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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/14/2026 regarding the prior art rejections of Claims 1 – 20 have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
The Examiner disagrees the cited references do teach a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message. Chae alone teaches both blind decoding and DCI decoding. (Chae: 0212, 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).)
The Examiner disagrees the parallel symbol streams of Chae are relevant to “downlink control information message” because Chae uses the same control channel (PDCCH) for both uplink and downlink commands for the symbol streams. (Chae: 0106, a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) for carrying downlink data and signaling messages from the DL-SCH, as well as paging messages from the PCH; a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) for carrying downlink control information (DCI), which may include downlink scheduling commands, uplink scheduling grants, and uplink power control commands;)
The Examiner disagrees Khoshnevisan does overcomes Chae’s deficiencies as it teaches the known bit value to assist in decoding (e.g., a frozen bit may be provided to a Polar decoder to help improve the performance and efficiency of decoding the feedback report) (Khoshnevisan: 0087) The feedback report of Khoshnevisan is relevant because it refers to HARQ feedback from channel transmissions. (Khoshnevisan: 0087 & 0088, the NDI value for the HARQ process in the one-shot report is known; FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a multiplexed feedback reports 500 that supports acknowledgment feedback technique; may establish multiple CCs for downlink transmissions, uplink transmissions, or both;) By combining both prior art sources, one skilled in the art could conclude the claimed invention.
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 Khoshnevisan (US 2020/0366415 A1).
With regards to claim 1, Chae teaches:
A wireless device, 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 wireless device 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 according to configuration parameters of a search space set. The UE may monitor a set of PDCCH candidates in one or more CORESETs for detecting one or more DCIs); 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 (0123, Before transmission, the data may be mapped to a series of complex symbols (e.g., M-quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) or M-phase shift keying (M-PSK) symbols), referred to as source symbols, and divided into F parallel symbol streams. The F parallel symbol streams may be treated as though they are in the frequency domain and used as inputs to an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) block that transforms them into the time domain); 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:
and a second decoding procedure that is based at least in part on 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, Khoshnevisan teaches:
and a second decoding procedure that is based at least in part on 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 (0087, In some cases, if the particular HARQ process has not been used, the base station may use this known bit value to assist in decoding);
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 Khoshnevisan which teaches initialization mode and run-time modes in order to run different self tests under various parameters.
With regards to claim 2, Chae teaches the wireless device 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 teaches the wireless device of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the wireless device 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 teaches the wireless device 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 wireless device 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, Khoshnevisan 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 wireless device 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 (0087, In some cases, if the particular HARQ process has not been used, the base station may use this known bit value to assist in decoding).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the device of Chae which teaches to monitor for a downlink control information message with the teaching of Khoshnevisan which teaches learning known bits according to downlink control information in order to leverage known bits of a downlink control information messages.
With regards to claim 5, Chae teaches the wireless device 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 wireless device 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, Khoshnevisan 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 wireless device 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 (0087, In some cases, if the particular HARQ process has not been used, the base station may use this known bit value to assist in decoding).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the device of Chae which teaches to monitor for a downlink control information message with the teaching of Khoshnevisan which teaches learning known bits according to downlink control information in order to leverage known bits of a downlink control information messages.
With regards to claim 6, Chae teaches the wireless device of claim 1 and teaches:
wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively further operable to execute the code to cause the wireless device 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 teaches the wireless device 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 teaches the wireless device 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, Khoshnevisan teaches:
wherein one or both of the first decoding procedure or the second decoding procedure comprises a polar decoding procedure (0087, In some examples of the method, apparatuses, and non-transitory computer-readable medium described herein, the default data indicator may be applied at a polar decoder as a frozen bit to assist decoding of the feedback report when scheduling information that indicates the first feedback process identification has not been transmitted to the UE).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the device of Chae which teaches to monitor for a downlink control information message with the teaching of Khoshnevisan which teaches polar decoding procedure in order to help improve the performance and efficiency of decoding.
With regards to claim 9, Chae teaches the wireless device 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).
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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/14/2026 regarding the prior art rejections of Claims 1 – 20 have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
The Remarks argue that:
The Office Action rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the stated combinations of Chae and Khoshnevisan.
Factual findings made by the Office are the "necessary underpinnings to establish
obviousness." MPEP § 2141(II). The Office must set forth "the relevant teachings of the prior art relied upon." MPEP § 2142. In KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., the Supreme Court noted that the analysis supporting a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 must be made explicit. See 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007); MPEP § 2142. "[O]bviousness [also] requires a suggestion of all limitations in a claim." In re Wada andMurphy, Appeal 2007-3733 (citing CFMT; Inc. v. YieldUP International Corp., 349 F.3d 1333, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2003)).
