CTFR 18/242,595 CTFR 100812 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia 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 The Amendment filed 07/30/2025 has been entered. Claims 1, 4, 13, 15 and 19 have been amended. Claim 11 is canceled. Response to Arguments Applicant's argument(s) filed on 02/04/2026 with respect to the rejection of claims under rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground rejection. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-103 AIA The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1, 4, 13, 15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cho (US20200107275A1), hereinafter Cho in view of Ly (US 20250048433 A1), hereinafter Ly . Regarding to claim 1, Cho teaches an apparatus of a user equipment (UE) configured for operation in a fifth- generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry; and memory, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: ([0002] “5G new radio (NR) (or 5G-NR) networks“; [0266] the processing circuitry is configured to: decode system information comprising a PRACH resource set, the PRACH resource set including a plurality of PRACH resource subsets) decode signaling received from a generation Node B (gNB) to configure the UE for ... for physical random access channel (PRACH) repetition for a four-step random access channel (RACH) procedure, the signaling including a number of repetitions; and (see “four-step random access channel (RACH) procedure” in (fig. 7)) ([0278] wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: decode system information indicating a number of receive (Rx) beams available at the base station; ... encode the PRACH preamble for repeated transmission to the base station ... wherein a number of repetitions of the PRACH transmission is based on the number of Rx beams available at the base station. ...[0286] encode configuration information for transmission to a user equipment (UE), the configuration information including an indicator of a number of available receive (Rx) beams at the gNB; .... [0288] UE to: decode system information comprising a physical random access channel (PRACH) resource set, the PRACH resource set including a plurality of PRACH resource subsets) encode a PRACH preamble for multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition in accordance with the number of repetitions, wherein each of the multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition is transmitted ..., wherein each of the multiple PRACH transmissions comprises a same PRACH preamble transmitted in each of a plurality of PRACH occasions, and wherein the memory is configured to store the PRACH preamble ([0065] UE 101 can be configured to perform multiple PRACH transmissions 192A, based on the configuration information 190A. ... [0278] system information indicating a number of receive (Rx) beams available at the base station; and encode the PRACH preamble for repeated transmission to the base station using transmit power indicated by the power ramping counter and without power ramping wherein a number of repetitions of the PRACH transmission is based on the number of Rx beams available at the base station. ... [0286-0287] encode configuration information for transmission to a user equipment (UE), the configuration information including an indicator of a number of available receive (Rx) beams at the gNB .... detect a physical random access channel (PRACH) preamble, wherein the PRACH preamble is received from the UE with repetitions ... wherein the configuration information comprises PRACH repetition information indicative of the number of PRACH transmission repetitions without power ramping by the UE). Cho does not explicitly teach frequency hopping.... wherein the multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition that are transmitted in accordance with the frequency hopping comprise a first step in the four-step RACH procedure. Ly teaches frequency hopping.... wherein the multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition that are transmitted in accordance with the frequency hopping comprise a first step in the four-step RACH procedure. (fig. 8 and 9; [0113]UE may transmit multiple PRACH (Msg1) transmissions to a network entity using ... frequency hopping). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly to the teaching of Cho. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve PRACH performance for multiple PRACH transmission ([0095] Ly). Regarding to claim 4, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho does not explicitly teach wherein the processing circuitry is to configure the UE for transmission of the multiple PRACH transmissions in different transmit beams using different spatial domain filters. Ly further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is to configure the UE for transmission of the multiple PRACH transmissions in different transmit beams using different spatial domain filters ([0093] the multiple PRACH transmissions may be transmitted with different spatial domain filters, which may be associated with different SSBs). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly to the teaching of Cho. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve PRACH performance for multiple PRACH transmission ([0095] Ly). Claims [13 and 15] (computer-readable medium) and [19] (apparatus of a generation Node B (gNB)) are rejected under the same reasoning as claims [1 and 4] (apparatus of a user equipment) , where Cho teaches computer-readable medium ([0019] and fig. 6) and apparatus of a generation Node B (gNB) ([0286] and [0033] and fig. 20) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 2-3, 5-6, 10, 14, 16-17, and 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cho and Ly and further in view of Ly (US 20250240131 A1), hereinafter Ly31 . Regarding to claim 2, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition using a short PRACH format, the short PRACH format comprising a preamble with a short sequence having a length of 139. Ly31 teaches wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition using a short PRACH format, the short PRACH format comprising a preamble with a short sequence having a length of 139 ([0082] The short sequence-based RACH preamble formats ... may have a length 139 (e.g., L=139)). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31). Regarding to claim 3, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition using a long PRACH format, the long PRACH format comprising a preamble with a long sequence having a length of 839. Ly31 teaches wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition using a long PRACH format, the long PRACH format comprising a preamble with a long sequence having a length of 839 ([0079] long sequence-based RACH preamble formats, ... Each of the long sequence-based RACH preamble formats ... may have a length 839 (e.g., L=839)). