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 .
This action replaces previously mailed August 11,2026 Non-Final Rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 7 and 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ly et al. (US 2024/0215063 A1, hereinafter "Ly") in view of Wang et al. (US 2022/0232639 A1, hereinafter "Wang").
Regarding claim 7, Ly discloses a terminal, or user equipment, having receiving circuitry, processing circuitry, and a PUSCH-repetition component configured to perform Msg3 PUSCH transmissions and retransmissions during a random-access procedure (Ly, paragraphs 47-49, 96-108, and 122-125; FIGS. 3, 9-11, and 15; claim 1). Ly further discloses receiving DCI format 0_0 having a CRC scrambled by a TC-RNTI, the DCI including scheduling information and repetition information for repetitive transmission of an uplink data channel, and determining transmission parameters from fields of the received grant (Ly, paragraphs 73-75, 81-83, and 87-88; FIGS. 5 and 7). Thus, Ly teaches the claimed receiver and processor and an information field used in scheduling an uplink signal for repetitive transmission. Ly does not expressly disclose determining both an MCS index and a number of repetitions from respective portions of the same information field. Wang teaches that an MCS field may be partitioned so that one portion indicates MCS/TBS-related information and another portion indicates the number of PUSCH repetitions; the remaining MCS-field bits identify an index of an applicable MCS table (Wang, paragraphs 48, 81, 85, 99, and 104; claims 2-3 and 10-12). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply Wang's divided-field arrangement to Ly's retransmission grant so that the reused field conveys both MCS and repetition information. The combination would reduce signaling overhead, avoid enlarging DCI format 0_0, and preserve compatibility with the existing grant format, while producing the predictable result that the terminal derives the MCS index and repetition count from their assigned bit portions. Ly and Wang do not expressly disclose that first information received through system information or RRC controls the mapping from the MCS-index bits to an MCS index, with a predetermined mapping used when the first information is not configured. Islam teaches configuring, through RRC signaling, the MCS table used for PUSCH, using an indicated table together with the received MCS index to determine the modulation-and-coding entry, and using a previously specified default MCS table when the configuration field is absent or not provided (Islam, paragraphs 78-83, 90-93, and 97-98; claims 27-29 and 34-35). It would have been obvious to use Islam's RRC-selectable MCS-table mapping in the Ly-Wang terminal. The modification would allow a network to select an MCS interpretation suited to deployment conditions while retaining a known default interpretation for terminals or cells in which the configuration is absent. A skilled artisan would have had a reasonable expectation of success because the references use the same conventional MCS-index/table relationship for PUSCH. The resulting terminal determines the index from the bit portion alone when the first information is not configured and from that bit portion together with the RRC or system-information mapping when the first information is configured, as required by claim 7.
Regarding claim 12, Ly uses the conventional five-bit MCS information field of the uplink grant and teaches reconfiguring that field to convey retransmission information (Ly, paragraphs 81-83 and 87-91). Wang teaches dividing the field so that a first number of bits supplies MCS/TBS-related information and a second number supplies the repetition count, with remaining bits identifying an MCS-table index (Wang, paragraphs 85, 99, and 104). Once two bits are selected to encode four candidate repetition counts, the remaining three bits of the five-bit field necessarily encode the MCS index. Assigning the two repetition bits to the most-significant positions and the three MCS bits to the least-significant positions is one of a small number of conventional, predictable field layouts and would have been an obvious implementation choice yielding the claimed arrangement.
Regarding claim 13, Ly expressly teaches that, after an initial Msg3 transmission fails, the base station schedules Msg3 PUSCH retransmission by transmitting DCI format 0_0 whose CRC is scrambled by a TC-RNTI and whose fields include scheduling and repetition information (Ly, paragraphs 73-75, 81-83, and 96-108; FIGS. 5, 7, and 9-11). Wang likewise applies its divided MCS-field signaling to Msg3 PUSCH retransmission (Wang, paragraphs 94-104). The combined teachings therefore meet the DCI, CRC-scrambling, identifier, and Msg3 PUSCH limitations of claim 13.
Regarding claim 14, Ly discloses a base station having processing and transmitting circuitry that generates and transmits uplink scheduling information for repetitive Msg3 PUSCH transmission (Ly, paragraphs 47-49, 73-75, 109-121, and 126-129; FIGS. 3, 7, 12-14, and 16). Wang teaches a network device that places an MCS-table index in one portion of the MCS field and repetition information in another portion (Wang, paragraphs 105-110; claims 19-20). Islam teaches that the network transmits RRC information selecting the MCS table and that a default table applies when the selection is absent (Islam, paragraphs 78-83, 90-93, 97-98, and 207-210). For the reasons stated for claim 7, it would have been obvious for Ly's base station to transmit the divided field and the configured mapping information, producing the reciprocal network-side operations recited in claim 14.
