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 .
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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 06/25/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/25/2026 regarding the prior art rejections of Claims 1 – 20 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action.
The Remarks argue:
Detecting a DCI and processing information included in the DCI, as discussed in Chae, is not the same as, nor does it teach or suggest to "perform, in parallel, a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message, the plurality of decoding procedures including at least a first decoding procedure that is based at least in part on a set of received bits of the downlink control information message and a second decoding procedure," as recited in amended independent claim 1. Nowhere in the cited portions does Chae discuss any "plurality of decoding procedures" much less performing any plurality of decoding procedures "in parallel," as claimed. For example, none of the processed information in Chae are relevant to "a first decoding procedure that is based at least in part on a set of received bits of the downlink control information message and a second decoding procedure, wherein performance of the second decoding procedure comprises replacing at least a portion of the set of received bits with one or more known bit values in accordance with the downlink control information format," as recited in amended independent claim 1. Thus, Chae fails to teach or suggest at least the aforementioned features of amended independent claim 1.
Moreover, Khoshnevisan has not been shown to overcome the deficiencies of Chae. For example, the Advisory Action has not shown how a base station using a known bit value to assist in decoding, as discussed in Khoshnevisan, teaches or suggests a user equipment performing a "second decoding procedure" that "comprises replacing at least a portion of the set of received bits with one or more known bit values in accordance with the downlink control information format," as recited in amended independent claim 1.
Chae and Khoshnevisan-alone or in any combination-have not been shown to teach or suggest all of the features of amended independent claims 1, 10, and 18.
The Examiner agrees Chae does not teach “perform, in parallel, a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message, the plurality of decoding procedures including at least a first decoding procedure that is based at least in part on a set of received bits of the downlink control information message and a second decoding procedure," as recited in amended independent claim 1.
The Examiner agrees Khoshnevisan does not cure the deficiencies of Chae. And the prior art references in combination have not been shown to teach or suggest all of the features of amended independent claims 1, 10, and 18.
However, with the addition of Shelby (US 2018/ 0192403 A1) one skilled in the art could combine these prior arts to conclude the claimed limitations as shown below, maintaining the previous prior art rejection.
Claims 2 – 9 which depend from amended claim 1, have been considered and rejected.
Claims 11 – 17 which depend from amended claim 10, have been considered and rejected.
Claims 19 – 20 which depend from amended claim 18, have been considered and rejected.
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 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chae (US 2021/0105121 A1) in view of Shelby (US 2018/0192403 A1).
With regards to claim 1, Chae teaches:
A user equipment (UE), comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to (0053, the hardware, software, firmware, registers, memory values, and/or the like may be “configured” within a device): monitor for a downlink control information message via a wireless channel, the downlink control information message corresponding to a downlink control information format (0212, The UE may monitor a set of PDCCH candidates in one or more CORESETs for detecting one or more DCIs. Monitoring may comprise decoding one or more PDCCH candidates of the set of the PDCCH candidates according to the monitored DCI formats. Monitoring may comprise decoding a DCI content of one or more PDCCH candidates with possible (or configured) PDCCH locations, possible (or configured) PDCCH formats (e.g., number of CCEs, number of PDCCH candidates in common search spaces, and/or number of PDCCH candidates in the UE-specific search spaces) and possible (or configured) DCI formats. The decoding may be referred to as blind decoding. The UE may determine a DCI as valid for the UE, in response to CRC checking (e.g., scrambled bits for CRC parity bits of the DCI matching a RNTI value). The UE may process information contained in the DCI (e.g., a scheduling assignment, an uplink grant, power control, a slot format indication, a downlink preemption, and/or the like).); and output a result of at least one decoding procedure of the plurality of decoding procedures based at least in part on a respective integrity check corresponding to each decoding procedure of the plurality of decoding procedures (0080, integrity protection (to ensure control messages originate from intended sources. The PDCPs 214 and 224 may perform retransmissions of undelivered packets, in-sequence delivery and reordering of packets, and removal of packets received in duplicate due to, for example, an intra-gNB handover. The PDCPs 214 and 224 may perform packet duplication to improve the likelihood of the packet being received and, at the receiver, remove any duplicate packets).
