DETAILED ACTION
Claim(s) 1-56 have been examined and are pending.
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 Remarks/Arguments
Prior Art Rejection(s)
In the Non-Final Rejection mailed December 8, 2025, the status of the claim(s) in light of the prior art of record was as follow(s): Claim(s) 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1). Claim(s) 17 and 45 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of MATSUMURA (US 20210368495 A1). Claim(s) 18 and 46 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of BAE (US 20200374896 A1). Claim(s) 2 and 30 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of ZHANG (US 20190229789 A1). Claim(s) 19 and 47 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of GAO (US 20210321355 A1). Claim(s) 25 and 53 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1). Claim(s) 28 and 56, were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1) in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) in view of GALLI (“US 20180122159 A1”). Claim(s) 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, and 55 were objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
In response to the prior art rejection(s), applicants have amended claim(s) and presented arguments with respect to the amended claim(s). More specifically, Applicants have amended and presented arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 9, 21-24, 29, and 49-52. The arguments and amendments are specifically addressed below.
Claim(s) 1 and 29
In the Final Rejection mailed December 8, 2025 the status of claim(s) 1 and 29 in light of the prior art of record was as follow(s): Claim(s) 1 and 29 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1). In response to the rejection(s) of said claim(s), applicants have further limited the claim(s) to require “first resource block subset pattern” and the “second resource block subset pattern”, referring to Fig. 9 of the Instant Application for support. In light of the amendments to the claim(s) a new ground of rejection has been made in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1). Furthermore, with respect to the arguments, Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 and 29, have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim(s) 21-24 and 49-52
In the Final Rejection mailed December 8, 2025 the status of claim(s) 21-24 and 49-52 was as follow(s):
Claim(s) 21-24 and 49-52 were objected to as being dependent upon a rejected based claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim any intervening claims.
In response to the Final Rejection, Applicants have amended claim 21 to depend on base claim 1, and claim 49 to depend on base claim 29. Applicants have also presented arguments with respected to amended claim(s) 21 and 49 (See Remarks, Page 20). The arguments made with respect to the amendments have been found persuasive. Accordingly, claim(s) 21-24 and 49-52 remain objected to as being dependent upon a rejected based claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim any intervening claims.
Claim 9
In the Final Rejection mailed December 8, 2025, claim 9 was rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of CHOI (US 20190109732 A1). In response to the rejection, Applicants have amended claim 9, to recite the limitation, “…the cycling of resource blocks comprises an automatic shift in the resource block positions to be used for the transmissions of successive hops...”, and have presented arguments with respect to amended claim 9. Claim 9, has been found to contain new matter, please see the 112 rejection below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim(s) 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claim 9 has been amended to a include a limitation where, “…the cycling of resource blocks comprises an automatic shift in the resource block positions to be used for the transmissions of successive hops...”. Applicants have cited [Fig. 10] to support said amendment (See Remarks, Page 21]. Furthermore regarding [Fig. 10] of the Instant Application, the specification recites,
“[0134] FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of using cycling for indicating a subset of available SRS resources according to some aspects. Here, the RB position 1002 used for the first hop for its SRS transmission is rotated (shifted) as indicated by the arrow 1004, so that the second hop uses the RB position 1006 for its SRS transmission. Here, for the first hop, the UE will transmit the SRS on the first RB (RB0), for the second hop, the UE will transmit the SRS on the second RB (RB1), and so on. FIG. 10 also illustrates that the cycling pattern may repeat as indicated by the arrow 1008. For example, for the fifth hop, the UE will transmit the SRS on the first RB (RB0), for the sixth hop, the UE will transmit the SRS on the second RB (RB1), and so on.”
While the portions of the specification cited for support of the limitation do mention a shift in the resource block positions used for the transmission of the successive hops, there is no mention in the specification of an automatic shift. Thus, it is not clear as to what additional limitation is imposed upon the claimed shifting/cycling by use of the term automatic. Furthermore, it is unclear which features described in the cited portions of the specification described with respect to the shifting/cycling qualify as automatic shifting/cycling. Therefore, for the reasons explained, claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Claim(s) 10-14, which depend on claim 9, are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement, for the same reasoning provided with respect to claim 9. For the purposes of examination, claim 9 will be understood in the following manner,
“9. The method of claim 7, wherein: the third configuration specifies a cycling of resource blocks to be used for different hops of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions.”
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1).
