7Notice 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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1,4-8,11,13,16,19-23,26,28 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 16, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papasakellariou et al. (US 20120034927 A1) in view of Karaki et al. (US 20200344012 A1).
Papasakellariou et al. discloses a method for a User Equipment (UE) to transmit acknowledgement information comprising the following features: regarding claims 1 and 16, a User Equipment (UE), comprising a memory, a transceiver and a processor, wherein the memory is configured to store therein a computer program, the transceiver is configured to receive and transmit data under the control of the processor, and the processor is configured to read the computer program in the memory to (see paragraph 5, A UE, also commonly referred to as a terminal or a mobile station, may be … a personal computer device, etc);
determine a quantity of pieces of first Downlink Control Information (DCI) (See paragraph 9, DL control signals may be broadcast or sent in a UE-specific nature. Accordingly, UE-specific control channels can be used, among other purposes, to provide UEs with Scheduling Assignments (SAs) for PDSCH reception, i.e., DL SAs, or PUSCH transmission, i.e., UL SAs. The SAs are transmitted from the NodeB to respective UEs using DL Control Information (DCI) formats through respective Physical DL Control CHannels (PDCCHs).”);
determine a quantity of bits of a first Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest Acknowledge(HARQ-ACK) corresponding to the first DCI in accordance with the quantity of pieces of the first DCI and a first parameter, wherein the first DCI being one or more pieces of DCI not detected by the UE (see paragraph 12, “The HARQ-ACK information may include multiple bits corresponding to positive acknowledgments (ACKs) for TBs the UE correctly received or negative acknowledgements (NACKs) for TBs the UE incorrectly received. When a UE does not receive a TB, it may transmit DTX (tri-state HARQ-ACK information) or both the absence and the incorrect reception of a TB can be represented by a NACK (in a combined NACK/DTX state).”, see paragraph 11, “If a UE misses, e.g., fails to decode, a PDCCH, it also misses the associated PDSCH or PUSCH, respectively. This event will be referred to as Discontinuous Transmission (DTX).”; see paragraph 35, “A DAI IE is also included in DL SAs, V.sub.DAI.sup.DL, for a UE to determine whether it has missed any DL SA, except for the last DL SA, when the UE transmits HARQ-ACK in the PUCCH (DL DAI)”);
determine the quantity of bits of a second HARQ-ACK corresponding to a first Transport Block (TB) in accordance with the first parameter and received TBs, the first TB being one or more TBs received by the UE (See paragraph [0048] A UE is configured with c cells for DL CA. In C.sub.2.ltoreq.C cells, the UE is configured with a PDSCH TM that supports 2 TBs and requires 2 HARQ-ACK information bits. In the remaining C-C.sub.2 cells, the UE is configured with a PDSCH TM that supports 1 TB and requires 1 HARQ-ACK information bit. In a given subframe, P.ltoreq.C PDSCH are transmitted to a UE, with P.sub.2.ltoreq.P PDSCH requiring feedback of 2 HARQ-ACK information bits and P-P.sub.2 PDSCH requiring feedback of 1 HARQ-ACK information bit for a total of N.sub.TB.sup.transmitted=P+P.sub.2 transmitted TBs and a total of P+P.sub.2 HARQ-ACK bits. The UE receives R.ltoreq.P PDSCH with R.sub.2.ltoreq.P.sub.2 PDSCH requiring feedback of 2 HARQ-ACK information bits and R-R.sub.2 PDSCH requiring feedback of 1 HARQ-ACK information bit for a total of N.sub.TB.sup.received=R+R.sub.2 received TBs and a total of R+R.sub.2 HARQ-ACK bits.);
and determine a control parameter for power control over a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) in accordance with the quantity of bits of the first HARQ-ACK and the quantity of bits of the second HARQ-ACK (See Abstract, “The HARQ-ACK signal transmission power for transmission in a PUCCH are derived based on the existence and design of a Downlink Assignment Index (DAI) Information Element (IE) in the Downlink Control Information (DCI) formats scheduling receptions of data Transport Blocks (TBs) by the UE.”; see paragraph [0043] “The HARQ-ACK signal transmission power in a PUCCH in subframe i, P.sub.PUCCH(i), is assumed to be given as shown in Equation (3)”; see paragraph [0044], “h(O.sub.HARQ-ACK) is a monotonically increasing function of the HARQ-ACK payload O.sub.HARQ-ACK”);
wherein the first parameter is the quantity of bits of a HARQ-ACK for HARQ-ACK bundling in the case that a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channels (PDSCHs) is scheduled through one piece of DCI , and the plurality of PDSCHs belong to a same cell (see paragraph [0010] “The NodeB may configure a UE through higher layer signaling, such as Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, a PDSCH Transmission Mode (TM), and a PUSCH TM. The PDSCH TM or PUSCH TM is respectively associated with a DL SA or a UL SA and defines whether the respective PDSCH or PUSCH conveys one data Transport Block (TB) or two data TBs”; see paragraph [0031] “A PDSCH with multiple TBs (e.g., two TBs) can be supported using SU-MIMO transmission with a rank greater than 1. In response to a PDSCH reception with multiple TBs, a UE generates multiple respective HARQ-ACK information bits. However, it is possible for a UE to always generate only one HARQ-ACK bit per PDSCH reception by applying HARQ-ACK spatial-domain bundling”; see paragraph [0034] “For a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) communication system and single-cell operation, no specific measures are necessary to ensure the above common understanding, as the communication is over a single cell and the HARQ-ACK information is for a single PDSCH”).
