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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in response to application filed on 2/17/2026.
Claims 1-17 & 19 have been elected with traverse in response to the restriction.
Claims 1-17 & 19 have been examined and are pending with this action.
Claims 18 & 20 have been non-elected based on amendment filed on 2/17/2026.
Priority
Examiner acknowledges that the Applicant claims a priority benefit of PCT/CN23/73442 filed on 1/20/2023.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 12/8/2023 and these drawings are accepted.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/8/2023, 03/12/2024 and 1/14/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election with traverse of Group I, claims 1-17 & 19 in the reply filed on 2/26/2026 is acknowledged.
Examiner Note: Examiner suggests Applicant to cancel the non-elected claims which are 18 & 20.
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.
Claims 1-5, 8-13, 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YUKI (EP 4057724 A1) in view of Nogami et al (US 20190150123 A1).
INDEPENDENT:
As per claim 1, YUKI wireless communication method (YUKI: [Title]: “ terminal and wireless communication method”), comprising:
receiving, by a wireless communication device from a wireless communication node, a downlink signaling that includes a first indication field and a second indication field (YUKI: [0007]: "a receiving section that receives one piece of downlink control information for scheduling a plurality of physical uplink shared channels (PUSCHs) to be transmitted simultaneously, the downlink control information including one or more sounding reference signal (SRS) resource indication fields & the capability of a given node (for example, a base station or a UE) to determine a beam (transmit beam, Tx beam) used for transmission of a signal,"); and
simultaneously transmitting, by the wireless communication device, a first Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmission and a second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0007]: "a plurality of physical uplink shared channels (PUSCHs) to be transmitted simultaneously");
YUKI does not explicitly teaches multiple indication field.
Nogami however discloses wherein the first PUSCH transmission is indicated by the first indication field, and the second PUSCH transmission is indicated by one of the first indication field or the second indication field (YUKI: [0055]: " The DCI format(s) for PUSCH scheduling may include multiple information field, for example, carrier indicator field, frequency domain PUSCH resource allocation field, time domain PUSCH resource allocation field, MCS field, new data indicator field, redundancy version field, HARQ process number field, code block group flush indicator (CBGFI) field, code block group transmission indicator (CBGTI) field, PUSCH power control field, SRS resource indicator (SRI) field, wideband and/or subband transmit precoding matrix indicator (TPMI) field, ");
Therefore it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of YUKI in view of Nogami to figure out multiple indication field. One would be motivated to do so because this enhances the scheduling of Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmission (Nogami).
Claim 19 is rejected based on rationale provided for claim 1.
DEPENDENTS:
As per claim 2, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission are associated with different transmission layers (YUKI: [0067]: “in FIG. 3A, the UE maps one codeword (CW) or one transport block (TB) to L layers (PUSCHs (1, 2, ..., L)) and transmits the L layers from each of two panels"), respectively, wherein the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission can be fully or partially overlapped with each other in at least one of a frequency domain or a time domain, wherein each of the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission is associated with a respective beam state or a respective spatial relation (YUKI: [0121]: “the UE may report UE capability information indicating at least one of how many spatial relations can be used simultaneously, and which one is supported among a case where a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap fully, a case where a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap partially, and a case where none of a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap.. ").
As per claim 3, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission are associated with one or more identical transmission layers or Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) ports (YUKI: [0054]: “A channel/signal by which the UL TCI state is configured (specified) (which may be referred to as a target channel/RS) may be at least one of, for example, a PUSCH (a DMRS in a PUSCH),"),, wherein the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission can be fully or partially overlapped with each other in at least one of a frequency domain or a time domain, wherein each of the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission is associated with a respective beam state or a respective spatial relation (YUKI: [0121]: “the UE may report UE capability information indicating at least one of how many spatial relations can be used simultaneously, and which one is supported among a case where a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap fully, a case where a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap partially, and a case where none of a plurality of PUSCHs transmitted simultaneously overlap.. ").
As per claim 4, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 2, wherein each of the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission is configured as a codebook-based PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0021]: “Precoder type may be interpreted as coherency, PUSCH transmission coherence, coherent type, coherence type, codebook type, codebook subset, codebook subset type, and the like.").
