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 .
Reissue Applications
This application seeks to reissue US Patent No. 11,177,905 (“the ‘905 patent). In a 09/23/2025 response to the 06/24/2025 non-final Office action, the applicant has amended claims 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, and introduced new claims 11-20. Claims 1-20 are pending.
For reissue applications filed before September 16, 2012, all references to 35 U.S.C. 251 and 37 CFR 1.172, 1.175, and 3.73 are to the law and rules in effect on September 15, 2012. Where specifically designated, these are “pre-AIA ” provisions.
For reissue applications filed on or after September 16, 2012, all references to 35 U.S.C. 251 and 37 CFR 1.172, 1.175, and 3.73 are to the current provisions.
Applicant is reminded of the continuing obligation under 37 CFR 1.178(b), to timely apprise the Office of any prior or concurrent proceeding in which Patent No. 11,177,905 is or was involved. These proceedings would include any trial before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, interferences, reissues, reexaminations, supplemental examinations, and litigation.
Applicant is further reminded of the continuing obligation under 37 CFR 1.56, to timely apprise the Office of any information which is material to patentability of the claims under consideration in this reissue application.
These obligations rest with each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of this application for reissue. See also MPEP §§ 1404, 1442.01 and 1442.04.
Applicant’s Response
The previous Office action described that it was unclear whether the “device” and “apparatus” that were previously recited in the claims refer to a network device or a terminal device. See previous Office action at 4-8. The claims have been amended to clarify that claims 1, 5, and 9 describe operations performed at a network device, and claims 3 and 7 describe operations performed at a terminal device. This amendment overcomes the §§ 112(a), 112(b), and 251 rejections that were described in the previous Office action on pp 12-14. These rejections are withdrawn.
The recent amendment likewise overcomes the prior art rejections that were given previously. The CQI index that is transmitted by Ye can no longer be considered to meet the BRI of the claim term “indication information” when that indication information is recited in the claims as being delivered by the network device, or received at the terminal device. In light of the written description, this indication information is understood to be a representation of an MCS index itself. See e.g. ‘905 patent at 58:27-60:55, and the applicant’s recent Remarks at 12. New grounds of rejection are presented below.
Objection, 37 CFR 1.173 – Improper Amendment
This application is objected to for failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.173(d), which requires that “matter to be omitted by reissue must be enclosed in brackets.” Claims 5-8 indicate omissions by strikethrough, rather than single brackets. Please refer to MPEP 1453.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng, US 20150215913 in view of Ye, US 20200077414.
Claim 1: Cheng discloses a method, comprising:
determining, by a network device, indication information according to a correspondence table, wherein the indication information indicates at least one modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index (The base station 16-1 (a network device) selects an MCS index, which indicates an entry in an MCS table. ¶130 and Table 1.), the correspondence table comprises:
N MCS indexes, at least one of the N MCS indexes corresponds to a first type of modulation scheme; M modulation schemes; and K code rate parameters, K of the N MCS indexes are in a one-to-one correspondence with the K code rate parameters, wherein a code rate parameter is a product of a code rate and 1024, N>M, N>K, and N, K, and M are all positive integers (See Table 1 and ¶¶ 130-132.);
sending, by the network device, the indication information (The MCS index is sent to the terminal device in the DCI. ¶132 and Fig. 16: S106.); and
communicating on a channel using the modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the MCS index (¶132).
The code rate and spectral efficiency corresponding to the lowest MCS index in Cheng (MCS index 0 in Table 1) is higher than that of the “first MCS index” that is recited in claim 1. For example, compare Cheng Table 1 (see ¶¶131-132) with ‘905 patent Table 31 (see 59:16-33), which depicts the claimed MCS table. Therefore, Cheng fails to disclose that a product of a code rate corresponding to a first MCS index of the N MCS indexes and a modulation order of a modulation scheme corresponding to the first MCS index is a value greater than 0 and less than 0.0781; and communicating on a deep fading channel using the modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the MCS index on the deep fading channel, wherein the deep fading channel requires a spectrum efficiency less than 0.0781.
However, the Ye disclosure would have suggested to the POSITA to modify Cheng’s MCS table to include this claimed entry, thereby enabling communication on a deep fading channel having a spectrum efficiency less than 0.0781.
Similar to Cheng, Ye discloses that a terminal device reports CQI to a network device to suggest to the network device an appropriate MCS based upon channel measurements. See Ye Abstract and ¶¶60-63, and Cheng Fig. 16 and ¶¶130-132. In an embodiment of Ye, the device reports a CQI, thus “suggests” the network device to use an MCS, that corresponds to a spectral efficiency (that is, a product of code rate and modulation order) that is greater than 0 and less than 0.0781. See Ye Fig. 6A (indices 1-4) and ¶¶ 49 and 60-63. The devices communicate on a deep fading channel having spectrum efficiency less than 0.0781 using the modulation and coding scheme that has been identified in the CQI. Id.
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Cheng with teachings found in Ye. Ye shows that it was desirable to enable communications when channel measurements indicate spectral efficiencies less than 0.0781. See Ye Fig. 6A. The POSITA would have recognized that modifying Cheng to enable its devices to operate under these conditions would improve its network by enabling devices to communicate in areas where they otherwise would be unable to, such as areas with lower signal quality.
