DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to communications filed on June 9, 2026. Claims 8, 13, and 15 have been amended. Claims 1-7, 12, and 30 have been canceled. Claims 8-11, 13-24, and 26-39 are pending in the application.
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 .
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 8, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Calvo et al. (US 2024/0267261) in view of Kurita et al. (WO 2024/166375, see attached translation) and Loehr et al. (US 2020/0146045).
Regarding Claim 8, Calvo teaches an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising: memory; and at least one processor coupled to the memory and, based at least in part on information stored in the memory (“the communication system 100 comprises at least one user equipment (UE) 110” – See [0036]; “Furthermore, implementations of the various techniques described herein may be implemented in digital electronic circuitry, or in computer hardware, firmware, software, or in combinations of them. Implementations may be implemented as a computer program product, e.g., a computer program tangibly embodied in an information carrier, e.g., in a machine-readable storage device or in a propagated signal, for execution by, or to control the operation of, a data processing apparatus, e.g., a programmable processor, a computer, or multiple computers” – See [0086]), the at least one processor is configured to:
receive, from a network entity, an uplink (UL) muting indication comprising a UL muting pattern (“At operation 508 of FIG. 5, the apparatus 300 associated with the base station 130 may include means, such as the processor 302, network interface 304 or the like, for causing transmission of one or more time-frequency muting pattern(s) to at least one user equipment (UE) in a first cell, based at least in part, on the assistance information from at least one neighbor base station 120 … signaling the UE 110, indicating the UE 110 one or more uplink resources to mute” – See [0065]; UE 110 receives, from base station 130 (network entity), a UL muting pattern based);
evaluate an UL muting condition associated with an UL transmission to obtain an evaluation result of the UL transmission; and communicate, based on the UL muting pattern and the evaluation result, the UL transmission to the network entity (“As used herein, a UE that is muted, such as in accordance with the time-frequency muting pattern, does not transmit signals when muted” – See [0055]; “the UE 110 may be configured with a time-frequency muting pattern that is configured such that data 610B may be configured to occupy a first resource element followed by a second resource element 614 that is not allocated” – See [0080]; See also Figs. 6A and 6B; Based on the muting pattern, a muting condition is determined such that the UE only performs UL transmission on resources 610B which are not muted, and does not transmit on muted resources 614).
Calvo does not explicitly teach that the UL muting pattern indicates cancellation of an UL transmission. Calvo does not explicitly teach that the evaluation result indicates whether the UL transmission meets a discard criterion associated with a discard of the UL muting pattern. Calvo does not explicitly teach that, to communicate the UL transmission to the network entity, the at least one processor is configured to transmit, in response to the evaluation result indicating the UL transmission meeting the discard criterion, the canceled UL transmission to the network entity irrespective of the UL muting pattern.
However, Kurita teaches that the UL muting pattern indicates cancellation of an UL transmission (“UE200 does not transmit a UL channel or UL signal in the UL muting resource. For example, rate matching of the UL channel or UL signal is performed only in non-muting resources, or UL channels or UL signals that overlap with the UL muting resource are canceled” – See p. 11; “the UE 200 stops (mutes) transmission of a UL signal in at least a part of a specific resource (UL muting resource) set by a higher layer parameter” – See p. 26; The UL muting resources (UL muting pattern) indicate cancellation of a UL transmission (i.e., the UE cancels UL signals in the muted UL resources included in the UL muting pattern)).
Kurita teaches that the evaluation result indicates whether the UL transmission meets a discard criterion associated with a discard of the UL muting pattern (“The UE 200 ignores the UL muting resource and transmits the UL channel according to the existing rules” – See p. 20; “the UE 200 may periodically apply the UL muting resource configuration until the UE 200 detects a dynamic instruction indicating deactivation of the UL muting resource configuration” – See p. 14; “In Alt.3, whether or not to apply UL muting resource is indicated by the scheduling DCI. The scheduling DCI may include a new field indicating whether or not to apply UL muting resource. The scheduling DCI may include DCI format 0_0/0_1/0_2 for scheduling DG PUSCH and may include DCI format 1_0/1_1/1_2 for scheduling AP-SRS. If the new field in the scheduling DCI indicates that the UL muting resource does not apply, UE200 ignores the UL muting resource and transmits the UL channel” – See p. 23; The UE evaluates a UL muting condition related to whether a dynamic instruction/DCI field for deactivating the UL muting has been received. When the instruction is received, the discard criterion is met and the UL muting pattern is deactivated/discarded).
