DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/22/2026 has been entered.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. “Park” US2021/0226833 in view of Manolakos et al. “Manolakos” US2020/0389284 further in view of Bar-Or Tillinger et al. “Bar” US 2022/0377782.
Regarding claim 1, Park teaches a method of data transmission, comprising the steps of:
detecting, by a base station, at least one of a plurality of aggregated time slots configured as downlink (DL) time slots wherein the detecting includes identifying a first available DL time slot of the plurality of aggregated time slots (Figure 6 and paragraphs 92 and 94 teaches a plurality of aggregated slots that are used for communications between a base station and UE. These are the available DL slots identified for transmission (i.e. detected))
determining whether or not to bundle plurality of demodulation reference signals (DMRSs) (Paragraphs 102-103 teaches the bundling of DMRS if supported);
transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), a downlink control message (DCI) in the first available DL time slot that indicates whether the DMRS are to be bundled (DCI is provided in the first of the two aggregated slots for transmission to a UE; Paragraph 94. One a base station has made a decision with respect to DRMS bundling, the base station can inform the UE via DCI of the bundling scheme; Paragraph 115);
transmitting, by the UE, the plurality of bundled DMRSs in the first available DL time slot and performing joint channel estimation based on the bundled DMRSs (the UE sends the bundled DMRS and the receiving device (i.e. base station) can perform channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103).
Park does not expressly disclose waiting, by the UE, for a time duration corresponding to a length of at least one symbol as a first indication gap before transmitting bundled DMRS according to DCI. Manolakos, however, teaches a base station configuring a UE with an offset before a UE can begin a bundling sequence. This offset is the time the UE waits before applying the start of the budling which can be equivalent to a number of slots or symbols. This offset enables the base station to allow itself time to use as processing before beginning the bundled communications; Paragraph 157. Paragraphs 146 and 158 further teaches the information for waiting is tied to DCI information received from the base station. Thus, one can see this offset would be a time the base station and UE would be waiting before, beginning transmission of bundled DMRS, which corresponds to a symbol.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of Park to include a base station waiting for a time duration which corresponds to a symbol as taught by Manolakos.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that the base station may allow itself a duration of time to use as processing time before starting the bundle communications as taught by Manolakos; Paragraph 157.
The prior art does not expressly disclose measuring a wireless channel between a BS and UE and determining, by the base station, to bundle or not based on the measurements; however, Bar teaches a base station measuring channel conditions which dictates what information is transmit in a DCI to the UE; Paragraph 78. The DCI messages can include bundling information; Paragraphs 57 and 92. Thus, because the base station sends DCI, which include bundling information, and the DCI is determined based on measured channel conditions, the base station is viewed as determining whether or not to bundle based on measured channel between the base station and UE).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include measuring a channel to determine to bundle as taught by Bar.
One would be motivated to make the modification such the size of the DCI can be reduced by the base station as taught by Bar; Paragraph 78.
Regarding claim 7, Park teaches receiving the DMRS in one or more aggregated time slots (the UE sends the bundled DMRS which are applied to multiple (i.e. aggregated) slots; Paragraphs 102-103).
Regarding claim 8, Park teaches the channel estimation is performed using the DMRS in the one or more aggregated time slots (the UE sends the bundled DMRS (with aggregated slots) and the receiving device (i.e. base station) can perform channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103).
Claim(s) 3, 10-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park in view of Manolakos in view of Bar and further in view of Hasegawa et al. “Hasegawa” US 2023/0291523.
Regarding claim 3, Park teaches the plurality of bundled DMRS are in a PUSCH (DRMS is carried in the PUSCH; Paragraphs 73 and 113). The prior art does not teach PUSCH repetitions; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Regarding claim 10, the prior art does not teach PUSCH repetition type A; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Regarding claim 11, the prior art does not teach PUSCH repetition type B; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Regarding claim 12, the prior art does not teach PUSCH repetition type A; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Regarding claim 13, the prior art does not teach PUSCH repetition type B; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Claim(s) 14, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park in view of Manolakos in view of Hasegawa.
