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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Status of Claims
Claims 41-46 responded on August 14, 2026 are pending, claims 41, 48, 52 and 54-55 are amended, claims 46, 53 and 60 are canceled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 41 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.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 6, filed August 14, 2026, with respect to claims 52-54 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection of claims 52-54 are withdrawn.
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) 41-45, 47-52, and 54-59 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (US 2024/0057108 A1, hereinafter "Yi") in view of MolavianJazi et al. (US 2023/0139269 A1, Provisional application No. 63/254,874, filed on Oct.12, 2021, hereinafter "Jazi") .
Regarding claim 41, Yi discloses an apparatus for use in a user equipment (UE), wherein the apparatus comprises:
memory to store a received downlink control information (DCI) that schedules a plurality of physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) in a plurality of serving cells (Yi, [0315] a wireless device may receive a DCI (e.g., a multi-cell DCI, M-DCI) indicating a plurality of resources for one or more PDSCHs for a plurality of cells and/or one or more SPS PDSCH releases for the plurality of cells); and one or more processors configured to:
identify, based on the DCI, a counter downlink assignment index (DAI) (Yi, [0314] the wireless device may check/determine whether the wireless device has received a DCI comprising/indicating C-DAI/DAI and/or T-DAI); and
encode, based on the counter DAI and the reference serving cell, hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback for the plurality of PDSCHs (Yi, [0314] the wireless device may determine one or more HARQ-ACK feedback bits corresponding to a PDSCH scheduled by the DCI or a SPS PDSCH release indicated by the DCI) .
Yi discloses PDSCH release via an active BWP of a serving cell in [0281] but does not explicitly disclose identify a reference serving cell of the plurality of serving cells scheduled by the DCI and wherein a value of the counter DAI indicates an accumulative number of pairs of a reference serving cell and a PDCCH monitoring occasion in which PDSCH receptions are present, the pairs being counted in ascending order of reference serving cell index.
Jazi from the same field of endeavor discloses identify a reference serving cell of the plurality of serving cells scheduled by the DCI (Jazi, [0382] In response to the DCI format jointly scheduling [N] PDSCHs on a set/subset of [N] co-scheduled cells, the UE in step 650 increments the DL DAI by [N] and assigns the [N] consecutive DL DAI increments to a reference serving cell) wherein a value of the counter DAI indicates an accumulative number of pairs of a reference serving cell and a PDCCH monitoring occasion in which PDSCH receptions are present, the pairs being counted in ascending order of reference serving cell index (Jazi, [0363-0364] if the UE indicates by type2-HARQ-ACK-Codebook support for more than one PDSCH reception on a serving cell that are scheduled from a same PDCCH monitoring occasion, in increasing order of the PDSCH reception starting time for the same {serving cell, PDCCH monitoring occasion} pair. Second in ascending order of serving cell index when a DCI format is for single-cell scheduling or SPS PDSCH release or SCell dormancy indication, and in ascending order of a reference serving cell when a DCI format is for multi-cell scheduling).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DCI indication for cells disclosed by Yi and DAI for cells disclosed by Jazi with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve reliability of the M-DCis according to physical channel conditions (Jazi, [0283]).
Regarding claim 42, Yi discloses wherein identification of the reference serving cell of the plurality of serving cells is based on respective serving cell indexes of
respective serving cells of the plurality of serving cells (Yi, [0285] the wireless device may determine a number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits for each serving cell based on a cell index).
Regarding claim 43, Yi discloses wherein the reference serving cell is a serving
cell with a smallest serving cell index of the plurality of serving cells (Yi, [abstract] a first downlink control information (DCI) indicating resources of a plurality of cells and a first downlink assignment index (DAI) that is associated with a first cell having a smallest cell index from the plurality of cells).
Regarding claim 44, Yi discloses wherein a value of the counter DAI field
denotes an accumulative number of {reference serving cell, physical downlink control
channel (PDCCH)} pairs in which PDSCH receptions are present up to a current reference serving cell and current PDCCH monitoring occasion (Yi, [0282] the wireless device may order one or more PDSCH reception starting time for a same { serving cell, PDCCH monitoring occasion} pair. The wireless device may then order PDCCH monitoring occasion or PDSCH receptions based on a
serving cell index).
