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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 8, 14, 15, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) in view of PARK et al. (US 20180115357).
Regarding claim 1, CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) teaches a system, comprising: at least one processor (par. 59, base station); and at least one memory that stores executable instructions that (par. 59, base station), when executed by the at least one processor, facilitate performance of operations (par. 59, base station), comprising:
in connection with broadband cellular communications with a user equipment (par. 59, a UE established an RRC connection with a base station), allocating uplink data to the user equipment, for physical uplink shared channel resources (fig. 10, par. 51, 52, PUSCH), wherein the physical uplink shared channel resources correspond to a slot (fig. 10, par. 34, 37, 52, an information element (IE) SchedulingRequestConfig is used to specify SR parameters including an SR periodicity and an SR subframe offset…when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH);
based on determining that the slot is used to transmit a SR, marking a corresponding resource unused for a physical uplink control channel (par. 52, 55, During adaptive SR configuration, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH… when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH); and
receiving data from the user equipment using the corresponding resource (par. 52, 55, PUSCH data transmission).
However, CHOU does not teach allocating uplink data to a radio network temporary identifier, which corresponds to the user equipment; based on determining that the slot is used to transmit a channel status information reference signal payload,
But, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches allocating uplink data to a radio network temporary identifier, which corresponds to the user equipment (par. 94, 181, The eNB sends a random access response, addressed by the RA-RNTI obtained through the preamble on the first message, to the UE. The random access response may include a random access (RA) preamble index/identifier, uplink (UL) assignment providing notification of uplink radio resources, a temporary C-RNTI, and a time alignment command (TAC)); based on determining that the slot is used to transmit a channel status information reference signal payload, marking a corresponding resource unused for data transmission (par. 1059, 1116-1120, the unused CSI-RS resources may be flexibly used by the dynamic ZP-CSI-RS indication for data transmission… Four new indication messages that may be supported in the DCI format for supporting EBF/FD-MIMO may be defined as follows:… Dynamic ZP CSI-RS indications: To reuse unused CSI-RS REs (especially, PDSCH REs) when there is no indication of actual aperiodic CSI-RS transmission).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PARK in the system of CHOU to reuse CSI-RS resource.
The motivation would have been to maximize the resource usage.
Regarding claim 8, CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) teaches a method, comprising:
allocating, by a system comprising at least one processor (par. 59, base station), uplink data to a user equipment, for physical uplink shared channel resources (fig. 10, par. 51, 52, PUSCH), where the physical uplink shared channel resources correspond to a slot (fig. 10, par. 34, 37, 52, an information element (IE) SchedulingRequestConfig is used to specify SR parameters including an SR periodicity and an SR subframe offset…when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH);
based on determining that the slot is used to transmit information about a status of the user equipment, marking, by the system, a corresponding resource unused for a physical uplink control channel (par. 52, 55, During adaptive SR configuration, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH… when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH); and
receiving, by the system, data from the user equipment using the corresponding resource (par. 52, 55, PUSCH data transmission).
However, CHOU does not teach allocating uplink data to a radio network temporary identifier, which corresponds to a user equipment;
But, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches allocating uplink data to a radio network temporary identifier, which corresponds to a user equipment (par. 94, 181, The eNB sends a random access response, addressed by the RA-RNTI obtained through the preamble on the first message, to the UE. The random access response may include a random access (RA) preamble index/identifier, uplink (UL) assignment providing notification of uplink radio resources, a temporary C-RNTI, and a time alignment command (TAC)); based on determining that the slot is used to transmit information about a status of the user equipment, marking, by the system, a corresponding resource unused for a physical uplink control channel (par. 1059, 1116-1120, the unused CSI-RS resources may be flexibly used by the dynamic ZP-CSI-RS indication for data transmission… Four new indication messages that may be supported in the DCI format for supporting EBF/FD-MIMO may be defined as follows:… Dynamic ZP CSI-RS indications: To reuse unused CSI-RS REs (especially, PDSCH REs) when there is no indication of actual aperiodic CSI-RS transmission).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PARK in the system of CHOU to reuse CSI-RS resource.
The motivation would have been to maximize the resource usage.
