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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 9 July 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment, filed 9 July 2026, has been entered and carefully considered.
Claims 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 13-19, 21, 27, 28, 31 and 32 are amended.
Claims 10, 11, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29 and 30 are cancelled.
Claims 1-9, 12-21, 24, 27, 28 and 31-36 are currently pending.
The outstanding objection to Claim 27 is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendment to said claim.
The outstanding rejection of Claims 1-9, 12-21, 24, 27, 28 and 31-36 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendment to Claims 1, 4, 7, 9, 13, 16, 21, 27 and 31.
The outstanding rejection of Claims 1-9, 12-21, 24, 27, 28 and 31-36 under 35 U.S.C. 103 is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendment to Claims 1, 13, 27 and 31.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 13, 27 and 31 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Interpretation
The Office notes that the independent claims recite (emphasis added) “the multi-slot PUSCH overlapping at least one or both of another PUSCH and a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH”. This is considered to be an alternative limitation, which would be met by overlap with one of PUSCH or a PUCCH (or both). Limitations in the dependent claims that further limit the non-selected options above (i.e., the PUCCH if the PUSCH is selected) would not be considered to be part of the broadest reasonable interpretation.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-9, 13-21, 27, 28 and 31-36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Dai et al (United States Pre-Grant Publication 20230328723), hereinafter Dai.
Regarding Claim 27, Dai discloses a wireless device (WD) (Figure 3 – UE 350) configured to communicate with a network node (Figure 3 – base station 310), the WD comprising one or both of a radio interface (Figure 3 – UE comprises transceiver 354) and processing circuitry (Figure 3 – UE comprises TX and RX processors (368 and 356 respectively) and controller/processor 359) to:
configure the wireless device to transmit a multi-slot transport block (TB) on a multi-slot physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), the multi-slot PUSCH overlapping at least one or both of another PUSCH and physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (paragraph 0061 – a transmission block is transmitted on PUSCH resources over multiple slots; Figure 6A and paragraph 0062 - a misdetection of a downlink scheduling (e.g., PDCCH 602) with a HARQ feedback PUCCH 604 overlapping with one of the slots, may result in misalignment (e.g., 606) based on whether there is a UCI (e.g., HARQ feedback and/or CSI) multiplexed on the overlapping slot n, which may correspond to a different rate-matching on slot n and may result in a different ending bit);
apply repetition for the multi-slot TB (Figure 6A – repetition is applied (i.e., PUSCH RV0 in a first repetition of the multi-slot TB; refer also to Figures 6B and 7);
apply a same redundancy version (RV) across all slots of the multi-slot TB associated with the repetition of the multi-slot TB (refer to Figures 6A, 6B and 7, where the same redundancy version is applied to all slots of the repetition (i.e., PUSCH RV0 in a first repetition followed by PUSCH RV2 is a subsequent repetition); and
apply RV cycling among repetitions of the multi-slot TB (Figure 7 and paragraph 0065 – RV cycling is applied to repetitions of the multi-slot TB).
Claim 1 is a method claim comprising the same steps performed by the network device of Claim 27. Therefore, Claim 1 is rejected for the same reasons as presented above for Claim 27.
Regarding Claim 31, Dai discloses a network node (Figure 3 - base station 310) configured to communicate with a wireless device (WD) (Figure 3 - UE 350) the network node comprising one or both of a radio interface (Figure 3 – base station comprises transceiver 318) and processing circuitry (Figure 3 – base station comprises TX and RX processors (316 and 370 respectively) and controller/processor 375) to:
configure the WD to transmit a multi-slot transport block (TB) on a multi-slot physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) by overlapping the multi-slot PUSCH with at least one or both of another PUSCH and physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (paragraph 0061 – a transmission block is transmitted on PUSCH resources over multiple slots; Figure 6A and paragraph 0062 - a misdetection of a downlink scheduling (e.g., PDCCH 602) with a HARQ feedback PUCCH 604 overlapping with one of the slots, may result in misalignment (e.g., 606) based on whether there is a UCI (e.g., HARQ feedback and/or CSI) multiplexed on the overlapping slot n, which may correspond to a different rate-matching on slot n and may result in a different ending bit); and
configure the WD to apply a repetition for the multi-slot TB, each repetition of the multi-slot TB applying a same redundancy version (RV) across all slots of the multi-slot TB associated with the repetition of the multi-slot TB (Figure 6A – repetition is applied (i.e., PUSCH RV0 in a first repetition of the multi-slot TB; refer also to Figures 6B and 7; refer to Figures 6A, 6B and 7, where the same redundancy version is applied to all slots of the repetition (i.e., PUSCH RV0 in a first repetition followed by PUSCH RV2 is a subsequent repetition); and
configure the WD to apply RV cycling among repetitions of the multi-slot TB (Figure 7 and paragraph 0065 – RV cycling is applied to repetitions of the multi-slot TB).
Claim 13 is a method claim comprising the same steps performed by the network device of Claim 31. Therefore, Claim 13 is rejected for the same reasons as presented above for Claim 31.