Chae fails to teach:
perform, in parallel, a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message, the plurality of decoding procedures including at least a first decoding procedure that is based at least in part on a set of received bits of the downlink control information message and a second decoding procedure, wherein performance of the second decoding procedure comprises replacing at least a portion of the set of received bits with one or more known bit values in accordance with the downlink control information format;
However, Shelby teaches:
perform, in parallel, a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message, the plurality of decoding procedures including at least a first decoding procedure that is based at least in part on a set of received bits of the downlink control information message (0065, separate ones of the parallelized processing elements may be configured to perform decoding procedures on separate respective bit paths of a successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding procedure, or they may be configured to perform decoding procedures on separate encoded messages in parallel); and a second decoding procedure, wherein performance of the second decoding procedure comprises replacing at least a portion of the set of received bits with one or more known bit values in accordance with the downlink control information format (0089, Polar coding, as described in greater detail below, divides (or ‘polarizes’) a plurality of communication channels into more reliable and less reliable channels. The more reliable channels are often used to carry the payload information of communication, and these bits of communication are often referred to as ‘information bits’. In some embodiments, the transmitter may append a sequence of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits at the end of the information bits. The less reliable channels typically contain reference bits that are known to both the transmitter and the receiver, commonly referred to as ‘frozen bits’. The frozen bits may be utilized by the receiver to facilitate the decoding process.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the method of Chae which teaches customization signals to select memory and status registers with the teaching of Shelby which teaches perform in parallel, secondary decoding procedures, and polar coding in order to mitigate interference from blind decoding.
With regards to claim 2, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein at least a portion of the one or more known bit values comprises one or more reserved bits, one or more padded bits, or a combination thereof (0089, and a reserved bit (R) field for future use).
With regards to claim 3, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: receive signaling indicating at least a portion of the one or more known bit values prior to monitoring for the downlink control information message (0215, When configured with a plurality of PUCCH resource sets, the UE may select one of the plurality of PUCCH resource sets based on a total bit length of the UCI information bits (e.g., HARQ-ACK, SR, and/or CSI). If the total bit length of UCI information bits is two or fewer, the UE may select a first PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “0”. If the total bit length of UCI information bits is greater than two and less than or equal to a first configured value, the UE may select a second PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “1”).
With regards to claim 4, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 3.
Chae fails to teach:
wherein, to receive the signaling indicating at least the portion of the one or more known bit values, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: decode, prior to the plurality of decoding procedures, one or more previous downlink control information messages, wherein the one or more previous downlink control information messages indicate the one or more known bit values.
However, Shelby teaches:
wherein, to receive the signaling indicating at least the portion of the one or more known bit values, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: decode, prior to the plurality of decoding procedures, one or more previous downlink control information messages, wherein the one or more previous downlink control information messages indicate the one or more known bit values (0089, Polar coding, as described in greater detail below, divides (or ‘polarizes’) a plurality of communication channels into more reliable and less reliable channels. The more reliable channels are often used to carry the payload information of communication, and these bits of communication are often referred to as ‘information bits’. In some embodiments, the transmitter may append a sequence of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits at the end of the information bits. The less reliable channels typically contain reference bits that are known to both the transmitter and the receiver, commonly referred to as ‘frozen bits’. The frozen bits may be utilized by the receiver to facilitate the decoding process.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the method of Chae which teaches customization signals to select memory and status registers with the teaching of Shelby which teaches perform in parallel, secondary decoding procedures, and polar coding in order to mitigate interference from blind decoding.
With regards to claim 5, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 4.
Chae fails to teach:
wherein, to receive the signaling indicating at least the portion of the one or more known bit values, the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: learn at least the portion of the one or more known bit values according to one or more commonalities between a plurality of previous downlink control information messages of the one or more previous downlink control information messages.
However, Shelby teaches:
wherein, to receive the signaling indicating at least the portion of the one or more known bit values, the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: learn at least the portion of the one or more known bit values according to one or more commonalities between a plurality of previous downlink control information messages of the one or more previous downlink control information messages (0089, Polar coding, as described in greater detail below, divides (or ‘polarizes’) a plurality of communication channels into more reliable and less reliable channels. The more reliable channels are often used to carry the payload information of communication, and these bits of communication are often referred to as ‘information bits’. In some embodiments, the transmitter may append a sequence of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits at the end of the information bits. The less reliable channels typically contain reference bits that are known to both the transmitter and the receiver, commonly referred to as ‘frozen bits’. The frozen bits may be utilized by the receiver to facilitate the decoding process.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the method of Chae which teaches customization signals to select memory and status registers with the teaching of Shelby which teaches perform in parallel, secondary decoding procedures, and polar coding in order to mitigate interference from blind decoding.