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31). Regarding to claim 5, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition indicates a frequency resource offset for transmission of the PRACH preambles at different frequencies for the multiple PRACH transmissions, and wherein the frequency resource offset comprises one of a physical resource block (PRB) offset or the PRACH frequency resource offset. Ly31 teaches wherein the signaling received from the gNB configures the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition indicates a frequency resource offset for transmission of the PRACH preambles at different frequencies for the multiple PRACH transmissions, and wherein the frequency resource offset comprises one of a physical resource block (PRB) offset or the PRACH frequency resource offset ([0088] UE may be configured with a frequency location of a first RACH occasion, such as the RACH occasion_1 806, based on an offset 816 from a starting resource block (RB) 818 (e.g., PRB0) of the initial UL BWP 802. For example, the frequency at 814 may be referred to as msg1-FrequencyStart. The PUSCH resource mapping in the frequency domain may begin at the starting RB 818 (e.g., PRB0) of the initial UL BWP 802. In FIG. 8 , the arrow 820 represents the frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) from the starting RB 818 (e.g., PRB0)). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31). Regarding to claim 6, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine a frequency resource offset for the frequency hopping based on a number of PRACH frequency resources provided by a message received from the gNB. Ly31 teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine a frequency resource offset for the frequency hopping based on a number of PRACH frequency resources provided by a message received from the gNB ([0094] frequency offset k may be k·N rb where N rb is the number of RBs contained in the maximum bandwidth of a UE). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31). Regarding to claim 10, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the signaling to configure the UE for frequency hopping comprising one of a DCI format, dedicated RRC signaling, NR remaining minimum system information (RMSI), and NR other system information (OSI). Ly31 teaches wherein the signaling to configure the UE for frequency hopping comprising one of a DCI format, dedicated RRC signaling, NR remaining minimum system information (RMSI), and NR other system information (OSI) ([0048] UEs are configured with the slot format (dynamically through DL control information (DCI), or semi-statically/statically through radio resource control (RRC) signaling) through a received slot format indicator (SFI)). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31). Regarding to claim 11, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition transmitted in accordance with the frequency hopping are transmitted as part of the four-step RACH procedure. Ly31 teaches wherein the multiple PRACH transmissions of the PRACH repetition transmitted in accordance with the frequency hopping are transmitted as part of the four-step RACH procedure (fig. 12, [0111-0113] The UE 1202 may receive repetition information 1206 enabling one or more repetitions of an uplink message transmission associated with a network access procedure (e.g., the four-step RACH procedure 510) ... In some examples, the uplink message may be the Msg 3 516. ... The UE 1202 may receive a frequency hopping indication 1208 for the one or more repetitions of the uplink message transmission). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly . The motivation for such an addition would be to improve PRACH performance for multiple PRACH transmission ([0095] Ly31). Claims [14 and 16-17] (computer-readable medium) and [20] (apparatus of a generation Node B (gNB)) are rejected under the same reasoning as claims [2 and 5-6] (apparatus of a user equipment) , where Cho teaches computer-readable medium ([0019] and fig. 6) and apparatus of a generation Node B (gNB) ([0286] and [0033] and fig. 20). Claim 20 differs from claim 2 only by the additional recitation of the following limitation which Ly31 teaches “wherein the signaling to configure the UE for frequency hopping for PRACH repetition is encoded to indicate a frequency resource offset for transmission of the PRACH preambles at the different frequencies for the multiple PRACH transmissions, and wherein the frequency resource offset comprises one of a physical resource block (PRB) offset or the PRACH frequency resource offset” . ([0088] UE may be configured with a frequency location of a first RACH occasion, such as the RACH occasion_1 806, based on an offset 816 from a starting resource block (RB) 818 (e.g., PRB0) of the initial UL BWP 802. For example, the frequency at 814 may be referred to as msg1-FrequencyStart. The PUSCH resource mapping in the frequency domain may begin at the starting RB 818 (e.g., PRB0) of the initial UL BWP 802. In FIG. 8 , the arrow 820 represents the frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) from the starting RB 818 (e.g., PRB0).) It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly31 to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to complete the initial access procedure more quickly ([0187] Ly31) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 7-9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cho in view of Ly and further in view of Tabet (US 20150365977 A1), hereinafter Tabet . Regarding to claim 7, Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein for the frequency hopping, the processing circuitry is configured to determine a frequency hopping pattern for the multiple PRACH transmissions in accordance with valid time-domain PRACH occasion indexes used for the multiple PRACH transmissions, the valid time-domain PRACH occasion indexes being mapped to valid PRACH occasions and are associated with a PRACH occasion group Tabet teaches wherein for the frequency hopping, the processing circuitry is configured to determine a frequency hopping pattern for the multiple PRACH transmissions in accordance with valid time-domain PRACH occasion indexes used for the multiple PRACH transmissions, the valid time-domain PRACH occasion indexes being mapped to valid PRACH occasions and are associated with a PRACH occasion group ([0238] FIG. 15 illustrates a simple example of frequency hopping over multiple PRACH transmissions. Each PRACH transmission includes 2 RBs and occurs in a corresponding time interval. For example, a first PRACH transmission includes RBs 810 and 815, which occur in time interval T1; a second PRACH transmission includes RBs 820 and 825, which occur in time interval T2; a third PRACH transmission includes RBs 830 and 835, which occur in time interval T3; and a fourth PRACH transmission includes RBs 840 and 845, which occur in time interval T4. The pair of RBs hops to different frequency locations in different time intervals, thus providing frequency diversity. A wide variety of other possibilities for the frequency hopping pattern and the various transmission parameters are contemplated, and the present example is not meant to be limiting). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Tabet to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to providing frequency diversity ([0238] Tabet). Regarding to claim 8, Cho and Ly and Tabet teach the apparatus of claim 7, Cho does not explicitly teach wherein the processing circuitry is configured to refrain from including any PRACH repetitions in the PRACH occasion group that are mapped to invalid PRACH occasions. Ly teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to refrain from including any PRACH repetitions in the PRACH occasion group that are mapped to invalid PRACH occasions ([0091] A RACH configuration period that is outside of an SSB-to-RO association period but within the SSB-to-RO association pattern may be invalid, and may not be associated with SSBs due to insufficient ROs remaining in the SSB-to-RO association period). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly to the teaching of Cho and Tabet. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve performance for multiple PRACH transmissions ([0095] Ly). Claim 18 (computer-readable medium) is rejected under the same reasoning as claim(s) 7-8 (apparatus of a user equipment) , where Cho teaches computer-readable medium ([0019] and fig. 6) . Regarding to claim 9, Cho and Ly and Tabet teach the apparatus of claim 8, Cho does not explicitly teach wherein when the PRACH occasions are multiplexed in a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner and each of the PRACH occasions are associated with an Synchronization Signal/PBCH block (SSB), the processing circuitry is to configure the UE to randomly select a first PRACH occasion from the PRACH occasion group for a first PRACH repetition and determine a second PRACH occasion based at least in part on a frequency resource offset. Ly teaches wherein when the PRACH occasions are multiplexed in a frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) manner and each of the PRACH occasions are associated with an Synchronization Signal/PBCH block (SSB), the processing circuitry is to configure the UE to .... and determine a second PRACH occasion based at least in part on a frequency resource offset ([0110] ... In this example, a frequency hop offset is two PRACH occasions, N is 1/4 (e.g., one SSB associated with four PRACH occasions), the number of frequency division multiplexed PRACH occasions is four, the number of SSBs (NESB) is two, and a quantity of repetitions is four. Further, in this example, the UE may transmit the multiple PRACH transmissions using two hops and same spatial domain filters. The UE may transmit the multiple PRACH transmissions using a hopping configuration for the second PRACH slot that is the same as a hopping configuration for the first PRACH slot). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Ly to the teaching of Cho. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve performance for multiple PRACH transmissions ([0095] Ly). Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach randomly select a first PRACH occasion from the PRACH occasion group for a first PRACH repetition Tabet further teaches randomly select a first PRACH occasion from the PRACH occasion group for a first PRACH repetition ([0454] ... UE device ... performing operations including: ...(c) randomly selecting one of the Zadoff-Chu sequences of the first set; and (d) transmitting a first PRACH subframe that includes repetitions of the selected Zadoff-Chu sequence, wherein the first PRACH subframe is transmitted during a first radio frame). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Tabet to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to providing frequency diversity ([0238] Tabet) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cho in view of Ly and further in view of Tsai (US 20220295589 A1), hereinafter Tsai . Cho and Ly teach the apparatus of claim 1, Cho and Ly do not explicitly teach wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to transmit multiple PRACH transmissions of a PRACH repetition in accordance with frequency hopping as part of a beam failure recovery (BFR) procedure. Tsai teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to transmit multiple PRACH transmissions of a PRACH repetition in accordance with frequency hopping as part of a beam failure recovery (BFR) procedure ([0125] If UE 200 equips with a single transmission panel (e.g. M.sub.p=1) and there are more than one PRACH need to be transmitted for BFR (e.g. more than one BFR report), and the corresponding CFRA resources for different links (e.g. from CORESET/TRP i and CORESET/TRP j) are time-frequency overlapped; then UE 200 may defer one of them to the next available CF-RACH occasion (RO)... [0139] The configuration parameters may include ... frequency hopping (inter-slot, intra-slot) ... a dedicated PUCCH transmission occasion may be configured for BFR using PUCCH. When BFR using PUCCH, gNB can configure a periodic PUCCH resource for BFRQ transmission). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teaching of Tsai to the teaching of Cho and Ly. The motivation for such an addition would be to enable downlink and uplink signaling enhancements for multi-TRP and multi-panel transmissions ([0050] Tsai). Conclusion 07-40 AIA 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. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VAN T NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-6178. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM (EST). 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, Ayman A Abaza can be reached at (571) 270-0422. 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. /VAN TA NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2465 /AYMAN A ABAZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 2 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 3 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 4 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 5 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 6 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 7 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 8 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 9 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 10 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 11 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 12 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 13 Art Unit: 2465 Application/Control Number: 18/242,595 Page 14 Art Unit: 2465
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