DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
Claims 1, 11, 24, and 28 have been amended.
Claims 1-2, 4-7, 9-12, 14-17, 19-24, 26-28, and 30 are presently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument(s) filed on January 14, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the remarks, the Applicant argues in substance that:
The Applicant argues that combination of the cited references fail to disclose or suggest "wherein the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are received on a sidelink channel in one of a same logical channel group or different logical channel groups when the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are scheduled via a plurality of configured grant;", as recited in Applicant’s claim 1 (see Remarks pgs. 7-9)
In response, Examiner respectively disagrees. Applicant is reminded that claims must be given their broadest reasonable interpretation. SUH discloses the RSMA message structure, explaining that a signal transmitted to a terminal includes both a common message and the private message, and that the terminal receives and decodes the common message and the private message (see SUH - ¶ 6, 13). SUH (¶ 79) further discloses the MAC layer maps a plurality of logical channels to transport channels and provides logical channel multiplexing. Therefore, this disclosure directly establishes that the system supports multiple logical channels for transmitting data, these channels may either be multiplexed onto the same channel or carried separately. Jassal discloses the scheduling grants or configuring scheduling-free “configured grant” resources (see Jassal - ¶ 80). Based on the language of the argued limitation, the use of “when” defines the condition under which the reception occurs (reception takes places during transmissions scheduled via configured grants). When the RSMA transmissions disclosed in SUH are implemented within the scheduling framework disclosed in Jassal, the common and private message portions are necessarily received when those transmissions are scheduled through the configured grant mechanism described in Jassal. Thus, under BRI, the combination of the cited references meets the scope of the claimed limitation as currently presented. As such, the rejections of record are maintained.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 11, 24, and 28 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In Claims 1, 11, 24, and 28, “configured grant” should be “configured grants”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-2, 6-7, 9-12, 16-17, 19-20, 24, 27-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SUH et al. (US 20220400475, hereinafter, “SUH”) in view of Jassal et al. (US 20250141601, hereinafter, “Jassal”).
Claim 1. SUH teaches: A method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising: - See Fig. 1, 11
receiving, from an apparatus, information configuring a repetition pattern of at least one of a common part of a rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) message or a private part of the RSMA message, - in ¶ [0005], (“a method for configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme in a wireless communication system.”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
wherein the repetition pattern is based on a priority associated with the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message, - in ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
wherein the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are received on a sidelink channel - See Fig. 14 in one of a same logical channel group or different logical channel groups – in ¶ [0079], (“The MAC layer provides a mapping function from a plurality of logical channel to a plurality of transport channels. In addition, the MAC layer provides a logical channel multiplexing function by mapping from a plurality of logical channels to a single transport channel.”) when the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are scheduled via a plurality of configured grant; - in ¶ [0005], (“a method for configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”) and
receiving, from the apparatus, at least one repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message after receiving the information configuring the repetition pattern. - in ¶ [0005], (“a method for configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme in a wireless communication system.”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
SUH does not explicitly teach:
receiving, from an apparatus, information configuring a repetition pattern of at least one of a common part of a rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) message or a private part of the RSMA message,
wherein the repetition pattern is based on a priority associated with the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message,
wherein the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are received on a sidelink channel in one of a same logical channel group or different logical channel groups when the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are scheduled via a plurality of configured grant; and
receiving, from the apparatus, at least one repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message after receiving the information configuring the repetition pattern.
However, Jassal teaches:
receiving, from an apparatus, information configuring a repetition pattern of at least one of a common part of a rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) message or a private part of the RSMA message, wherein the repetition pattern is based on a priority associated with the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message, - in ¶ [0273], (“the UE 110 may generate joint RTQ feedback…in an order that corresponds to the order of the QoS priority of the corresponding packet…a high priority packet precedes a low priority packet in a given TB, an RTQ feedback information bit for the high priority packet will be arranged to precede…the low priority packet”, The UE receives information from the network that configures how packets should be repeated/transmitted in order based on their priority (eq. repetition pattern).)
