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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed December 5th, 2024 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-7 and 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2022/0006570), hereinafter Lee, in view of Zhang et al. (US 2025/0141603), hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding claim 1, Lee teaches an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (Lee, Fig. 2 & Fig. 3), comprising:
one or more memories (Lee, Fig. 2, memory(s) 104 & memory(s) 204); and
one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (Lee, Fig. 2, processor(s) 102 & processor(s) 202), configured to:
receive an indication for the UE to retransmit a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) (Lee, Fig. 6, para. [0128], lines 1-6, “Referring to FIG. 6, the UE may detect a PDCCH in slot #n. After the UE receives a PDSCH in slot #(n+K0) according to scheduling information received on the PDCCH, the UE may transmit UCI in slot #(n+Kl) on a PUCCH. The UCI includes an HARQ-ACK response for the PDSCH”; the scheduling information transmission is based on equates to an indication), wherein the HARQ-ACK corresponds to a HARQ-ACK transmission type of a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types, the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising two or more of: first HARQ-ACK information, second HARQ-ACK information, or third HARQ-ACK information (Lee, para. [0009], lines 5-9, “in a state in which a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource associated with first uplink control information (UCI) overlaps with a plurality of PUCCH resources associated with a plurality of HARQ-ACK payloads in a time domain”; indicates multiple HARQ-ACK payload instances); and
transmit a HARQ-ACK transmission including a concatenation of at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types of the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”; the multiplexing of multiple HARQ-ACK payloads into a single PUCCH transmission equates to concatenating multiple HARQ-ACK information elements for transmission).
Additionally, Zhang, in an analogous art, further teaches wherein the HARQ-ACK corresponds to a HARQ-ACK transmission type of a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types, the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising two or more of: first HARQ-ACK information, second HARQ-ACK information, or third HARQ-ACK information (Zhang, Fig. 8 teaches HARQ-Ack codebook generation based on multiple downlink signals, indicating multiple HARQ-ACKs from different sources [i.e. different DL assignments], which equates to a set of HARQ-ACK types).
Lee and Zhang are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of HARQ-ACK transmission.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Zhang by including the functionality of having a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising multiple HARQ-ACK information elements.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink/downlink transmission efficiency and resource utilization.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the indication for the UE to retransmit the HARQACK comprises a downlink control information (DCI) format (Lee, Fig. 6 teaches downlink assignment via PDDCCH) to trigger retransmitting a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (Lee does not explicitly teach retransmission, however it is typical behavior of the HARQ process to involve repeated reporting/retransmission) that includes the HARQ-ACK transmission (Lee, para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the concatenation comprises the first HARQ-ACK information followed by the third HARQ-ACK information (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”; the multiplexing of multiple HARQ-ACK payloads into a single PUCCH transmission equates to concatenating multiple HARQ-ACK information elements for transmission). Once multiple HARQ-ACK information elements are combined into a single transmission, the specific order of the elements is a matter of design choice.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the concatenation comprises the second HARQ-ACK information followed by the third HARQ-ACK information (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”; the multiplexing of multiple HARQ-ACK payloads into a single PUCCH transmission equates to concatenating multiple HARQ-ACK information elements for transmission). Once multiple HARQ-ACK information elements are combined into a single transmission, the specific order of the elements is a matter of design choice.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first HARQ-ACK information corresponds to a retransmitted HARQ-ACK codebook, the second HARQ-ACK information corresponds to a standard HARQ-ACK, and the third HARQ-ACK information corresponds to a deferred SPS HARQ-ACK (Zhang, Fig. 8 teaches HARQ-ACK codebook generation based on different downlink contexts, which indicated different HARQ categories).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Zhang by including the functionality of associating different HARQ-ACK information elements with different categories/types .
