DETAILED ACTION
In response to communication filed on 2/21/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claims 1-4,6-13, and 15-20 are rejected.
Claims 5 and 14 are objected to for having allowable subject matter.
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 § 103
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 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 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1,2,7-11, and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sridharan et al. (US Pub. 2023/0024493)(S1 hereafter) in view of Nhan et al. (US Pub. 2026/0039436)(N1 hereafter).
Regarding claims 1,10 and 19, S1 teaches a user equipment (UE)[refer Fig. 10][paragraph 0193] and a network entity (i.e. base station or type of access network entity)[paragraph 0093], comprising:
one or more memories [refer Fig. 10; 1035] storing processor-executable code [paragraph 0193]; and
one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories [refer Fig. 10; 1040] and individually or collectively operable to execute the code [paragraph 0197] to cause the UE to:
receive uplink grant information that provides uplink resources for a plurality of uplink transmission occasions (i.e. PUSCH occasions)[paragraph 0060], reference signal bundling (i.e. DMRS bundling) is enabled across two or more of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions [paragraph 0061];
transmit a skipping indication that at least a second uplink transmission occasion of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions will be unused by the UE (the UE may not have any data to transmit during a particular resource (i.e. uplink transmission occasion will be unused), then PUSCH skipping is supported [paragraph 0060], the UE may transmit dummy data during the skipped CG-PUSCH [paragraph 0062]), the second uplink transmission occasion subsequent (i.e. a consecutive transmission) to a first uplink transmission occasion that will be used for an uplink transmission [paragraph 0062];
transmit two or more uplink transmissions using at least the first uplink transmission occasion and a third uplink transmission occasion of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions (the UE, as part of bundling, can transmit two or more consecutive transmissions, consisting of two or more PUSCH occasions (i.e. a third occasion))[paragraph 0062],
reference signals transmitted in the two or more uplink transmissions are unbundled based at least in part on at least the second uplink transmission occasion being unused (refraining from performing DMRS bundling if no payload is transmitted on a PUSCH occasion)[paragraph 0124].
However, S1 fails to disclose determining that the second uplink transmission occasion being unused breaks a phase continuity of uplink transmissions, a power consistency of uplink transmissions, or both, across the plurality of uplink transmission occasions.
N1 discloses that for DMRS bundling, a time domain window (TDW) is used to define the duration within which a UE is to maintain power and phase continuity [paragraph 0045], one or multiple actual TDW (aTDW) can be within each nominal TDW (nTDW), there can be a possibility for an event to occur that would break power consistency and phase continuity within each nTDW, and if such an event would happen, the an nTDW may be fragmented into several aTDWs [paragraph 0049].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 for skipping a PUSCH occasion [refer S1; paragraph 0060] and refraining from performing DMRS bundling if no payload is transmitted on a PUSCH occasion [refer S1; paragraph 0124] to incorporate identifying whether an unused transmission breaks phase continuity and power consistency and handling accordingly as taught by N1. One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of maintaining power consistency and phase continuity within an aTDW for DMRS bundling [refer N1; paragraph 0049].
Regarding claims 2,11 and 20, S1 teaches the skipping indication (the UE may not have any data to transmit during a particular resource (i.e. uplink transmission occasion will be unused), then PUSCH skipping is supported [paragraph 0060], the UE may transmit dummy data during the skipped CG-PUSCH [paragraph 0062]).
However, S1 fails to explicitly disclose that the skipping indication is included in a set of events that breaks one or more of phase continuity or a power consistency across the plurality of uplink transmission occasions.
N1 discloses that for DMRS bundling, a time domain window (TDW) is used to define the duration within which a UE is to maintain power and phase continuity [paragraph 0045], one or multiple actual TDW (aTDW) can be within each nominal TDW (nTDW), there can be a possibility for an event to occur that would break power consistency and phase continuity within each nTDW, and if such an event would happen, the an nTDW may be fragmented into several aTDWs [paragraph 0049].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 for skipping a PUSCH occasion [refer S1; paragraph 0060] to incorporate identifying whether an unused transmission breaks phase continuity and power consistency and handling accordingly as taught by N1. One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of maintaining power consistency and phase continuity within an aTDW for DMRS bundling [refer N1; paragraph 0049].
Regarding claims 7 and 16, S1 teaches the uplink grant information provides periodic uplink resources [paragraph 0060] for a series of time periods (i.e. TTI)[paragraph 0061], and two or more uplink transmission occasions are included in each time period of the series of time periods for two or more associated uplink shared channel transmissions according to a multi-grant uplink shared channel transmission configuration (i.e. PUSCH)[paragraph 0061].
Regarding claims 8 and 17, S1 teaches the reference signal bundling is applied to transmit blocks that are transmitted over multiple slots [paragraph 0061], and uplink shared channel transmissions according to the multi-grant uplink shared channel transmission configuration [paragraph 0060].
However, S1 doesn’t expressly disclose uplink shared channel transmission repetitions.