With regards to claim 6, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the UE to: perform a bitmap generation procedure based at least in part on the one or more known bit values, wherein the second decoding procedure is based at least in part on the bitmap generation procedure (0147, Configured SCells for a UE may be activated and deactivated based on, for example, traffic and channel conditions. Deactivation of an SCell may mean that PDCCH and PDSCH reception on the SCell is stopped and PUSCH, SRS, and CQI transmissions on the SCell are stopped. Configured SCells may be activated and deactivated using a MAC CE with respect to FIG. 4B. For example, a MAC CE may use a bitmap (e.g., one bit per SCell) to indicate which SCells (e.g., in a subset of configured SCells) for the UE are activated or deactivated.).
With regards to claim 7, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein the respective integrity check comprises a cyclic redundancy check (0205 & 0212, A base station may attach one or more cyclic redundancy check (CRC) parity bits to a DCI in order to facilitate detection of transmission errors. The UE may determine a DCI as valid for the UE, in response to CRC checking (e.g., scrambled bits for CRC parity bits of the DCI matching a RNTI value)).
With regards to claim 8, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 1.
Chae fails to teach:
wherein one or both of the first decoding procedure or the second decoding procedure comprises a polar decoding procedure.
However, Shelby teaches:
wherein one or both of the first decoding procedure or the second decoding procedure comprises a polar decoding procedure (0089, Polar coding, as described in greater detail below, divides (or ‘polarizes’) a plurality of communication channels into more reliable and less reliable channels. The more reliable channels are often used to carry the payload information of communication, and these bits of communication are often referred to as ‘information bits’. In some embodiments, the transmitter may append a sequence of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits at the end of the information bits. The less reliable channels typically contain reference bits that are known to both the transmitter and the receiver, commonly referred to as ‘frozen bits’. The frozen bits may be utilized by the receiver to facilitate the decoding process.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the method of Chae which teaches customization signals to select memory and status registers with the teaching of Shelby which teaches perform in parallel, secondary decoding procedures, and polar coding in order to mitigate interference from blind decoding.
With regards to claim 9, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the UE of claim 8 and teaches:
wherein: the one or more known bit values are associated with frozen bits in the polar decoding procedure, and each known bit value of the one or more known bit values comprises a respective logic state of a set of two logic states (0086 & 0087, In this example, NDI compression may be achieved through a three-state indicator; a frozen bit may be provided to a Polar decoder to help improve the performance and efficiency of decoding the feedback report).
With regards to claim 10, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the non-transitory computer
readable storage medium and corresponds to claim 1 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 11, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 10 and corresponds to claim 2 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 12, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 10 and
corresponds to claim 3 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 13, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 12 and corresponds to claim 4 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 14, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 13 and corresponds to claim 5 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 15, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 10 and corresponds to claim 6 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 16, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 10 and corresponds to claim 7 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 17, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the method of claim 10 and corresponds to claim 8 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 18, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium and corresponds to claim 1 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 19, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18 and corresponds to claim 2 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 20, Chae in view of Shelby teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18 and corresponds to claim 3 as analyzed accordingly.
Prior Art Made of Record
The prior art mode of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
Applicant’s disclosure:
CHOI (US 2023/0319808 A1): A method for interpreting a DCI field in case that a BWP is switched by a UE that has received multi PDSCH scheduling and multi PUSCH scheduling configuration is provided.
Papasakellariou (US 2023/0283401 A1): User equipments (UEs) and base station (BSs) operating in 5G systems flexibly support multiple service/priority types associated with different reliability or latency requirements in a same downlink or uplink bandwidth part.
Conclusion
Applicant's arguments filed 06/25/2026 regarding the prior art rejections of Claims 1 – 20 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action.
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/V.P./Examiner, Art Unit 2111
/GUERRIER MERANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2111 8/21/2026
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