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be that categorizing HARQ-ACK information into different types is an abstraction of known behavior, since HARQ-ACK information coming from different transmission contexts is known in the art.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 5, wherein the concatenation comprises the standard HARQACK followed by the retransmitted HARQ-ACK codebook (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”; the multiplexing of multiple HARQ-ACK payloads into a single PUCCH transmission equates to concatenating multiple HARQ-ACK information elements for transmission). Since multiple HARQ-ACK information elements are combined into a single transmission, the specific order of standard HARQ-ACK and retransmitted HARQ-ACK codebook information would have been an obvious matter of implementation design.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the concatenation comprises each of the first HARQ-ACK information, the second HARQ-ACK information, and the third HARQ-ACK information (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”). Lee teaches multiple HAQ-ACK elements being combined, including all types of elements.
Regarding claim 13, Lee teaches an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (Lee, Fig. 2 & Fig. 3), comprising:
one or more memories (Lee, Fig. 2, memory(s) 104 & memory(s) 204); and
one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (Lee, Fig. 2, processor(s) 102 & processor(s) 202), configured to:
transmit an indication for the UE to retransmit a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) (Lee, para. [0052], lines 1-7, “In a wireless communication system, the UE
receives information on DL [downlink] from the BS [base station] and the UE
transmits information on UL to the BS. The information that
the BS and UE transmit and/or receive includes data and a
variety of control information and there are various physical
channels according to types/usage of the information that the
UE and the BS transmit and/or receive”; the UL information equates to an indication), wherein the HARQ-ACK corresponds to a HARQ-ACK transmission type of a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types, the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising two or more of: first HARQ-ACK information, second HARQ-ACK information, or third HARQ-ACK information (Lee, para. [0009], lines 5-9, “in a state in which a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource associated with first uplink control information (UCI) overlaps with a plurality of PUCCH resources associated with a plurality of HARQ-ACK payloads in a time domain”; indicates multiple HARQ-ACK payload instances); and
receive a HARQ-ACK transmission including a concatenation of at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types of the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types (Lee, Fig. 14 teaches multiple HARQ-ACK payloads being combined into a single uplink transmission via UCI multiplexing; para. [0009], lines 9-15, “determining a third PUCCH resource for multiplexing the first UCI and a first HARQ-ACK payload associated with a second PUCCH resource being one of the plurality of PUCCH resources, based on the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI, and transmitting the first HARQ-ACK payload and the first UCI in the third PUCCH resource”; the multiplexing of multiple HARQ-ACK payloads into a single PUCCH transmission equates to concatenating multiple HARQ-ACK information elements for transmission). The UE transmits the multiplexed HARQ-ACK/UCI, which inherently implies reception on the other side.
Additionally, Zhang, in an analogous art, further teaches wherein the HARQ-ACK corresponds to a HARQ-ACK transmission type of a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types, the set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising two or more of: first HARQ-ACK information, second HARQ-ACK information, or third HARQ-ACK information (Zhang, Fig. 8 teaches HARQ-Ack codebook generation based on multiple downlink signals, indicating multiple HARQ-ACKs from different sources [i.e. different DL assignments], which equates to a set of HARQ-ACK types).
Lee and Zhang are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of HARQ-ACK transmission.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Zhang by including the functionality of having a set of HARQ-ACK transmission types comprising multiple HARQ-ACK information elements.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink/downlink transmission efficiency and resource utilization.
Claim 14 is an apparatus with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 2, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 15 is an apparatus with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 3, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 16 is an apparatus with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 4, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 17 is an apparatus with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 7, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 18 is a method with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 1, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 19 is a method with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 3, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 8-12 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Zhang, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Li et al. (US 2024/0236871), hereinafter Li.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the one or more processors, to transmit the HARQ-ACK transmission, are configured to: transmit the HARQ-ACK transmission using a transmission power that is based at least in part on a combination of a number of bits corresponding to the at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types.
