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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 25 and 36 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 25 recites “wherein the bitmap is shorter than the period of the data transmission, where the bitmap of Nbitmap bits is applied to the first Nbitmap transmission time units in a given period, and no data transmission in the remaining transmission time units in the given period”. This claim limitation needs clarity. For example it is unclear how a “bitmap” is compared to a “period”.
Claim 36 recites “… wherein the transmission time unit is a slot, part of a slot or a number of slots”. This claim limitation needs clarity. A time unit cannot be a slot, part of a slot or a number of slots at the same time.
Appropriate correction is required.
To continue prosecution on merit, the claims are interpreted as best understood.
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, 19-29, 37, 55-60 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (3GPP R1-2100096, NPL dated on 2/28/24, 4 pages) in view of Novlan (US 20160044665 A1).
For claim 1, D1 discloses a method implemented by a network node in a communication network (Section 2.1, 1st bullet “In Rel-15/16, for PUSCH type A repetition, the UE shall repeat the TB across the K consecutive slots applying the same symbol allocation in each slot when the number of repetitions K is larger than 1”; note UE suggests a network node since UE must interface with a network node), the method comprising:
generating a time domain pattern information indicating a time domain pattern for a multiple transport block (TB) transmission (Section 2.1, such as Title, 2nd bullet “…An additional column is added in TDRA table to indicate the number of repetitions, and the time resource allocation field in DCI (for DG or type 2 CG) or by RRC (for type 1 CG) is used to indicate one row of the TDRA table …” and “Proposal 2: For TB processing over multiple slots, the number of slots is jointly coded with the TDRA table”).
D1 does not specifically state but Novlan, in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication, discloses: sending the time domain pattern information to a wireless device (“[0193] … For allocation by the eNB, the SA frequency resources may also be allocated in addition to the D2D data transport block resources by physical layer signaling (e.g. DCI) …”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of D2 above to the DCI by D1 to yield a predictable result of sending a time domain pattern to a wireless device
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 and D2 for the benefit of sending a time domain pattern to a wireless device (Section 1, the last Agreement of D2).
Claim 19 is rejected because is a claim of a network node that performs the method of claim 1 and has the same subject matter.
For claim 37, D1 discloses a method implemented by a wireless device in a communication network (Section 2.1, 1st bullet “In Rel-15/16, for PUSCH type A repetition, the UE shall repeat the TB across the K consecutive slots applying the same symbol allocation in each slot when the number of repetitions K is larger than 1”), the method comprising:
receiving a time domain pattern information indicating a time domain pattern for multiple transport block (TB) transmission (Section 2.1, such as Title, 2nd bullet “…An additional column is added in TDRA table to indicate the number of repetitions, and the time resource allocation field in DCI (for DG or type 2 CG) or by RRC (for type 1 CG) is used to indicate one row of the TDRA table …” and “Proposal 2: For TB processing over multiple slots, the number of slots is jointly coded with the TDRA table”).
D1 does not specifically state but Novlan, in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication, discloses: applying the time domain pattern information to a multiple TB transmission (“[0193] … For allocation by the eNB, the SA frequency resources may also be allocated in addition to the D2D data transport block resources by physical layer signaling (e.g. DCI) …”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of Novlan above to the DCI by D1 to yield a predictable result of supporting a time multiple TB transmission.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 and Novlan for the benefit of supporting a time multiple TB transmission ([0193] of Novlan)
Claim 55 is rejected because is a claim of a network node that performs the method of claim 19 and has the same subject matter.