The Ye disclosure would have suggested to the POSITA to achieve this improvement by including entries in Cheng’s MCS table that correspond to the lower spectral efficiency shown in Ye Fig. 6A -- in other words, by adding entries where a product of a code rate corresponding to a first MCS index of the N MCS indexes and a modulation order of a modulation scheme corresponding to the first MCS index is a value greater than 0 and less than 0.0781. This would have entailed modifying Cheng’s MCS table to include entries for code rate parameters 2, 4, 10, 20, etc., that are described in Ye Fig. 6A. When Cheng’s MCS table is modified in this manner, it contains all elements that the claim requires of the “correspondence table.” Modifying in this manner would have amounted to combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2141 III.
The low-efficiency channels described in Ye Fig. 6A fall within the BRI of the claimed “deep fading channels,” which the ‘905 patent describes as channels having a spectral efficiency “lower than 0.0781.” ‘905 patent at 13:45-67. Therefore, the Cheng-Ye combination enables communicating on a deep fading channel using the low spectral efficiency modulation and coding scheme entry in Cheng’s MCS table, wherein the deep fading channel requires a spectrum efficiency less than 0.0781, as required in the claim.
Claim 2: Cheng-Ye discloses that the K code rate parameters comprise a value greater than 0 and less than 40 (Code rate parameters in Cheng’s modified MCS table include the entries shown in Ye Fig. 6A. These include four code rate parameters having values between 0 and 40).
Claim 3: the Cheng-Ye combination, described in the rejection of claim 1 above, discloses a method, comprising:
receiving, by a terminal device, indication information, wherein the indication information indicates at least one modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index (The terminal device receives DCI information, including the MCS index. Cheng Fig. 16 and ¶132.);
determining, according to a correspondence table, a modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the at least one MCS index (The modulation and coding scheme to be used is determined based on the received MCS index. Cheng ¶¶ 130-132.), wherein the correspondence table comprises:
N MCS indexes, at least one of the N MCS indexes corresponds to one type of modulation scheme; M modulation schemes; and K code rate parameters, K of the N MCS indexes are in a one-to-one correspondence with the K code rate parameters (Cheng Table 1 and ¶¶130-132), and a product of a code rate corresponding to a first MCS index of the N MCS indexes and a modulation order of a modulation scheme corresponding to the first MCS index is a value greater than 0 and less than 0.0781 (Ye Fig. 6A and ¶¶ 49 and 60-63), wherein a code rate parameter is a product of a code rate and 1024, N>M, N>K, and N, K, and M are all positive integers (Cheng Table 1); and
communicating on a deep fading channel using the modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the MCS index, wherein the modulation and coding scheme has a spectrum efficiency less than 0.0781 (Ye ¶¶ 49 and 60-63. See the discussion of this claim limitation in the rejection of claim 1 above).
Claim 4: Cheng-Ye discloses that the K code rate parameters comprise a value greater than 0 and less than 40 (Code rate parameters in Cheng’s modified MCS table include the entries shown in Ye Fig. 6A. These include four code rate parameters having values between 0 and 40).
Claim 5: the Cheng-Ye combination, described in the rejection of claim 1 above, discloses a network device, comprising: a transceiver; at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor (Fig. 34 and its description in ¶149-150), wherein the programming instructions instruct the at least one processor to perform the method recited in claim 1. See rejection of claim 1.
Claim 6 Cheng-Ye discloses that the K code rate parameters comprise a value greater than 0 and less than 40 (Code rate parameters in Cheng’s modified MCS table include the entries shown in Ye Fig. 6A. These include four code rate parameters having values between 0 and 40).
Claim 7: Cheng-Ye discloses a terminal device, comprising: a transceiver; at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor (Cheng Fig. 32 and ¶146-147), wherein the programming instructions instruct the transceiver to perform the method recited in claim 3. See rejection of claim 3.
Claim 8 Cheng-Ye discloses that the K code rate parameters comprise a value greater than 0 and less than 40 (Code rate parameters in Cheng’s modified MCS table include the entries shown in Ye Fig. 6A. These include four code rate parameters having values between 0 and 40).
Claim 9: see rejection of claims 1 and 5.
Claim 10 Cheng-Ye discloses that the K code rate parameters comprise a value greater than 0 and less than 40 (Code rate parameters in Cheng’s modified MCS table include the entries shown in Ye Fig. 6A. These include four code rate parameters having values between 0 and 40).
Claims 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19: Cheng-Ye discloses that the N MCS indexes in the correspondence table are arranged in ascending order (Cheng Table 1).
Claims 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20: Cheng-Ye discloses that the M modulation schemes in the correspondence table comprise at least four different modulation schemes (Cheng Table 1).
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT J HANCE whose telephone number is (571)270-5319. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11:00am-7:00pm ET.
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/ROBERT J HANCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3992
Conferees:
/CHARLES R CRAVER/Reexamination Specialist, Art Unit 3992 /M.F/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3992