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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 07/09/2026. Claims 17-32 are pending in the instant application.
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.
Claims 17-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chendamarai Kannan et al (US 2016/0233999, “Kannan”) in view of Myung et al (US 11,297,683, “Myung”, support in provisional application No. 62/472,601).
Re claims 17 and 25, Kannan discloses a UE receiving, from a base station, configuration information for hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) (paragraph [0056]); receiving, from the base station, data including a transport block (TB) including code block group (CBG), wherein the CBG includes at least one code block(CB) (figure5, step 505; paragraph [0095]); decoding the at least one code block included in the TB; based on the configuration information for HARQ, determining whether to perform CBG-based HARQ on data received from the base station (paragraph [0075]); and if it is determined that the CBG-based HARQ is to be performed, transmitting, to the base station, information including result of the decoding of the CBG (paragraph [0087]), but fails to disclose receiving configuration information indicating whether TB-based HARQ or CBG-based HARQ is to be performed. However, Myung discloses receiving/sending DCI indicating which of a TB-based HARQ-ACK scheme or CBG-based HARQ-ACK scheme will be used (pages 36-38 in 62/472,601). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Kannan with Myung for the benefit of utilizing a bit in DCI so that a UE would report different HARQ-related feedbacks (TB-based, CB-based or CBG-based) accordingly.
Re claims 21 and 29, Kannan discloses a BS transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), configuration information for hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) (paragraph [0056]); transmitting, from the base station, data including a transport block (TB) including code block group (CBG), wherein the CBG includes at least one code block (CB) (paragraph [0095]); and if the UE determines that CBG-based HARQ is to be performed, receiving, from the UE, information including result of decoding of the CBG (paragraph [0056]). but fails to disclose transmitting configuration information indicating whether TB-based HARQ or CBG-based HARQ is to be performed. However, Myung discloses receiving/sending DCI indicating which of a TB-based HARQ-ACK scheme or CBG-based HARQ-ACK scheme will be used (pages 36-38 in 62/472,601). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Kannan with Myung for the benefit of utilizing a bit in DCI so that a UE would report different HARQ-related feedbacks (TB-based, CB-based or CBG-based) accordingly.
Re claims 18, 22, 26 and 30, Kannan discloses transmitting/receiving, to the base station/from the UE, acknowledgement (ACK) message indicating the CBG being decoded and/or non-acknowledgement(NACK) message indicating the CBG not being decoded (figures 4a and 4b).
Re claims 19, 23, 27 and 31, Kannan discloses information indicating the CBG being decoded and information indicating the CBG not being decoded (figures 4a and 4b; paragraph [0087]).
Re claims 20 and 28, Kannan discloses HARQ includes information indicating method of the feedback on the data received from the base station (paragraph [0056]).
Re claims 24 and 32, Kannan discloses retransmitting a part of the data based on the information including the result of decoding of the CBG (paragraph [0056]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hong Cho whose telephone number is 571-272-3087. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri during 8 am to 4 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Hassan Phillips can be reached on 571-272-3940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/HONG S CHO/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
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