Papasakellariou et al. does not explicitly state that a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channels (PDSCHs) is scheduled through one piece of DCI. Karaki et al. discloses a communication system comprising the following features: a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channels (PDSCHs) is scheduled through one piece of DCI (see paragraph [0144] “In the description that follows, certain embodiments are described in relation to PDSCH groups or PDSCH grouping functionality. In general, a PDSCH group is a set of PDSCHs that for which HARQ feedback is transmitted in some joint form, typically in the same PUCCH resource or slot. Similarly, PDSCH grouping is any process or act that results in multiple PDSCHs being assigned or identified in relation to different PDSCH groups. For instance, PDSCH grouping may be performed by signalling that assigns or identifies different PDSCHs to the same or different PDSCH groups. Such signalling may include, for instance, DCI that schedules or otherwise identifies a PUSCH and allocates and/or identifies a PUCCH resources to carry HARQ feedback for the PUSCH. The same DCI can also associate the PUSCH with a PDSCH group”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Papasakellariou et al. by the features, as taught by Karaki et al., in order to enhance scheduling efficiency and feedback management in communication systems.
Regarding claims 4 and 19, Papasakellariou et al. discloses: wherein the determining the quantity of pieces of the first DCI comprises determining the quantity of pieces of the first DCI in accordance with VDAI,m last DL (See paragraph [0035], “A DAI IE is also included in DL SAs, V.sub.DAI.sup.DL, for a UE to determine whether it has missed any DL SA, except for the last DL SA, when the UE transmits HARQ-ACK in the PUCCH (DL DAI)”; See paragraph [0138] “Each of the R DL SAs includes the FRC DL DAI IE, which informs the UE of each DL SA number and, if at least one of the last 2 DL SAs is correctly received, of the total number P of DL SAs, in step 1220”; see paragraph [0140], “In step 1320, based on the total number of DL SAs indicated by the last value of the FRC DL DAI IE, the NodeB determines the HARQ-ACK CW size”), Ncells DL (see paragraph [0048] “A UE is configured with c cells for DL CA. In C.sub.2.ltoreq.C cells, the UE is configured with a PDSCH TM that supports 2 TBs and requires 2 HARQ-ACK information bits. In the remaining C-C.sub.2 cells, the UE is configured with a PDSCH TM that supports 1 TB and requires 1 HARQ-ACK information bit”; see paragraph [0050] “Referring to FIG. 7, a UE is configured with C=4 cells, 710, 712, 714, and 716”), and UDAI,c, (see paragraph [0048], “The UE receives R.ltoreq.P PDSCH with R.sub.2.ltoreq.P.sub.2 PDSCH requiring feedback of 2 HARQ-ACK information bits and R-R.sub.2 PDSCH requiring feedback of 1 HARQ-ACK information bit for a total of N.sub.TB.sup.received=R+R.sub.2 received TBs and a total of R+R.sub.2 HARQ-ACK bits”; see paragraph [0124] “Referring to FIG. 10, in a given DL subframe n, the UE receives R DL SAs in step 1010. Each of the R DL SAs includes an Absolute Counter DL DAI IE, which informs the UE of the total number P of DL SAs in subframe n in step 1020”) wherein VDAI,m last DL represents a value of a Downlink Assignment Index (DAI) of a last piece of DCI, Ncells DL represents a quantity of serving cells configured by a network device for the UE, and UDAI,c represents a quantity of pieces of received scheduling DCI.
5. Claim(s) 13 and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Papasakellariou et al. (US 20120034927 A1) in view of Karaki et al. (US 20200344012 A1) as applied to claims 1, 16 above, and further in view of Bhamri et al. (US 20240243855 A1).
Papasakellariou et al. (US 20120034927 A1) in view of Karaki et al. (US 20200344012 A1) disclose the claimed limitations above. Papasakellariou et al. (US 20120034927 A1) in view of Karaki et al. (US 20200344012 A1) do not disclose the following features: regarding claims 13 and 28, , wherein the first parameter is configured by a network device, agreed in a protocol, or determined in accordance with the maximum quantity of PDSCHs scheduled through one piece of DCI.
Bhamri et al. discloses a communication system comprising the following features: regarding claims 13 and 28, , wherein the first parameter is configured by a network device, agreed in a protocol, or determined in accordance with the maximum quantity of PDSCHs scheduled through one piece of DCI (see paragraph [0079] “According to embodiments of the first solution, when a UE supports multiple PDSCH scheduling by single DCI and single PDSCH scheduling by single DCI, where the maximum number of PDSCH transmissions that can be scheduled by single DCI is associated with the numerology that is applied for those PDSCH transmissions, then the number of HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks is associated with the number of numerologies that are supported by UE. For example, if a UE supports 120 kHz SCS with only single PDSCH scheduling by single DCI. 480 kHz SCS with maximum 4 PDSCH transmissions scheduled by single DCI, and 960 kHz SCS with maximum 8 PDSCH transmissions by single DCI, then at least three HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks can be constructed associated with 120 kHz SCS (having a maximum of one PDSCH). 480 kHz SCS (having a maximum of four PDSCH transmissions) and 960 SCS kHz (having a maximum of eight PDSCH transmissions), respectively”; see paragraph [0081] “All the HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks are concatenated in order of increasing SCS value (or alternatively in order of increasing number of maximum PDSCH transmissions scheduled by single DCI), or in decreasing order respectively”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Papasakellariou et al. and Karaki et al., by using the features, as taught by Bhamri et al., thereby enabling the modified system to support a range of numerologies and scheduling configurations in a standards-compliant and scalable manner.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 5-8, 11, 20-23, 26 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
7. 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.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KWANG B YAO whose telephone number is (571)272-3182. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/KWANG B YAO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2473
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