In regards to claim 1, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) teaches a method of wireless communication at a user equipment, the method comprising:
receiving a first configuration that indicates a first bandwidth for transmission of a sounding reference signal (SRS) using a frequency hopping sequence;
receiving a second configuration that indicates at least one second bandwidth associated with a frequency hop of a plurality of frequency hops of the SRS, wherein a union of the at least one second bandwidth over the plurality of frequency hops corresponds to the first bandwidth ([0097] teaches the UE receiving a configuration, control information, via the transceiver. KIM teaches determining from the control information, a first bandwidth for transmission of a sounding reference signal, 20 MHz, determining from the control information, a second bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS (i.e. 5 MHz, 10 MHz), wherein a union of the at least one second bandwidth over a plurality of frequency hops corresponds to the first bandwidth, “[0044] FIG. 5 is a view illustrating transmission bandwidths and partial SRS transmission bands set to have bandwidths of various sizes. It is assumed that a full SRS transmission band given hereinafter is 20 MHz. The full SRS transmission band is selected for uplink scheduling which is divided into a plurality of partial SRS transmission bands. [0045] Referring to FIG. 5, five kinds of transmission bandwidths are illustrated. The five kinds of transmission bandwidths are 1.25 MHz transmission bandwidth, 2.5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 10 MHz transmission bandwidth, and 20 MHz transmission bandwidth. If the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 5 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the full SRS transmission band of 20 MHz into four every 5 MHz and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #1 to #4, respectively. In a similar way, if the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 10 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the uplink frequency band of 20 MHz into two equal parts and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #5 and #6, respectively.”);
transmitting the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to a network entity (“[0097] Referring to FIG. 12, a BS transmits control information to a UE (S310). In general, since the type of the transmission bandwidth and the number of UEs are changed as time goes by, the BS has to transmit adequate control information periodically or if appropriate. The control information can be broadcasted to the entire UEs or transmitted through a dedicated channel. [0098] The control information includes a transmission bandwidth, a subcarrier interval value, a hopping or shift method, a CAZAC sequence allocation method and so on. The term hopping or shift method refers to a method of deciding how to hop respective divided partial SRS transmission bands every transmitting time to transmit the scheduling reference signal. Signaling is possible in an upper layer signaling and also a physical layer signaling. [0099] The UE transmits the scheduling reference signal to a BS (S320). The UE generates a scheduling reference signal using predetermined control information, such as an allocated transmission bandwidth, an allocated subcarrier interval value, a predetermined hopping or shift method, and a CAZAC sequence, and transmits a generated scheduling reference signal to the BS.”).
The feature for transmitting sounding reference signal(s) taught by KIM, differs from that of claim 1, in that KIM is silent on receiving a third configuration that indicates that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the second bandwidth are to be used to transmit the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence, wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block subset pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops is different from a second resource block subset pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops. KIM further differs from claim 1, in that Kim is silent on transmitting the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to the network entity using the first resource block sub pattern for the first frequency hop and the second resource block subset pattern for the second frequency hop.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. Also, as can be seen in the configuration described by VIVO in [Fig. 5-2, Section 5.2.1 Partial Sounding on Sub-band Level], the configuration indicates a first resource block pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency and a second resource block pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops.
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to arrive at feature for receiving a third configuration that indicates that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the second bandwidth are to be used to transmit the SRS, wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops
The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO further differ from claim 1, in that the combined teachings are silent on wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block subset pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops is different from a second resource block subset pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops and in that KIM further differs from claim 1, in that Kim is silent on transmitting the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to the network entity using the first resource block sub pattern for the first frequency hop and the second resource block subset pattern for the second frequency hop, as arranged with the remaining elements of claim 1. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving configuration of a sounding reference signal.
GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) teaches a frequency hopping sequence (i.e. performing SRS over PRB subsets) for SRS transmission, where a first resource block subset pattern used for a first frequency hop is different from a second resource block subset pattern used for a second hop (“…the UE is configured with a parameter ‘g’ that indicates a pattern, out of (.sub.G.sup.Z) possible patterns for each PRB subset, or it indicates a pattern out of P pre-defined patterns…”)
(“[0299] The user equipment, UE, 400 may perform a method including the following steps: [0300] receiving, from a network node, a sounding reference signal, SRS, configuration 432 providing one or more SRS resources 434, each SRS resource comprising one or more SRS ports, a set of frequency domain resources defining the SRS transmission bandwidth, and a number of symbol resources for the SRS transmission, wherein the transmission bandwidth is defined by m.sub.SRS,b PRBs comprising D PRB subsets, wherein each PRB subset comprises Z PRBs, and [0301] performing the SRS transmission over D or less than D PRB subsets 434a, wherein for each PRB subset G PRB(s) out of Z PRBs 434b are used for the SRS transmission, wherein G≤Z and G≥1. …[0304] In accordance with embodiments, the UE is configured with a parameter ‘g’ that indicates a pattern, out of (.sub.G.sup.Z) possible patterns for each PRB subset, or it indicates a pattern out of P pre-defined patterns, where P<(G), defining the frequency domain location(s) of the G PRB(s) per PRB subset (of size Z PRBs). For example, when Z=4 and G=1, g=0 may be associated with the pattern {x.sub.1,x.sub.2,x.sub.3,x.sub.4}={1,0,0,0} and g=1 may be associated with the pattern {x.sub.1,x.sub.2,x.sub.3,x.sub.4}={0,1,0,0}, and so on. [0305] FIG. 24 shows an example of different patterns for G=2 and Z=4. The association of the value ‘g’ to each pattern is shown in the figure as well. [0306] In accordance with embodiments, the value of ‘g’ may be fixed in the specification, or indicated to the UE via higher-layer signaling (e.g., RRC or MAC-CE) or via physical layer signaling (e.g., DCI).”)
Thus, based upon the teachings of GROSSMAN it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the sounding reference signal configuration feature suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO by adopting use of different resource block subset patterns for different frequency hops of SRS transmission as seen in GROSSMAN, to thus arrive at claim 1, to provide a benefit of a more flexible SRS configuration.