Kurita teaches that, to communicate the UL transmission to the network entity, the at least one processor is configured to transmit, in response to the evaluation result indicating the UL transmission meeting the discard criterion, the canceled UL transmission to the network entity irrespective of the UL muting pattern (“In Alt.3, whether or not to apply UL muting resource is indicated by the scheduling DCI. The scheduling DCI may include a new field indicating whether or not to apply UL muting resource. The scheduling DCI may include DCI format 0_0/0_1/0_2 for scheduling DG PUSCH and may include DCI format 1_0/1_1/1_2 for scheduling AP-SRS. If the new field in the scheduling DCI indicates that the UL muting resource does not apply, UE200 ignores the UL muting resource and transmits the UL channel” – See p. 23; In response to the evaluation result meeting the discard criterion (i.e., dynamic instruction/DCI indicates that UL muting resource pattern does not apply), the UE ignores the UL muting pattern and performs the UL transmission irrespective of the UL muting pattern).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Calvo such that the UL muting pattern indicates cancellation of an UL transmission, the evaluation result indicates whether the UL transmission meets a discard criterion associated with a discard of the UL muting pattern, and wherein to communicate the UL transmission to the network entity, the at least one processor is configured to transmit, in response to the evaluation result indicating the UL transmission meeting the discard criterion, the canceled UL transmission to the network entity irrespective of the UL muting pattern. Motivation for doing so would be to enable the UL muting to be dynamically deactivated (See Kurita, p. 14).
Calvo and Kurita do not explicitly teach that the discard criterion is based on one or more operating conditions or characteristics of the UL transmission.
However, Loehr teaches that the discard criterion is based on one or more operating conditions or characteristics of the UL transmission (“Apparatuses, methods, and systems are disclosed for preempting an uplink resource allocation. One apparatus includes a processor and a transceiver that receives a first allocation of uplink resources in a mobile communication network and receives a second allocation of uplink resources. Here, the second allocation at least partially overlaps in time with the first allocation and the second allocation is received at a later time than the first allocation. The processor determines whether the second allocation is associated with higher priority traffic than the first allocation and preempts the first allocation to generate a TB according to the second allocation in response to the second allocation being associated with higher priority traffic than the first allocation” – See Abstract; “according to a second solution for efficient uplink preemption, the DCI (uplink grant) explicitly indicates that this DCI is a high urgency/priority PUSCH allocation (potentially) preempting an earlier overlapping PUSCH allocation” – See [0071]; A first uplink allocation (e.g., an UL muting pattern as taught by Calvo) is preempted/discarded based on a characteristic of an uplink transmission such as a presence of high priority traffic).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Calvo-Kurita such that the discard criterion is based on one or more operating conditions or characteristics of the UL transmission. Motivation for doing so would be to allow urgent/critical transmissions to preempt lower priority transmissions so that latency requirements can be met (See Loehr, [0079] and [0080]).
Regarding Claim 10, Calvo in view of Kurita and Loehr teaches the apparatus of Claim 8. Calvo further teaches that the UL muting pattern indicates one or more transmission resources not to be utilized by the UE for the UL transmission with the network entity, and wherein the one or more transmission resources comprise one or more of: one or more time-domain resources for uplink muting, or one or more frequency-domain resources for the uplink muting (“As used herein, a UE that is muted, such as in accordance with the time-frequency muting pattern, does not transmit signals when muted” – See [0055]; The muting pattern indicates resources that cannot be utilized by the UE for UL transmission, wherein the resources comprise time resources and frequency resources).
Regarding Claim 11, Calvo in view of Kurita and Loehr teaches the apparatus of Claim 10. Calvo further teaches that the one or more time-domain resources are one or more symbols, and the one or more frequency-domain resources are one or more resource elements (REs) (“the time frequency muting pattern to be signaled comprises indicating to the at least one user equipment to mute a subset of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols” – See [0007]; “Further, the UE 110 may be configured with a time-frequency muting pattern that is configured such that data 610B may be configured to occupy a first resource element followed by a second resource element 614 that is not allocated” – See [0080]; The time domain resources include OFDM symbols and the frequency domain resources include resource elements).
Claims 9 and 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Calvo et al. (US 2024/0267261) in view of Kurita et al. (WO 2024/166375, see attached translation) and Loehr et al. (US 2020/0146045) and further in view of Wang et al. (US 2022/0394733).
