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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species II in the reply filed on 12/15/2025 is acknowledged. Accordingly, claims 11-20 are withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention.
Oath/Declaration
The receipt of oath/declaration is acknowledged.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 05/18/2023. These drawings are reviewed and accepted by the Examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 04/24/2023, 07/17/2023 and 10/13/2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CRR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 11-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL- Nokia, et al. "Discussion on approaches and solutions for NR PUSCH coverage enhancement" 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #103, e-Meeting, October 26th - November 13th, 2020, R1-2009792, 16 pages; hereinafter ‘Nokia, R1-2009792’ in view of Lee et al. (U.S 12,041,648).
For claim 11:
Nokia -R1-2009792 discloses a method for wireless communication, comprising: determining, by a user device, availability of a transmission or repetition transmission for transmitting a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) in a plurality of uplink slots (see Nokia -R1-2009792, at least section 2, 2.2; PUSCH repetition with non-consecutive slots/on the basis of available slots);
determining, by the user device, availability of a transport block processing over the plurality of uplink slots (see Nokia -R1-2009792, at least section 2, 2.2; TB processing at least over multi-slot PUSCH); upon determining that the transmission or repetition transmission and the transport block processing over the plurality of uplink slots are available (see Nokia -R1-2009792, at least section 2, 2.2; PUSCH repetition with non-consecutive slots/on the basis of available slots),
Nokia -R1-2009792 further disclose TB processing at least over multi-slot PUSCH (see Nokia -R1-2009792, at least section 2, 2.2; TB processing at least over multi-slot PUSCH), but does not explicitly disclose multiplexing uplink control information (UCI) on the plurality of uplink slots associated with the transport block processing; and transmitting the uplink control information (UCI) and the PUSCH to a network node (see Nokia -R1-2009792, at least section 2, 2.2; .
Lee, from the same or similar fields of endeavor, discloses what Nokia -R1-2009792 fails: UCI/data multiplexing: UCI/data multiplexing may mean an operation of transmitting UCI and data on a common physical UL channel (e.g., PUSCH). UCl/data multiplexing may include an operation of multiplexing UCI with data (see Lee, at least column 26, lines 24-28), and the UE transmits/receives the UCI/UL data/random access signals on or through the PUSCH/PUCCH/PRACH, respectively (see Lee, at least column 9, lines 1-3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious statement before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a system comprises a method as taught by Lee. The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks improving to prevent the processing time of the UE from being insufficient, two timeline conditions (hereinafter, multiplexing timeline conditions.
For claim 12:
In addition to rejection in claim 12, Nokia -R1-2009792-Lee further disclose wherein the UCI is multiplexed on a slot that is overlapped with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (see Lee, at least column 26-27, lines 1-9; PUCCH resources for PUCCH transmission overlap in a single slot, the UE may perform UCI multiplexing based on a PUCCH resource with the earliest start symbol., and wherein the slot includes a dedicated demodulation reference signal (DMRS) symbol (see R1-2009792, at least section 3; DMRS symbol is needed at the initial slot of the repetition, whereas the remaining slots can use only 2 DMRS symbols, and section 2, 2.4; DMRS sharing among multiple PUSCH transmissions: DMRS sharing relies on the estimated channel from the preceding slot to transmit PUSCH without DMRS and hence having more resource for data in the current slot). The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks improving to prevent the processing time of the UE from being insufficient, two timeline conditions (multiplexing timeline conditions).
For claim 13:
In addition to rejection in claim 13, Nokia -R1-2009792-Lee further discloses wherein the UCI is multiplexed on a slot that is not overlapped with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) and nearest to a start or an end symbol of the PUCCH in a time domain (see Lee, at least column 27, lines 47-49; the first PUCCH resource does not overlap with another PUCCH resource and the second PUCCH resource overlaps with another PUCCH resource). The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks improving to prevent the processing time of the UE from being insufficient, two timeline conditions (multiplexing timeline conditions).
For claim 14:
In addition to rejection in claim 14, Nokia -R1-2009792-Lee further discloses wherein the UCI is multiplexed on multiple slots for the transport block processing that are overlapped or not with the PUSCH transmission (see Lee, at least figure 12, column 28, lines 16-31; when the UE performs UCI and/or data multiplexing for overlapping PUCCH(s) and/or PUSCH(s) on the time axis). The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks improving to prevent the processing time of the UE from being insufficient, two timeline conditions (multiplexing timeline conditions).
For claim 16:
In addition to rejection in claim 16, Nokia -R1-2009792-Lee further disclose wherein a first symbol that is used for uplink control information (UCI) multiplexing satisfies a corresponding timeline condition (see Lee, at least figure 12 and column 30, lines 35-45; in FIG. 12 illustrates UCI multiplexing considering a timeline condition, where UE may perform UCI multiplexing for overlapping UL channels, and UE may also check whether the first symbol of UL from the last symbol of PDCCH #1 satisfies the condition: ff the multiplexing timeline condition is satisfied, the UE may perform UCI multiplex for UL channels #1 to #). Therefore, it would have been obvious statement before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a system comprises a method as taught by Lee. The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks in order to allow the BS to correctly receive the UL channel(s).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL- Nokia, et al. "Discussion on approaches and solutions for NR PUSCH coverage enhancement" 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #103, e-Meeting, October 26th - November 13th, 2020, R1-2009792, 16 pages; hereinafter ‘Nokia, R1-2009792’ in view of Lee et al. (U.S 12,041,648) further in view of Rastegardoost et al. (U.S 2022/0210806).
For claim 15:
In addition to rejection in claim 15, Nokia -R1-2009792-Wang does not explicitly disclose wherein a first slot of multiple slots includes a dedicated demodulation reference signal (DMRS) symbol.
Rastegardoost, from the same or similar fields of endeavor, discloses what Nokia -R1-2009792 fails: the first DMRS resource may be dedicated to the UEs of the first type (see Rastegardoost, at least paragraph [0326]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious statement before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a system comprises a method as taught by Rastegardoost. The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks improve flexibility, enhance productivity and efficiency, reduce maintenance cost, and improve operational safety.
Conclusion
The prior arts made or record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosures. Yang et al. (US 11,778,617), discloses UE may also identify UCI to be multiplexed on the uplink shared channel (e.g., when the scheduled transmission overlaps with a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or based on an uplink grant for the UCI).
Cozzo et al. (US 2022/0006575), discloses a PUCCH transmission can be repeated over a number of slots. The repetition of the PUCCH transmission per slot starts from a same symbol in a slot and is over a same number of consecutive symbols in the slot.
RASTEGARDOOST NAZANIN (CA 3090242A1), discloses transmission of the transport block (e.g., a PUSCH) may be multiplexed using FDM uplink data is available for transmission to the base station. The wireless device may send/transmit UCI.
Wang et al. (U.S 2024/0106611), discloses the repetition transmission of the PUSCH may also be in units of slots, that is, each PUSCH is in a different slot.
Lei et al. (U.S 2021/0195654), discloses PUCCH repetitions on a symbol or slot level, inter-slot frequency hopping of a channel (e.g., PUCCH, PUSCH, or PRACH), low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) modulation (e.g., π/2 BPSK modulation, low PAPR DMRS, or DFT-s-OFDM waveforms), low PAPR waveforms (e.g., PUCCH or PUSCH formats for non-coherent communication without DMRS), uplink DMRS bundling,
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAN-HUONG TRUONG whose telephone number is (571) 270-5829. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ricky Ngo can be reached on 571-272-3139. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAN-HUONG TRUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2464
03/04/2026