In regards to claim 29, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) teaches a user equipment, comprising: one or more memories that store processor-executable code; and one or more processors configured to execute the processor-executable code and cause the user equipment to(“[0100] The steps of a method described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented by hardware, software or a combination thereof. The hardware may be implemented by an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is designed to perform the above function, a digital signal processing (DSP), a programmable logic device (PLD), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a processor, a controller, a microprocessor, the other electronic unit, or a combination thereof. A module for performing the above function may implement the software. The software may be stored in a memory unit and executed by a processor. The memory unit or the processor may employ a variety of means that is well known to those skilled in the art.”):
receive a first configuration that indicates a first bandwidth for transmission of a sounding reference signal (SRS) using a first frequency hopping sequence;
receive a second configuration that indicates at least one second bandwidth associated with a frequency hop of a plurality of frequency hops defined for the SRS, wherein a union of the at least one second bandwidth over the plurality of frequency hops corresponds to the first bandwidth([0097] teaches the UE receiving a configuration, control information, via the transceiver. KIM teaches determining from the control information, a first bandwidth for transmission of a sounding reference signal, 20 MHz, determining from the control information, a second bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS (i.e. 5 MHz, 10 MHz), wherein a union of the at least one second bandwidth over a plurality of frequency hops corresponds to the first bandwidth, “[0044] FIG. 5 is a view illustrating transmission bandwidths and partial SRS transmission bands set to have bandwidths of various sizes. It is assumed that a full SRS transmission band given hereinafter is 20 MHz. The full SRS transmission band is selected for uplink scheduling which is divided into a plurality of partial SRS transmission bands. [0045] Referring to FIG. 5, five kinds of transmission bandwidths are illustrated. The five kinds of transmission bandwidths are 1.25 MHz transmission bandwidth, 2.5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 10 MHz transmission bandwidth, and 20 MHz transmission bandwidth. If the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 5 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the full SRS transmission band of 20 MHz into four every 5 MHz and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #1 to #4, respectively. In a similar way, if the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 10 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the uplink frequency band of 20 MHz into two equal parts and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #5 and #6, respectively.”);
transmit the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to a network entity ([0097] teaches the UE receiving a configuration, control information, via the transceiver. KIM teaches determining from the control information, a first bandwidth for transmission of a sounding reference signal, 20 MHz, determining from the control information, a second bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS (i.e. 5 MHz, 10 MHz), wherein a union of the at least one second bandwidth over a plurality of frequency hops corresponds to the first bandwidth, “[0044] FIG. 5 is a view illustrating transmission bandwidths and partial SRS transmission bands set to have bandwidths of various sizes. It is assumed that a full SRS transmission band given hereinafter is 20 MHz. The full SRS transmission band is selected for uplink scheduling which is divided into a plurality of partial SRS transmission bands. [0045] Referring to FIG. 5, five kinds of transmission bandwidths are illustrated. The five kinds of transmission bandwidths are 1.25 MHz transmission bandwidth, 2.5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 5 MHz transmission bandwidth, 10 MHz transmission bandwidth, and 20 MHz transmission bandwidth. If the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 5 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the full SRS transmission band of 20 MHz into four every 5 MHz and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #1 to #4, respectively. In a similar way, if the scheduling unit 110 has allocated the 10 MHz transmission bandwidth to the transmitter 200, the transmitter 200 divides the uplink frequency band of 20 MHz into two equal parts and transmits scheduling reference signals through the divided partial SRS transmission bands #5 and #6, respectively….[0097] Referring to FIG. 12, a BS transmits control information to a UE (S310). In general, since the type of the transmission bandwidth and the number of UEs are changed as time goes by, the BS has to transmit adequate control information periodically or if appropriate. The control information can be broadcasted to the entire UEs or transmitted through a dedicated channel. [0098] The control information includes a transmission bandwidth, a subcarrier interval value, a hopping or shift method, a CAZAC sequence allocation method and so on. The term hopping or shift method refers to a method of deciding how to hop respective divided partial SRS transmission bands every transmitting time to transmit the scheduling reference signal. Signaling is possible in an upper layer signaling and also a physical layer signaling. [0099] The UE transmits the scheduling reference signal to a BS (S320). The UE generates a scheduling reference signal using predetermined control information, such as an allocated transmission bandwidth, an allocated subcarrier interval value, a predetermined hopping or shift method, and a CAZAC sequence, and transmits a generated scheduling reference signal to the BS.”).
The feature for transmitting sounding reference signal(s) taught by KIM, differs from that of claim 29, in that KIM is silent on where the UE is configured to receive a third configuration that indicates that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the second bandwidth are to be used to transmit the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence, wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block subset pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops is different from a second resource block subset pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops. KIM further differs from claim 29, in that Kim is silent on where the UE is configured to transmit the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to the network entity using the first resource block sub pattern for the first frequency hop and the second resource block subset pattern for the second frequency hop.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. Also, as can be seen in the configuration described by VIVO in [Fig. 5-2, Section 5.2.1 Partial Sounding on Sub-band Level], the configuration indicates a first resource block pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency and a second resource block pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops.
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to arrive at feature for receiving a third configuration that indicates that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the second bandwidth are to be used to transmit the SRS, wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops
The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO further differ from claim 29, in that the combined teachings are silent on wherein the third configuration further indicates that a first resource block subset pattern to be used for a first frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops is different from a second resource block subset pattern to be used for a second frequency hop of the plurality of frequency hops and in that KIM further differs from claim 29, in that Kim is silent on transmitting the SRS using the first frequency hopping sequence to the network entity using the first resource block sub pattern for the first frequency hop and the second resource block subset pattern for the second frequency hop, as arranged with the remaining elements of claim 29. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving configuration of a sounding reference signal.
GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) teaches a frequency hopping sequence (i.e. performing SRS over PRB subsets) for SRS transmission, where a first resource block subset pattern used for a first frequency hop is different from a second resource block subset pattern used for a second hop (“…the UE is configured with a parameter ‘g’ that indicates a pattern, out of (.sub.G.sup.Z) possible patterns for each PRB subset, or it indicates a pattern out of P pre-defined patterns…”)
(“[0299] The user equipment, UE, 400 may perform a method including the following steps: [0300] receiving, from a network node, a sounding reference signal, SRS, configuration 432 providing one or more SRS resources 434, each SRS resource comprising one or more SRS ports, a set of frequency domain resources defining the SRS transmission bandwidth, and a number of symbol resources for the SRS transmission, wherein the transmission bandwidth is defined by m.sub.SRS,b PRBs comprising D PRB subsets, wherein each PRB subset comprises Z PRBs, and [0301] performing the SRS transmission over D or less than D PRB subsets 434a, wherein for each PRB subset G PRB(s) out of Z PRBs 434b are used for the SRS transmission, wherein G≤Z and G≥1. …[0304] In accordance with embodiments, the UE is configured with a parameter ‘g’ that indicates a pattern, out of (.sub.G.sup.Z) possible patterns for each PRB subset, or it indicates a pattern out of P pre-defined patterns, where P<(G), defining the frequency domain location(s) of the G PRB(s) per PRB subset (of size Z PRBs). For example, when Z=4 and G=1, g=0 may be associated with the pattern {x.sub.1,x.sub.2,x.sub.3,x.sub.4}={1,0,0,0} and g=1 may be associated with the pattern {x.sub.1,x.sub.2,x.sub.3,x.sub.4}={0,1,0,0}, and so on. [0305] FIG. 24 shows an example of different patterns for G=2 and Z=4. The association of the value ‘g’ to each pattern is shown in the figure as well. [0306] In accordance with embodiments, the value of ‘g’ may be fixed in the specification, or indicated to the UE via higher-layer signaling (e.g., RRC or MAC-CE) or via physical layer signaling (e.g., DCI).”)
Thus, based upon the teachings of GROSSMAN it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the sounding reference signal configuration feature suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO by adopting use of different resource block subset patterns for different frequency hops of SRS transmission as seen in GROSSMAN, to thus arrive at claim 29, to provide a benefit of a more flexible SRS configuration.
In regards to claim 3, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 1, wherein the third configuration further specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 3, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 31, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 29, wherein the third configuration further specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 31, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 4, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 1, wherein: the third configuration further specifies locations of the at least two resource blocks within the plurality of resource blocks. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. VIVO further teaches at least two resource blocks and where the configuration further specifies locations of the at least two resource blocks within the plurality of resource blocks, through use of a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 4, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 32, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 29, wherein: the third configuration further specifies locations of the at least two resource blocks within the plurality of resource blocks. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs or within a 4-PRB subband. VIVO further teaches at least two resource blocks and where the configuration further specifies locations of the at least two resource blocks within the plurality of resource blocks, through use of a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 32, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 5, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 1, wherein: the third configuration comprises a bit map; a first bit of the bit map is mapped to a first subset of the plurality of resource blocks; and a second bit of the bit map is mapped to a second subset of the plurality of resource blocks. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap where bits of the bit map, map to subbands/ physical resource blocks (PRBs) (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 5, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 33, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 29, wherein: the third configuration comprises a bit map; a first bit of the bit map is mapped to a first subset of the plurality of resource blocks; and a second bit of the bit map is mapped to a second subset of the plurality of resource blocks. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap where bits of the bit map, map to subbands/ physical resource blocks (PRBs) (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 33, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 6, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 5, further comprising: determining that the first bit is set; and transmitting the SRS on the first subset of the plurality of resource blocks after determining that the first bit is set. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap where bits of the bit map, map to subbands/ physical resource blocks (PRBs). VIVO further teaches setting bits to values of “1” in the bitmap and transmitting SRS on the subset of the plurality of resource blocks, PRBs, on resources identified by bits set to “1” and muting the SRS on bits set to “0”, (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 6, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 34, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 33, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the processor-executable code to cause the user equipment to: determine that the first bit is set; and transmit the SRS on the first subset of the plurality of resource blocks after determining that the first bit is set. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the configuration specifies a location of the at least one resource block within the plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one second bandwidth (i.e. hopping resource units) associated with the one frequency hop of the SRS, through use of a bitmap where bits of the bit map, map to subbands/ physical resource blocks (PRBs). VIVO further teaches setting bits to values of “1” in the bitmap and transmitting SRS on the subset of the plurality of resource blocks, PRBs, on resources identified by bits set to “1” and muting the SRS on bits set to “0”, (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of
n
R
R
C
in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with
C
S
R
S
= 14,
B
S
R
S
=
1
,
b
h
o
p
=
0
and
n
R
R
C
=
0
, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 34, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 7, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions (See KIM [Fig. 6] which shows a plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions); andKIM differs from claim 7, doesn’t explicitly teach the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions as arranged with the remaining elements of claim 7. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, by setting “1” in a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 7, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 35, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) teaches the user equipment of claim 29, wherein: the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions (See KIM [Fig. 6] which shows a plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions); and KIM differs from claim 35, doesn’t explicitly teach the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions as arranged with the remaining elements of claim 35. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, by setting “1” in a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 35, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 8, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 7, wherein: the third configuration comprises an index indicating at least one resource block location for each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks; and the method further comprises transmitting the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions at the at least one resource block location for each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indexed by bit locations in a bitmap, and transmitting the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions at the least one resource block location of the plurality of sets of resource blocks by setting “1” in a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 8, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 36, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein: the third configuration comprises an index indicating at least one resource block location for each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks; and the one or more processors are further configured execute the processor-executable code and cause the user equipment to transmit the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions at the at least one resource block location for each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, by setting “1” in a bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 36, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 9, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies a cycling of resource blocks to be used for different hops of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions; the cycling of resource blocks comprises an automatic shift in the resource block positions to be used for the transmission of successive blocks (Note that with respect to the limitation, “the cycling of resource blocks comprises an automatic shift in the resource block positions to be used for the transmission of successive blocks” said limitation will be understood as just a general cycling of resource block positions as the term “automatic shift” is regarded as new matter with an unclear meaning.). Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 9, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 37, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the third configuration specifies a cycling of resource blocks to be used for different hops of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 37, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 10, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the method of claim 9, wherein the cycling is indicated by: a first bit map for a first hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions; and a second bit map for a second hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 10, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 38, KIM (US 20100008333 A1) is silent on the user equipment of claim 37, wherein the cycling is indicated by: a first bit map for a first hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions; and a second bit map for a second hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 38, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 11, KIM is silent on the method of claim 9, wherein the cycling comprises a shift of a resource block location. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap. VIVO shows the where the cycling comprises shifting the resource block locations in Fig. 5.2.1, (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 11, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards 39, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 37, wherein the cycling comprises a shift of a resource block location. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap. VIVO shows where the cycling comprises shifting the resource block locations in [Fig. 5.2.1], (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 39, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 12, KIM is silent on the method of claim 9, wherein: each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks comprises a first resource block position and a second resource block position; and the cycling of resource blocks indicates that a first SRS transmission for a first hop occurs at the first resource block position and a second SRS transmission for a second hop occurs at the second resource block position. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] which shows a first SRS transmission and a second SRS transmission at a first resource block location and a second resource block location (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 12, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 40, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 37, wherein: each set of the plurality of sets of resource blocks comprises a first resource block position and a second resource block position; and the cycling of resource blocks indicates that a first SRS transmission for a first hop occurs at the first resource block position and a second SRS transmission for a second hop occurs at the second resource block position. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] which shows a first SRS transmission and a second SRS transmission at a first resource block location and a second resource block location (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 40, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 13, KIM is silent on the method of claim 9, wherein the third configuration further specifies whether the cycling is to be applied to a particular hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 13, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 41, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 37, wherein the third configuration further specifies whether the cycling is to be applied to a particular hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 41, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 14, KIM is silent on the method of claim 9, wherein the third configuration comprises a bit map that specifies whether the cycling is to be applied to a plurality of resource block positions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 14, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 42, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 37, wherein the third configuration comprises a bit map that specifies whether the cycling is to be applied to a plurality of resource block positions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 42, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 15, KIM is silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] further shows where the configuration information can activate and/or deactivate a SRS transmission for hop, by specifying a maximum number of hops (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 15, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 43, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the third configuration specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. This is further illustrated in [Fig. 5.2.1.] further shows where the configuration information can activate and/or deactivate a SRS transmission for hop, by specifying a maximum number of hops (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 43, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 16, KIM is silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration comprises a bit map comprising: a first bit that specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a first hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions; and a second bit that specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a second hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. The bitmap can also suggest the activation or deactivation of a SRS transmission for a hop (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 16, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
In regards to claim 44, KIM is silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the third configuration further comprises a bit map comprising: a first bit that specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a first hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions; and a second bit that specifies whether SRS transmission is activated or deactivated for a second hop of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving resource allocation for the transmission of sounding reference signals. VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024)[Section 5.2.2.1 – Section 5.2.2.2] teaches receiving a configuration, dynamic signaling/bitmap hopping restrictions, and determining from the configuration that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks associated with the at least one bandwidth associated with at least one frequency hop of the SRS are to be used to transmit the SRS, by suppressing SRS transmission on specific hops/PRBs. VIVO further teaches where the plurality of resource blocks comprises a first set of resource blocks of a plurality of set of resource blocks designated for plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, which are indicated in a bitmap, where the bitmap indicates the resource blocks to cycle through, by setting “1” at a bit location in the bitmap, each bit location corresponding to a resource block location for a hop. Additionally setting a bit to “0” mutes a resource block location from SRS transmission, thus disabling it from being available for the resource block cycling. The bitmap can also suggest the activation or deactivation of a SRS transmission for a hop (“For SRS hopping, hopping number restriction can be introduced for enhanced partial sounding. Specifically, an SRS is configured with certain hopping pattern, and SRS transmission is dropped after hopping number restriction is reached, which is counting from the sunband indicated by value of n_RRC in the SRS resource. The range of hopping number restriction signaling should not be larger than the SRS hopping number within a hopping period in one SRS configuration. As illustrate in Figure 5-2, an SRS is configured with C_SRS = 14, B_SRS=1, b_hop=0 and n_RRC=0, i.e. 52 PRBs bandwidth with 4 PRBs hopping bandwidth of each subband and begins from the first PRB in the SRS, SRS is transmitted 3 times only with hopping number restriction configured and rest of transmission occasions are dropped in a SRS hopping period. Another way of signaling is to indicate frequency domain bitmap to achieve same effect, for example a bitmap of 1000001000001 whose bit size is equal to the number of hopping subband within an SRS hopping period is indicated to the UE. In this case, the bit value of 1 in the bitmap indicates a subband enabled for SRS transmission, while others are muted, thus flexible subband controlling mechanism with non-continuous subband sounding can be realized. ”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of VIVO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SRS resource allocation feature of KIM, by adopting dynamic signaling to determine that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used in order to perform a frequency hopping process, to thus arrive at claim 44, in order to provide a benefit of a more flexible configuration of a SRS Resource Allocation.