Regarding Claim 9, Calvo in view of Kurita and Loehr teaches the apparatus of Claim 8. Calvo further teaches a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor, wherein, to receive the UL muting indication, the at least one processor is configured to receive the UL muting indication via the transceiver (“Furthermore, implementations of the various techniques described herein may be implemented in digital electronic circuitry, or in computer hardware, firmware, software, or in combinations of them” – See [0086]; “At operation 508 of FIG. 5, the apparatus 300 associated with the base station 130 may include means, such as the processor 302, network interface 304 or the like, for causing transmission of one or more time-frequency muting pattern(s) to at least one user equipment (UE) in a first cell, based at least in part, on the assistance information from at least one neighbor base station 120 … signaling the UE 110, indicating the UE 110 one or more uplink resources to mute” – See [0065]; The UE includes hardware (e.g., a transceiver) for receiving the UL muting indication from the network entity).
Calvo, Kurita, and Loehr do not explicitly teach that the UL muting indication is associated with a UL cancellation indication (ULCI), wherein the ULCI is received from the network entity.
However, Wang teaches that the UL muting indication is associated with a UL cancellation indication (ULCI), wherein the ULCI is received from the network entity (“the base station 105-a may transmit a CCI 220 to the UE 115-a to indicate the reassignment. The CI 220 and the CI 225 may be examples of uplink cancellation indicators (ULCIs)” – See [0090]; The UE receives a ULCI from the network entity).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Calvo such that the UL muting indication is associated with a UL cancellation indication (ULCI), wherein the ULCI is received from the network entity. Motivation for doing so would be to expedite transmission of high priority messages from the UE (See Wang, [0003]).
Regarding Claim 13, Calvo in view of Kurita and Loehr teaches the apparatus of Claim 8. Calvo, Kurita, and Loehr do not explicitly teach that the discard criterion comprises one or more of: the UL transmission has a priority higher than a priority threshold, the UL transmission has a latency requirement higher than a latency threshold, the UL transmission is associated with a certain traffic type, the UL transmission has a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) lower than an MCS threshold, or a transmit power of the UL transmission is lower than a power threshold.
However, Wang teaches that the discard criterion comprises one or more of: the UL transmission has a priority higher than a priority threshold, the UL transmission has a latency requirement higher than a latency threshold, the UL transmission is associated with a certain traffic type, the UL transmission has a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) lower than an MCS threshold, or a transmit power of the UL transmission is lower than a power threshold (“The UE 115 receiving the corresponding CI may cancel at least a portion of a transmission associated with the resources indicated in the CI. For example, the UE 115-a may receive the CI 220 and may cancel the lower priority transmission, and may instead transmit the URLLC transmission” – See [0090]; In response to having UL traffic of a certain type (e.g., URLLC), the UE discards a previous allocation (e.g., muting pattern) and transmits the high priority URLLC transmission).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Calvo such that the discard criterion comprises one or more of: the UL transmission has a priority higher than a priority threshold, the UL transmission has a latency requirement higher than a latency threshold, the UL transmission is associated with a certain traffic type, the UL transmission has a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) lower than an MCS threshold, or a transmit power of the UL transmission is lower than a power threshold for the same reasons as those given with respect to Claim 9.
Regarding Claim 14, Calvo in view of Kurita, Loehr, and Wang teaches the apparatus of Claim 13. Wang further teaches that the priority threshold, the latency threshold, the certain traffic type, the MCS threshold, and the power threshold are predefined for the UE or received from the network entity (“For example, a base station may transmit a ULCI to a UE to reassign resources supporting low priority communications (e.g., eMBB communications) in support of a higher priority message (e.g., URLLC)” – See [0098]; The traffic type indication is received from the base station/network entity).
Regarding Claim 15, Calvo in view of Kurita and Loehr teaches the apparatus of Claim 8. Calvo, Kurita, and Loehr do not explicitly teach that the discard criterion comprises: the UL transmission is one of critical transmissions, wherein the critical transmissions include one or more of: a failure report through Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (MAC-CE), an acknowledge (ACK) or negative acknowledge (NACK) feedback, a Physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), a sounding reference signal (SRS), or a channel station information (CSI) report.
