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
Applicant’s amendment filed on 01/28/2026 has been entered. Independent Claims 1, 7, 11, and 17 have been amended. Dependent claims 2-4, 6, 12-14, and 16 have been amended. No claims have been cancelled. No claims are new and have been entered. Claims 1-20 are still pending in this application.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/28/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/28/2026 on pages 12-13 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 1 under 35 USC § 103. The applicant argues that Park fails to teach a repetition transmission rather than a first and second transmission. However, Park shows a repetition, which inherently includes a first and second transmission. Thus, the applicant here fails to patentably distinguish the claimed invention of a repetition transmission rather than a first and second transmission from the teachings of Park. The applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/28/2026 on page 14 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 2 under 35 USC § 103. The applicant argues that Guo fails to teach that the parameter of a bit sequence is equal to that in the second bit sequence. However, Fig. 9, and specifically element 910 state “determine resources of a configured grant that are to be used for transmitting repetitions of the one or more transport blocks based on at least in part at least one of a quantity of consecutive slots”, which in combination of ¶0111 of Guo states that the specific antenna of the UE are a portion of the configured grant. MPEP § 2144.01 states "[I]n considering the disclosure of a reference, it is proper to take into account not only specific teachings of the reference but also the inferences which one skilled in the art would reasonably be expected to draw therefrom.", which one in the ordinary skill in the art of electrical engineering would understand that a repetition of a parameter would generate an equal bit sequence. Thus, the applicant here fails to patentably distinguish the claimed invention of that the parameter determination occurs after the first and second transmissions occupy different time slots from the teachings of Guo. The applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/28/2026 on pages 15-16 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 3 under 35 USC § 103. The applicant argues that Guo fails to teach a transmission bit rate. However, Guo teaches a length of transmission, and that coupled with the fixed information of bandwidth and frequency, see ¶0038, is the amount of information being transferred, e.g., the bitrate. The other element ions mentioned are not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim. Thus, the applicant here fails to patentably distinguish the claimed invention of a transmission bit rate from the teachings of Guo. The applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/28/2026 on pages 16-17 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 4 under 35 USC § 103. The applicant argues that Guo fails to teach one repetition, and instead teaches four repetitions. However, to repeat a transmission four times, inherently, a system needs to repeat at least once, see MPEP § 2144.01. Thus, the applicant here fails to patentably distinguish the claimed invention of teaching one repetition, and instead teaches four repetitions from the teachings of Guo. The applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo (Pub.: No.: US 20230217447 A1, hereafter “Guo”) in view of Park (Pub. No.: US 20200100223 A1, hereafter “Park”).
Regarding Claim 1 and Claim 11
Guo teaches a method and apparatus comprising
A data transmission method, comprising: determining (Guo ¶0086: indicate) that a position of a start bit (Guo ¶0086: starting symbol S) of a first bit sequence (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 0) and a position of an end bit (Guo ¶0086: length L) of a second bit sequence (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 1) are contiguous in a coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0086: consecutive), wherein the first bit sequence is a bit sequence in first transmission (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 0), the second bit sequence is a bit sequence in second transmission (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 1),
and at least one of receiving or sending the first bit sequence (Guo Fig 10: 1020) over a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Guo Fig 10: 1010, e.g. indicated quantity of consecutive PUSCH occasions; Guo teaches receiving one or more transport blocks that were transported over a PUSCH)
wherein the method further comprises, before (Guo Fig. 10: 1000, 1010 is before 1020) the determining (Guo Fig. 10: 1010) that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0133: in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure): determining (Guo ¶1000: 1010, Determine) that the first transmission and the second transmission (Guo ¶0134: transmitting repetitions) occupy different time slots (Guo ¶0134: consecutive PUSCH occasions per slot) or are discontinuous within one time slot (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim; Guo teaches a determining process wherein it include the determination for consecutive PUSCH occasions per slot).
Guo does not explicitly teach
the first transmission and the second transmission are included in one repetition transmission and carry a same transport block, and the second transmission is previous transmission of the first transmission;
However, Park teaches
the first transmission and the second transmission (Park ¶0229: one TB repeated) are included in one repetition transmission (Park ¶0229: as many times as the number of aggregationFactorUL) and carry a same transport block (Park ¶0229: via upper layer signaling), and the second transmission is previous transmission of the first transmission (Park ¶0229: same symbol assignment; Park teaches a repeated TB contained within the same upper layer signaling system and containing the same information);
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Guo by way of Park, to include an element that teaches a repeated TB contained within the same upper layer signaling system and containing the same information, as taught by Park in ¶0229, to better improve 5G communication by improving communication resiliency through automatically re-sending information within the same communication signal to reduce the failure rate of a system similar to a UDP communication method.