Regarding claim 45, Yi discloses wherein the counter DAI is counted first, if the
UE supports more than one PDSCH reception on a serving cell that are scheduled from a same PDCCH monitoring occasion, in increasing order of a PDSCH reception starting time for a same {reference serving cell, PDCCH monitoring occasion} pair (Yi, [0282] A counter DAI value may be updated for each PDCCH monitoring occasion to indicate accumulative number of PDSCH receptions…The wireless device may then order PDCCH monitoring occasion index (based on a starting time
of PDCCH monitoring occasion).
Regarding claim 47, Yi does not explicitly disclose wherein the counter DAI is counted third in ascending order of PDCCH monitoring occasion index m, where 0 ≤ m < M.
Jazi from the same field of endeavor discloses herein the counter DAI is counted third in ascending order of PDCCH monitoring occasion index m, where 0 ≤ m < M (Jazi, [0364] Third in ascending order of PDCCH monitoring occasion index m, where 0≤m<M).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DCI indication for cells disclosed by Yi and DAI for cells disclosed by Jazi with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve reliability of the M-DCis according to physical channel conditions (Jazi, [0283]).
Regarding claims 48-52 and 54, these claims recite "One or more non-transitory computer-readable media" that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 41-45 and 47, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 41-45 and 47 as presented above.
Regarding claim 55, Yi discloses one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) comprising instructions that, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors, are to cause a base station to:
identify, based on the reference serving cell, a counter downlink assignment index (DAI) (Yi, [0314] the wireless device may check/determine whether the wireless device has received a DCI comprising/indicating C-DAI/DAI and/or T-DAI);
encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE), a downlink control information (DCI) that schedules a plurality of physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) in a plurality of serving cells, wherein the DCI includes an indication of the counter DAI (Yi, [0315] a wireless device may receive a DCI (e.g., a multi-cell DCI, M-DCI) indicating a plurality of resources for one or more PDSCHs for a plurality of cells and/or one or more SPS PDSCH releases for the plurality of cells); and
identify, from the UE based on the counter DAI, hybrid automatic repeat request
acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback for the plurality of PDSCHs (Yi, [0314] the wireless device may determine one or more HARQ-ACK feedback bits corresponding to a PDSCH scheduled by the DCI or a SPS PDSCH release indicated by the DCI).
Yi discloses PDSCH release via an active BWP of a serving cell in [0281] but does not explicitly disclose identify a reference serving cell of the plurality of serving cells and wherein a value of the counter DAI indicates an accumulative number of pairs of a reference serving cell and a PDCCH monitoring occasion in which PDSCH receptions are present, the pairs being counted in ascending order of reference serving cell index.
Jazi from the same field of endeavor discloses identify a reference serving cell of the plurality of serving cells (Jazi, [0382] In response to the DCI format jointly scheduling [N] PDSCHs on a set/subset of [N] co-scheduled cells, the UE in step 650 increments the DL DAI by [N] and assigns the [N] consecutive DL DAI increments to a reference serving cell) wherein a value of the counter DAI indicates an accumulative number of pairs of a reference serving cell and a PDCCH monitoring occasion in which PDSCH receptions are present, the pairs being counted in ascending order of reference serving cell index (Jazi, [0363-0364] if the UE indicates by type2-HARQ-ACK-Codebook support for more than one PDSCH reception on a serving cell that are scheduled from a same PDCCH monitoring occasion, in increasing order of the PDSCH reception starting time for the same {serving cell, PDCCH monitoring occasion} pair. Second in ascending order of serving cell index when a DCI format is for single-cell scheduling or SPS PDSCH release or SCell dormancy indication, and in ascending order of a reference serving cell when a DCI format is for multi-cell scheduling).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified DCI indication for cells disclosed by Yi and DAI for cells disclosed by Jazi with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve reliability of the M-DCis according to physical channel conditions (Jazi, [0283]).
Regarding claims 56-59, these claims recite "One or more non-transitory computer-readable media" that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 41-45, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 41-45 as presented above.
Conclusion
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.
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