Claim(s) 17 and 45 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of MATSUMURA (US 20210368495 A1)
In regards to claim 17, the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies a range of resource blocks for the at least one resource block.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving the allocation of resources for frequency hopping. MATSUMURA (US 20210368495 A1) teaches a feature where a configuration for frequency hopping specifies a range of resource blocks for at least one block to conduct the frequency hopping feature (“[0038] In FIG. 1, each PUCCH resource configured in the user terminal may contain a value of at least one of the following parameters (also referred to as “field”, “information”, or the like). Note that each parameter may have a value range that can be given for each PUCCH format. [0039] Symbol at which PUCCH allocation starts (start symbol or initial symbol) [0040] Number of symbols allocated to PUCCH within a slot (duration allocated to PUCCH) [0041] Index of the resource block at which allocation of PUCCH starts (start PRB or initial (lowest) PRB) (e.g., PUCCH-starting-PRB) [0042] Number of PRBs allocated to PUCCH (e.g., PF2 or PF3) [0043] Whether the frequency hopping for the PUCCH resource is enabled or disabled (e.g., PUCCH-frequency-hopping) [0044] Frequency resource after frequency hopping (second hop) (e.g., an index of the starting PRB or the first (lowest) PRB in the second hop, PUCCH-2nd-hop-PRB) [0045] Index of initial cyclic shift (CS) (e.g., for PF0 or PF1) [0046] Index of time-domain orthogonal sequence (such as time-domain OCC) (e.g., for PF1) [0047] Length of orthogonal sequence used in block-wise spreading prior to discrete Fourier transform (DFT) (such as Pre-DFT OCC) (also referred to as “Pre-DFT OCC length”, “spreading factor”, or the like) (e.g., for PF4) [0048] Index of orthogonal sequence used in block-wise spreading prior to DFT (such as Pre-DFT OCC) (e.g., for PF4)”).
Thus based upon the teachings of MATSUMURA it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the third configuration suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN, by adopting use of information such as a range of resource blocks for the at least one resource block, to specify parameters of the third configuration to thus arrive at claim 17, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable alternative design option for specifying the frequency hopping parameters suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO.
In regards to claim 45, the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the third configuration specifies a range of resource blocks for the at least one resource block.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving the allocation of resources for frequency hopping. MATSUMURA (US 20210368495 A1) teaches a feature where a configuration for frequency hopping specifies a range of resource blocks for at least one block to conduct the frequency hopping feature (“[0038] In FIG. 1, each PUCCH resource configured in the user terminal may contain a value of at least one of the following parameters (also referred to as “field”, “information”, or the like). Note that each parameter may have a value range that can be given for each PUCCH format. [0039] Symbol at which PUCCH allocation starts (start symbol or initial symbol) [0040] Number of symbols allocated to PUCCH within a slot (duration allocated to PUCCH) [0041] Index of the resource block at which allocation of PUCCH starts (start PRB or initial (lowest) PRB) (e.g., PUCCH-starting-PRB) [0042] Number of PRBs allocated to PUCCH (e.g., PF2 or PF3) [0043] Whether the frequency hopping for the PUCCH resource is enabled or disabled (e.g., PUCCH-frequency-hopping) [0044] Frequency resource after frequency hopping (second hop) (e.g., an index of the starting PRB or the first (lowest) PRB in the second hop, PUCCH-2nd-hop-PRB) [0045] Index of initial cyclic shift (CS) (e.g., for PF0 or PF1) [0046] Index of time-domain orthogonal sequence (such as time-domain OCC) (e.g., for PF1) [0047] Length of orthogonal sequence used in block-wise spreading prior to discrete Fourier transform (DFT) (such as Pre-DFT OCC) (also referred to as “Pre-DFT OCC length”, “spreading factor”, or the like) (e.g., for PF4) [0048] Index of orthogonal sequence used in block-wise spreading prior to DFT (such as Pre-DFT OCC) (e.g., for PF4)”).
Thus based upon the teachings of MATSUMURA it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the third configuration suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN, by adopting use of information such as a range of resource blocks for the at least one resource block, to specify parameters of the third configuration to thus arrive at claim 45, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable alternative design option for specifying the frequency hopping parameters suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO.
Claim(s) 18 and 46 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of BAE (US 20200374896 A1).
In regards to claim 18, The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block.
Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving the allocation of resources for frequency hopping. BAE (US 20200374896 A1) teaches a configuration for frequency hopping that specifies a starting resource block and a quantity, offset, of resource blocks for at least one resource block ( [0137] If the UE is configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-PUSCH, one of two frequency hopping modes can be configured: [0138] Intra-slot frequency hopping, applicable to single slot and multi-slot PUSCH transmission. [0139] Inter-slot frequency hopping, applicable to multi-slot PUSCH transmission…[0140] The frequency hopping on PUSCH is enabled, and for the resource allocation type 1, frequency offsets are configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-offset-set: [0141] when the size of the active BWP is less than 50 PRBs, one of two higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant...[0142] when the size of the active BWP is greater than 50 PRBs, one of four higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant. the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block.
Thus based upon the teachings of BAE it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the third configuration suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN, by adopting use of information such as a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block, to specify parameters of the third configuration to thus arrive at claim 18, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable alternative design option for specifying the frequency hopping parameters suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO.
In regards to claim 46, The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the third configuration specifies a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving the allocation of resources for frequency hopping.