Regarding Claims 2, 14, 28, and 32, Dai discloses wherein the multi-slot PUSCH relates to a single multi-slot TB transmission (paragraph 0061 – a transmission block is transmitted on PUSCH resources over multiple slots).
Regarding Claims 3 and 15, Dai discloses a transport block size (TBS) of the single multi-slot TB is determined for a multi-slot TB across multiple slots (paragraph 0061 - For transport block size (TBS) determined by PUSCH resources over multiple slots (e.g., M slots (M>1), TBS scaling with an integer scaling factor M), at least one manner of mapping encoded bits onto data REs may include continuous mapping, which may comprise the starting bit of each code block in slot n+1 being determined by the ending bit of a previous slot n).
Regarding Claims 4 and 16, Dai discloses the configuring is for the multi-slot PUSCH and the PUCCH in one slot (see Figure 6A for single-slot collision between the multi-slot PUSCH and HARQ feedback PUCCH), therefore meeting the claimed alternative limitation.
Regarding Claims 5 and 17, Dai discloses wherein, in at least one of the overlap cases, one-slot PUSCH or multi-slot TB is at least partially postponed (paragraph 0061 – based on whether there is a UCI (e.g., HARQ feedback and/or CSI) multiplexed on the overlapping slot n, which may correspond to a different rate-matching on slot n and may result in a different ending bit. In such instances, the slot n+1 may have a different starting bit for each code block, due in-part to the different ending bit of the slot n; paragraph 0079 - the UE 902 may refrain from multiplexing UCI that may be conveyed with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) overlapping with the PUSCH transmission over the plurality of slots).
Regarding Claims 6 and 18, Dai further discloses wherein, in at least one of the overlap cases, one-slot PUSCH or multi-slot PUSCH is at least partially omitted (paragraphs 0079-0080; The UE 902 may refrain from multiplexing UCI that may be conveyed with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) overlapping with the PUSCH transmission over the plurality of slots. In some aspects, for example as illustrated at 916, the UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission. The UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission in a slot that may overlap with the PUCCH).
Regarding Claims 7 and 19, Dai discloses wherein one (or one or both) of the omitting and postponing is based at least in part on a priority of a channel (paragraph 0072 - the PUSCH may be dropped with the overlapping slot, due in-part to PUSCH having a lower priority than PUCCH).
Regarding Claims 8 and 20, Dai discloses wherein the multi-slot PUSCH overlaps with a PUCCH repetition, the multi-slot PUSCH or the PUCCH repetition is omitted or postponed, if the PUCCH repetition does not map on the multi-slot PUSCH (Figure 9 and paragraphs 0079-0082 - the UE 902 may refrain from multiplexing uplink control information (UCI). The UE 902 may refrain from multiplexing UCI that may be conveyed with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) overlapping with the PUSCH transmission over the plurality of slots. In some aspects, for example as illustrated at 916, the UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission. The UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission in a slot that may overlap with the PUCCH. In such aspect, the UE 902 may transmit the PUCCH in the slot, as illustrated for example at 918… the UE 902 may transmit the PUSCH repetitions. The UE 902 may transmit the PUSCH repetitions where each slot may comprise encoded data based on respective starting bit locations).
Regarding Claims 9 and 21, Dai discloses wherein a transmission in all slots of the TB or multi-slot PUSCH is omitted or only a transmission in the one or more overlapping slots of multiple slots of the TB or multi-slot PUSCH is omitted (paragraphs 0079-0080; The UE 902 may refrain from multiplexing UCI that may be conveyed with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) overlapping with the PUSCH transmission over the plurality of slots. In some aspects, for example as illustrated at 916, the UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission. The UE 902 may drop the PUSCH transmission in a slot that may overlap with the PUCCH).
Regarding Claims 33-36, Dai discloses wherein four repetitions of the multi-slot TB use redundancy versions RV0, RV2, RV1, and RV3, respectively (paragraph 0064 and Figure 4 – encoded bits of the multi-slot PUSCH may differ such that a redundancy value of each slot is different, including RV0, RV2, RV3, and RV1).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 12 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dai, as applied to Claims 1 and 13 above, in view of Bhamri et al (United States Pre-Grant Publication 20230232380), hereinafter Bhamri380. Dai discloses the features of Claims 1 and 13, as described above. Further, Dai discloses the multi-slot TB or the multi-slot PUSCH is repeated (Figure 6A, 7 and 9 – the PUSCH is repeated). However, Dai does not disclose Type-A multi-slot TB and PUSCH repetition Type A are configured simultaneously. In an analogous art, Bhamri380 discloses this. Specifically, Bhamri380 discloses configuring Type-A multi-slot TB (paragraph 0117) and Type-A PUSCH repetition (paragraph 0113). Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Dai with Bhamri380. One would have been motivated to do so in order to support coverage enhancement (paragraph 0116 of Bhamri380).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW W. CHRISS whose telephone number is (571)272-1774. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8am-4pm ET.
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/ANDREW W CHRISS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