Regarding claim 14, Park teaches a base station comprising:
A processor configured to detect at least one of a plurality of aggregated time slots configured as a downlink (DL) time slot (Figure 6 and paragraphs 92 and 94 teaches a plurality of aggregated slots that are used for communications between a base station and UE); and
A transceiver in communication with the processor and configured to:
receive a first and second set of bundled DMRS in a first/second PUSCH (the UE and base station send and receive the bundled DMRS to perform channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103. As a plurality of bundled DMRS are sent, this is viewed as first and second set. Further, DRMS is carried in the PUSCH; Paragraphs 73 and 113. With respect to first/second frequency bands, the information is transmit with respect to a frequency band. The claim is not written in a way that the first and second frequency bands are not the same band, or that they are different frequencies).
Park does not expressly disclose a time duration corresponding to a length time between bundled sets equal to a symbol. Manolakos, however, teaches a base station configuring a UE with an offset before a UE can begin a bundling sequence. This offset is the time the UE waits before applying the start of the budling which can be equivalent to a number of slots or symbols. This offset enables the base station to allow itself time to use as processing before beginning the bundled communications; Paragraph 157.Thus, one can see this offset would be a time the base station would be waiting which corresponds to a symbol.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of Park to include a base station waiting for a time duration which corresponds to a symbol as taught by Manolakos.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that the base station may allow itself a duration of time to use as processing time before starting the bundle communications as taught by Manolakos; Paragraph 157.
Park teaches the plurality of bundled DMRS are in a PUSCH (DRMS is carried in the PUSCH; Paragraphs 73 and 113). The prior art does not teach PUSCH repetitions; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Regarding claim 15, Park teaches a UE comprising:
A processor configured to detect at least one of a plurality of aggregated time slots configured as a uplink (UL) time slot (Figure 6 and paragraphs 92 and 94 teaches a plurality of aggregated slots that are used for communications between a base station and UE); and
A transceiver in communication with the processor configured to:
Transmit a first and second set of bundled DMRS in a first/second PUSCH (the UE and base station send and receive the bundled DMRS to perform channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103. As a plurality of bundled DMRS are sent form the UE to the base station, this is viewed as first and second set. Further, DRMS is carried in the PUSCH; Paragraphs 73 and 113. With respect to first/second frequency bands, the information is transmit with respect to a frequency band. The claim is not written in a way that the first and second frequency bands are not the same band, or that they are different frequencies).
Performing joint channel estimation based on the first and second set of bundled DMRSs and the second set of bundled DMRSs (the device can perform joint channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103).
Park does not expressly disclose waiting for a time duration corresponding to a length of at least one symbol as a first indication gap. Manolakos, however, teaches a base station configuring a UE with an offset before a UE can begin a bundling sequence. This offset is the time the UE waits before applying the start of the budling which can be equivalent to a number of slots or symbols. This offset enables the base station to allow itself time to use as processing before beginning the bundled communications; Paragraph 157.Thus, one can see this offset would be a time the base station would be waiting which corresponds to a symbol.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of Park to include a base station waiting for a time duration which corresponds to a symbol as taught by Manolakos.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that the base station may allow itself a duration of time to use as processing time before starting the bundle communications as taught by Manolakos; Paragraph 157.
Park teaches the plurality of bundled DMRS are in a PUSCH (DRMS is carried in the PUSCH; Paragraphs 73 and 113). The prior art does not teach PUSCH repetitions; however, Hasegawa teaches bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B; Paragraph 157.
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the teachings of the prior art to include PUSCH type A or B repetitions as taught by Hasegawa.