Regarding claim 14, CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system comprising at least one processor to perform operations, comprising:
allocating uplink data to a device, for physical uplink shared channel resources (fig. 10, par. 51, 52, PUSCH), wherein the physical uplink shared channel resources correspond to a slot (fig. 10, par. 34, 37, 52, an information element (IE) SchedulingRequestConfig is used to specify SR parameters including an SR periodicity and an SR subframe offset…when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH);
based on determining that the slot is used to transmit information about a status of the device, marking a corresponding resource unused for a physical uplink control channel (par. 52, 55, During adaptive SR configuration, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH… when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH); and
receiving data from the device using the corresponding resource (par. 52, 55, PUSCH data transmission).
However, CHOU does not teach allocating uplink data to an identifier corresponds to a device;
But, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches allocating uplink data to an identifier corresponds to a device (par. 94, 181, The eNB sends a random access response, addressed by the RA-RNTI obtained through the preamble on the first message, to the UE. The random access response may include a random access (RA) preamble index/identifier, uplink (UL) assignment providing notification of uplink radio resources, a temporary C-RNTI, and a time alignment command (TAC)); based on determining that the slot is used to transmit information about a status of the device, marking a corresponding resource unused for a physical uplink control channel (par. 1059, 1116-1120, the unused CSI-RS resources may be flexibly used by the dynamic ZP-CSI-RS indication for data transmission… Four new indication messages that may be supported in the DCI format for supporting EBF/FD-MIMO may be defined as follows:… Dynamic ZP CSI-RS indications: To reuse unused CSI-RS REs (especially, PDSCH REs) when there is no indication of actual aperiodic CSI-RS transmission).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PARK in the system of CHOU to reuse CSI-RS resource.
The motivation would have been to maximize the resource usage.
Regarding claim 15, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the identifier comprises a radio network temporary identifier (par. 94, 181, The eNB sends a random access response, addressed by the RA-RNTI obtained through the preamble on the first message, to the UE. The random access response may include a random access (RA) preamble index/identifier, uplink (UL) assignment providing notification of uplink radio resources, a temporary C-RNTI, and a time alignment command (TAC)).
Regarding claim 16, CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the marking of the corresponding resource unused for the physical uplink control channel is performed based on there being a physical uplink shared channel allocation that corresponds to the device (par. 52, 55, During adaptive SR configuration, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH… when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH), and a SR period occurring (par. 51, If the second SR period is longer than the first SR period, then the allocated SR resources are not fully used).
However, CHOU does not teach a channel status information reference signal period occurring.
But, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches a channel status information reference signal period occurring (par. 244, The subframe period (hereinafter, referred to as ‘CSI-RS transmission period’; T.sub.CSI-RS)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PARK in the system of CHOU to reuse CSI-RS resource.
The motivation would have been to maximize the resource usage.
Claim(s) 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 17, 19, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) and PARK et al. (US 20180115357) as applied to claims 1, 8 above, and further in view of YANG et al. (US 20190297618).
Regarding claim 2, CHOU does not teach the system of claim 1, wherein the user equipment is a first user equipment, and wherein a format of the physical uplink control channel prohibits multiplexing with a second user equipment.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein a format of the physical uplink control channel prohibits multiplexing with a second user equipment (table 5, par. 70, no UE multiplexing).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 3, CHOU does not teach the system of claim 1, wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 2 standard, a format 3 standard, or a format 4 standard.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 2 standard, a format 3 standard, or a format 4 standard (table 5, par. 70, format 0, 1, 2, 3, 4).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 4, CHOU teaches the system of claim 3, wherein the operations further comprise: arranging the corresponding resource contiguously with a physical uplink shared channel resource (fig. 10, par. 52, the PUCCH for DDA UE recycle to PUSCH that contiguous with PUSCH as indicated by fig. 10).
Regarding claim 5, CHOU teaches the system of claim 3, wherein the operations further comprise: arranging the corresponding resource contiguously with a common uplink control channel resource (fig. 10, par. 52, the PUCCH for DDA UE recycle to PUSCH that contiguous with PUCCH as indicated by fig. 10).
Regarding claim 6, CHOU teaches the system of claim 5, wherein the arranging is performed based on determining that the common uplink control channel resource is unused (fig. 10, par. 52, PUCCH region 1001 and PUCCH region 1002 are allocated for DDA UEs for SR transmission…the PUCCH for DDA UE recycle to PUSCH that contiguous with PUCCH as indicated by fig. 10, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH).
