DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in responsive to Application 18/697146 filed on 7/28/2026. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims:
Claims 1-3 and 39-41 are presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The Information Disclosure Statements (IDS)s comply with 37 CFR 1.97 provisions. Accordingly, the Examiner has considered the IDS.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1-3 and 39-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andersson et al. (hereinafter Andersson) US 2020/0028627 A1.
Regarding Claim 1, Andersson teaches a method performed by a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (Figs. 2-3), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, a first downlink control information (DCI) indicating (¶0067 & Figs. 2-3; the method further comprises transmitting signaling to the receive radio node indicating according to which CB-to-CBG allocation CBs are to be, or are expected to be, allocated to CBGs. ¶0071; the signaling comprises downlink control information (DCI). Fig. 2; the transmitter is a base station and the receiver is a UE, i.e. WTRU);
a first code block group (CBG) size (¶0055-¶0056; see CBG size. Also see ¶0067 and ¶0058, where the CBG allocation defines a number of CBs to a CBG, i.e. a CBG size);
receiving, from the base station, a transport block (TB) that includes one or more CBGs, wherein the one or more CBGs include one or more code blocks (CBs) (¶0001 & ¶0057; FIG. 2 illustrates a method 100 performed by a transmit radio node 12 according to some embodiments herein. As shown, the method 100 includes transmitting one or more code blocks (CBs) of a transport block 18 to a receive radio node 14 (Block 110). The method 100 also includes receiving feedback 20A from the receive radio node 12 that positively or negatively acknowledges each of one or more first code block groups (CBGs) into which the one or more transmitted CBs are allocated according to a first CB-to-CBG allocation 22-1 (Block 120). The method 100 further includes re-transmitting to the receive radio node 14 any CBs that the first CB-to-CBG allocation 22-1 allocates to one or more first CBGs which the feedback 20A negatively acknowledged (Block 130). The method also includes receiving feedback 20B from the receive radio node 14 that positively or negatively acknowledges each of one or more second CBGs into which the re-transmitted CBs are allocated according to a second CB-to-CBG allocation 22-2, wherein the first and second CB-to-CBG allocations 22-1, 22-2 are different (Block 140). Note that Fig.3 & ¶0072; the method 200 includes receiving one or more code blocks (CBs) of a transport block 18 from a transmit radio node 12 (Block 210));
performing a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) on the received TB (¶0081; the method further comprises detecting whether each CB is received in error using a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) attached to each CB. In other embodiments, the method further comprises detecting whether each set of multiple CBs is received in error using a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) attached to each set of multiple CBs, and wherein the first or second CB-to-CBG allocation allocates more CBs to each first or second CBG than a number of CBs included in each set of CBs to which a CRC is attached. Alternatively or additionally, the first or second CB-to-CBG allocation in some embodiments allocates more CBs to a first or second CBG than a number of CBs included in each set of CBs to which a CRC is attached. Here the CRCs on the CBs or the CBGs of a TB are considered to correspond to a CRC on the TB);
transmitting, to the base station, feedback based on the CRC (¶0057 and Fig. 2; FIG. 2 illustrates a method 100 performed by a transmit radio node 12 according to some embodiments herein. As shown, the method 100 includes transmitting one or more code blocks (CBs) of a transport block 18 to a receive radio node 14 (Block 110). The method 100 also includes receiving feedback 20A from the receive radio node 12 that positively or negatively acknowledges each of one or more first code block groups (CBGs) into which the one or more transmitted CBs are allocated according to a first CB-to-CBG allocation 22-1 (Block 120). The method 100 further includes re-transmitting to the receive radio node 14 any CBs that the first CB-to-CBG allocation 22-1 allocates to one or more first CBGs which the feedback 20A negatively acknowledged (Block 130). The method also includes receiving feedback 20B from the receive radio node 14 that positively or negatively acknowledges each of one or more second CBGs into which the re-transmitted CBs are allocated according to a second CB-to-CBG allocation 22-2, wherein the first and second CB-to-CBG allocations 22-1, 22-2 are different (Block 140));
and receiving, from the base station, a second DCI indicating a second CBG size, wherein the second CBG size is based on the transmitted feedback (¶0058 and ¶0067; where the second CB-to-CBG allocation with fewer CBs to each second CBG corresponds to a second CBG size. Note that the feature "wherein the second CBG size is based on the transmitted feedback" is taken into account in the analysis, though it does not limit the protection scope of claim 1 which relates to a WTRU method. Anderson does not expressly teach “second DCI.” However, this limitation is obvious from the cited paragraphs and in view of ¶0071; the signaling comprises downlink control information (DCI). One with ordinary skill in the art would reach the claim limitation from the cited paragraphs in order to provide the receiving/transmitting wireless devices crucial instructions from a network base station, providing key benefits like dynamic resource scheduling, efficient power control, and fast error correction management).
Regarding Claim 2, Andersson teaches the method of claim 1, wherein, if the feedback is an acknowledgement (ACK), the second CBG size is larger than the first CBG size (Fig. 2 & ¶0059-¶0063).
Regarding Claim 3, Andersson teaches the method of claim 1, wherein, if the feedback is a negative acknowledgement (NACK), the second CBG size is smaller than the first CBG size (the limitation is obvious to the skilled person in view of ¶0057-¶0063 & ¶0069-¶0070. In particular, after successfully receiving a re-transmission with a lower CBG size (ACK), it is obvious to the skilled person to revert to a higher CBG size for a next transmission in order to save the signaling overhead for ACK/NACK signaling. For example, the signaling comprises a reset field whose value indicates whether or not the transmit radio node has reverted to a previously used CB-to-CBG allocation according to which CBs are to be, or are expected to be, allocated to CBGs. In some embodiments, the method further comprises reverting to a previously used CB-to-CBG allocation according to which CBs are to be, or are expected to be, allocated to CBGs, responsive to deeming received feedback from the receive radio node unreliable).
Claims 39-41 are substantially similar to the above claims, thus the same rationale applies.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHRAN ABU ROUMI whose telephone number is (469)295-9170. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emmanuel Moise can be reached at 571-272-3865. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MAHRAN ABU ROUMI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2455
/MAHRAN Y ABU ROUMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
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