However, Wang teaches that the discard criterion comprises: the UL transmission is one of critical transmissions, wherein the critical transmissions include one or more of: a failure report through Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (MAC-CE), an acknowledge (ACK) or negative acknowledge (NACK) feedback, a Physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), a sounding reference signal (SRS), or a channel station information (CSI) report (“The UEs 115 may be designed to support ultra-reliable, low-latency, or critical functions (e.g., mission critical functions). Ultra-reliable communications may include private communication or group communication and may be supported by one or more mission critical services such as mission critical push-to-talk (MCPTT), mission critical video (MCVideo), or mission critical data (MCData). Support for mission critical functions may include prioritization of services, and mission critical services may be used for public safety or general commercial applications. The terms ultra-reliable, low-latency, mission critical, and ultra-reliable low-latency may be used interchangeably herein” – See [0069]; The UL transmission is an ultra-reliable, low-latency, mission critical transmission).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Calvo such that the discard criterion comprises: the UL transmission is one of critical transmissions, wherein the critical transmissions include one or more of: a failure report through Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (MAC-CE), an acknowledge (ACK) or negative acknowledge (NACK) feedback, a Physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), a sounding reference signal (SRS), or a channel station information (CSI) report for the same reasons as those given with respect to Claim 9.
Regarding Claim 16, Calvo in view of Kurita, Loehr, and Wang teaches the apparatus of Claim 9. Calvo further teaches that the UL muting condition is predefined for the UE (“As used herein, a UE that is muted, such as in accordance with the time-frequency muting pattern, does not transmit signals when muted” – See [0055]; The predefined UL muting condition for the UE is that the UE shall not transmit signals when muted).
Regarding Claim 17, Calvo in view of Kurita, Loehr, and Wang teaches the apparatus of Claim 9. Calvo further teaches that the at least one processor is further configured to: receive, from the network entity, the UL muting condition (“At operation 508 of FIG. 5, the apparatus 300 associated with the base station 130 may include means, such as the processor 302, network interface 304 or the like, for causing transmission of one or more time-frequency muting pattern(s) to at least one user equipment (UE) in a first cell, based at least in part, on the assistance information from at least one neighbor base station 120 … signaling the UE 110, indicating the UE 110 one or more uplink resources to mute” – See [0065]; The muting condition is received from the base station/network entity as part of a muting pattern).
Regarding Claim 18, Calvo in view of Kurita, Loehr, and Wang teaches the apparatus of Claim 17. Kurita further teaches that the UL muting condition indicates discarding the UL muting pattern on at least one of: one or more selected time-domain resources of the UE, or one or more selected frequency-domain resources of the UE (“The UE 200 ignores the UL muting resource and transmits the UL channel according to the existing rules” – See p. 20; “the UE 200 may periodically apply the UL muting resource configuration until the UE 200 detects a dynamic instruction indicating deactivation of the UL muting resource configuration” – See p. 14; The muting condition may include a discarding/deactivation instruction associated with the time and frequency resources of the muting pattern).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on June 9, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 8 of the remarks, Applicant argues “Here, as in the claim, a ‘canceled’ UL transmission, indicated by the UL muting pattern, is ‘un-canceled) (i.e., transmitted) if discard criterion is met based on UL transmission’s characteristics or conditions. The ‘discard’ effectively maintains the UL transmission despite the UL muting pattern. But the UL muting pattern is still active, albeit conditionally discarded for the UL transmission due to its conditions or characteristics as in the claim. In contrast, in Kurita, the muting pattern is ‘deactivated’ and thus not active at all, and the deactivation does not seem to be caused by any specific UL transmission. OA p. 11 (examiner’s quotation and rationale citing Kurita).”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to Applicant’s argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., the UL transmission is ‘un-canceled’, the muting pattern is still active, etc.) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Although the features “the UL transmission is ‘un-canceled’ and “the muting pattern is still active” are not required to be taught in the prior art since they are not recited in the claims, these features can still be found in Kurita. On p. 23, Kurita discloses “In Alt.3, whether or not to apply UL muting resource is indicated by the scheduling DCI. The scheduling DCI may include a new field indicating whether or not to apply UL muting resource. The scheduling DCI may include DCI format 0_0/0_1/0_2 for scheduling DG PUSCH and may include DCI format 1_0/1_1/1_2 for scheduling AP-SRS. If the new field in the scheduling DCI indicates that the UL muting resource does not apply, UE200 ignores the UL muting resource and transmits the UL channel.” In this embodiment, Kurita does not disclose any kind of “deactivation” of the UL muting resources/pattern. Instead, the UE ignores the configured UL muting pattern and performs uplink transmission in the resources that were muted. The result is that the UE effectively “un-cancels” the UL transmission by ignoring the UL muting pattern based on the DCI instruction.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 19-24 and 26-29 are allowed.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Scott M Sciacca whose telephone number is (571)270-1919. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday, 7:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. EST.
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/SCOTT M SCIACCA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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