One would be motivated to make the modification such that a UE can determine whether or not to terminate a DMRS bundling process and send an indication to the network as taught by Hasegawa; Paragraph 157.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 5 are allowed.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 4/22/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding claim 1, Applicant argues Park teaches bundling DMRS and aggregating time slots in Figure 6 and par. 92/94 but only teaches DL-centric slot aggregation (610) but does not teach detecting by the BS an aggregated time slot configured as a DL time slot which includes identify8ing a first available time slot. Applicant argues the claimed “Detecting” step is not inherently performed by Figure 6 of Park and it does not matter that the Parks available time slots are used for communication. What matters is whether Parks disclosed that a BS detects the Fig. 6 structure or detects a first available DL time slot. Park appears to rely on first field 622 and not detecting to find the first field 662.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Regarding the detecting Park teaches, Figure 6 and paragraphs 92 and 94, a plurality of aggregated slots that are used for communications between a base station and UE. These are the available DL slots identified for transmission purposes. The identification of these DL slots is equivalent to the claimed detecting. If the detecting step comprises some particular type of function being performed to achieve the “Detecting” such definition should be placed into the claim language. Otherwise, broadly speaking, if a base station is sending information in a slot, it has “Detected” or determined the slot to send the information in. The claimed “detecting” doesn’t carry any special meeting. Broadly speaking, detecting just means to identify, notice, discover, etc. In Park, since the DL slots are identified/used, this properly reads on the broadly claimed detecting.
Applicant argues Park does not teach or suggest determining to bundle a plurality of DMRS based on measuring a wireless channel between the BS and UE because Park teaches DMRS may be coherently transmitted over different time slots where 2 or more are precoded with the same precoder. Applicant further argues Park cannot teach transmitting a DCI in the DL indicating whether the DMRS are to be bundled nor transmitting after the time duration because paragraphs 102-103 do not teach a UE sending bundled DMRS according to a DCI after a time duration since the BS sent the DCI including the bundling scheme.
Regarding the determining to bundle or not, Park teaches that in NR, DMRS bundling can be supported (Paragraph 102). Paragraph 103 further teaches “when DMRS bundling is configured”, performing joint channel estimation, thus one can see the system determines to bundle or not as claimed. This doesn’t just show the system has the capability to perform bundling, but the system actually does perform it. Regarding the bundling based on measuring a channel, Park was not utilized for this limitation. Bar was introduced to teach a base station measuring channel conditions which dictates what information is transmit in a DCI to the UE; Paragraph 78. The DCI messages can include bundling information; Paragraphs 57 and 92. Thus, because the base station sends DCI, which include bundling information, and the DCI is determined based on measured channel conditions, the base station is viewed as determining whether or not to bundle based on measured channel between the base station and UE). The argument seems to pick apart individual references for limitations they were not relied upon for their teachings. The combination of references (which are all in the field of bundling) is what is relied upon to disclose the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 14, Applicant argues a plurality of bundled DMRSs is not equivalent to sending a first set of bundled DMRS because first and second transmissions require different time resources than a single transmission of a plurality of DMRS. Applicant argues the art does not teach a method relying upon a time duration corresponding to a length of time between bundled sets equal to a symbol, less than the PUSCH repetitions.
Hasegawa was introduced for the teachings of bundled DMRS transmissions which utilize type A and type B (i.e. first and second PUSCH repetition); Paragraph 157. The Examiner relied on Hasegawa for the teachings of PUSCH can have multiple repetitions for transmitting bundled DMRS. With respect to first/second frequency bands, the information (from all the references) is transmit with respect to a frequency band. The claim is not written in a way that the first and second frequency bands are not the same band, or that they are different frequencies. Manolakos teaches a base station configuring a UE with an offset before a UE can begin a bundling sequence. This offset is the time the UE waits before applying the start of the boodling which can be equivalent to a number of slots or symbols. This offset enables the base station to allow itself time to use as processing before beginning the bundled communications; Paragraph 157.Thus, one can see this offset would be a time the base station would be waiting which can be a symbol (thus equivalent to the claimed equal to a symbol).
Regarding claim 15, Applicant argues the prior art does disclose a first and second set of bundles DMRS transmit in a first and second frequency band and further the prior art does not teach joint channel estimation across aggregated slots and Hasegawa teaches PUSCH repetition slots but not with respect to joint channel estimation.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Regarding the first and second frequency bands, the Examiner refers back to the arguments for claim 14. Regarding the joint channel estimation, Park teaches the device can perform joint channel estimation based on the DRMS across multiple slots; Paragraphs 102-103. As this is across multiple slots it would be based on the first and second DMRS as claimed.
Conclusion
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/BRANDON M RENNER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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