As to claims 20 and 56, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claims 19 and 55, Novlan further disclose: wherein the multiple transport block transmission is a semi-persistently scheduled data transmission, where each data transmission occurs periodically according to a previously provided configuration (“[0163] … The set of periodicities are chosen to match with the existing periodicities supported by semi-persistent scheduling of PDSCH for carrying VoIP traffic. …”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 21 and 57, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claims 20 and 56, Novlan further disclose: wherein the semi-persistently scheduled data transmission is a semi-network node scheduled data transmission in downlink (“[0163] … The set of periodicities are chosen to match with the existing periodicities supported by semi-persistent scheduling of PDSCH for carrying VoIP traffic. …”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 22 and 58, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claims 20 and 56, Novlan further disclose: wherein the semi-persistently scheduled data transmission is a configured grant data transmission in uplink (“[0163] … The set of periodicities are chosen to match with the existing periodicities supported by semi-persistent scheduling of PDSCH for carrying VoIP traffic. …” and “[0185] … The resource allocation information for frequency resources may utilized localized RB allocation since the D2D data transmission are based on the PUSCH structure. …”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 23 and 59, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claims 20 and 56, D1 further disclose: wherein the time domain pattern information includes a bitmap to indicate the time domain pattern for the semi-persistently scheduled data transmission, where one bit in the bitmap corresponds to one transmission time unit in the data transmission (“[0007] … the SA includes at least one bit field for allocating both time-domain resources and frequency-domain resources. …” and “[0167] … the system can use a bitmap as described herein to define the transmission time pattern …” in view of the parent claims). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 24 and 60, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claims 23 and 59, Novlan further disclose: wherein the bitmap has the same length as the period of the data transmission, where each bit in the bitmap corresponds to each transmission time unit in the period of the data transmission (“[0007] … the SA includes at least one bit field for allocating both time-domain resources and frequency-domain resources. …” and “[0200] … a bitmap may correspond to a set of valid D2D subframes and a ‘1’ in the bitmap indicates a transmission opportunity, while a ‘0’ in the bitmap indicates a transmission is not performed by the Tx UE”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claim 25, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 23, D1 further disclose: wherein the bitmap is shorter than the period of the data transmission, where the bitmap of Nbitmap bits is applied to the first Nbitmap transmission time units in a given period, and no data transmission in the remaining transmission time units in the given period (These claim limitations are design choice and is obvious to OOSA according MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claim 26, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 20, D1 further disclose: wherein the time domain pattern information includes the period of the semi-persistent data transmission (“[0007] … the SA includes at least one bit field for allocating both time-domain resources and frequency-domain resources. …” and “[0167] … the system can use a bitmap as described herein to define the transmission time pattern …”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claim 27, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 20, D1 further disclose: wherein the data transmission is transmitted with repetition, and the time domain pattern information includes the number of repetitions of the data transmission (“[0204] … The number of repetitions may correspond to the number of transmissions of a new data transmission including any retransmissions”). The motivation of combining D1 and Novlan is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claim 28, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 27, D1 further disclose: wherein the repetition is performed for each data transmission in consecutive transmission time units (Section 2.1, 1st bullet, 1st para “… A repetition, the UE shall repeat the TB across the K consecutive slots applying the same symbol allocation in each slot when the number of repetitions K is larger than 1. …”).
As to claim 29, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 27, D1 further disclose: wherein the repetition is performed across different periods of the data transmission (Section 2.1, 1st bullet, 1st para “… For repetition type B, the nominal repetition is back-to-back transmitted while one nominal repetition could be segmented to multiple actual transmissions if the nominal repetition across slot boundary or colliding with invalid symbols …”).
Claims 30-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (3GPP R1-2100096, NPL dated on 2/28/24, 4 pages) in view of Novlan (US 20160044665 A1), further in view of D2 (3GPP R1-1908615, NPL dated on 2/28/24, 7 pages).
As to claim 30, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 20, and is silent but D2, in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication, disclose: wherein a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement-(ACK) is generated by the wireless device and transmitted on the uplink in response to a downlink data transmission, and the time domain pattern information includes HARQ-ACK transmission parameters (Section 3.2, 1st para “… it was agreed that HARQ-ACK feedback bundling on PUCCH can be enabled or disabled by [RRC and/or DCI] for CE mode A …”, Section 3.2, 2nd para “The size of HARQ-ACK bundle is one of the remaining details. Therefore, it’s proposed to assume the bundle size equal to the number of scheduled TBs if HARQ-ACK feedback bundling is enabled. …” and Section 3.2, proposal 3, 3rd bullet “The bundle size is equal to the number of scheduled TBs signaled in multi-TB DCI”; note that HARQ-ACK bundle includes parameters). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of D2 above to the wireless system taught by D1 in view of Novlan to yield a predictable result of reducing signaling.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D2 with D1 in view of Novlan for the benefit of reducing signaling (Section 3.2, 2nd para of D2).
