Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 17/869,962

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR SOUNDING REFERENCE SIGNAL FLEXIBILITY ENHANCEMENT

Final Rejection §103
Filed
Jul 21, 2022
Examiner
TRAN, THINH D
Art Unit
2466
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
ZTE CORPORATION
OA Round
4 (Final)
62%
Grant Probability
Moderate
5-6
OA Rounds
4y 5m
To Grant
82%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 62% of resolved cases
62%
Career Allow Rate
330 granted / 532 resolved
+4.0% vs TC avg
Strong +20% interview lift
Without
With
+20.0%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
4y 5m
Avg Prosecution
39 currently pending
Career history
571
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
5.8%
-34.2% vs TC avg
§103
55.9%
+15.9% vs TC avg
§102
18.9%
-21.1% vs TC avg
§112
11.5%
-28.5% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 532 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Response to Arguments Applicant's arguments filed 12/01/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In response to applicant’s argument on pages 7-10, the applicant asserts that “the references of record, either alone or in proper combination, fail to teach or suggest the limitations of claim 1 as required to support an obviousness rejection.” Examiner respectively disagrees. The applicant further asserts in page 7 that “The references of record, either alone or in proper combination, fail to teach or suggest that a DCI which includes a value for a resource assignment field and which does not schedule uplink transmission of data, is used to identify first DCI related information associated with each of the SRS parameter sets as recited in claim 1.” Examiner respectively disagrees. As indicated by the office action, ABDELGHAFFAR in par. 248, 252, 253, 254 discloses “a DCI codepoint (or AP SRS resource trigger value) of 01 maps to a set of candidate slot offsets…DCI indication of t in one of the unicast DCI format 0_1/0_2/1-1/1-2 or a group common DCI format 2_3 that schedules a PDSCH or PUSCH or triggers only A-SRS without data”, which would indicating the codepoint in the DCI trigger the SRS transmission without data or DCI with the codepoint triggers the SRS transmission but does not scheduling data transmission. GO in par. 423, 424, 492, “the SRS request field of the DCI…if the codepoint indicated by the SRS request field is ‘00’, the UE does not transmit the SRS to the base station, and if it is a code point other than ‘00’, the UE may transmit the SRS to the base station using a parameter set according to the description for the SRS transmission indicated by each codepoint…The first SRS may be transmitted based on the first trigger information mapped with the first parameter set, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the second trigger information mapped with the second parameter set”, would indicating the codepoint indicated by the SRS request field of the DCI indicating the parameter sets to trigger SRS transmission. Therefore, the codepoint indicated by the SRS request field would consider as “the first DCI related information from the corresponding DCI related information associated with each of the plurality of SRS parameter sets”. Given the disclosure of ABDELGHAFFAR and GO, one of ordinary skill in the art would able to implement the triggering of SRS transmission as in PARK to indicate a set of parameter for each SRS transmission without scheduling data transmission to request only SRS transmission that way it would provide flexibility in request different SRS transmission and optimize the control information in DCI to request SRS transmission. Therefore, the combination of the art would teach “a DCI which includes a value for a resource assignment field and which does not schedule uplink transmission of data, is used to identify first DCI related information associated with each of the SRS parameter sets”. Therefore, the combination of the art would teach the claims. The rejection is maintained. 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. 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. Claim(s) 1-6, 12, 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK et al. (US 20230029850 with continuation KR 10-20190176535 filed on 12/27/2019) in view of ABDELGHAFFAR et al. (US 20240049193 with foreign app. GR 20200100542 filed on 09/07/2020) and GO et al. (US 20220116178 with foreign app. KR 10-2019-0015146 filed on 02/08/2019). Regarding claims 1, 19, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches a method (fig. 11, method perform by UE) comprising: receiving, by a wireless communication device from a wireless communication node, a configuration of a plurality of sounding reference signal (SRS) parameter sets each associated with a corresponding downlink control information (DCI) related information (claims 1, 2, par. 30, “receive, from the BS, configuration information including information about a plurality of sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets for transmission of an SRS to the plurality of TRPs”; par. 189, 193, “The UE may determine that an SRS resource set including the aperiodic SRS resource trigger indicated by the DCI in an aperiodic SRS resource trigger list among configuration information of the SRS resource set has been triggered”); receiving, by the wireless communication device from the wireless communication node, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment field (par. 193, 199, The BS may indicate one of aperiodic SRS resource triggers via an SRS request field of the DCI; table 4, SRS request – 2 bits); identifying, by the wireless communication device for a SRS transmission, a first SRS parameter set associated with the first DCI related information, from the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 193, The UE may determine that an SRS resource set including the aperiodic SRS resource trigger indicated by the DCI in an aperiodic SRS resource trigger list among configuration information of the SRS resource set has been triggered). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein uplink transmission of data is not scheduled by the DCI. But, ABDELGHAFFAR et al. (US 20240049193) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches receiving, by the wireless communication device from the wireless communication node, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment field, wherein uplink transmission of data is not scheduled by the DCI (par. 248, 252, 253, 254, a DCI codepoint (or AP SRS resource trigger value) of 01 maps to a set of candidate slot offsets…DCI indication of t in one of the unicast DCI format 0_1/0_2/1-1/1-2 or a group common DCI format 2_3 that schedules a PDSCH or PUSCH or triggers only A-SRS without data). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by ABDELGHAFFAR in the system of PARK to trigger A-SRS without data. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility and optimize the resource for transmission SRS. However, PARK does not teach identifying, by the wireless communication device, according to the value for the resource assignment field of the DCI received from the wireless communication node, first DCI related information from the corresponding DCI related information associated with each of the plurality of SRS parameter sets; But, GO et al. (US 20220116178) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches receiving, by the wireless communication device from the wireless communication node, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment (par. 423, 447, 448, 489, in the case of type 1 SRS triggering, the description of the SRS transmission related to the SRS request field of the DCI); identifying, by the wireless communication device, according to the value for the resource assignment filed of the DCI received from the wireless communication node, first DCI related information from the corresponding DCI related information associated with each of the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 423, 424, 444, 445, 446, 489, 492, the description of the SRS transmission related to the SRS request field of the DCI… In each N-bit codepoint indicated by the SRS request field…the UE may transmit the SRS to the base station using a parameter set according to the description for the SRS transmission indicated by each codepoint or transmission timing or a set of serving cells; par. 464; par. 447, 448, 449); and identifying, by the wireless communication device for a SRS transmission, a first SRS parameter set associated with first DCI related information identified by the DCI, from the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 423, 424, 489, 490, 492, The first SRS may be transmitted based on the first trigger information mapped with the first parameter set, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the second trigger information mapped with the second parameter set). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GO in the system of PARK and ABDELGHAFFAR to identify the DCI relate information to identify the SRS parameter sets. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility for the adjustment of the SRS overhead according to the deployment scenario. Regarding claim 2, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein each of the SRS parameter sets includes a time offset to determine a time interval between the SRS transmission and one of: a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), a DCI, a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (par. 193, The BS may indicate one of aperiodic SRS resource triggers via an SRS request field of the DCI…slot mapping of the SRS resource to be transmitted may be determined by a slot offset between a PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource, and a value (or values) included in a slot offset set configured for the SRS resource set may be referred to as the slot offset. In more detail, for the slot offset between the PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource). Regarding claim 3, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the time offset is specified by a number of time slots or by a number of symbols (par. 193, The BS may indicate one of aperiodic SRS resource triggers via an SRS request field of the DCI…slot mapping of the SRS resource to be transmitted may be determined by a slot offset between a PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource, and a value (or values) included in a slot offset set configured for the SRS resource set may be referred to as the slot offset. In more detail, for the slot offset between the PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource; par. 194). Regarding claim 4, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first DCI related information includes at least one of: DCI format, a value of a new data indicator (NDI), a value of a