DETAILED ACTION
This action is a response to an application filed on 7/10/24 in which claims 1-30 are pending.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3-13, 15-25, 27-30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Seo et al. (Pub. No.: 2019/0245655), herein Seo.
As to claim 1, Seo teaches an apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:
one or more memories (Seo Fig. 9 processor); and
one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors individually or collectively configured to (Seo Fig. 9 memory):
transmit an uplink transmission using a resource selected from a resource pool, wherein the resource pool is allocated for a plurality of user equipments (UEs) (Seo [0010] The UE may receive information on each of the first resource pool for initial transmission of the uplink signal and Fig. 8 Uplink signal transmission in contention based multiple access); and
receive a feedback indicating whether one or more resources in the resource pool have been successfully decoded by a network node, wherein a retransmission of the uplink transmission is based at least in part on the feedback (Seo Fig. 8 ACK/NACK signal and retransmission of uplink and [0111] If ACK signal is not received at the ACK reception timing suggested as above or within a certain time window from the ACK reception timing, the UE may recognize corresponding UL transmission as NACK and perform retransmission)
As to claim 13, Seo teaches an apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:
one or more memories (Seo Fig. 9 memory); and
one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors individually or collectively configured to (Seo Fig. 9 processors):
receive an uplink transmission using a resource selected from a resource pool, wherein the resource pool is allocated for a plurality of user equipments (UEs) (Seo [0010] The UE may receive information on each of the first resource pool for initial transmission of the uplink signal and Fig. 8 Uplink signal transmission in contention based multiple access); and
transmit a feedback indicating whether one or more resources in the resource pool have been successfully decoded by a network node, wherein a retransmission of the uplink transmission is based at least in part on the feedback (Seo Fig. 8 ACK/NACK signal and retransmission of uplink and [0111] If ACK signal is not received at the ACK reception timing suggested as above or within a certain time window from the ACK reception timing, the UE may recognize corresponding UL transmission as NACK and perform retransmission)
As to claim 25, Seo teaches a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
transmitting an uplink transmission using a resource selected from a resource pool, wherein the resource pool is allocated for a plurality of UEs (Seo [0010] The UE may receive information on each of the first resource pool for initial transmission of the uplink signal and Fig. 8 Uplink signal transmission in contention based multiple access); and
receiving a feedback indicating whether one or more resources in the resource pool have been successfully decoded by a network node, wherein a retransmission of the uplink transmission is based at least in part on the feedback (Seo Fig. 8 ACK/NACK signal and retransmission of uplink and [0111] If ACK signal is not received at the ACK reception timing suggested as above or within a certain time window from the ACK reception timing, the UE may recognize corresponding UL transmission as NACK and perform retransmission)
As to claim 28, Seo teaches a method of wireless communication performed by a network node, comprising:
receiving an uplink transmission using a resource selected from a resource pool, wherein the resource pool is allocated for a plurality of user equipments (UEs) (Seo [0010] The UE may receive information on each of the first resource pool for initial transmission of the uplink signal and Fig. 8 Uplink signal transmission in contention based multiple access); and
transmitting a feedback indicating whether one or more resources in the resource pool have been successfully decoded by the network node, wherein a retransmission of the uplink transmission is based at least in part on the feedback (Seo Fig. 8 ACK/NACK signal and retransmission of uplink and [0111] If ACK signal is not received at the ACK reception timing suggested as above or within a certain time window from the ACK reception timing, the UE may recognize corresponding UL transmission as NACK and perform retransmission)
As to claim 3, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to: retransmit the uplink transmission based at least in part on the feedback indicating a negative acknowledgement (NACK), wherein the NACK indicates that the one or more resources in the resource pool have not been successfully decoded by the network node (Seo Fig. 8 ACK/NACK signal and retransmission of uplink and [0111] If ACK signal is not received at the ACK reception timing suggested as above or within a certain time window from the ACK reception timing, the UE may recognize corresponding UL transmission as NACK and perform retransmission)
Claims 15 and 29 are rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 3.
As to claim 4, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein no retransmission of the uplink transmission is performed based at least in part on the feedback indicating an acknowledgement (ACK), and wherein the ACK indicates that the one or more resources in the resource pool have been successfully decoded by the network node (Seo [0107] If the network successfully performs decoding by receiving contention based transmission, the network may perform ACK transmission to the corresponding UE based on UE ID, NDI and/or HARQ process number included in the corresponding message)
Claims 16, 27 and 30 are rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 4.
As to claim 5, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the feedback includes a bitmap, wherein a bit in the bitmap maps to the resource in the resource pool based at least in part on a one-to-one mapping, and a value of the bit indicates whether the resource has been successfully decoded by the network node (Seo [0113] The network attempts decoding per unit resource in a resource pool of contention based transmission. If decoding/detection is failed and/or a transmission UE in a corresponding resource cannot be specified, the network may transmit NACK signal per unit resource in the form of bitmap.
