Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/441,142

ENHANCEMENT IN CONFIGURED GRANT TRANSMISSION

Non-Final OA §102
Filed
Feb 14, 2024
Examiner
HOANG, THAI D
Art Unit
2463
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Apple Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
87%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 0m
To Grant
84%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 87% — above average
87%
Career Allow Rate
562 granted / 648 resolved
+28.7% vs TC avg
Minimal -2% lift
Without
With
+-2.5%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 0m
Avg Prosecution
15 currently pending
Career history
663
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
4.1%
-35.9% vs TC avg
§103
34.5%
-5.5% vs TC avg
§102
30.6%
-9.4% vs TC avg
§112
18.2%
-21.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 648 resolved cases

Office Action

§102
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 . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. 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, 4, 8, 11, 15 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Papasakellariou, US Pub. 2024/0244657 A1. Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Papasakellariou discloses apparatuses and methods for latency reduction for transmission of data. A method performed by a user equipment (UE) includes a transceiver (fig. 3, Transceiver 310) configured to enable wireless communication with a base station (fig. 1, BS 102, 103); and a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver (fig. 3, the transceiver 310 coupled to a processor 340) and configured to: receive a configured grant (CG) configuration message configuring a plurality of CG physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission occasions (TOs) within a CG period (abstract: receiving, by radio resource control signaling, first information for a configured grant (CG) configuration for transmission of physical uplink shared channels (PUSCHs), wherein the first information includes a time period; determining first transmission occasions (TOs), from a first set of TOs within the time period, for transmission of respective first CG-PUSCHs); receive an information element indicating a time division duplexing (TDD) uplink-downlink (UL-DL) slot configuration (p. [0136]: an indication of CG-PUSCH TOs with CG-PUSCH transmission for a CG-PUSCH configuration in a transmission period can exclude invalid CG-PUSCH TOs as determined based on information provided to the UE by RRC signaling, such as for example for a TDD UL-DL configuration, as the UE can know in advance CG-PUSCH TOs that are invalid, for example because they include DL symbols as indicated by the TDD UL-DL configuration; [0160]-[0161]); determine whether a particular CG PUSCH TO of the plurality of CG PUSCH TOs overlaps with a DL slot indicated by the TDD UL-DL slot configuration (fig. 13, step 1310, [0170]: A UE determines that a number of CG-PUSCHs overlap in time, where the CG-PUSCHs are associated with respective CG-PUSCH configurations having respective indexes 1310); and in response to a determination that the particular CG PUSCH TO overlaps with the DL slot, skip utilizing the particular CG PUSCH TO (fig. 13, steps 1330-1350; p. [0161]: after resolving overlapping with symbols in a slot that are indicated as downlink by TDD-UL-DL-ConfigurationCommon or by TDD-UL-DL-ConfigurationDedicated and dropping corresponding CG-PUSCH transmission). Regarding claims 4, 11 and 18, the information element disclosed by Papasakellariou is inherently received in a radio resource control (RRC) system information block (SIB). Allowable Subject Matter Claims 2-3, 5-7, 9-10,12-14, 16-17 and 19-20 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 The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See attached PTO-892. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THAI D HOANG whose telephone number is (571)272-3184. The examiner can normally be reached 10:30 am-18:30pm. 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, Asad Nawaz can be reached at (571) 272-3988. 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. THAI HOANG D. Primary Examiner Art Unit 2463 /THAI DINH HOANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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Prosecution Timeline

Feb 14, 2024
Application Filed
Mar 07, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §102 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12604307
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING SIGNAL IN COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 14, 2026
Patent 12603732
RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR SIDELINK ON UNLICENSED SPECTRUM
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 14, 2026
Patent 12598047
TERMINAL, RADIO COMMUNICATION METHOD, AND BASE STATION
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 07, 2026
Patent 12593351
USER EQUIPMENT AND METHOD FOR PRACH PERFORMANCE REPORTING TO BASE STATION
2y 5m to grant Granted Mar 31, 2026
Patent 12574191
TERMINAL, RADIO COMMUNICATION METHOD, AND BASE STATION
2y 5m to grant Granted Mar 10, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
87%
Grant Probability
84%
With Interview (-2.5%)
3y 0m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 648 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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