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 .
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 18 December 2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Claims 1-6, 8-21 are pending.
Figure 2 of the application illustrates the claimed invention.
PNG
media_image1.png
372
522
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remark, filed 15 December 2025, with respect to Claim rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being anticipated by Bergquist et al. have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of MODERATOR (ZTE CORPORATION): “Final feature lead summary on support of Type A PUSCH repetitions for Msg3), 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2106247, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX; FRANCE, vol. RAN WG1, no. e-Meeting; 20210510-20210527 27 May 2021 (2021-05027), XP052015768.
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) 1-2, 9-10, 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over Bergquist et al. (US 2020/0120709 A1) in view of MODERATOR (ZTE CORPORATION): “Final feature lead summary on support of Type A PUSCH repetitions for Msg3), 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2106247, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX; FRANCE, vol. RAN WG1, no. e-Meeting; 20210510-20210527 27 May 2021 (2021-05027), XP052015768, hereinafter, refer as D1.
Regarding claims 1, 9 and 15, Bergquist et al. discloses a method for radio communication, comprising:
receiving, by a User Equipment, a Random Access Response (RAR) from a network device, wherein the RAR comprises at least one first bit, the at least one first bit can be configured to indicate a number of repetitions of a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and the PUSCH is configured to carry a third message during a random access procedure ([0090]: “In Action 603, the wireless device 120 receives a response message, e.g. a RAR, from the radio network node 110. The response message is received in response to the transmitted preamble. The RAR comprises an indication indicating that repetitions of the message transmission are to be applied. The indication may indicate a number of repetitions to be made.”), ([0092]: “the RAR message comprises one reserved bit to encode an extra parameter in an uplink grant to enable repetitions of the RA message on a Physical Uplink Synchronization Channel (PUSCH).”), ([0008]: “The Msg3 is scheduled on the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), as indicated by the grant received in the RAR”), and
determining, by the UE, whether the at least one first bit is configured to indicate the number of the repetition of the PUSCH according to first information, wherein the first information is associated with the RAR.
([0152]: “In FIG. 4 the uplink grant comprises 25 bit and as in FIG. 10 the uplink grant of some first embodiment has been extended to comprise 27 bits. If one of the bits in the field, i.e. one of the bits in the extended UL grant in FIG. 10, is set to 1, the legacy case without repetitions is contained. If one of the bits in the field, i.e. in the UL grant, is set to 2, the initial transmission of the Msg3 is quickly repeated two times, if one of the bits in the field, i.e. in the UL grant, is set to 4, the Msg3 transmission is repeated four times, and so on.”).
Bergquist et al. fails to explicitly teach wherein the method further comprises: indicating, by the UE whether the UE requests the repetitions of the PUSCH to the network device through a first message, wherein the first message is a first message during the random access procedure.
D1, in the same field of invention, discloses a method for radio communication, comprising:
receiving, by a User Equipment, a Random Access Response, RAR, from a network device, wherein the RAR comprises at least one first bit, the at least one first bit can be configured to indicate a number of repetitions of a Physical Uplink Shared Channel, PUSCH, and the PUSCH is configured to carry a third message during a random access procedure (D1: section 2.2-Third Round- contribution by Qualcomm TPC bitfield in RAR; other contributions also indicate number of repetitions in existing fields); and
determining, by the UE, whether the at least one first bit is configured to indicate the number of the repetitions of the PUSCH according to first information, wherein the first information is associated with the RAR (D1: section 2.2-Third Round-contribution by Qualcomm; other contributions also indicate interpretation indicator of a field)
wherein the method further comprises:
indicating, by the UE, whether the UE requests the repetitions of the PUSCH t the network device through a first message, wherein the first message is a first message during the random access procedure (D1: section 2.1 page 1 and page 4, contributions by Apple and OPPO discloses the usage of separate preambles for requesting PUSCH repetition by the UE and it is implicit that the preambles are sent in the MSG1 of the random access procedure),
wherein the first information comprises at least one of information comprised in the RAR, information related to a Physical Downlink Control Channel, PDCCH, scheduling the RAR, or other downlink information received before the RAR during the random access procedure (D1: section 2.2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine D1 with Bergquist et al.
Regarding claims 2, 10 and 16-18 Bergquist et al. teaches wherein the first information comprises at least one second bit in the RAR, and the at least one second bit different from the at least one first bit are carried in uplink grant information of the RAR. ([0012]: “FIG.4, the UL grant comprises the last bit in the second octet October 2 and then eight bits in each one of the third to fifth octets October 3-October 5.”).
Claim(s) 5, 6, 13, 14 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bergquist et al. (US 2020/0120709 A1) in view of D1 further in view of Ozturk et al. (US 2020/0260497 A1).
Regarding claims 5-6, 13-14 and 19, Bergquist et al. teaches
([0092]: “the RAR message comprises one reserved bit to encode an extra parameter in an uplink grant to enable repetitions of the RA message on a Physical Uplink Synchronization Channel (PUSCH).”).
Bergquist et al., fails to teach wherein the first information comprises information in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) scheduling the RAR,
wherein the first information comprises at least one reserved bit in the PDCCH scheduling the RAR.
Ozturk et al., in the same field of invention, teaches ([0115]: “the RAR 210 may include a PDCCH transmission 215, a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission 220, or both, where the PDCCH transmission 215 may include information used to process the PDSCH transmission 220...For example, the base station 105-a may send the timing information in the PDCCH transmission 215 using bits in downlink control information (DCI) (such as reserved bits or information not needed to process the RAR 210),..., if the base station 105-a sends the timing information in the PDCCH transmission 215, the UE 115-a may be able to receive the timing information in the PDCCH transmission 215, the UE 115-a may be able to receive the timing information and determine that the RAR 210 is intended for the UE 115-a without having to successfully decode the PDSCH transmission 220.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ozturk et al. with Bergquist et al. so to improve reception of a random access response (RAR) by the UE.
Regarding claims 20 and 21, Bergquist et al. teaches wherein the information in the MAC PDU carrying the RAR comprises at least one of information in a header of the MAC PDU or information in a subheader in a MAC subPDU of the MAC PDU.
([0012]: “The subheader corresponding to a RAR comprises three header fields E, T and RAPID illustrated as E/T/RAPID in FIG. 3. The E refers to an Extension bit, T refers to a type bit, and RAPID refers to six bits for the Random Access Preamble Identity.”).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bergquist et al. (US 2020/0120709 A1) in view of D1 further in view of Cozzo et al. (US 11,871,489 B2), refer to Continuation of application 17/302,492, filed on May 4, 2021.
Regarding claim 8, Bergquist et al. in view of D1 does not teach wherein the at least one first bit is carried in an information field of time domain resource assignment (TDRA) in uplink grant information of RAR.
Cozzo et al. in the same field of invention, teaches this feature.
Cozzo et al. teaches ((6) “An entry of the first TDRA table indicates a number of repetitions of a PUSCH transmission.”)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Cozzo et al. with Bergquist et al. so to set an entry of the TDRA table indicates a number of repetitions of a PUSCH transmission.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 and 11-12 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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, Charles Jiang can be reached at 571-270-7191. 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.
BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412