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 .
Request for Continued Examination
The request filed on January 5, 2026, for a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) under 37 CFR 1.114 based on parent Application No. 18/566,064 is acceptable and a RCE has been established. An action on the RCE follows.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/5/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Upon a detailed review of the prior art Yi et al (US 2022/0224456), the applicant’s amendment: “corresponding to an assignment of at least two hopping patterns or a received beam mapping configuration corresponding to at least two beams” is disclosed and explained below.
Claim Objections
Claims 11 and 22 are objected to because of the following informalities: please define the parameters for “X”. For example, X is an integer greater than 1. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-3, 6, 13, 14, 17, 24-28 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Yi et al (US 2022/0224456). a) Regarding claims 1 and 24, Yi et al disclose an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
memory (1803 in Fig. 18);
transceiver (1801); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver (1802), the at least one processor configured to:
receive, from a base station, a joint channel estimation configuration and at least one of a frequency hopping configuration or a beam mapping configuration (1701 in Fig.17; Pub [0175]);
receive downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a plurality of physical uplink shared channels (PUSCHs) having multiple repetitions (1702; Pub [0076], [0097]);
apply the frequency hopping configuration or the beam mapping configuration based on the joint channel estimation configuration and at least one of a received frequency hopping configuration corresponding to an assignment of at least two hopping patterns or a received beam mapping configuration corresponding to at least two beams (1705 in Fig. 17; Fig. 15; Pub [0168-0169], frequency hopping is applied for each beam; frequency hopping applied to SRI #0 and #1 inherently comprise two hopping patterns);
communicate, with the base station, based on the received frequency hopping configuration or the received beam mapping configuration (1706); and
maintain phase continuity across one or more transport blocks (TBs) scheduled by the DCI (abstract; Pub [0091], [0114]). b) Regarding claims 27 and 30, Yi et al disclose an apparatus for wireless communication at a base station, comprising:
memory (1903 in Fig. 19);
transceiver (1901); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver (1902), the at least one processor configured to:
transmit, to a user equipment (UE), a joint channel estimation configuration and at least one of a frequency hopping configuration or a beam mapping configuration (1601; Pub [0172]);
transmit downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a plurality of physical uplink shared channels (PUSCHs) having multiple repetitions (1602; Pub [0076], [0097]);
receive, from the UE, uplink transmission based on at least one of the frequency hopping configuration corresponding to an assignment of at least two hopping patterns or the beam mapping configuration corresponding to at least two beams (1603 in Fig. 16; Fig. 15; Pub [0168-0169], frequency hopping is applied for each beam; frequency hopping applied to SRI #0 and #1 inherently comprise two hopping patterns); and
perform a joint channel estimation procedure on the uplink transmission received from the UE (1607). c) Regarding claims 2 and 25, Yi et al disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: maintain phase continuity across repetitions of a same one or more TBs scheduled by the DCI (Pub [0091]). d) Regarding claims 3 and 14, Yi et al disclose wherein to maintain the phase continuity across the one or more TBs scheduled by the DCI, the at least one processor is configured to maintain the phase continuity across transmission occasions of all TBs scheduled by the DCI that are associated with a same frequency hop (Fig. 10; Pub [0139]).
e) Regarding claims 6 and 17, Yi et al disclose wherein the frequency hopping configuration comprises a first half of transmission occasions allocated to a first frequency hop and a second half of transmission occasions allocated to a second frequency hop (Fig. 10; Pub [0139]).
f) Regarding claims 13 and 26, Yi et al disclose maintaining phase continuity across repetitions of a same transport block (TB) scheduled by the DCI (Pub [0091]). g) Regarding claim 28, Yi et al disclose wherein to perform the joint channel estimation procedure, the at least on processor is configurated to perform the joint channel estimation procedure over each of one or more transmission occasions of the PUSCHs (1607 in Fig. 16).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 5, 7-12, 15, 16, 18-23 and 29 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Eva Y Puente whose telephone number is 571-272-3049. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh Fan can be reached on 571-272-3042. 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). February 5, 2026
/EVA Y PUENTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632