DETAILED ACTION
CONTINUED EXAMINATION UNDER 37 CFR 1.114
1. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 March 10, 2026 has been entered.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. 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 Arguments
3. Applicant's arguments, filed on March 10, 2026, with respect to objections to claim 22 have been considered and are persuasive. Objections to claim 22 have been withdrawn.
4. Applicant’s arguments regarding rejection of claims 18, 22, and 24-28 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 35 U.S.C. 103 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any combination of the references being used in the current rejection. Examiner has applied Shi ‘835 (US 2022/0200835) and Wang ‘694 (US 2017/0064694) to clearly teach the amended limitations in claims 18, 22, and 24-28.
Claim Objections
5. Claim 26 is objected to because of the following informalities:
“The communication apparatus according to claim 19" in claim 26 (line 1-2) should be changed to the communication apparatus of a claim of a different number, as claim 19 was cancelled.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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.
7. Claims 18, 22, 24-25, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hande ‘559 (US 2021/0037559, “Hande ‘559”), in view of Shi ‘835 (US 2022/0200835, “Shi ‘835”), further in view of Lin ‘970 (US 2023/0140970, “Lin ‘970”), and further in view of Wang ‘694 (US 2017/0064694, “Wang ‘694”).
Regarding claims 18 and 28, Hande ‘559 discloses a communication apparatus (FIG. 3, para 134; base station 105-b), comprising:
control circuitry (FIG. 11, para 162, 191, and 268; communication manager that is implemented as an ASIC), which, in operation,
performs determination of a transport block size, based on information on a number of slots used for transmission of a transport block over multiple slots (FIG. 3, para 134-141 and 145; the base station determines a transport block size based on a number of slots; the transport block is transmitted over two or more slots); and
transmission circuitry (FIG. 11, para 162, 191, and 268; transmitter that is implemented as an ASIC), which, in operation,
performs transmission of the transport block, based on the transport block size (FIG. 3, para 134-141 and 145; the base station transmits the transport block of the determined transport block size).
However, Hande ‘559 does not specifically disclose the number of slots is configured independently from a number of repetitions of the transport block.
Shi ‘835 teaches the number of slots is configured independently from a number of repetitions of the transport block (FIGS. 4 and 5, para 40 and 61; the number of slots and the number of repetitions of the transport block are independently indicated for the purpose of scheduling multiple slots).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Hande ‘559’s communication apparatus that determines a transport block size, to include Shi ‘835’s number of slots and the number of repetitions of a transport block that are independently indicated for the purpose of scheduling multiple slots. The motivation for doing so would have been to address a problem of how to use a multi-TTI scheduling for cross-carrier scheduling in case of small subcarrier spacing of a scheduling carrier (Shi ‘835, para 3-5).
However, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835 does not specifically disclose wherein the control circuitry determines the transport block size based on a number of resource elements allocated to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).
Lin ‘970 teaches wherein the control circuitry determines the transport block size based on a number of resource elements allocated to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (para 98; transport block size for PUSCH is determined based on the number of REs allocated for the PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559 and Shi ‘835, to include Lin ‘970’s transport block size for PUSCH that is determined based on the number of REs allocated for the PUSCH. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide another solution for random access procedure (Lin ‘970, para 4 and 6).
However, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835 and Lin ‘970 does not specifically disclose the number of resource elements being determined by multiplying the number of slots by a number of resource elements per slot.
Wang ‘694 teaches the number of resource elements being determined by multiplying the number of slots by a number of resource elements per slot (FIG. 5, para 88-89; time and frequency resources are allocated in two resource blocks, where the two resource blocks are two slots in time domain; the two resource blocks each consist of 12 tones in frequency domain and 14 OFDM symbol periods in time domain, and thus each resource block consists of 168 resource elements, and the two resource blocks consist of 336 resource elements; therefore, the number of resource elements in the two slots is 336, and is determined as a multiplication of the number of two slots and the number of resource elements of 168 per slot).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, and Lin ‘970, to include Wang ‘694’s number of resource elements in the two slots that is 336, and is determined as a multiplication of the number of two slots and the number of resource elements of 168 per slot. The motivation for doing so would have been to make choices regarding the types of channels and signals to which narrowband resources are allocated (Wang ‘694, para 6).
