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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is responsive to Application # 18823914 filed 09/04/2024. Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
Priority
Acknowledgement is made to this application's claim for priority to provisional application 62543716 filed 08/10/2017 and provisional application 62554406 filed 09/05/2017.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1, 8, and 15 recite “wherein the first physical resource and a second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resource precedes the second physical resource in a time domain”. It is not clear if both the first and the second physical resource are part of the PUCCH or not. As best understood by the examiner and for the purpose of applying prior art, the examiner considers the second physical resource as any physical resource that follows the PUCCH resource in time domain.
Claim 1, 8, and 15 recite “a two part channel state information (CSI) that includes information bits of a first uplink control information (UCI) type and information bits of a second UCI type”. It is not clear whether the first UCI type and the second UCI type belong to both the CSI parts or one of the CSI parts. It is also not clear whether both the CSI parts or one of the CSI part is mapped to the first physical resource.
Claim(s) 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 are also rejected because they are dependent upon rejected claims 1, 5, and 14 as set forth above and include limitations of the claims 1, 5 and 14 respectively.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claim 1-20 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1-19 of U.S. Patent No. US 12126564 B2. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because same steps are used by an UE and a BS.
Instant Application 18823914
U.S. Patent No. US 12126564 B2 (Application 17847595)
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a memory interface; and one or more processors, coupled to the memory interface and configured to:
encode a two part channel state information (CSI) that includes information bits of a first uplink control information (UCI) type and information bits of a second UCI type, wherein the first UCI type is a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) and the second UCI type is a scheduling request (SR);
map the encoded information bits of the first UCI type and the second UCI type onto a first physical resource,
wherein the first physical resource and a second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resource precedes the second physical resource in a time domain;
jointly encode information bits of the first and second UCI types to generate, respectively, encoded HARQ-ACK bits and encoded SR bits; and
output, for transmission to a base station (BS), the two part CSI in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).
8. An apparatus, comprising: a memory interface; and one or more processors, coupled to the memory interface and configured to:
encode a two part channel state information (CSI) including: encoding information bits of a first CSI part and information bits of a second CSI part to generate, respectively, encoded bits of the first CSI part and encoded bits of the second CSI part; and mapping the encoded bits of the first CSI part onto a first physical resource and the encoded bits of the second CSI part onto a second physical resource,
wherein the first physical resource and the second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resources precedes the second physical resource in a time domain;
encode information bits of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) feedback and of a scheduling request (SR) jointly to generate, respectively, encoded HARQ-ACK bits and encoded SR bits, wherein the HARQ-ACK bits and the SR bits are mapped to the first physical resource; and
outputting, for transmission to a base station (BS), the two part CSI in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).
15. An apparatus, comprising: a memory interface; and one or more processors coupled to the memory interface and configured to:
decode a two part channel state information (CSI) that includes information bits of a first uplink control information (UCI) type and information bits of a second UCI type from a first physical resource, wherein the first UCI type is a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) and the second UCI type is a scheduling request (SR),
wherein the first physical resource and a second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resource precedes the second physical resource in a time domain; and
communicate with a user equipment (UE) based on the two part CSI.
1. An apparatus comprising: a memory interface; and one or more processors configured to:
decode a two part channel state information (CSI) that is part of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), the decoding including: decoding symbols of a first CSI part on a first physical resource of the two part CSI and decoding symbols of a second CSI part on a second physical resource of the two part CSI,
wherein the first physical resource and the second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resources precedes the second physical resource in a time domain; decoding bits of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) feedback and decoding bits of a scheduling request (SR) from the first physical resource; and
communicate with a user equipment (UE) based on the two part CSI.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3-5, 10-12, and 17-19 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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 1, 8, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu et al. (Lyu hereinafter) (US 20180198569 A1) in view of Falahati et al. (Falahati hereinafter) (US 20140078974 A1).
Regarding claim 1 and claim 8, Lyu teaches, An apparatus, comprising:
a memory interface (Lyu; UCI transmitted by UE, Par. 0256); and
one or more processors, coupled to the memory interface and configured to (Lyu; UE, Par. 0256):
encode a two part channel state information (CSI) that includes information bits of a first uplink control information (UCI) type and information bits of a second UCI type, wherein the first UCI type is a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) and the second UCI type is a scheduling request (SR) (Lyu; If the resource is a quantity of encoded bits, channel encoding is separately performed on the first UCI and the second UCI, Par. 0145; the first UCI is CSI of a first report type, a HARQ-ACK, and a scheduling request (SR). The second UCI is CSI of a second report type, Par. 0094; physical uplink channel is of the PUCCH, Par.0161);
map the encoded information bits of the first UCI type and the second UCI type onto a first physical resource, wherein the first physical resource (Lyu; the encoded vector sequence of the first UCI and the encoded vector sequence of the second UCI are mapped to the physical uplink channel in a frequency domain-first and time domain-last manner or in a time domain-first and frequency domain-last manner, Par.165 [Note that the first physical resource is the PUCCH resource]) and a second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resource precedes the second physical resource in a time domain (Lyu; The user equipment may communicate with one or more core networks by using a radio access network (RAN), Par. 0090 [Note that an UE and base station communicate over time in a time multiplexing fashion and hence the second physical resource is the resource that follows the first physical resource]);
encode information bits of the first and second UCI types to generate, respectively, encoded HARQ-ACK bits and encoded SR bits (Lyu; obtain the encoded bit sequence q.sub.0.sup.1, q.sub.1.sup.1, q.sub.2.sup.1 . . . q.sub.Q.sub.1.sub.−1.sup.1 of the first UCI, Par.145); and
output, for transmission to a base station (BS), the two part CSI in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (Lyu; physical uplink channel is of the PUCCH, Par.0161).