Regarding claim 15, Ly discloses a radio system containing both a base station and a terminal that exchange the DCI scheduling and repetition information and perform repeated Msg3 PUSCH transmission and reception (Ly, paragraphs 47-49 and 73-129; FIGS. 3, 5, 7, and 9-16). Incorporating Wang's divided-field encoding and Islam's configurable/default MCS mapping into the respective transmitter and receiver for the reasons stated for claims 7 and 14 yields the claimed base-station and terminal combination and their corresponding configured and unconfigured index determinations.
Regarding claim 16, Ly discloses a communication method performed by a terminal during a random-access procedure, including receiving DCI scheduling information, interpreting repetition information, and repeatedly transmitting Msg3 PUSCH (Ly, paragraphs 73-75, 81-83, 96-108, and 160; FIGS. 5, 7, and 9-11). Wang teaches determining the MCS index and repetition count from respective portions of the MCS field (Wang, paragraphs 48, 85, 99, and 104), and Islam teaches applying an RRC-configured MCS mapping when present and a previously specified default mapping when absent (Islam, paragraphs 78-83, 90-93, and 97-98). Combining those method steps for the reasons stated for claim 7 yields the receiving and determining alternatives recited in claim 16.
Conclusion. The cited teachings, considered as a whole, provide both the structural components and the claimed configured/default interpretation of the divided MCS field. The proposed combinations use known signaling techniques according to their established functions and would have yielded predictable results with a reasonable expectation of success.
Claims 8-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ly et al. (US 2024/0215063 A1, hereinafter "Ly") in view of Wang et al. (US 2022/0232639 A1, hereinafter "Wang"), and further in view of Islam et al. (US 2019/0253121 A1, hereinafter "Islam").
Regarding claim 8, Ly and Wang disclose all subject matter of the claimsd invention with the exception of when the table-selection information is configured, the terminal determines the applicable MCS mapping according to the configured value, and that, when the information is absent, the terminal applies a previously specified default MCS table. Islam teaches that, when the table-selection information is configured, the terminal determines the applicable MCS mapping according to the configured value, and that, when the information is absent, the terminal applies a previously specified default MCS table (Islam, paragraphs 90-93 and 97-98). It therefore would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention for the processor of the combined terminal to determine the index based on the value of the first information when configured and on the previously specified value when not configured.
Regarding claim 9, Ly teaches use of an MCS field in uplink grants associated with both DCI-based Msg3 retransmission scheduling and random-access signaling, and teaches reuse or reconfiguration of that field for retransmission parameters (Ly, paragraphs 73-75 and 81-88). Wang teaches mapping the available code points of the MCS-field portion to candidate MCS-table indices and using only a subset of the field's bit capacity when other bits are allocated to the repetition number (Wang, paragraphs 46-48, 85, and 99). Islam likewise teaches that an MCS index selects among a plurality of candidate entries in the configured MCS table (Islam, paragraphs 76-83 and 97-98). Accordingly, I map candidate index values to the code points supplied by the relevant bit portion, use the full candidate set when the uplink signal is scheduled by DCI, and use the available portion of that set when the signal is scheduled by the more constrained RAR uplink grant. This is a predictable allocation of a finite set of field code points to preserve the existing RAR format while supporting the DCI retransmission format
Regarding claim 10, Ly teaches that one or more grant fields may be reconfigured to indicate the number of Msg3 PUSCH retransmissions and that the repetition information may be supplied for the initial transmission and retransmission (Ly, paragraphs 81-83, 87-91, and 96-108). Wang teaches system-information configuration of candidate repetition numbers and a separate bit portion of the MCS field that selects the repetition number (Wang, paragraphs 85-87 and 90-91). It would have been obvious to receive that second mapping information by system information or RRC and determine the repetition count according to whether the configuration is present, because this permits network configuration without increasing the grant size and provides a predictable fallback.
Regarding claim 11, Wang teaches determining the repetition number from a configured list when system information provides the list and using a predetermined or default repetition list when the configuration is not provided (Wang, paragraphs 86-87 and 90). The claimed configured-value and previously-specified-value alternatives therefore would have been obvious in the combined system.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGEL T BROCKMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5664. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00 AM-4:30 PM.
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/ANGEL T BROCKMAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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