DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 09/19/2024. Claims 1 and through 16 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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 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.
Specification
4. The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
5. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, they recite the limitation “cyclic shift(s) other than the plurality of cyclic shifts limited in number to less than 12 among the maximum number of cyclic shifts are unavailable for the plurality of terminals” and “the plurality of cyclic shifts include a plurality of adjacent cyclic shift pairs, and for each adjacent cyclic shift pair” which were not disclosed in the specification of August,8th, 2017.
Claims 2-8 and 10-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, because they are depending from claim 1 and depending from claim 9.
Double Patenting
6. 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.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 2, 4, and 5 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claim 1 of instant application is combination the first two limitation of claim 1 of Yamamoto with new “matter cyclic shift(s) other than the plurality of cyclic shifts limited in number to less than 12 among the maximum number of cyclic shifts are unavailable for the plurality of terminals”, was not disclosed in the original specification (Aug.8, 2017) and extraction from claims 2, 4, and 5 of the Yamamoto.
Claim 9 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 2, 4, and 5 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto, for the same reasons stated for the claim 1.
Claims 2 and 10 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 2 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 3 and 11 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 3 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 4 and 12 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 4 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 5 and 13 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 6 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 7 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 7 and 15 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 8 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claims 8 and 16 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 9 of U.S. Patent No.[11,490,373 B2, hereafter, Yamamoto because they are substantially the same.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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 1-4, 6-12, and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al. (US 2020/0170005 A1) in view of Kim et al. (US 2010/0002800 A1).
For claim 1 Matsumura teaches a terminal comprising:
circuitry, which, in operation, determines a cyclic shift depending on uplink control information out of a plurality of cyclic shifts, which are available for a plurality of terminals in a cell and which are limited in number to less than 12 that is the maximum number of cyclic shifts, cyclic shift(s) other than the plurality of cyclic shifts limited in number to less than 12 among the maximum number of cyclic shifts are unavailable for the plurality of terminals (paragraph 11 “indication of a plurality of phase rotation (cyclic shift) associated respectively with a plurality of candidate values of UCI”, paragraph 66 “The cyclic shift candidate set here includes cyclic shift amounts (phase rotation amounts) that respectively correspond to a plurality of candidate values of UC”, claims 7 and 13 “a control section that determines a cyclic shift used for transmission of an uplink control information including Hybrid Automatic Repeat re-Quest-Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information”, paragraphs 120-121 “6 <12 cyclic shift candidate sets are available for use and 3 <12 cyclic shift candidate sets are available for use”, paragraph 158 “When UCI is comprised of 1 bit and cyclic shift candidate sets #1 to #6 are available for use, PDCCH formats 0, 1, 2 and 3 may be associated with cyclic shift candidate sets #1 , #2, #3, and #4, respectively. When UCI is comprised of 2 bits and cyclic shift candidate sets #1 to #3 are available for use, PDCCH formats 0, 1, 2 and 3 may be associated with cyclic shift candidate sets #1, #2, #3, and #3, respectively. For example, the UE may select a cyclic shift candidate set that is associated with a PDCCH format as a cyclic shift candidate set for negative SR”, and paragraphs 165 “plurality of terminals in a cell”); and
a transmitter, which, in operation, transmits the uplink control information using the determined cyclic shift (claims 7 and 13 “a control section that determines a cyclic shift used for transmission of an uplink control information including Hybrid Automatic Repeat re-Quest-Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information”), wherein,
the uplink control information includes at least one of ACK or NACK (claims 7 and 13 “a control section that determines a cyclic shift used for transmission of an uplink control information including Hybrid Automatic Repeat re-Quest-Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information”),
each of the plurality of cyclic shifts is associated with at least one of the ACK or the NACK for a bit of the uplink control information (paragraph 64 “when UCI is comprised of 2 bits, the UCI values 00, 01, 11 and 10 may correspond to a "NACK- NACK, " a "NACK-ACK," an "ACK-ACK" and an "ACK NACK, respectively”),
the plurality of cyclic shifts include a plurality of adjacent cyclic shift pairs, and
for each adjacent cyclic shift pair, one of two cyclic shifts is associated with the ACK for the bit of the uplink control information and the other of the two cyclic shifts is associated with the NACK for the bit of the uplink control information (paragraph 64 “when UCI is comprised of 2 bits, the UCI values 00, 01, 11 and 10 may correspond to a "NACK- NACK, " a "NACK-ACK," an "ACK-ACK" and an "ACK NACK, respectively”).
Matsumura does not explicitly teach the plurality of cyclic shifts include a plurality of adjacent cyclic shift pairs.
However, Kim teaches the UE can derive cyclic shifts with respect to other transmit antenna according to a specific rule. For example, if a set of available cyclic shifts is { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7} and the UE uses two transmit antennas, the UE can set the cyclic shift of a RS for the second transmit antenna to '3 ' when '2' is allocated to the UE as the cyclic shift of a RS for the first transmit antenna (Kim: paragraph 114). In addition, Kim teaches for another example, the BS can allocate all of cyclic shifts with respect to multiple RSs to the UE. Here, if a 3-bit cyclic shift is used, bits corresponding to "3xthe number of transmit antennas" are required to transmit all the cyclic shifts. The number of bits may be reduced by restricting available cyclic shift pairs in advance (Kim: paragraph 115).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teaching of Kim in the cyclic shift design method of Matsumura in order to restrict maximum available cyclic shift for use (Kim: paragraphs 114-115).
For claim 2 Matsumura teaches the terminal, wherein the uplink control information has 1 or 2 bits (paragraph 68 “2-bit UCI”).