Regarding claim 22, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694 discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 18, as outlined above.
Further, Lin ‘970 teaches wherein the information is configured by a radio resource control (RRC) signaling (para 14; information is sent via RRC signaling).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694, to further include Lin ‘970’s transport block size for PUSCH that is determined based on the number of REs allocated for the PUSCH. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide another solution for random access procedure (Lin ‘970, para 4 and 6).
Regarding claim 24, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694 discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 18, as outlined above.
Further, Shi ‘835 teaches wherein,
in a case where the communication apparatus is a user equipment, the user equipment receives the information from a base station (para 26; mobile terminal receives downlink control information from the base station), and
in a case where the communication apparatus is the base station, the base station transmits the information to the user equipment (para 26; base station sends downlink control information to the mobile terminal).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694, to further include Shi ‘835’s base station that sends downlink control information to the mobile terminal. The motivation for doing so would have been to address a problem of how to use a multi-TTI scheduling for cross-carrier scheduling in case of small subcarrier spacing of a scheduling carrier (Shi ‘835, para 3-5).
Regarding claim 25, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694 discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 18, as outlined above.
Further, Hande ‘559 teaches wherein the number of slots is an integer value equal to or larger than 1 (FIG. 3, para 134-141 and 145; the base station determines a transport block size based on a number of slots; the transport block is transmitted over two or more slots; thus, the number of slots is an integer value larger than 1; examiner notes the use of alternative language; for rejection purposes, only one of the alternative limitations must be disclosed by prior art) or
a decimal value.
8. Claims 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hande ‘559, in view of Shi ‘835, further in view of Lin ‘970, further in view of Wang ‘694, and further in view of Park ‘752 (US 2018/0287752, “Park ‘752”).
Regarding claim 26, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694 discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 19, as outlined above.
Further, Lin ‘970 teaches wherein, the transport block is included in the PUSCH (para 98; transport block size for PUSCH is determined based on the number of REs allocated for the PUSCH; thus, the transport block is included in the PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694, to further include Lin ‘970’s transport block that is included in the PUSCH. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide another solution for random access procedure (Lin ‘970, para 4 and 6).
However, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694 does not specifically disclose the control circuitry determines, based on the information, a number of groups of code blocks into which the transport block included in the PUSCH is divided.
Park ‘752 teaches the control circuitry determines, based on the information, a number of groups of code blocks into which the transport block included in the PUSCH is divided (para 66; a number of code block groups is determined as a number of code blocks into which a transport block is divided).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, and Wang ‘694, to include Park ‘752’s number of code block groups that is determined as a number of code blocks into which a transport block is divided. The motivation for doing so would have been to develop a new technology for a typical data transmission/reception procedure through transport block and HARQ feedback operation advance sidelink technologies (Park ‘752, para 5).
Regarding claim 27, Hande ‘559 in combination with Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, Wang ‘694, and Park ‘752 discloses all the limitations with respect to claim 26, as outlined above.
Further, Park ‘752 teaches wherein the control circuitry determines, based on the number of groups, a resource amount of a response signal for the transport block (para 66; a number of code block groups is determined as a number of code blocks into which a transport block is divided; thus, the number of code blocks is determined, where a signal transport block is divided into the number of code blocks; therefore, a resource amount of the signal transport block is determined based on the number of code blocks).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined communication apparatus of Hande ‘559, Shi ‘835, Lin ‘970, Wang ‘694, and Park ‘752, to further include Park ‘752’s number of code block groups that is determined as a number of code blocks into which a transport block is divided. The motivation for doing so would have been to develop a new technology for a typical data transmission/reception procedure through transport block and HARQ feedback operation advance sidelink technologies (Park ‘752, para 5).
Conclusion
Internet Communication
Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only. (1) Central Fax which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; (3) EFS WEB; or (4) the service window on the Alexandria campus. EFS web is the recommended way to submit the form since this allows the form to be entered into the file wrapper within the same day (system dependent). Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.0.
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/NEVENA ZECEVIC SANDHU/Examiner, Art Unit 2474
/Michael Thier/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2474