redundancy value (RV), a value of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number, a value of time domain resource assignment (TDRA), a value of frequency domain resource assignment (FDRA), or a value of frequency hopping flag, of the DCI (table 3, RV, NDI, HARQ process number; par. 363, 364, TDRA, par. 363, 367, FDRA). Regarding claim 5, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 4, comprising: identifying, by the wireless communication device for the SRS transmission, one or more SRS resources or SRS resource sets, according to a value of a SRS request field of the DCI (par. 30, 193, The UE may determine that an SRS resource set including the aperiodic SRS resource trigger indicated by the DCI in an aperiodic SRS resource trigger list among configuration information of the SRS resource set has been triggered). Regarding claim 6, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 4, wherein each SRS parameter set is associated with a corresponding value of the TDRA or the FDRA (par. 30, 193, 350, 351, 363, 364, In PUSCH repetition transmission, different transmission beams or precoders may be respectively applied to PUSCH transmissions to TRPs. The transmission beam or the precoder may include at least one of the followings. [0351] In a case of codebook based transmission, information indicating an SRS resource existing in an SRS resource set. Here, different SRS resources or SRIs may respectively correspond to PUSCH transmissions to TRPs… Frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA): Different frequency domain resource allocations may be respectively indicated for PUSCH repetition transmissions to TRPs, and the resource allocations may be explicitly indicated by DCI with respect to respective PUSCH repetition transmissions or may be determined according to a predefined pattern… Time domain resource allocation (TDRA): Different time domain resource allocations may be respectively indicated for PUSCH repetition transmissions to TRPs, and the resource allocations may be explicitly indicated by DCI with respect to respective PUSCH repetition transmissions). Regarding claim 12, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the first DCI related information is provided via a DCI field that does not exist simultaneously with at least part of at least one of: a new data indicator (NDI), a redundancy value (RV), or a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number, in the DCI (table 3, table 4, the fields in the fallback DCI is different than the fields in the non-fallback DCI). Regarding claim 14, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first SRS parameter set and scheduled information about data transmission, are jointly indicated by a value of the TDRA or the FDRA in the DCI (par. 30, 193, 363, 364). Regarding claim 15, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a location of the SRS transmission is associated with a location of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission (par. 193, 194). Regarding claim 16, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, comprising: receiving, by the wireless communication device from the wireless communication node, a frequency hopping flag in the DCI, the frequency hopping flag indicative of at least one of: a configured SRS repetition factor, or whether SRS frequency hopping in a slot is enabled (par. 190, intra-slot or inter-slot frequency hopping of the SRS resource; table 2, par. 215). Regarding claim 17, 20, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches a method (fig. 11, method perform by BS) comprising: sending, by wireless communication node to a wireless communication device, a configuration of a plurality of sounding reference signal (SRS) parameter sets each associated with a corresponding downlink control information (DCI) related information (claims 1, 2, par. 30, “receive, from the BS, configuration information including information about a plurality of sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets for transmission of an SRS to the plurality of TRPs”; par. 189, 193, “The UE may determine that an SRS resource set including the aperiodic SRS resource trigger indicated by the DCI in an aperiodic SRS resource trigger list among configuration information of the SRS resource set has been triggered”); sending, by the wireless communication node to the wireless communication device, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment field (par. 193, 199, The BS may indicate one of aperiodic SRS resource triggers via an SRS request field of the DCI; table 4, SRS request – 2 bits); and causing the wireless communication device to identify, for a SRS transmission, a first SRS parameter set associated with the first DCI related information, from the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 193, The UE may determine that an SRS resource set including the aperiodic SRS resource trigger indicated by the DCI in an aperiodic SRS resource trigger list among configuration information of the SRS resource set has been triggered). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein uplink transmission of data is not scheduled by the DCI. But, ABDELGHAFFAR et al. (US 20240049193) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches receiving, by the wireless communication device from the wireless communication node, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment field, wherein uplink transmission of data is not scheduled by the DCI (par. 248, 252, 253, 254, a DCI codepoint (or AP SRS resource trigger value) of 01 maps to a set of candidate slot offsets…DCI indication of t in one of the unicast DCI format 0_1/0_2/1-1/1-2 or a group common DCI format 2_3 that schedules a PDSCH or PUSCH or triggers only A-SRS without data). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by ABDELGHAFFAR in the system of PARK to trigger A-SRS without data. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility and optimize the resource for transmission SRS. However, PARK does not teach identify, according to the value for the resource assignment field of the DCI, first DCI related information from the corresponding DCI related information associated with each of the plurality of SRS parameter sets; But, GO et al. (US 20220116178) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches sending, by the wireless communication node to the wireless communication device, a DCI including a value for a resource assignment (par. 423, 447, 448, 489, in the case of type 1 SRS triggering, the description of the SRS transmission related to the SRS request field of the DCI); identify, according to the value for the resource assignment field of the DCI, first DCI related information from the corresponding DCI related information associated with each of the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 423, 424, 444, 445, 446, 489, 492, the description of the SRS transmission related to the SRS request field of the DCI… In each N-bit codepoint indicated by the SRS request field…the UE may transmit the SRS to the base station using a parameter set according to the description for the SRS transmission indicated by each codepoint or transmission timing or a set of serving cells; par. 464; par. 447, 448, 449); and causing the wireless communication device to identify, for a SRS transmission, a first SRS parameter set associated with the first DCI related information, from the plurality of SRS parameter sets (par. 423, 424, 489, 490, 492, The first SRS may be transmitted based on the first trigger information mapped with the first parameter set, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the second trigger information mapped with the second parameter set). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by GO in the system of PARK and ABDELGHAFFAR to identify the DCI relate information to identify the SRS parameter sets. The motivation would have been to provide flexibility for the adjustment of the SRS overhead according to the deployment scenario. Regarding claim 18, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 17, wherein each of the SRS parameter sets includes a time offset to determine a time interval between the SRS transmission and one of: a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), a DCI, a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) (par. 193, The BS may indicate one of aperiodic SRS resource triggers via an SRS request field of the DCI…slot mapping of the SRS resource to be transmitted may be determined by a slot offset between a PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource, and a value (or values) included in a slot offset set configured for the SRS resource set may be referred to as the slot offset. In more detail, for the slot offset between the PDCCH including the DCI and the SRS resource). Claim(s) 7-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK et al. (US 20230029850 with continuation KR 10-20190176535 filed on 12/27/2019), ABDELGHAFFAR et al. (US 20240049193 with foreign app. GR 20200100542 filed on 09/07/2020), and GO et al. (US 20220116178 with foreign app. KR 10-2019-0015146 filed on 02/08/2019) as applied to claim 4 above, and further in view of KIM et al. (US 20220201734). Regarding claim 7, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 4, wherein a bit value of the RV of the first DCI related information, and a bit value of the NDI of the first DCI related information (table 3, table 4). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein a bit value forms a most significant bit (MSB) of the first DCI related information, and a bit value forms a least significant bit (LSB) of the first DCI related information. But, KIM et al. (US 20220201734) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein a bit value forms a most significant bit (MSB) of the first DCI related information, and a bit value forms a least significant bit (LSB) of the first DCI related information (par. 237, the UE may be configured to differently interpret the TB information field for indicating some (e.g., most significant bit (MSB)(s), least significant bit (LSB)(s), and/or modulation and coding scheme (MCS)/redundancy version (RV)/new data indicator (NDI) of the second TB) of the bits for defining the corresponding field). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by KIM in the system of PARK, ABDELGHAFFAR, and GO to order the significant of bits. The motivation would have been to provide prioritize the fields and protection of more important bits. Regarding claim 8, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 4, wherein a bit value of the HARQ process number of the first DCI related information, and a bit value of the NDI of the first DCI related information (table 3, table 4). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein a bit value forms a most significant bit (MSB) of the first DCI related information, and a bit value forms a least significant bit (LSB) of the first DCI related information. But, KIM et al. (US 20220201734) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein a bit value forms a most significant bit (MSB) of the first DCI related information, and a bit value forms a least significant bit (LSB) of the first DCI related information (par. 237, the UE may be configured to differently interpret the TB information field for indicating some (e.g., most significant bit (MSB)(s), least significant bit (LSB)(s), and/or modulation and coding scheme (MCS)/redundancy version (RV)/new data indicator (NDI) of the second TB) of the bits for defining the corresponding field). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by KIM in the system of PARK, ABDELGHAFFAR, and GO to order the significant of bits. The motivation would have been to provide prioritize the fields and protection of more important bits. Regarding claim 9, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 7, wherein an order of bits of the first DCI comprises a bit value of the RV, a bit value of the HARQ process number and a bit value of the NDI (table 3, table 4). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein an order of bits of the first DCI related information from MSB to LSB. But, KIM et al. (US 20220201734) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein an order of bits of the first DCI related information from MSB to LSB (par. 237, the UE may be configured to differently interpret the TB information field for indicating some (e.g., most significant bit (MSB)(s), least significant bit (LSB)(s), and/or modulation and coding scheme (MCS)/redundancy version (RV)/new data indicator (NDI) of the second TB) of the bits for defining the corresponding field). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by KIM in the system of PARK, ABDELGHAFFAR, and GO to order the significant of bits. The motivation would have been to provide prioritize the fields and protection of more important bits. Regarding claim 10, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 7, wherein an order of bits of the first DCI comprises a bit value of the HARQ process number, a bit value of the RV and a bit value of the NDI (table 3, table 4). However, PARK does not explicitly teach wherein an order of bits of the first DCI related information from MSB to LSB. But, KIM et al. (US 20220201734) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein an order of bits of the first DCI related information from MSB to LSB (par. 237, the UE may be configured to differently interpret the TB information field for indicating some (e.g., most significant bit (MSB)(s), least significant bit (LSB)(s), and/or modulation and coding scheme (MCS)/redundancy version (RV)/new data indicator (NDI) of the second TB) of the bits for defining the corresponding field). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by KIM in the system of PARK, ABDELGHAFFAR, and GO to order the significant of bits. The motivation would have been to provide prioritize the fields and protection of more important bits. Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK et al. (US 20230029850 with continuation KR 10-20190176535 filed on 12/27/2019), ABDELGHAFFAR et al. (US 20240049193 with foreign app. GR 20200100542 filed on 09/07/2020), and GO et al. (US 20220116178 with foreign app. KR 10-2019-0015146 filed on 02/08/2019) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of LEE et al. (US 20180309496). Regarding claim 11, PARK et al. (US 20230029850) teaches the method of claim 1, comprising: using, by the wireless communication device for the SRS transmission, a fallback SRS parameter set when uplink transmission of data is scheduled by the DCI (par. 93, the fallback DCI that schedules a PUSCH). However, PARK does not explicitly teach using a default SRS parameter set. But, LEE et al. (US 20180309496) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches using a default SRS parameter set when transmission of data is scheduled by the DCI (par. 226, default information: RV, NDI, HARQ process number). Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of PARK, ABDELGHAFFAR, and GO to use default. The motivation would have been to provide operational between devices. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. SHAHMOHAMMADIAN et al. (US 20220029861) teaches he Rel. 16 DCI format 0_1 can be enhanced to support aperiodic SRS triggering without data scheduling and a CSI request (par. 194). THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THINH D TRAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3934. The examiner can normally be reached mon-fri 9-6. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, FARUK HAMZA can be reached at 5712727969. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 02/26/2026
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jul 21, 2022
Application Filed
Jan 11, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103
Mar 06, 2025
Response Filed
Apr 09, 2025
Final Rejection — §103
Jun 03, 2025
Request for Continued Examination
Jun 06, 2025
Response after Non-Final Action
Sep 19, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103
Dec 01, 2025
Response Filed
Feb 26, 2026
Final Rejection — §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

5-6
Expected OA Rounds
62%
Grant Probability
82%
With Interview (+20.0%)
4y 5m
Median Time to Grant
High
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