For claim 3 Matsumura teaches the terminal, wherein the transmitter, in operation, transmits the uplink control information on a short PUCCH (physical uplink control channel) of 1 or 2 symbols (paragraph 68 "UC/ is transmitted over PUCCH").
For claim 4 Matsumura teaches the terminal, wherein the circuitry, in operation, determines the cyclic shift depending on said at least one of ACK or NACK (paragraph 64 "UCI values 00, 01, 11, and 10 may correspond to a NACK-NACK, NACK-ACK, ACK-ACK, ANO ACK-NACK”).
For claim 6 Matsumura teaches the terminal, comprising, a receiver, which, in operation, receives information related to a PUCCH (physical uplink control channel) resource, wherein the circuitry, in operation, determines the cyclic shift based on the information (paragraph 140 “UE may identify a cyclic shift candidate set for a sequence-based PUCCH based on a CCE (Control Channel Element) index of the PDCCH”).
For claim 7 Matsumura teaches the terminal, wherein the circuitry, in operation, determines the cyclic shift based on information in a higher layer control signal (paragraph 91 “cyclic shift candidates reported as resources in higher layer signaling”).
For claim 8 Matsumura teaches the terminal, wherein the circuitry, in operation, determines the cyclic shift based on both information in a higher layer control signal and the uplink control information (paragraph 91 “cyclic shift candidates reported as resources in higher layer signaling” and paragraph 269 “reporting of information may be implemented by using physical layer signaling (for example, downlink control
information (DCI), uplink control information (UCI)), higher layer signaling (e.g., RRC)”).
For claim 9 Matsumura in view of Kim teaches a communication method comprising:
determining a cyclic shift depending on uplink control information out of a plurality of cyclic shifts, which are available for a plurality of terminals in a cell and which are limited in number to less than 12 that is the maximum number of cyclic shifts, cyclic shift(s) other than the plurality of cyclic shifts limited in number to less than 12 among the maximum number of cyclic shifts are unavailable for the plurality of terminals (as discussed in claim 1); and
transmitting the uplink control information using the determined cyclic shift (as discussed in claim 1), wherein,
the uplink control information includes at least one of ACK or NACK (as discussed in claim 1),
each of the plurality of cyclic shifts is associated with at least one of the ACK or the NACK for a bit of the uplink control information (as discussed in claim 1),
the plurality of cyclic shifts include a plurality of adjacent cyclic shift pairs (as discussed in claim 1), and
for each adjacent cyclic shift pair, one of two cyclic shifts is associated with the ACK for the bit of the uplink control information and the other of the two cyclic shifts is associated with the NACK for the bit of the uplink control information (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 10 Matsumura teaches the communication method, wherein the uplink control information has 1 or 2 bits (as discussed in claim 2).
For claim 11 Matsumura teaches the communication method, wherein the transmitting includes transmitting the uplink control information on a short PUCCH (physical uplink control channel) of 1 or 2 symbols (as discussed in claim 3).
For claim 12 Matsumura teaches the communication method, wherein the determining includes determining the cyclic shift depending on said at least one of ACK or NACK (as discussed in claim 4).
For claim 14 Matsumura teaches the communication method, comprising, receiving information related to a PUCCH (physical uplink control channel) resource, wherein the determining includes determining the cyclic shift based on the information (as discussed in claim 6).
For claim 15 Matsumura teaches the communication method, wherein the determining includes determining the cyclic shift based on information in a higher layer control signal (as discussed in claim 7).
For claim 16 Matsumura teaches the communication method, wherein the determining includes determining the cyclic shift based on both information in a higher layer control signal and the uplink control information (as discussed in claim 8).
8. Claims 5 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al. (US 2020/0170005 A1) in view of Kim et al. (US 2010/0002800 A1) further in view of Zhou et al. (US 2014/0334431 A1).
For claim 5 Matsumura does not explicitly teach the terminal, wherein a cyclic shift allocated to one terminal has a given offset that is added to a cyclic shift allocated to another terminal out of the plurality of cyclic shifts.
However, Zhou teaches the network side device sends different cyclic shift value
offset information to UEs in different groups, so that the UEs generate control signals
according to the cyclic shift value offset information and send the control signals and the
network side device determines cyclic shift values used by the UEs according to the
cyclic shift value offset information, and detects the control signals sent by the UEs
according to the cyclic shift values (see Zhou: Fig. 1 "S10 2 & S20 3").
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before
the filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Zhou in the combined cyclic
shift generation of Takeda and Matsumura in order for the network side device sends
different cyclic shift value offset information to UEs in different groups, so that the UEs
generate control signals according to the cyclic shift value offset information and send
the control signals and the network side device determines cyclic shift values used by
the UEs according to the cyclic shift value offset information, and detects the control
signals sent by the UEs according to the cyclic shift values (see Zhou: Fig. 1 "S10 2 &
S20 3").
For claim 13 Matsumura in view of Kim further in view of Zhou teaches the communication method, wherein a cyclic shift allocated to one terminal has a given offset that is added to a cyclic shift allocated to another terminal out of the plurality of cyclic shifts (as discussed in claim 5).
Conclusion
9. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure Lee et al. (US 8,477,698 B2) (column 11 lines 24-31 “"restricted cyclic shift (CS) condition" or "high-speed mode" indicates that a specific root index is unavailable and/or the number of cyclic shifts applicable to each root index is limited. Also, it is assumed that the random access UE under the restricted cyclic shift (CS) condition is contained in a cell or region having many high- mobility UEs.. for limiting the number of available cyclic shifts (CSs)”).
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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