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 Office Action is in response to the submission filed 2026-04-24 (herein referred to as the Reply) where claim(s) 1, 17, 42 are pending for consideration.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on identified above has been entered.
35 USC §103 - Claim Rejections
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 non-obviousness.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oteri_687 (US20100128687) in view of LEE_930 (US20170019930) and in further view of KIM_657 (US20080130657)
Claim(s) 17, 1
Oteri_687 teaches
a transceiver; a memory configured to store data; and one or more processors communicatively coupled with the transceiver and the memory, the one or more processors and the memory being configured to: The embodiments of Oteri_687 can carried out by a user equipment including means, transceiver, memory and processors to carry our disclosed embodiments <FIG(s). 1; para. 0011-0013, 0017, 0025-0027>.
transmit a first transmission to a network entity in a first frequency region, the first frequency region being a reserved frequency region for an uplink channel, Initial/first/original uplink transmissions from UE to base station via a PUSCH. The PUSCH is a region reserved for uplink as it is an uplink channel <FIG(s). 3; para. 0034-0041>.
the first transmission comprising a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission; The PUSCH is a region reserved for uplink as it is an uplink channel <FIG(s). 3; para. 0034-0041>.
receive, from the network entity, a grant for a subsequent transmission, If the original transmission is not received, the BTS sends a feedback signal back to the UE, which prompts the UE to perform a retransmission of the original transmission. The feedback signal functions and acts in an equivalent manner as the claimed grant. <FIG(s). 3; para. 0034-0035, 0082>.
the grant indicating
a second frequency region, different from the first frequency region, and in response to the first transmission; and UE receives, from the BTS, a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) after the UE performed an original transmission to the BT. The HARQ request prompts the UE to re-transmits the prior transmission (e.g., after 4 subframes). Accordingly the HARQ request functions and performs in an equivalent manner as the claimed retransmission grant. Feedback signal (HARQ signaling) includes frequency resources location, including frequency bands, that the BTS expects the UE to use for re-transmission. Re-retransmission are transmitted in a different frequency band with respect to the previous, original uplink transmission. <FIG(s). 3, 4; para. 0034-0035, 0080-0082>.
transmit the subsequent transmission in the second frequency region based on the grant. Retransmission in the uplink are transmitted in a different frequency band than a previous uplink transmission as triggered by the feedback signal. <FIG(s). 3, 4A; para. 0034-0041, 0080-0082>.
Oteri_687 does not explicitly teach
the first transmission being contention based,
the grant indicating a time for the subsequent transmission,
However in a similar endeavor, LEE_930 teaches
the first transmission being contention based, UE is configured for contention-based PUSCH such as SR transmissions <FIG(s). 13; para. 0199-0205>.
Before the effective filing date of the claim invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art to have modified the system/techniques disclosed by Oteri_687 with the embodiment(s) disclosed by LEE_930. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to maximize resource utilization and/or reduce latency in wireless networks. See para. 0003-0005.
However in a similar endeavor, KIM_657 teaches
the grant indicating a time for the subsequent transmission, frame includes a grant value that indicates a transmission start time and duration <para. 0008>.
Before the effective filing date of the claim invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art to have modified the system/techniques disclosed by Oteri_687 and LEE_930with the embodiment(s) disclosed by KIM_657. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to provide improved resource allocation techniques including dynamically allocating a bandwidth based on a hierarchical weight round robin scheme. <para. 0017>.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oteri_687 (US20100128687) in view of LEE_930 (US20170019930), in view of KIM_657 (US20080130657), and further view of HERRMANN_786 (US20070002786)
Claim(s) 42
Oteri_687 does not explicitly teach
the second frequency region comprising
a first frequency portion and
a second frequency overlapping in time.
However in a similar endeavor, HERRMANN_786 teaches
the second frequency region comprising a first frequency portion and a second frequency overlapping in time. Retransmissions of different data packets are performed simultaneously via different communication channels of the plurality of second communication channels. Accordingly a second frequency region can be considered the plurality of second communication channels and within those channels simultaneous (overlapping in time) (re)transmissions occur. <FIG(s). 5, 6; para. 0025>.
Before the effective filing date of the claim invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art to have modified the system/techniques disclosed by Oteri_687, LEE_930 and KIM_657 with the embodiment(s) disclosed by HERRMANN_786. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to enable signaling between the transmitting station and the receiving stations may be reduced or even completely omitted. Advantageously, this reduces interference and may save energy, in particular in wireless transmission systems. <para. 0030>.
Response to Arguments
The Reply’s arguments with respect to the other matters have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the rejection(s), which was necessitated by the Applicant’s amendments, being used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRE TACDIRAN whose telephone number is 571-272-1717. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH, 10-5PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDRE TACDIRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415