BAE (US 20200374896 A1) teaches a configuration for frequency hopping that specifies a starting resource block and a quantity, offset, of resource blocks for at least one resource block ( [0137] If the UE is configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-PUSCH, one of two frequency hopping modes can be configured: [0138] Intra-slot frequency hopping, applicable to single slot and multi-slot PUSCH transmission. [0139] Inter-slot frequency hopping, applicable to multi-slot PUSCH transmission…[0140] The frequency hopping on PUSCH is enabled, and for the resource allocation type 1, frequency offsets are configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-offset-set: [0141] when the size of the active BWP is less than 50 PRBs, one of two higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant...[0142] when the size of the active BWP is greater than 50 PRBs, one of four higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant. the method of claim 7, wherein the third configuration specifies a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block.
Thus based upon the teachings of BAE it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the third configuration suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN, by adopting use of information such as a starting resource block and a quantity of resource blocks for the at least one resource block, to specify parameters of the third configuration to thus arrive at claim 46, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable alternative design option for specifying the frequency hopping parameters suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO.
Claim(s) 2 and 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of ZHANG (US 20190229789 A1)
In regards to claim 2, the combined teachings of KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the third configuration comprises: receiving a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) that includes the third configuration, receiving a downlink control information (DCI) that includes the third configuration, or receiving a radio resource control (RRC) message that includes the third configuration. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration.
ZHANG (US 20190229789 A1) teaches transmitting/receiving SRS configuration information in a MAC-CE, a DCI, or RRC message (“[0258] Steps 3 to 7 describe a UE specific CSI-RS or SRS configuration, i.e., UE Specific=1, unicasted to UE2 for the DL or UL beam pairing between UE2 and the NR-node/TRP/Beam. The UE requested UE-specific CSI-RS configuration indication is shown in steps 4A to 6A. Meanwhile, the NR-node/TRP/Beam initiated, UE-specific SRS configuration indication is illustrated in steps 4B to 6B. The UE-specific CSI-RS and SRS configuration parameters may be signaled via a RRC message or MAC CE, or the DL control channel DCI(s) as exampled herein. UE specific CSI-RS and SRS configurations may also be preconfigured as shown at step 0. They may also be statically configured and broadcasted to UE(s) as shown at step 1 or 3.”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of ZHANG it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in either or a MAC-CE, DCI, or RRC message, thus arriving at claim 2, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
In regards to claim 30, The combined teachings of KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the user equipment of claim 29, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the processor-executable code and cause the user equipment to: receive a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) that includes the third configuration, receive a downlink control information (DCI) that includes the third configuration, or receive a radio resource control (RRC) message that includes the third configuration. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration.
ZHANG (US 20190229789 A1) teaches transmitting/receiving SRS configuration information in a MAC-CE, a DCI, or RRC message (“[0258] Steps 3 to 7 describe a UE specific CSI-RS or SRS configuration, i.e., UE Specific=1, unicasted to UE2 for the DL or UL beam pairing between UE2 and the NR-node/TRP/Beam. The UE requested UE-specific CSI-RS configuration indication is shown in steps 4A to 6A. Meanwhile, the NR-node/TRP/Beam initiated, UE-specific SRS configuration indication is illustrated in steps 4B to 6B. The UE-specific CSI-RS and SRS configuration parameters may be signaled via a RRC message or MAC CE, or the DL control channel DCI(s) as exampled herein. UE specific CSI-RS and SRS configurations may also be preconfigured as shown at step 0. They may also be statically configured and broadcasted to UE(s) as shown at step 1 or 3.”).
Thus, based upon the teachings of ZHANG it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in either or a MAC-CE, DCI, or RRC message, thus arriving at claim 30, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
Claim(s) 19 and 47 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of GAO (US 20210321355 A1).
In regards to claim 19, The combined teaches of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the method of claim 7, wherein the receiving the third configuration comprises: receiving a downlink control information (DCI) format 0_1 that includes the third configuration. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration. GAO (US 20210321355 A1) teaches a feature where a SRS configuration is received via DCI format 0_1 ([0048] In some embodiments, the at least one procedure to be applied to an UL transmission can be determined based on an indication of at least one SRS resource to be used for an uplink transmission over PUSCH. For example, in response to receiving from the network device 110 an indication of at least one SRS resource to be used for an UL transmission over PUSCH, the terminal device 120 may determine the at least one procedure to be applied to the uplink transmission over PUSCH based on the at least one SRS resource. In some embodiments, for codebook based UL transmissions or non-codebook based UL transmissions, an UL transmission over PUSCH may be scheduled by downlink control information (DCI) in format 0_1. For example, the DCI in format 0_1 may include an SRS resource indicator (SRI) field which indicates one or more SRS resources to be used for PUSCH transmissions. If a PUSCH transmission is scheduled by the DCI in format 0_1, the terminal device 120 may determine, based on the SRI from the DCI in format 0_1 received from the network device 110, that which one of the first and second procedures is to be applied to the PUSCH transmission.)
Thus, based upon the teachings of GAO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in a DCI format 0_1 message, thus arriving at claim 19, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
In regards to claim 47, The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the processor-executable code and cause the user equipment to: receive a downlink control information (DCI) format 0_1 that includes the third configuration. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration. GAO (US 20210321355 A1) teaches a feature where a SRS configuration is received via DCI format 0_1 ([0048] In some embodiments, the at least one procedure to be applied to an UL transmission can be determined based on an indication of at least one SRS resource to be used for an uplink transmission over PUSCH. For example, in response to receiving from the network device 110 an indication of at least one SRS resource to be used for an UL transmission over PUSCH, the terminal device 120 may determine the at least one procedure to be applied to the uplink transmission over PUSCH based on the at least one SRS resource. In some embodiments, for codebook based UL transmissions or non-codebook based UL transmissions, an UL transmission over PUSCH may be scheduled by downlink control information (DCI) in format 0_1. For example, the DCI in format 0_1 may include an SRS resource indicator (SRI) field which indicates one or more SRS resources to be used for PUSCH transmissions. If a PUSCH transmission is scheduled by the DCI in format 0_1, the terminal device 120 may determine, based on the SRI from the DCI in format 0_1 received from the network device 110, that which one of the first and second procedures is to be applied to the PUSCH transmission.)
