Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/283,936

TERMINAL DEVICES, BASE STATION DEVICES, AND COMMUNICATION METHODS

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Sep 25, 2023
Examiner
TRAN, PHUC H
Art Unit
2471
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
OA Round
2 (Non-Final)
92%
Grant Probability
Favorable
2-3
OA Rounds
3y 0m
To Grant
93%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 92% — above average
92%
Career Allow Rate
942 granted / 1028 resolved
+33.6% vs TC avg
Minimal +2% lift
Without
With
+1.8%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 0m
Avg Prosecution
40 currently pending
Career history
1068
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
4.4%
-35.6% vs TC avg
§103
37.8%
-2.2% vs TC avg
§102
24.7%
-15.3% vs TC avg
§112
18.7%
-21.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 1028 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Response to Amendment Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 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 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) 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (Pub. No. 20230396373) in view of Blankenship et al. (WO 2021070075). - With respect to claims 6, 8, 10, Gao teaches a terminal device comprising: transmission circuitry configured to transmit multiple instances of a physical uplink share channel (PUSCH), the instances numbered from 0 to Krep-1 for each repetition of the PUSCH (e.g. PUSCH repetition disclose in par. 24-25), and higher layer processing circuitry configured to perform an RRC layer processing (par. 176), wherein a redundancy version for the nth instance is determined based on mod(n,Ns) where the NS is a length of a redundancy version sequence (see par. 25 “For PUSCH repetition Type A with a configured grant, if the parameter repK-RV is provided in the configuredGrantConfig, for the nth transmission occasion among K repetitions, n=1, 2, . . . , K, it is associated with (mod(n−1,4)+1)th value in the configured RV sequence”), and the multiple instances are mapped on Krep continuous available slots determined based on a slot configuration provided through the RRC layer (see Fig. 1,2, 5). Gao implicitly fails to teaches mod(n, Ns), but Blankenship discloses redundancy version with possible sequences (see page 6 discloses “Possible sequences to use are [0, 2, 3, 1], [0, 3, 0, 3], [0, 0, 0, 0] For a dynamically scheduled transmission”; each sequence has a fixed, finite length such and Ns=4 which would consider as mod(n,Ns)). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to find the mod of Blankenship’s invention equivalent as Application for the RV sequence wireless communication. - With respect to claims 7, 9, Gao teaches the Krep continuous available slots is determined based on whether or not a set of OFDM symbols allocated for an instance in the slot overlap with a downlink region, and the downlink region is determined by the slot configuration (Fig. 4 shows the overlap of nodes and Fig. 15-16). Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892. . Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex. 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, Sujoy K. Kundu can be reached at 571-272-8586. 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. /PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Sep 25, 2023
Application Filed
Sep 27, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103
Dec 29, 2025
Response Filed
Mar 21, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

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Patent 12580689
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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

2-3
Expected OA Rounds
92%
Grant Probability
93%
With Interview (+1.8%)
3y 0m
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 1028 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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