Regarding claim 9, CHOU does not teach the method of claim 8, wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 0 format or a format 1 format, and wherein the information about the status of the user equipment comprises an acknowledgment or a negative acknowledgment.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 0 format or a format 1 format (table 5, par. 70, format 0, 1, 2, 3, 4), and wherein the information about the status of the user equipment comprises an acknowledgment or a negative acknowledgment (table 5, par. 66, 68, 70, ACK or NACK).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to include the indication of the acknowledgement.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 11, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the information about the status of the user equipment comprises a channel status information reference signal payload (par. 1059, 1116-1120, the unused CSI-RS resources may be flexibly used by the dynamic ZP-CSI-RS indication for data transmission… Four new indication messages that may be supported in the DCI format for supporting EBF/FD-MIMO may be defined as follows:… Dynamic ZP CSI-RS indications: To reuse unused CSI-RS REs (especially, PDSCH REs) when there is no indication of actual aperiodic CSI-RS transmission).
However, CHOU does not teach wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 2 format, a format 3 format, or a format 4 format.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel adheres to a format 2 format, a format 3 format, or a format 4 format (table 5, par. 70, format 0, 1, 2, 3, 4).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 12, CHOU does not teach the method of claim 8, wherein the physical uplink control channel prohibits multiplexing.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel prohibits multiplexing (table 5, no UE multiplexing).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 17, CHOU does not teach the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the physical uplink control channel follows to a format 0 format or a format 1 format, and wherein the information about the status of the device comprises an acknowledgment or a negative acknowledgment.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel follows to a format 0 format or a format 1 format (table 5, par. 70, format 0, 1, 2, 3, 4), and wherein the information about the status of the device comprises an acknowledgment or a negative acknowledgment (table 5, par. 66, 68, 70, ACK or NACK).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to include the indication of the acknowledgement.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 19, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the information about the status of the device comprises a channel status information reference signal payload (par. 1059, 1116-1120, the unused CSI-RS resources may be flexibly used by the dynamic ZP-CSI-RS indication for data transmission… Four new indication messages that may be supported in the DCI format for supporting EBF/FD-MIMO may be defined as follows:… Dynamic ZP CSI-RS indications: To reuse unused CSI-RS REs (especially, PDSCH REs) when there is no indication of actual aperiodic CSI-RS transmission).
However, CHOU does not teach wherein the physical uplink control channel follows a format 2 format, a format 3 format, or a format 4 format.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel follows a format 2 format, a format 3 format, or a format 4 format (table 5, par. 70, format 0, 1, 2, 3, 4).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Regarding claim 20, CHOU does not teach the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the physical uplink control channel lacks a configuration for multiplexing.
But, YANG et al. (US 20190297618) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches herein the physical uplink control channel lacks a configuration for multiplexing (table 5, no UE multiplexing).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by YANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to prohibit multiplex.
The motivation would have been to provide efficient PUCCH transmission.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) and PARK et al. (US 20180115357) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of KIM (US 20180241514).
Regarding claim 7, CHOU does not explicitly teach the system of claim 1, wherein the allocating and the marking are performed by a scheduler of the system.
But, KIM (US 20180241514) teaches wherein the allocating and the marking are performed by a scheduler of the system (par. 73, allows the uplink scheduler to utilize the unused PUCCH PRB pairs 30 for PUSCH in the subframes 40 where no PUCCH resources are used).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by KIM in the system of CHOU and PARK to provide a scheduler to perform the schedule.
The motivation would have been to simplify the scheduling process.
Claim(s) 10, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOU et al. (US 20130250828), PARK et al. (US 20180115357), and YANG et al. (US 20190297618) as applied to claims 9, 17 above, and further in view of WANG et al. (US 20170290030).
Regarding claim 10, CHOU teaches the method of claim 9, PUCCH region 1001 and PUCCH region 1002 are allocated for DDA UEs for SR transmission (par. 52).
However, CHOU does not teach wherein the physical uplink control channel is configured to transmit multiplexed information for a group of user equipment that comprises the user equipment, and wherein the marking is performed based on no user equipment of the group of user equipment being determined to be using the slot.