N1, in the same field of endeavor, discloses that uplink transmissions can include PUSCH repetitions [paragraph 0007].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 handling PUSCH occasions to incorporate the use of PUSCH repetitions as part of uplink transmissions as taught by N1. One would be motivated to do so to provide the use of a known procedure within the field of endeavor that would yield predictable results.
Regarding claims 9 and 18, S1 teaches the reference signal bundling is applied across two or more different transmit blocks transmitted in two or more of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions for uplink transmission of the multi-grant uplink shared channel transmission configuration [paragraph 0061].
Claims 3,4,6,12,13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over S1 in view of N1, as applied to claims 1 and 10, in further view of Cozzo et al. (US Pub. 2023/0131305)(C1 hereafter).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, S1 fails to disclose determining a nominal time domain window for reference signal bundling in which reference signals in two or more of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions are bundled, and an actual time domain window, the actual time domain window corresponding to a portion of the nominal time domain window.
N1 discloses that for DMRS bundling, a time domain window (TDW) is used to define the duration within which a UE is to maintain power and phase continuity [paragraph 0045], one or multiple actual TDW (aTDW) can be within each nominal TDW (nTDW), there can be a possibility for an event to occur that would break power consistency and phase continuity within each nTDW, and if such an event would happen, the an nTDW may be fragmented into several aTDWs [paragraph 0049].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 for skipping a PUSCH occasion [refer S1; paragraph 0060] to incorporate identifying whether an unused transmission breaks phase continuity and power consistency and handling accordingly as taught by N1. One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of maintaining power consistency and phase continuity within an aTDW for DMRS bundling [refer N1; paragraph 0049].
However, S1 in view of N1 fails to disclose restarting the reference signal bundling within an actual time domain window subsequent to the second uplink transmission occasion.
C1 discloses maintaining phase continuity for a transmission with DMRS bundling during a TDW by using timing adjustment [paragraph 0080], a UE when applying a timing adjustment can restart a DMRS bundling operation over remaining slots within a nominal TDW and applying the DMRS bundling in a first actual window [paragraph 0093].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 in view of N1 to incorporate the restarting of a DMRS bundling operation when performing a timing adjustment as taught by C1 . One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of restart power consistency and phase continuity [refer C1; paragraph 0109].
Regarding claims 4 and 13, S1 fails to disclose reference signal bundling is not restarted within a nominal time domain window for reference signal bundling in which reference signals in two or more of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions are bundled.
C1 discloses maintaining phase continuity for a transmission with DMRS bundling during a TDW by using timing adjustment [paragraph 0080], a UE can have the capability of restarting a time domain window after a transmission gap and can perform DMRS bundling, otherwise if not, the UE applies DMRS bundling after a transmission gap within a nominal TDW [paragraph 0100].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 in view of N1 to incorporate the restarting of a DMRS bundling operation when performing a timing adjustment as taught by C1 . One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of restart power consistency and phase continuity [refer C1; paragraph 0109].
Regarding claims 6 and 15, S1 fails to disclose transmitting a capability indication that indicates whether the UE is capable of restarting the reference signal bundling subsequent to the skipping indication within a nominal time domain window.
C1 discloses maintaining phase continuity for a transmission with DMRS bundling during a TDW by using timing adjustment [paragraph 0080], a UE when applying a timing adjustment can restart a DMRS bundling operation over remaining slots within a nominal TDW and applying the DMRS bundling in a first actual window [paragraph 0093], a UE can have the capability of restarting a time domain window after a transmission gap and can perform DMRS bundling, otherwise if not, the UE applies DMRS bundling after a transmission gap within a nominal TDW [paragraph 0100].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of S1 in view of N1 to incorporate the restarting of a DMRS bundling operation when performing a timing adjustment as taught by C1 . One would be motivated to do so to provide a means of restart power consistency and phase continuity [refer C1; paragraph 0109].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 14 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art, alone or in combination, fails to disclose or reasonably suggest determining a nominal time domain window for reference signal bundling in which reference signals in two or more of the plurality of uplink transmission occasions are bundled and restarting the reference signal bundling within an actual time domain window subsequent to the second uplink transmission occasion when the skipping indication is transmitted prior to a threshold time period in advance of the second uplink transmission occasion, the actual time domain window corresponding to a portion of the nominal time domain window or determining to not restart the reference signal bundling within the nominal time domain window when the skipping indication is transmitted after the threshold time period in advance of the second uplink transmission occasion.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Xu et al. (US Pub. 2024/0314787) discloses indicating unused slots of a PUSCH occasion [paragraph 0070], a UE is enabled to perform DMRS bundling and can indicate that one or more slots in an occasion are unused and define how these types affect phase continuity [paragraph 0071].
Taherzadeh et al. (US Pub. 2023/0120692) discloses an indication to skip or postpone uplink transmissions that occur during intervals associated with downlink phase continuity [paragraph 0076], downlink phase continuity can be associated with during a DMRS bundling window [paragraph 0077].
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN C KAVLESKI whose telephone number is (571)270-3619. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:30am-3pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles C Jiang can be reached on 571-270-7191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Ryan Kavleski
/R. K./
Examiner, Art Unit 2412
/CHARLES C JIANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2412