Although Lyu teaches encoding UCI which includes CSI, HARQ and SR and that an UE communicate with base station, but fails to explicitly teach,
encode jointly.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Falahati teaches,
encode jointly (Falahati; use a joint encoding approach, in which the CSI, ACK/NACK, and SR bits are concatenated before a single or dual-RM encoder, Par. 0070).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lyu to include the use of concatenation as taught by Falahati in order to use a single channel encoder (Falahati ; Par. 0070).
Specifically for Claim 8, Lyu teaches, A user equipment (UE), comprising: a memory interface; and one or more processors, coupled to the memory interface and configured to (Lyu; UCI transmitted by UE, Par. 0256).
Regarding claim 15, Lyu teaches, An apparatus, comprising:
a memory interface (Lyu; a network device, Par. 0252); and
one or more processors coupled to the memory interface and configured to (Lyu; a network device, Par. 0252):
decode a two part channel state information (CSI) that includes information bits of a first uplink control information (UCI) type and information bits of a second UCI type from a first physical resource (Lyu; obtain an encoded bit sequence of first UCI and an encoded bit sequence of second UCI on the physical uplink channel, Par. 0254),
wherein the first UCI type is a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) (HARQ-ACK) and the second UCI type is a scheduling request (SR) (Lyu; obtain an encoded bit sequence of first UCI and an encoded bit sequence of second UCI on the physical uplink channel, Par. 0254; the first UCI is CSI of a first report type, a HARQ-ACK, and a scheduling request (SR). The second UCI is CSI of a second report type ... The CSI has the following types ... a first type: type 1 (Type 1), which supports a subband channel quality indicator (CQI) feedback selected by UE ... a second type: type 1a (Type 1a), which supports a subband CQI feedback and a precoding matrix indicator (Precoding Matrix Indicator, PMI) feedback, Par. 0094-0098; physical uplink channel is of the PUCCH, Par.0161),
wherein the first physical resource (Lyu; physical uplink channel is of the PUCCH, Par.0161) and a second physical resource are multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner and the first physical resource precedes the second physical resource in a time domain (Lyu; The user equipment may communicate with one or more core networks by using a radio access network (RAN), Par. 0090 [Note that an UE and base station communicate over time in a time multiplexing fashion and hence the second physical resource is the resource that follows the first physical resource]); and
communicate with a user equipment (UE) based on the two part CSI (Lyu; when UE simultaneously uses a plurality of downlink component carriers to receive downlink data, the UE needs to feed back channel state information, Par. 0003).
Although Lyu teaches information bits including CSI, HARQ and SR, but fails to explicitly teach how they are arranged. However, in the same field of endeavor, Falahati teaches in Par. 0070 that “the CSI, ACK/NACK, and SR bits are concatenated before a single or dual-RM encoder”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lyu to include the use of concatenation as taught by Falahati in order to use a single channel encoder (Falahati ; Par. 0070).
Claim 2, 9, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu-Falahati and in further view of He et al. (He hereinafter) (US 20200228289 A1).
Regarding claim 2, claim 9, and claim 16, Lyu-Falahati teaches, The apparatus of claim 1, The UE of claim 8, and The apparatus of claim 15 respectively.
Lyu-Falahati fail to explicitly teach,
wherein at least one of the information bits of the first UCI type or the information bits of the second UCI type are encoded with zero padding.
However, in the same field of endeavor, He teaches,
wherein at least one of the bits of the HARQ-ACK feedback or the bits of the SR are encoded with zero padding (He; a HARQ-ACK bit sequence is constructed as follows … the first part of the bit sequence may be used to indicate the number of zero-bit padding with a given codebook size derived from a configured level, Par. 0018).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lyu-Falahati to include the use of zero-bit padding as taught by He in order to construct HARQ bit sequence (He ; Par. 0018).
Claim 6-7, 13-14, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu-Falahati and in further view of Matsumura et al. (Matsumura hereinafter) (US 20190342877 A1).
Regarding claim 6 and claim 13, Lyu-Falahati teaches, The apparatus of claim 1 and The UE of claim 8 respectively.
Lyu-Falahati fail to explicitly teach,
wherein the first physical resource and the second physical resource are multiplexed according to a combination of TDM and a frequency divisional multiplexing (FDM) manner.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Matsumura teaches,
wherein the first physical resource and the second physical resource are multiplexed according to a combination of TDM and a frequency divisional multiplexing (FDM) manner (Matsumura; The PUCCH may be time-division-multiplexed (TDM) and/or frequency-division-multiplexed (FDM) with a UL data channel ... “PDSCH”) and/or a DL control channel, Par. 0072).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lyu-Falahati to include the use of TDM and/or FDM as taught by Matsumura in order to communicate with BS (Matsumura; Par. 0072).
Regarding claim 7, claim 14, and claim 20, Lyu-Falahati teaches, The apparatus of claim 1, The UE of claim 8, and The apparatus of claim 15 respectively.
Lyu-Falahati fail to explicitly teach,
wherein the second physical resource is different from the first physical resource.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Matsumura teaches,
wherein the second physical resource is different from the first physical resource (Matsumura; The PUCCH may be time-division-multiplexed (TDM) and/or frequency-division-multiplexed (FDM) with a UL data channel ... “PDSCH”) and/or a DL control channel, Par. 0072).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lyu-Falahati to include the use of TDM and/or FDM as taught by Matsumura in order to communicate with BS (Matsumura; Par. 0072).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Reference Takeda et al. (US 20200106546 A1) teaches in Par. 0060 that “if the overall number of bits of these HARQ-ACK/SR and CSI is not larger than a predetermined threshold, the user terminal may multiplex not only the HARQ-ACK/SR, but also the CSI, over format B”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHARMIN CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)272-6419. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/SHARMIN CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2416
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