Thus, based upon the teachings of GAO it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in a DCI format 0_1 message, thus arriving at claim 47, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
Claim(s) 25 and 53 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1).
In regards to claim 25, The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the method of claim 7, wherein: the receiving the third configuration comprises receiving a downlink control information (DCI) or a radio resource control (RRC) configuration; and the DCI or the RRC configuration comprises a bit that indicates that less than all of the plurality of resource blocks are to be used to transmit the SRS. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration.
FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) [Par. 63 – Par. 65] and [Table 1] teach receiving an SRS configuration via RRC, where the RRC configuration comprises a bit that indicates that less than all of the plurality of resource blocks are to be used to transmit the SRS, see “FreqBand” field for configuring wideband or partial-band SRS in Table 1.
Thus, based upon the teachings of FAXER it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in a RRC message with a bit to indicate that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used to transmit the SRS, indicating a partial band SRS, thus arriving at claim 25, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
In regards to claim 53, The combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN are silent on the user equipment of claim 35, wherein: the one or more processors are further configured to execute the processor-executable code and cause the user equipment to receive a downlink control information (DCI) or a radio resource control (RRC) configuration; and the DCI or the RRC configuration comprises a bit that indicates that less than all of the plurality of resource blocks are to be used to transmit the SRS. Despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving a SRS configuration.
FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) [Par. 63 – Par. 65] and [Table 1] teach receiving an SRS configuration via RRC, where the RRC configuration comprises a bit that indicates that less than all of the plurality of resource blocks are to be used to transmit the SRS, see “FreqBand” field for configuring wideband or partial-band SRS in Table 1.
Thus, based upon the teachings of FAXER it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the SRS configuration feature of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN by delivering third configuration information (i.e. SRS configuration information) in a RRC message with a bit to indicate that less than all of a plurality of resource blocks are used to transmit the SRS, indicating a partial band SRS, thus arriving at claim 53, in order to provide a benefit of reliable messaging format for delivery of the third configuration information.
Claim(s) 28 and 56, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN (US 20230198713 A1) in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) in view of GALLI (“US 20180122159 A1”).
In regards to claim 28, the combined teachings of KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) are silent on the method of claim 25, further comprising: selecting the at least one resource block according to a defined order for hops of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving frequency hopping.
GALLI (“US 20180122159 A1”) teaches either selecting a resource randomly or selecting a fixed resource for performing the frequency hopping ([0054] The UHF communication for transmitting the results to the decoder unit can use one or more UHF channels by using frequency hopping. Frequency hopping can be according to a hopping diagram which is fixed or established randomly. The transmission can be synchronised in time by the frame of the LF wake-up field, or can occur at random intervals using the Aloha protocol. In order to avoid collisions with messages from other transponder modules 10, it uses the method “Listen Before Talk” LBT according to any configuration. The transponder module 10 repeats a transmitted result until it receives confirmation from the decoder unit using a UHF return channel (uplink) or until it reaches a dead time or an interruption.)
Thus based upon the teachings of GALLI it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the frequency hopping feature suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of FAXER in view of GROSSMAN, by performing a fixed selection of resources (i.e resource block) for the frequency hop, to thus arrive at claim 28, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable design option for implementing the frequency hopping suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of FAXER.
In regards to claim 56, the combined teachings of KIM (US 20100008333 A1) in view of VIVO (“Discussion on SRS Enhancement”, see the IDS received May 15, 2024) in view of GROSSMAN in view of FAXER (US 20200336264 A1) are silent on the user equipment of claim 53, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the processor-executable code to cause the user equipment to: select the at least one resource block according to a defined order for hops of the plurality of frequency hopped SRS transmissions, despite these differences similar features have been seen in other prior art involving frequency hopping.
GALLI (“US 20180122159 A1”) teaches either selecting a resource randomly or selecting a fixed resource for performing the frequency hopping ([0054] The UHF communication for transmitting the results to the decoder unit can use one or more UHF channels by using frequency hopping. Frequency hopping can be according to a hopping diagram which is fixed or established randomly. The transmission can be synchronised in time by the frame of the LF wake-up field, or can occur at random intervals using the Aloha protocol. In order to avoid collisions with messages from other transponder modules 10, it uses the method “Listen Before Talk” LBT according to any configuration. The transponder module 10 repeats a transmitted result until it receives confirmation from the decoder unit using a UHF return channel (uplink) or until it reaches a dead time or an interruption.)
Thus based upon the teachings of GALLI it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the frequency hopping feature suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of GROSSMAN in view of FAXER, by performing a fixed selection of resources (i.e resource block) for the frequency hop, to thus arrive at claim 56, in order to provide a benefit of a reliable design option for implementing the frequency hopping suggested by the combined teachings of KIM in view of VIVO in view of FAXER.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, and 55 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TARELL A HAMPTON whose telephone number is (571)270-7162. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
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, Ayaz Sheikh can be reached at 5712723795. 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.
/TARELL A HAMPTON/Examiner, Art Unit 2476
/PETER P CHAU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476