wherein the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are received on a sidelink channel in one of a same logical channel group or different logical channel groups when the common part of the RSMA message and the private part of the RSMA message are scheduled via a plurality of configured grant; – in ¶ [0080], (“The scheduler 253 may schedule uplink, downlink and/or backhaul transmissions, including issuing scheduling grants and/or configuring scheduling-free (“configured grant”) resources.”) and
receiving, from the apparatus, at least one repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message after receiving the information configuring the repetition pattern. - in ¶ [0275 - 0277], (“Responsive to determining that the high profile packet (Packet ID=7) transmission attempts…have all failed, the UE 110 may generate RTQ feedback and transmit, to the NT-TRP 172, a PUCCH carrying a UCI with the RTQ feedback. Upon receiving the PUCCH, the NT-TRP 172 may process the RTQ feedback and schedule a retransmission for the TB…the retransmissions of the low priority packets or high priority packets are repetitions of the packets that were transmitted at the first transmission.”, After receiving the repetition pattern (priority-based order), the UE receives at least one repetition of packets according to that pattern.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include configuring repetition patterns and scheduling via a plurality of configured grants, as taught by Jassal. SUH teaches a message structure (common/private), while Jassal provides a technique for configuring repetitions patterns based on priority. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to improve reliability by using Jassal’s priority-based repetition control to enhance RSMA, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and, in particular embodiments, to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claim 2. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH teaches:
wherein the common part of the RSMA message is common to a plurality of UEs - in ¶ [0115], (“a method for exchanging, by a terminal and a base station, a signal based on a rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) in a new communication system. As an example, a RSMA scheme may be a method where parts of messages transmitted to each user are bound in a form of common message to be transmitted to every user”) and wherein the private part of the RSMA message is specific to the UE. – See Fig. 9, ¶ [0128], (“the RSMA scheme may…generate separately the remaining private messages and transmit the private messages to each terminal.”)
Claim 6. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Jassal further teaches:
wherein the information configuring the repetition pattern is received via at least one of layer 1 (L1), layer 2 (L2), or layer 3 (L3) signalling. - in ¶ [0246], (“the time relationship may be configured to the UE…using higher-layer signaling (e.g., RRC signaling) or lower-layer signaling (e.g., MAC-CE signaling).”); ¶ [0273], (“The RTQ feedback may be generated in an order that matches the order in which PDCCHs have been received.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include the information configuring the repetition pattern is received via at least one of layer 1 (L1), layer 2 (L2), or layer 3 (L3) signalling, as taught by Jassal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and…to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claim 7. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH further teaches:
wherein the repetition pattern is based on whether the common part of the RSMA message includes control information. – in ¶ [0115], (“Accordingly, a common message needs to include configuration information on a private message.”); ¶ [0129], (“the common message configuration information may include information on a number of message bits of a terminal included in the common message and information on a start position corresponding to a message of the terminal in the common message.”)
Jassal further teaches:
wherein the repetition pattern is based on whether the common part of the RSMA message includes control information. - in ¶ [0275 – 0277], (“Responsive to determining that the high profile packet (Packet ID=7) transmission attempts…have all failed, the UE 110 may generate RTQ feedback and transmit, to the NT-TRP 172, a PUCCH carrying a UCI with the RTQ feedback. Upon receiving the PUCCH, the NT-TRP 172 may process the RTQ feedback and schedule a retransmission for the TB…the retransmissions of the low priority packets or high priority packets are repetitions of the packets that were transmitted at the first transmission.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include the repetition pattern is based on, as taught by Jassal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and…to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claim 9. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH further teaches:
further comprising: transmitting, to the apparatus, a request for at least one other repetition of at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
Jassal further teaches:
transmitting, to the apparatus, a request for at least one other repetition of at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0149], (“for every TB that was not decoded correctly by the UE, the UE may generate an RTQ feedback information bit whose value is set to indicate a respective retransmission request, such as a “1.”); ¶ [0151], (“The feedback, transmitted by the UE 110, may include an index to a selected RTQ feedback information codebook table and an index to a selected RTQ feedback information codebook entry”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include transmitting a request for at least one other repetition, as taught by Jassal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and…to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claim 10. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 9, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH does not explicitly teach:
wherein the request is multiplexed with hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback.
