DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a Non-final action for application number 18/835,657 in response to an original application filed on 08/02/2024.
Claims 45-64 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claims 45, 52 and 59 are independent claims.
Claims 1-44 have been cancelled.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 08/02/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 45, 46, 48-53, 55-60 and 62-64 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sengupta et al. (US 2021/0376966 A1) in view of Ye et al. (WO 2020/146580 A1).
Regarding claims 45, 52 and 59, a method, performed by a terminal device, [Sengupta et al., Figure 5, Ref # 115-h] the method comprising:
receiving a configuration of a negative acknowledgement (NACK)-only based feedback mode, [Figure 5, Ref # 515, base station 105-c may transmit (and UE 115-h may receive) a configuration message identifying the set of resources. In some cases, the configuration message may also provide information for feedback multiplexing, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 146)],
and transmitting, to a network device, a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) to provide one or more information bits associated with hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, [provide improved efficiency in PUCCH resource allocation where group NACK indications are being provided to base station 105-b, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 137)], by selecting a PUCCH resource from a plurality of PUCCH resources based on a value corresponding to the one or more information bits according to a mapping table for the NACK- only based feedback mode, [the UEs may select a subset of resources from the set of resources 315 based on their respective channel metric, and then use one or more of the resources (e.g., RE(s)) in the selected subset of resources for transmitting a feedback message to base station 105-b in response to a multicast communication, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 137)],
Sengupta et al. fails to explicitly teach that wherein: a first PUCCH resource among the plurality of PUCCH resources is selected, in a case where a number of the one or more information bits is 2 and only a first information bit among the one or more information bits represents NACK, and the first PUCCH resource is selected, in a case where the number of the one or more information bits is 3 and only a first information bit and a third information bit among the one or more information bits represent NACK,
Ye et al. teaches that PUCCH format 0 may support user multiplexing on the same PUCCH resource (e.g., in NR). One or more (e.g., 12 sequences) may be used for PUCCH format 0. If a WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) sends a single bit of HARQ-ACK/NACK feedback, the WTRU may utilize two (2) sequences, and the resource may be shared by one or more WTRUs (e.g., 6 WTRUs). If a WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) sends two bits of HARQ-ACK/NACK feedback, the WTRU may utilize 4 sequences and the resource may be shared by one or more WTRUs (e.g., 3 WTRUs). A WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) may use a different initial cyclic shift value, (Ye et al., Paragraph 125),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Sengupta et al. by including that a first PUCCH resource among the plurality of PUCCH resources is selected, in a case where a number of the one or more information bits is 2 and only a first information bit among the one or more information bits represents NACK, and the first PUCCH resource is selected, in a case where the number of the one or more information bits is 3 and only a first information bit and a third information bit among the one or more information bits represent NACK, (Ye et al., Paragraph 125), in order to provide feedback for sidelink communications, (Ye et al., Paragraph 4).
Regarding claims 46, 53 and 60, the method wherein the one or more information bits comprise at least one NACK value, [if one unicast and one multicast feedback are to have an ACK/NACK indication, a cyclic shift value 0 may indicate both failed, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 123)].
Regarding claims 48, 55 and 62, the method wherein the mapping table indicates a mapping of values corresponding to the one or more information bits to the plurality of PUCCH resources for the NACK-only based feedback mode, [UEs 115 reporting multiplexed feedback messages 215 may be configured with a number of PUCCH resource IDs that are mapped to different combinations of feedback (e.g., different combinations of unicast/multicast feedback and resource subset IDs such as M, M+1, . . . , M+N−1, wherein N is the number of ACK/NACK bits), that are designed for joint feedback of unicast and multicast, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 123)].
Regarding claims 49, 56 and 63, the method wherein all PUCCH resources in the plurality of PUCCH resources associated with the NACK- only based feedback mode have a same starting time position, [bitmap may be provided with the multiplexed feedback, with each position in the bitmap mapped to a different subset of the common resource pool, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 63)].
Regarding claims 50, 57 and 64, the method wherein the one or more information bits corresponds to one or more transport blocks (TBs), [if there are two multicast TBs to be NACK-ed in one uplink occasion, cyclic shift values 0,1,2 may be used to initialize PUCCH sequence (in the appropriate RSRP-based subset of resources) and indicate the feedback. When multiplexing feedback, (Sengupta et al., Paragraph 124)].
Regarding claims 51 and 58, the method wherein the first PUCCH resource among the plurality of PUCCH resources is selected, in a case where a number of the one or more TBs is 2 and only a first TB among the one or more TBs corresponds to a NACK value, and the first PUCCH resource is selected, in a case where the number of the one or more TBs is 3 and only a first TB and a third TB among the one or more TBs correspond to NACK values, [PUCCH format 0 may support user multiplexing on the same PUCCH resource (e.g., in NR). One or more (e.g., 12 sequences) may be used for PUCCH format 0. If a WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) sends a single bit of HARQ-ACK/NACK feedback, the WTRU may utilize two (2) sequences, and the resource may be shared by one or more WTRUs (e.g., 6 WTRUs). If a WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) sends two bits of HARQ-ACK/NACK feedback, the WTRU may utilize 4 sequences and the resource may be shared by one or more WTRUs (e.g. 3 WTRUs). A WTRU (e.g., each WTRU) may use a different initial cyclic shift value, (Ye et al., Paragraph 125)].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 47, 54 and 61 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri.
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/SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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