However, Li, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the one or more processors, to transmit the HARQ-ACK transmission, are configured to: transmit the HARQ-ACK transmission using a transmission power that is based at least in part on a combination of a number of bits corresponding to the at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types (Li, Fig. 2; para. [0007], lines 8-12, “determine a power for the PUCCH transmission based on a first bit number, where the first bit number is determined based on a bit number of the first UCI and/or a bit number of the second UCI”).
Lee, Zhang and Li are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of HARQ-ACK transmission.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Lee in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Li by including the functionality of determining a transmission power based on a combination of a number of bits corresponding to different transmission types.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink power efficiency and resource utilization.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang, and further in view of Li teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to, when a total number of bits in the HARQ-ACK transmission is less than or equal to a threshold number of HARQ-ACK bits: calculate the transmission power based at least in part on a number of actual bits associated with the HARQ-ACK transmission (Li, para. [0034], lines 2-9 through para. [0035], lines 1-2 “determining, by the terminal, a PUCCH transmission power adjustment factor based on a first bit number may include: in a case that the first bit number is less than or equal to a threshold, determining, by the terminal, the PUCCH transmission power adjustment factor ∆TF,b,f,c (i) in the following manner… where in the formula (1), K1 is a first predetermined K1 value, for example, K1=11”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Lee in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Li by including the functionality of calculating transmission power based on a number of actual bits associated with the HARQ-ACK transmission.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink power efficiency and resource utilization.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang, and further in view of Li teaches the apparatus of claim 9, wherein the threshold number of HARQ-ACK bits is eleven. Li does not explicitly teach the specific value of the threshold number of HARQ-ACK being 11 bits, however this is a design paraments that would have been selected based on system requirements.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Lee in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Li by including the functionality of a threshold number being 11 bits, or another specific value.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink power efficiency and resource utilization.
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang, and further in view of Li teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: calculate the transmission power based at least in part on a number of actual bits associated with the HARQ-ACK transmission and a number of dummy bits associated with the HARQ-ACK transmission (Li teaches transmission power being dependent on various factors, such as the number of bits mapped to PUCCH resources, resource elements occupied, etc.; this teaching implies actual information bits, as well as additional bits).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Lee in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Li by including the functionality of the transmission power being based on actual bits and dummy bits.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink power efficiency and resource utilization.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Lee in view of Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the one or more processors are configured to: obtain a number of actual bits for each of the HARQ-ACK information of the at least two types HARQ-ACK transmission types; and sum the number of actual bits for each of the HARQ-ACK information of the at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types as a total number of HARQ-ACK bits to be used in a power control equation for calculating a transmission power to use when transmitting the HARQ-ACK transmission.
However, Li, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the one or more processors are configured to: obtain a number of actual bits for each of the HARQ-ACK information of the at least two types HARQ-ACK transmission types (Li, Fig. 2 teaches multiple UCI elements that are combined via multiplexing in S210); and sum the number of actual bits for each of the HARQ-ACK information of the at least two HARQ-ACK transmission types as a total number of HARQ-ACK bits to be used in a power control equation for calculating a transmission power to use when transmitting the HARQ-ACK transmission (Li, Fig. 2 teaches a bit number being determined that is used in power calculation in S220). The first bit number generated from combining the multiple UCI elements implies a total number of bits, which implies a sum of bits.
Lee, Zhang and Li are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of HARQ-ACK transmission.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Lee in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Li by including the functionality of the transmission power being based on a sum of actual bits from at least two types of HARQ-ACK transmission types.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to improve uplink power efficiency and resource utilization.
Claim 20 is a method with limitations similar to the apparatus of claim 9, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bae et al. (US 2023/0224095) teaches HARQ-ACK transmission and retransmission procedures, including handling HARQ-ACK codebooks.
Park et al. (US 12,177,837) teaches HARQ feedback transmission and uplink control signaling, including HARQ-ACK reporting mechanisms.
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/G.V.B./Examiner, Art Unit 2112
/ALBERT DECADY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2112
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