But, WANG et al. (US 20170290030) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel is configured to transmit multiplexed information for a group of user equipment that comprises the user equipment (par. 63), and wherein the marking is performed based on no user equipment of the group of user equipment being determined to be using the slot (par. 63, As shown in FIG. 4B, UE1, UE2 are assigned with Walsh codes 00, 01 respectively to specify the PUCCH resource positions, while Walsh code 02 as well as Walsh code 03 are unused in this example. Idle PUCCH resource positions can be defined by unused both Walsh codes 02 and 03 for any ZC sequence cycle shift, so that UE1 and UE2 may use the idle PUCCH resource positions to indicate their uplink SPS release acknowledgement multiplexing with their respective SRs).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by WANG in the system of CHOU, PARK, and YANG to determine the unused resource.
The motivation would have been to keep track of resource for allocating between UEs.
Regarding claim 18, CHOU teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, PUCCH region 1001 and PUCCH region 1002 are allocated for DDA UEs for SR transmission (par. 52).
However, CHOU does not teach wherein the physical uplink control channel is configured to transmit multiplexed information, and wherein the marking is performed where no user equipment is determined to be using the slot.
But, WANG et al. (US 20170290030) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the physical uplink control channel is configured to transmit multiplexed information (par. 63), and wherein the marking is performed where no user equipment is determined to be using the slot (par. 63, As shown in FIG. 4B, UE1, UE2 are assigned with Walsh codes 00, 01 respectively to specify the PUCCH resource positions, while Walsh code 02 as well as Walsh code 03 are unused in this example. Idle PUCCH resource positions can be defined by unused both Walsh codes 02 and 03 for any ZC sequence cycle shift, so that UE1 and UE2 may use the idle PUCCH resource positions to indicate their uplink SPS release acknowledgement multiplexing with their respective SRs).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by WANG in the system of CHOU, PARK, and YANG to determine the unused resource.
The motivation would have been to keep track of resource for allocating between UEs.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOU et al. (US 20130250828) and PARK et al. (US 20180115357), as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of WANG et al. (US 20170290030).
Regarding claim 13, CHOU teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the marking of the corresponding resource as unused is performed (par. 52, 55, During adaptive SR configuration, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH… when the SR periodicity is changed to N times upon indication from eNB, then the allocated PUCCH regions are recycled for PUSCH), and wherein the slot corresponds to common physical uplink control channel resources (fig. 10, par. 52, PUCCH region 1001 and PUCCH region 1002 are allocated for DDA UEs for SR transmission…the PUCCH for DDA UE recycle to PUSCH that contiguous with PUCCH as indicated by fig. 10, the unused SR resources in PUCCH may be recycled for PUSCH).
However, CHOU does not teach wherein the marking of the corresponding resource as used is performed based on determining that temporary cell radio network temporary identifier corresponds to the physical uplink control channel.
But, PARK et al. (US 20180115357) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the marking of the corresponding resource as used is performed based on determining that temporary cell radio network temporary identifier corresponds to the physical uplink control channel (par. 94, 181, The eNB sends a random access response, addressed by the RA-RNTI obtained through the preamble on the first message, to the UE. The random access response may include a random access (RA) preamble index/identifier, uplink (UL) assignment providing notification of uplink radio resources, a temporary C-RNTI, and a time alignment command (TAC));
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PARK in the system of CHOU to use temporary cell radio network temporary identifier corresponds to the physical uplink control channel.
The motivation would have been to maximize the resource usage.
However, CHOU and PARK do not teach wherein the marking of the corresponding resource as unused is performed based on determining that no identifier corresponds to the physical uplink control channel.
But, WANG et al. (US 20170290030) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the marking of the corresponding resource as unused is performed based on determining that no identifier corresponds to the physical uplink control channel (par. 63, As shown in FIG. 4B, UE1, UE2 are assigned with Walsh codes 00, 01 respectively to specify the PUCCH resource positions, while Walsh code 02 as well as Walsh code 03 are unused in this example. Idle PUCCH resource positions can be defined by unused both Walsh codes 02 and 03 for any ZC sequence cycle shift, so that UE1 and UE2 may use the idle PUCCH resource positions to indicate their uplink SPS release acknowledgement multiplexing with their respective SRs).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by WANG in the system of CHOU and PARK to determine the unused resource.
The motivation would have been to keep track of resource for allocating between UEs.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THINH D TRAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3934. The examiner can normally be reached mon-fri 9-6.
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/THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 06/25/2026
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