Claim 11 differs by the following limitation, which is also taught by the prior art,
A communication apparatus, comprising: at least one processor (Guo Fig 2: 280); and a memory storing programming instructions executable by the at least one processor, to instruct the communication apparatus to perform operations comprising (Guo Fig 2: 282; Guo teaches a processor coupled to memory to a processor to instruct the processor):
Regarding Claim 2 and Claim 12
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 1. Guo further discloses
determining that at least one parameter (Guo ¶0111: resources of the configured grant) in the first bit sequence is equal to that in the second bit sequence (Guo Fig. 9: 910), wherein the at least one parameter comprises at least one of a transmit power (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim), precoding (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim), or an antenna port (Guo ¶0111: antenna; Guo teaches the repetition of one of the transport blocks for resources being an antenna).
Regarding Claim 3 and Claim 13
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 1. Guo further discloses
in response to a time domain unit (Guo ¶0107: time resources) for the first transmission meeting a first preset condition (Guo ¶0107: threshold value X), determining that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0106: consecutive slots; Guo teaches having a threshold value relating to the repetition, where the first and second sequences are consecutive); wherein the first preset condition is at least one of: an actual transmission bit rate of the first bit sequence (Guo ¶0106: according to the indicated length L) in the first transmission is greater than or equal to a first preset threshold (Guo ¶0107: insufficient for a transmission according to L), or a ratio of a quantity of time domain units for the first transmission to a quantity of time domain units (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim) for one repetition transmission is less than or equal to a second preset threshold (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim), wherein the actual transmission bit rate (Guo ¶0106: L) of the first bit sequence in the first transmission is a product of a configured initial bit rate of a bit sequence transmitted in a time domain unit used for repetition transmission and a first ratio (Guo ¶0106: TB 1), the initial bit rate is a bit rate configured for the one repetition transmission (Guo ¶0106: repetition), and the first ratio is a ratio of a configured quantity of time domain units for the one repetition transmission to the quantity of time domain units for the first transmission (Guo ¶0107: partial transmission occasion; Guo teaches a partial transmission when the repetition is longer than the allotted TB slot boundary).
Regarding Claim 4 and Claim 14
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 1. Guo further discloses
in response to a time domain unit for the second transmission meets meeting a second preset condition (Guo ¶0106: indicated length (L)), determining that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0106: consecutive slots; Guo teaches a unit for determining the transition point for consecutive slots); wherein the second preset condition is at least one of: an actual transmission bit rate of the second bit sequence in the second transmission is greater than or equal to a third preset threshold (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim), or a ratio of a quantity of time domain units for the second transmission to a configured quantity of time domain units for the one repetition transmission is less than or equal to a fourth preset threshold (Guo ¶0101: slot boundary), wherein the actual transmission bit rate of the second bit sequence in the second transmission is a product of a configured initial bit rate of a bit sequence transmitted in a time domain unit used for repetition transmission and a second ratio (Guo ¶0101: crosses a slot boundary), the initial bit rate is a bit rate configured for the one repetition transmission (Guo ¶0103: repetitions), and the second ratio is a ratio of the quantity of time domain units (Guo ¶0103: PUSCH occasions) for the second transmission to the configured quantity of time domain units for the one repetition transmission (Guo ¶0103: PUSCH occasions per slot; Guo teaches determining if the length of a repetition would exceed the slot boundary).
Regarding Claim 5 and Claim 15
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 1. Guo further discloses
sending indication (Guo ¶0057: indicate a Type 1 CG) information (Guo ¶0057: start and length indicator value), wherein the indication information indicates that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence (Guo ¶0057: starting symbol) and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0059: consecutive; Guo teaches sending an indicator for the start and length for a consecutive slot).
Regarding Claim 6 and Claim 16
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 1. Guo further discloses
receiving indication information (Guo ¶0070: receive a configuration for a CG), wherein the indication information indicates that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence (Guo ¶0070: CG configuration may be a Type 1 CG) and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0059: Type 1 CG may be consecutive; Guo teaches receiving a Type 1 CG configuration, and that configuration containing consecutive sequences);
determining, based on the indication information, that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0072: the activation may indicate a starting symbol and length value; Guo teaches the starting symbol and length value, e.g. the SLIV).