As per claim 5, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 4, wherein the first indication field is a first Transmission Precoding Matrix Indication (TPMI) field indicating a precoder and a transmission layer for the first PUSCH transmission, and the second indication field is a second TPMI field indicating a precoder and a transmission layer for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0109]: “The precoding information and number of layers field may be enhanced for indication of at least one of a layer and a TPMI for each of a plurality of PUSCHs in codebook based UL transmission. ").
As per claim 8, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 4, wherein the first indication field is a first SRS Resource Indicator (SRI) field indicating for the first PUSCH transmission, and the second indication field is a second SRI field indicating for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: “FIG. 4 is a diagram to show an example of association between SRI field values & The UE may determine a precoder for PUSCH transmission, based on an SRI, a transmitted rank indicator (TRI), and a transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI). In a case of non-codebook based transmission, the UE may determine a precoder for PUSCH transmission, based on an SRI.. ").
As per claim 9, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 8, wherein a bit-width of the first SRI field is determined based on a number of SRS resources configured for the first PUSCH transmission, and wherein a bit-width of the second SRI field is determined based on a number of SRS resources configured for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0089]: “In a case of N.sub.SRS = 4, two layers at maximum are supported. In this case, values 0 and 1 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and the values 2 and 3 of SRI are associated with panel #2. In a case of N.sub.SRS = 6, values 0, 1, and 2 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and values 3, 4, and 5 of SRI are associated with panel #2. In a case of N.sub.SRS = 8, values 0, 1, 2, and 3 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and values 4, 5, 6, and 7 of SRI are associated with panel #2 ").
As per claim 10, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 2, wherein each of the first PUSCH transmission and second PUSCH transmission is configured as a non-codebook-based PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0010]: “For NR, it is studied that a UE supports at least one of codebook (CB) based transmission and non-codebook (NCB) based transmission..").
As per claim 11, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 10, wherein the first indication field is a first SRS Resource Indicator (SRI) field indicating for the first PUSCH transmission, and the second indication field is a second SRI field indicating for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: “FIG. 4 is a diagram to show an example of association between SRI field values & The UE may determine a precoder for PUSCH transmission, based on an SRI, a transmitted rank indicator (TRI), and a transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI). In a case of non-codebook based transmission, the UE may determine a precoder for PUSCH transmission, based on an SRI.. ").
As per claim 12, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 11, wherein a bit-width of the first SRI field is determined based on at least one of a number of SRS resources or a maximum number of transmission layers configured for the first PUSCH transmission, and wherein a bit-width of the second SRI field is determined based on at least one of a number of SRS resources or a maximum number of transmission layers configured for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0089]: “In a case of N.sub.SRS = 4, two layers at maximum are supported. In this case, values 0 and 1 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and the values 2 and 3 of SRI are associated with panel #2. In a case of N.sub.SRS = 6, values 0, 1, and 2 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and values 3, 4, and 5 of SRI are associated with panel #2. In a case of N.sub.SRS = 8, values 0, 1, 2, and 3 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and values 4, 5, 6, and 7 of SRI are associated with panel #2 ").
As per claim 13, Yuki/Nogami discloses the wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein a number of most significant bits with value set to “0” are inserted to the first or second SRI field when at least one of determinants for the first PUSCH transmission is different from that of the second PUSCH transmission transmission (YUKI: [0089]: “In a case of N.sub.SRS = 4, two layers at maximum are supported. In this case, values 0 and 1 of SRI are associated with panel #1, and the values 2 and 3 of SRI are associated with panel #2).
As per claim 17, Yuki/Nogami discloses wireless communication method of claim 4, wherein the first indication field is a first SRS Resource Indicator (SRI) field configuring for the first PUSCH transmission or the second PUSCH transmission, and the second indication field is a second SRI field configuring for the second PUSCH transmission (YUKI: [0089]: “A plurality of PUSCHs may be indicated by a single PDCCH. One piece of DCI may schedule a plurality of PUSCHs. The DCI may include one or more SRI fields for indicating panels (beams or SRS resources) of the plurality of PUSCHs. One or more SRI fields may indicate a plurality of SRS resources”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-7 or 14-16 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. This includes:
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sibte Bukhari whose telephone number is (571) 270-7122. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 - 6:00.
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, Vivek Srivastava can be reached on (571) 272-7304. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SIBTE H BUKHARI/Examiner, Art Unit 2449
Prosecution Insights