However, Jassal teaches:
wherein the request is multiplexed with hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback. - in ¶ [0149], (“for every TB that was not decoded correctly by the UE, the UE may generate an RTQ feedback information bit whose value is set to indicate a respective retransmission request, such as a “1.”); ¶ [0168 - 0169], (“the proposed source coding scheme may be applied to an ACK/NACK-based HARQ procedure that may be found in current 5G NR systems, where a NACK bit is mapped to “1” and an ACK is mapped to “0.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include the request is multiplexed with HARQ feedback, as taught by Jassal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and…to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claim 19. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 11, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH further teaches:
further comprising: receiving, from the at least UE, a request associated with at least one other repetition of at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message; and transmitting, to the at least one UE, the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message associated with the request. - in ¶ [0005], (“a method for configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme in a wireless communication system.”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
Jassal further teaches:
receiving, from the at least UE, a request associated with at least one other repetition of at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message; - in ¶ [0149], (“for every TB that was not decoded correctly by the UE, the UE may generate an RTQ feedback information bit whose value is set to indicate a respective retransmission request, such as a “1.”); ¶ [0151], (“The feedback, transmitted by the UE 110, may include an index to a selected RTQ feedback information codebook table and an index to a selected RTQ feedback information codebook entry”) and
transmitting, to the at least one UE, the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message associated with the request. – in ¶ [0275 - 277], (“Upon receiving the PUCCH, the NT-TRP 172 may process the RTQ feedback and schedule a retransmission for the TB…the NT-TRP 172 retransmits exactly the same bits for the low priority packets or the high priority packets, i.e., the information bits and the redundancy bits are exactly the same as those that were transmitted at the first transmission.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH with Jassal to include a request associated with at least one other repetition, as taught by Jassal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by Jassal, selective retransmission of transport blocks and…to the provision of feedback regarding success of decoding transport blocks and the reaction to the receipt of the feedback. - ¶ [0002]
Claims 11-12 are rejected under the same rationale as Claims 1-2 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claims 16-17 are rejected under the same rationale as Claims 6-7 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 20 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 10 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 24 is the apparatus claim corresponding to the method claim of Claim 1 and is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 1 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 27 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 9 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 28 is the apparatus claim corresponding to the method claim of Claim 11 and is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 11 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claims 4, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SUH et al. (US 20220400475, hereinafter, “SUH”) in view of Jassal et al. (US 20250141601, hereinafter, “Jassal”), and further in view of Stocia et al. (US 20230132338, hereinafter, “Stocia”).
Claim 4. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Combination of SUH and Jassal does not explicitly teach:
wherein the priority is included in sidelink control information (SCI).
However, Stocia teaches:
wherein the priority is included in sidelink control information (SCI). - in ¶ [0197], (“this information may be reported via the control channel information signals (e.g., DCI, UCI, SCI) to reduce signaling overhead with respect to the precoder configuration and its mapping.”); ¶ [0200], (“(e.g., eMBB, associated with a first priority level), and x.sub.2 which is of a second type (e.g., URLLC, associated with a second priority level, the second priority level may be higher than the first…the URLLC data symbols shall be prioritized in terms of latency and rate realization…the rate splitting between the two streams may be selected”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH and Jassal with Stoica to include the priority is included in sidelink control information, as taught by Stoica. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to improve performance, as suggested by Stoica, the additional degrees of freedom and achievable capacity region gained may benefit…multiple data streams whose rates are split to benefit heterogeneous constraints of minimal rate, maximum latency, and minimal reliability. - ¶ [0046]
Claim 14 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 4 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claims 5, 15, 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SUH et al. (US 20220400475, hereinafter, “SUH”) in view of Jassal et al. (US 20250141601, hereinafter, “Jassal”), and further in view of “Consideration on physical layer procedures” (published on November 2018, hereinafter, “RefB”, provided in the IDS by the applicant).
Claim 5. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH teaches:
wherein the repetition pattern comprises at least a first repetition factor associated with the common part of the RSMA message and a second repetition factor associated with the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0005], (“a method for configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
Combination of SUH and Jassal does not explicitly teach:
wherein the repetition pattern comprises at least a first repetition factor associated with the common part of the RSMA message and a second repetition factor associated with the private part of the RSMA message.