As to claim 31, D1 in view of Novlan and D2 discloses claim 30, D1 further disclose: wherein the HARQ-ACK transmission parameters include the timing of the HARQ-ACK transmission, the uplink resources for carrying the HARQ-ACK, the carrier for the HARQ-ACK transmission or the number of repetitions of the uplink for carrying the HARQ-ACK (Section 3.2, proposal 3, 3rd bullet “The bundle size is equal to the number of scheduled TBs signaled in multi-TB DCI”).
As to claim 32, D1 in view of Novlan and D2 discloses claim 30, D1 further disclose: wherein one HARQ-ACK bit is generated for each downlink data transmission individually (suggested by Section 3.2, 2nd para “The size of HARQ-ACK bundle is one of the remaining details. Therefore, it’s proposed to assume the bundle size equal to the number of scheduled TBs if HARQ-ACK feedback bundling is enabled. …”; note that using a bit to indicate the present/absent of each downlink data transmission is a design choice and is obvious to OOSA according MPEP 2143(F); Using a bit of a digital field to indicate the present/absent of a particular object is a common practice in the art, Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, Novlan discloses it in [0007]).
As to claim 33, D1 in view of Novlan and D2 discloses claim 30, D1 further disclose: wherein one HARQ-ACK bit is generated for a group of downlink data transmissions (suggested by Section 3.2, 2nd para “The size of HARQ-ACK bundle is one of the remaining details. Therefore, it’s proposed to assume the bundle size equal to the number of scheduled TBs if HARQ-ACK feedback bundling is enabled. …”; note that using a bit in HARQ-ACK to indicate the present/absent of a group of downlink data transmissions is a design choice and is obvious to OOSA according MPEP 2143(F). Using a bit of a digital field to indicate the present/absent of a particular object is a common practice in the art, Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, Novlan discloses it in [0007]).
As to claim 34, D1 in view of Novlan and D2 discloses claim 30, D1 further disclose: wherein one HARQ-ACK bit is generated for each downlink data transmission individually, including its repetitions (suggested by Section 3.2, 2nd para “The size of HARQ-ACK bundle is one of the remaining details. Therefore, it’s proposed to assume the bundle size equal to the number of scheduled TBs if HARQ-ACK feedback bundling is enabled. …”; note that using a bit to indicate the present/absent of each downlink data transmission is a design choice and is obvious to OOSA according MPEP 2143(F); Using a bit of a digital field to indicate the present/absent of a particular object is a common practice in the art, Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, Novlan discloses it in [0007]).
As to claim 35, D1 in view of Novlan and D2 discloses claim 30, D1 further disclose: wherein one HARQ-ACK bit is generated for a group of downlink data transmissions including their repetitions (suggested by Section 3.2, 2nd para “The size of HARQ-ACK bundle is one of the remaining details. Therefore, it’s proposed to assume the bundle size equal to the number of scheduled TBs if HARQ-ACK feedback bundling is enabled. …”; note that using a bit to indicate the present/absent of a group of downlink data transmissions including their repetitions is a design choice and is obvious to OOSA according MPEP 2143(F); Using a bit of a digital field to indicate the present/absent of a particular object is a common practice in the art, Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, Novlan discloses it in [0007]).
Claim 36 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (3GPP R1-2100096, NPL dated on 2/28/24, 4 pages) in view of Novlan (US 20160044665 A1), further in view of D3 (3GPP R1- 2107257, NPL dated on 2/28/24, 8 pages).
As to claim 36, D1 in view of Novlan discloses claim 23, and is silent but D3, in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication, disclose: wherein the transmission time unit is a slot, part of a slot or a number of slots (Section 2.4, 3rd para “In the above, it is using time unit of slot as we firstly consider Repetition type A. …”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of D2 above to the wireless system taught by D1 in view of Novlan to yield a predictable result of determining TB size.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D3 with D1 in view of Novlan for the benefit of determining TB size (Section 2.4 of D3).
Conclusion
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/JIANYE WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462