DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17-28 are presented for examination.
Claims 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17-28 are amended.
Claims 2-4, 6-8, 10-12 and 14-16 are cancelled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 March 5, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pages 8-9, filed March 5, 2026, with respect to claims 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 20, 23, and 26 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 103 rejection of claims 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 20, 23, and 26 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks page 8, filed March 5, 2026, with respect to claims 18 and 19 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 103 rejections of claims 18 and 19 have been withdrawn.
Dependent claims 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 28 depend on independent claims 1, 5, 9 or 13. Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pages 8-9, filed March 5, 2026, with respect to claims 1, 5, 9, and 13, have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 103 rejections of dependent claims 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 28 has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17-28 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 claims “wherein a repetitive MsgA transmission includes at least one of the PRACH or the PUSCH” followed by two conditional limitations that may result in a Msg A transmission that does not include a PRACH or a PUSCH if the RSRP of the measured pathloss is greater than both the second and third RSRP thresholds. Since there is no limitation that precludes the measured downlink pathloss reference from being greater than both the second and third RSRP thresholds, the possibility exists that neither the PRACH nor the PUSCH meet the criteria set forth in the conditional limitations to be included in the Msg A transmission. This scenario would directly contradict the previous limitation where a repetitive MsgA transmission must include “at least one of the PRACH or the PUSCH”. There is also no limitation that precludes the second and third RSRP thresholds from being the same. In this scenario, if the measured downlink pathloss is greater than the second RSRP threshold it will also be greater than the third RSRP threshold. This would also result in a MsgA transmission that does not include either the PRACH or the PUSCH, directly contradicting the preceding claim limitation that requires “at least one of the PRACH or the PUSCH”.
Claims 5, 9 and 13 recite similar limitations as set forth in claim 1, thus the rejection for claim 1 is also applicable to claims 5, 9 and 13.
The dependent claim(s) 17-19, 20-22, 23-25 and 26-28 depends directly or indirectly from rejected independent claims 1, 5, 9 and 13, respectfully, and therefore, claims 17-28 are rejected based on its dependency.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 5, 9 and 13 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 17-28 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Liu (WO 2022028341 A1) discloses a Random Access coverage enhancement method for a two-step Random Access Procedure. When the signal quality is lower than a second threshold, PUSCH time-domain repeated resources are used. When the signal quality is greater than a second threshold, PUSCH time-domain non-repetitive resources are used.
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/NANCY SIXTO/Examiner, Art Unit 2465
/GARY MUI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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