Regarding Claim 7 and Claim 17
Guo teaches a method and apparatus comprising
determining that a first to-be-coded block (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 0) comprises at least two second to-be-coded blocks (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 1), wherein each of the at least two second to-be-coded blocks is a to-be-coded block transmitted in one time domain unit used for repetition transmission (Guo Fig. 7C: Repetitions; Guo teaches two repeating blocks being transmitted in the same overall transmission); performing channel coding and rate matching on the first to-be-coded block to obtain a bit sequence (Guo ¶0085: repetition in a CG; Guo teaches the second code block to be a repetition of the first code block); and at least one of receiving (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim) or sending the bit sequence (Guo ¶0075: transmit; Guo teaches transmitting the repetition of one or more code blocks) determining (Guo ¶0086: indicate) that a position of a start bit (Guo ¶0086: starting symbol S) of a first bit sequence (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 0) and a position of an end bit (Guo ¶0086: length L) of a second bit sequence (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 1) are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0086: consecutive), wherein the first bit sequence is a bit sequence in first transmission (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 0), the second bit sequence is a bit sequence in second transmission (Guo Fig. 7C: Rep 1),
and at least one of receiving or sending the first bit sequence (Guo Fig 10: 1020) over a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Guo Fig 10: 1010, e.g. indicated quantity of consecutive PUSCH occasions; Guo teaches receiving one or more transport blocks that were transported over a PUSCH).
wherein the method further comprises, before (Guo Fig. 10: 1000, 1010 is before 1020) the determining (Guo Fig. 10: 1010) that the position of the start bit of the first bit sequence and the position of the end bit of the second bit sequence are contiguous in the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0133: in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure): determining (Guo ¶1000: 1010, Determine) that the first transmission and the second transmission (Guo ¶0134: transmitting repetitions) occupy different time slots (Guo ¶0134: consecutive PUSCH occasions per slot) or are discontinuous within one time slot (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim; Guo teaches a determining process wherein it include the determination for consecutive PUSCH occasions per slot).
Guo does not explicitly teach
the first transmission and the second transmission are included in one repetition transmission and carry a same transport block, and the second transmission is the previous transmission of the first transmission;
However, Park teaches
the first transmission and the second transmission (Park ¶0229: one TB repeated) are included in one repetition transmission (Park ¶0229: as many times as the number of aggregationFactorUL) and carry a same transport block (Park ¶0229: via upper layer signaling), and the second transmission is previous transmission of the first transmission (Park ¶0229: same symbol assignment; Park teaches a repeated TB contained within the same upper layer signaling system and containing the same information);
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Guo by way of Park, to include an element that teaches a repeated TB contained within the same upper layer signaling system and containing the same information, as taught by Park in ¶0229, to better improve 5G communication by improving communication resiliency through automatically re-sending information within the same communication signal to reduce the failure rate of a system similar to a UDP communication method.
Claim 17 Differs by
A communication apparatus, comprising: at least one processor (Guo Fig 2: 280); and a memory storing programming instructions executable by the at least one processor, to instruct the communication apparatus to perform operations comprising (Guo Fig 2: 282; Guo teaches a processor coupled to memory to a processor to instruct the processor):
Regarding Claim 8 and Claim 18
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 7. Guo further discloses
wherein in response to a quantity of bits of one or more of the at least two second to-be-coded blocks meeting a preset condition (Guo ¶0107: threshold value X), the channel coding and the rate matching are performed on the first to-be-coded block to obtain the coded bit sequence (Guo ¶0106: repetition; Guo teaches a threshold value known in comparison to a repeated channel coding).
Regarding Claim 9 and Claim 19
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 8. Guo further discloses
a maximum quantity of bits of a to-be-coded block in the at least two second to-be-coded blocks (Gao Fig. 7C: slot boundary) is less than or equal to a first preset threshold (Guo ¶0107: insufficient for a transmission according to L; Gao teaches a known slot boundary compared to a known value); or a sum of quantities of bits of the at least two second to-be-coded blocks is less than or equal to a second preset threshold (Not given patentable weight due to non-selective option in the claim).
Regarding Claim 10 and Claim 20
Guo in view of Park teaches the method and apparatus as explained above in Claim 7. Guo further discloses
sending indication (Guo ¶0057: indicate a Type 1 CG) information (Guo ¶0057: start and length indicator value), wherein the indication information indicates that the bit sequence (Guo ¶0057: starting symbol) is a coded bit sequence obtained by performing the channel coding and the rate matching on the first to-be-coded block (Guo ¶0059: Type 1 CG may be consecutive; Guo teaches sending a Type 1 CG that includes a start and length value, as well as the start symbol, where the type can be consecutive).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER whose telephone number is (703)756-4763. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7:30am - 4:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
/Sudesh M. Patidar/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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