Independent Claims 1, 10, and 18
The cited references-alone or in any combination-have not been shown to teach or suggest all of the features of independent claims 1, 10, and 18. For example, the cited references have not been shown to teach or suggest "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 independent claim 1.
Chae generally describes that a "first wireless device determines a DMRS configuration of a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) based on based on [sic] the type and the length of the DMRS." Chae, Abstract. At the portions cited by the Office Action, Chae describes mapping physical signals and physical channels onto orthogonal frequency divisional multiplexing symbols. See id. [0123]. Specifically, Chae describes that "data may be mapped to a series of complex symbols. .. referred to as source symbols, and divided into F parallel symbol streams."Id. Chae further describes that an "IFFT block may take in F source symbols at a time, one from each of the F parallel symbol streams, and use each source symbol to modulate the amplitude and phase of one of F sinusoidal basis functions that correspond to the F orthogonal subcarriers."Id. That is, Chae describes mapping data to source symbols, dividing the source symbols into parallel symbol streams, and using the parallel symbol streams to modulate functions that correspond to orthogonal subcarriers.
However, dividing source symbols into parallel symbol streams for modulating sinusoidal basis functions, as discussed in Chae, does not teach or suggest "perform, in parallel, a plurality of decoding procedures on the downlink control information message," as recited in independent claim 1. The parallel symbol streams in Chae are not analogous to "a plurality of decoding procedures," as claimed, for at least the reason that a source symbol is not a decoding procedure. Further, the parallel symbol streams in Chae have not been shown to be relevant to any "downlink control information message," as recited in independent claim 1. Indeed, Chae describes that the "F parallel symbol streams may be mixed using an FFT block before being processed by the IFFT block," and that "[t]his operation produces Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)-precoded OFDM symbols and may be used by UEs in the uplink to reduce the peak to average power ratio." Id. (emphasis added). Accordingly, even if the parallel symbol streams could be considered relevant to the claimed "plurality of decoding procedures"-which Applicant does not concede-Chae's description of processing the parallel symbol streams for uplink does not teach or suggest "decoding procedures on the downlink control information message," as recited in independent claim 1. Thus, Chae does not teach or suggest at least the aforementioned features of independent claim 1.
The Office Action has not shown Khoshnevisan to overcome the deficiencies of Chae. For example, Khoshnevisan discusses "group or one-shot acknowledgment (ACK) feedback reporting, in which feedback for a number of different downlink transmissions may be provided by a user equipment." Khoshnevisan, Abstract. At the portions cited by the Office Action, Khoshnevisan describes that "the ULE may not be scheduled for transmissions for a particular HARQ ID, and in such cases the one-shot feedback report may include a default value.” Id.[0087] (emphasis added). Khoshnevisan further describes that "if such a HARQ ID has notbeen scheduled [the base station] may know the value for that particular bit in the feedback report," and that "if the particular HARQ process has not been used, the base station may use this known bit value to assist in decoding (e.g., a frozen bit may be provided to a Polar decoder to help improve the performance and efficiency of decoding the feedback report)." Id. (emphasis added).
However, the Office Action has not shown how using a "known bit value to assist in
decoding .. the feedback report," as discussed in Khoshnevisan, teaches or suggests "a second decoding procedure that is based at least in part on 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 independent claim 1. For example, the Office Action fails to show how the feedback report in Khoshnevisan is relevant to "the downlink control information message," as claimed. Moreover, the Office Action has not shown how "us[ing] this known bit value to assist in decoding . .. the feedback report," teaches or suggests "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 independent claim 1. Nowhere in the cited portions has the Office Action shown Khoshnevisan to contemplate, much less teach or suggest, a "downlink control information format." Thus, the Office Action has not shown Khoshnevisan to teach or suggest "a second decoding procedure that is based at least in part on 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 independent claim 1.
Therefore, for at least these reasons, independent claim 1 is allowable over any combination of the cited references. Independent claims 10 and 18 are likewise allowable for at least similar reasons.
Accordingly, Applicant requests that the rejection of independent claims 1, 10, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 be reconsidered and withdrawn.
Dependent Claims 2-9, 11-17, 19, and 20
Dependent claims 2-9, 11-17, 19, and 20 each depend from one of independent claims 1, 10, and 18 and are therefore allowable for at least the same reasons that independent claims 1, 10, and 18 are allowable. Dependent claims 2-9, 11-17, 19, and 20 also recite allowable features that have not been shown to be taught or suggested by Chae and Khoshnevisan, alone or in any combination.
Accordingly, for at least these reasons, Applicant requests that the rejection of dependent claims 2-9, 11-17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 be reconsidered and withdrawn.
Conclusion
Applicant's arguments filed 01/14/2026 regarding the prior art rejections of Claims 1 – 20 have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
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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/V.P./Examiner, Art Unit 2111
/GUERRIER MERANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2111 3/24/2026