yamamoto et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0306158 discloses PUCCH with DMRS and HARQ-ACK for transmission of the response signal, in accordance with request conditions for a response signal of downlink data;
Islam et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0250134 discloses first hybrid-automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) codebook for first priority HARQ-ACK bits and for a second HARQ-ACK codebook for second priority HARQ-ACK bits. The configuration information may indicate a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource for the first HARQ-ACK codebook and a PUCCH resource for the second HARQACK codebook. The UE may multiplex the first priority HARQ-ACK bits and the second priority HARQ-ACK bits in a PUCCH transmission when the PUCCH resources for the first and the second HARQ-ACK codebooks overlap;
Wu, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0389016 discloses transmission method for uplink control information (UCI) mapped to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH);
Xiong et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0335449 discloses resource mapping and multiplexing of PUCCH and PUSCH;
Park et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0262712 discloses physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) configuration information including a number of slots for repetition of a PUCCH transmission and a length of a subslot for a PUCCH, receiving, from the base station, downlink control information (DCI), receiving, from the base station, data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) based on the DCI, and transmitting uplink control information (UCI) on the PUCCH repeatedly based on the number of slots and the length of the subslot;
Li et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0308225 discloses the uplink control information includes a first HARQ-ACK, a second HARQ-ACK, and CSI and determining a coding mode of the uplink control information on the target physical uplink channel based on a priority of the CSI and/or based on whether the CSI includes a second part of channel state information CSI-part2;
Li, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0143675 discloses a case that time domain resources for an uplink data channel and at least one uplink control channel overlap, multiplexing at least one UCI onto the uplink data channel, and coding the at least one UCI based on type information of the at least one UCI, where the at least one UCI is UCI carried on the at least one uplink control channel;
Lee et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0345370 discloses a plurality of physical uplink control channels (PUCCHs) for a plurality of scheduling requests (SRs) and a first PUCCH comprising first uplink control information (UCI) are overlapped in a time domain, mapping, to specific resource elements (REs) among REs of the first PUCCH, SR information associated with the plurality of SRs; and transmitting the first PUCCH to which the SR information is mapped;
He et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0199750 discloses generating hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information, generating channel state information (CSI) and mapping the CG-UCI, HARQ-ACK, and CSI to resource elements (REs) in resource blocks (RBs) of a configured grant physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission, wherein the PUSCH transmission includes a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) and wherein the mapping includes one of mapping a concatenated bit sequence or omitting a portion of the CSI;
Yang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0244623 discloses different code rates may be used to encode different portions of UCI ( e.g., hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) bits, channel state information (CSI) reporting bits, scheduling request (SR) bits, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits, etc.);
Yang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0006776 discloses encode a plurality of UCIs comprising a first UCI and a second UCI; perform resource mapping on the encoded bits of the plurality of UCIs on a single physical uplink channel; and perform uplink transmission on the basis of the resource mapping;
3GPP TS 36.211 V18.0.1 (2024-04), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical channels and modulation (Release 18)”;
3GPP TS 38.211 V18.2.0 (2024-04), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical channels and modulation (Release 18)”;
3GPP TS 38.212 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Multiplexing and channel coding (Release 18)”;
3GPP TS 38.213 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 18)”;
3GPP TS 38.214 V18.2.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for data (Release 18)”;
3GPP TS 38.331 v17.8.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification (Release 17)”.
Noh et al., “DMRS Design and Evaluation for 3GPP 5G New Radio in a High Speed Train Scenario” "DMRS Design and Evaluation for 3GPP 5G New Radio in a High Speed Train Scenario," GLOBECOM 2017 - 2017 IEEE Global Communications Conference, Singapore, 2017, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/GLOCOM.2017.8254568;
Wang et al., “Uplink control channel for 5G new RAT,” 2017 11th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS), Surfers Paradise, Australia, 2017, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.1109/ICSPCS.2017.8270481.
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/L.G.G./ Examiner, Art Unit 2478
/JOSEPH E AVELLINO/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2478
1 In addition, Huang teaches MIMO transmissions whereby symbols may be spatially multiplexed in one or more streams thus increasing the density of information – See, e.g., [¶0056].
2 Fig. 5 shows a PUSCH raster wherein REs are allocated to various types of control information around REs allocated to data by using the techniques of rate matching and puncturing. A person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate that when sending PUCCH the raster contains only REs carrying control information, hence the density of control information on the channel is much higher but not 100% because signals such as DMRS, occupying REs, do not carry higher level information by default.
3 Occupying the whole symbol would be a waste of precious wireless resources.
4 See, e.g., 3GPP TS 38.331 specifying in § 6.3.3 UE Capability Information Elements, including MIMO-ParametersPerBand IE and ModulationOrder IE enumerating UE capability of supporting bpsk-halfpi, bpsk, and qpsk frequency modulations.
5 A person of ordinary skills in the art would learn from the 3GPP technical specifications how to generate DMRS sequences for PUCCH/PUSCH and the type of PUCCH format supported in each 3GPP release – See, e.g., 3GPP TS 36.211 V18.0.1 (2024-04), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical channels and modulation (Release 18)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 36.211) disclosing in § 5.4, at page 31-51, PUCCH formats, and § 5.2.2, at page 63-74, DMRS signals for uplink channels; see also 3GPP TS 38.211 disclosing in § 6.3.2, PUCCH formats and in § 6.4.1.3 DMRS for PUCCH formats as explained supra.
6 See, e.g., 3GPP TS 38.331 v17.8.0 (2024-03), “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification (Release 17)” (hereinafter 3GPP TS 38.331) describing at page 749, PUCCH-Config Information Element used to configure the UE with PUCCH parameters.
7 See also 3GPP TS 38.213 providing in § 9.2, at page 123-146, UCI reporting in PUCCH resource sets, e.g., at page 126, “If the UE transmits
O
UCI
UCI information bits, that include HARQ-ACK information bits, the UE determines a PUCCH resource set to be a first set of PUCCH resources with pucch-ResourceSetId = 0 if
O
UCI
≤
2
including 1 or 2 HARQ-ACK information bits and a positive or negative SR on one SR transmission occasion if transmission of HARQ-ACK information and SR occurs simultaneously” using PUCCH format 0 or 1 (NR Rel-18).
Prosecution Insights