However, RefB teaches:
wherein the repetition pattern comprises at least a first repetition factor associated with the common part of the RSMA message and a second repetition factor associated with the private part of the RSMA message. - See Section 2.2, (“In NR Uu link, blind repetitions are also supported in both grant-based and configured grants transmission, where one of repetition numbers among 2, 4, and 8 can be configured by RRC signaling…a set of candidate values can be (pre-) configured and SCI 1 indicates one of them.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH and Jassal with RefB to include the repetition pattern comprises at least a first repetition factor and a second repetition factor, as taught by RefB. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in a more reliable and efficient communication system, as suggested by RefB, the high reliability requirement of NR V2X with 99.999%, repetition number of 2 or 3 as in LTE may not be enough and therefore, more repetitions should be supported. - Section 2.2
Claims 15, 26 are rejected under the same rationale as Claim 5 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claims 21-23, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SUH et al. (US 20220400475, hereinafter, “SUH”) in view of Jassal et al. (US 20250141601, hereinafter, “Jassal”), and further in view of CAO et al. (US 20210105104, hereinafter, “CAO”).
Claim 21. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 19, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH teaches:
wherein the request indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0005], (“configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
SUH does not explicitly teach:
wherein the request indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message.
However, Jassal teaches:
wherein the request indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0149], (“for every TB that was not decoded correctly by the UE, the UE may generate an RTQ feedback information bit whose value is set to indicate a respective retransmission request, such as a “1.”)
Combination of SUH and Jassal does not explicitly teach:
wherein the request indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message.
However, CAO teaches:
wherein the request indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition of the at least one of the common part of the RSMA message or the private part of the RSMA message. - in ¶ [0178], (“depending on the number of retransmissions, the SCI may have a different format for each different number of retransmissions, in this case, the number of retransmissions may be implicitly indicated by the SCI format…”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH and Jassal with CAO to include indicates a repetition factor for the at least one other repetition, as taught by CAO. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to enhance reliability, as suggested by CAO, NR requires high reliability and may include multiple repetitions. - ¶ [0037]
Claim 22. Combination of SUH and Jassal teaches The method of claim 11, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
SUH further teaches:
further comprising: setting a reference signal received power (RSRP) threshold associated with at least one of a first priority of the common part of the RSMA message, a second priority of the private part of the RSMA message, or a third priority of another message. - in ¶ [0005], (“configuring a common message and a private message based on a RSMA scheme”); ¶ [0013], (“a part of a message, which is transmitted from a base station to a terminal, may be transmitted to the terminal through a common message, and the remaining part excluding the part may be transmitted to the terminal through a private message.”)
CAO further teaches:
setting a reference signal received power (RSRP) threshold associated with at least one of a first priority of the common part of the RSMA message, a second priority of the private part of the RSMA message, or a third priority of another message. – in ¶ [0082], (“the SL reference signal received power (SL-RSRP) threshold is a function of at least the priority of the SL transmission indicated in the received SCI and the priority of the transmission for which resources are being selected by the UE.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH and Jassal with CAO to include setting a RSRP threshold associated with at least one of a first priority, second priority, or third priority, as taught by CAO. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to enhance reliability, as suggested by CAO, NR requires high reliability and may include multiple repetitions. - ¶ [0037]
Claim 23. Combination of SUH, Jassal, and CAO teaches The method of claim 22, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
CAO further teaches:
wherein the RSRP threshold is set based on a highest priority of the first priority, the second priority, or the third priority. - in ¶ [0081], (“a reservation of resources with a higher priority from the perspective of the sensing UE should be associated with a lower threshold, so that the resource will be more likely excluded from selection of resources for other transmissions.”); ¶ [0082], (“the SL reference signal received power (SL-RSRP) threshold is a function of at least the priority of the SL transmission indicated in the received SCI and the priority of the transmission for which resources are being selected by the UE.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified SUH and Jassal with CAO to include the RSRP threshold is set based on a highest priority of the first priority, the second priority, or the third priority, as taught by CAO. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to enhance reliability, as suggested by CAO, NR requires high reliability and may include multiple repetitions. - ¶ [0037]
Claim 30 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 22 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/SHIMA WASEL/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2475
/KHALED M KASSIM/supervisory patent examiner, Art Unit 2475