Claim 17 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 5.
As to claim 6, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the feedback includes a bitmap, wherein a bit in the bitmap maps to multiple resources in the resource pool based at least in part on a many-to-one mapping, a value of the bit indicates whether the multiple resources have been successfully decoded by the network node, and the many-to-one mapping is fixed and indicated during a configured grant resource pool configuration (Seo [0114] As described above, one of decoding failure causes for contention based UL transmission in the network is that a signal power of the corresponding UE is sufficient but decoding is failed due to interference. In one embodiment of the present invention, this case is defined as NACK (e.g., bitmap is set to ‘1’). If the UE fails to receive ACK signal and receives NACK for a resource used for its transmission, the UE may perform retransmission. At this time, the UE may apply a method for handling interference to retransmission)
Claim 18 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 6.
As to claim 7, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the feedback includes a bitmap, wherein a bit in the bitmap maps to a resource group of the resource pool, and the bit indicates an acknowledgement based at least in part on at least one successful decoding at the network node in multiple resources of the resource group (Seo [0118] Meanwhile, if ACK is received and NACK bitmap for a corresponding resource pool is received, the UE which has performed contention based UL transmission may disregard the NACK bitmap)
Claim 19 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 7.
As to claim 8, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the feedback includes a bitmap, wherein one or more bits in the bitmap maps to a resource group of the resource pool, and the one or more bits indicate an acknowledgement (ACK) for the resource group, a negative acknowledgement (NACK) for the resource group, or mixed feedback for the resource group (Seo [0113] The network attempts decoding per unit resource in a resource pool of contention based transmission. If decoding/detection is failed and/or a transmission UE in a corresponding resource cannot be specified, the network may transmit NACK signal per unit resource in the form of bitmap.
Claim 20 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 8.
As to claim 9, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein:
the ACK is in response to the network node successfully decoding at least one resource in the resource group, and no uplink transmission is detected for other resources in the resource group;
the NACK is in response to the network node not successfully decoding all resources in the resource group (Seo [0114] As described above, one of decoding failure causes for contention based UL transmission in the network is that a signal power of the corresponding UE is sufficient but decoding is failed due to interference. In one embodiment of the present invention, this case is defined as NACK (e.g., bitmap is set to ‘1’). If the UE fails to receive ACK signal and receives NACK for a resource used for its transmission) or
the mixed feedback is in response to the network node successfully decoding at least one resource in the resource group, and the network node detecting an uplink transmission with no successful decoding in at least one resource of the resource group.
Claim 21 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 9.
As to claim 10, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the mixed feedback includes additional bits, wherein each bit in the additional bits is mapped to one resource in the resource group (Seo [0113] The network attempts decoding per unit resource in a resource pool of contention based transmission. If decoding/detection is failed and/or a transmission UE in a corresponding resource cannot be specified, the network may transmit NACK signal per unit resource in the form of bitmap. For example, if the number of unit resources for a specific resource pool is 10, the network may notify NACK through a bitmap of 10 bits)
Claim 22 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 10.
As to claim 11, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to: receive, via a downlink control information (DCI) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, information that indicates one or more of:
a UE identifier associated with the uplink transmission (Seo [0124] The ACK signal may be signaled UE-specifically based on the UE identifier.), or
one or more bits of the uplink transmission, wherein the retransmission of the uplink transmission is based at least in part on the information.
Claim 23 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 11.
As to claim 12, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to:
receive, via a downlink control information (DCI) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, information based at least in part on the uplink transmission being detected but not successfully decoded by the network node, wherein the information indicates one or more of:
a transmit power control associated with the resource, or an uplink retransmit grant for the resource (Seo [0124] For example, if detection of the uplink signal is determined to have been failed due to a lack of a transmission power, the base station may set the corresponding bit value to a first value, and if detection of the uplink signal is determined to have been failed due to interference from another UE)
Claim 24 is rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 12.
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) 2, 14 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo and Awadin et al. (Pub. No.: 2023/0163973), herein Awadin.
As to claim 2, Seo teaches the apparatus of claim 1,
Seo does not teach
wherein the one or more processors, to receive the feedback, are individually or collectively configured to receive, via a downlink control information (DCI), a group common physical downlink control channel (GC-PDCCH) transmission that indicates the feedback.
However Awadin does teach
wherein the one or more processors, to receive the feedback, are individually or collectively configured to receive, via a downlink control information (DCI), a group common physical downlink control channel (GC-PDCCH) transmission that indicates the feedback (Awadin [0254] one bit field in GC-PDCCH, such as DCI 2_0, or UE-specific DCI indicates whether subband operation is on/off)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Seo and Awadin, because Awadin teaches us [0254] if the bit field is set to one/zero, subband operation is on/off, respectively. Also, on/off subband operation may be based on toggling of this bit.
Claims 14 and 26 are rejected for the same reasons stated in claim 2.
Conclusion
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AYANAH S. GEORGE
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2467
/AYANAH S GEORGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
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