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 .
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 10, 14, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Elshafie et al. (US 2023/0050382 A1). Regarding claims 1, 10, 19, Elshafie et al. discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories, individually or collectively configured to cause the UE (Para 164 and See Fig 9 items 940, 930) to: receive an indication of whether the UE is able to use a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) in a future slot for non-causal DMRS cross-slot combining for joint channel estimation (Para 108 teaches of bundled DMRS with future PSSCH “ include SCI to indicate whether the current PSSCH DMRS is bundled, and if so, the SCI may indicate whether the current PSSCH is bundled with a previous or future PSSCH“); and perform the joint channel estimation based at least in part on the indication (Para 109 teaches of UE performing channel estimation). Regarding claim 5, Elshafie et al. discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication indicates combinable resources in the future slot (Para 108 teaches “ In such cases, each PSCCH may include SCI to indicate whether the current SSCH DMRS is bundled, and if so, the SCI may indicate whether the current PSSCH is bundled with a previous or future PSSCH”). Regarding claim 14, Elshafie et al. discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication indicates combinable resources in the future slot, and wherein the combinable resources include one or more of a port number, a frequency domain resource allocation, or DMRS symbols. (Para 83 teaches “In some examples, a UE 115-a also may indicate a quantity of symbol durations involved in reloading a power and phase configuration for DMRS bundling”.)
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, 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.
Claim(s) 2, 3, 11,13, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Elshafie et al. (US 2023/0050382 A1) in view of Elshafie et al. (Here after reference Elshafie II). Regarding claims 2, 11, 20, Elshafie et al. discloses the claimed invention as set forth in claim 1 above. Elshafie et al. does not explicitly discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication indicates that non-causal DMRS cross-slot combining is canceled for the future slot. However Elshafie II discloses an apparatus, wherein the indication indicates that non-causal DMRS cross-slot combining is canceled for the future slot (Para 55 teaches “explicit signaling may be implemented to indicate a cancellation of DMRS bundling over different channels”). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the method of sending explicit signaling to cancel DMRS bundling of Elshafie II with the system of Elshafie et al. in order to provide a system that provides enhanced coverage and reduces estimation errors that are critical in coverage limited scenarios. Regarding claim 3, 13, Elshafie II disclose an apparatus, wherein the indication is included in downlink control information (Para 86 teaches of messaging using downlink control information).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Elshafie et al. (US 2023/0050382 A1) in view of Elshafie et al. (Here after reference Elshafie II) as applied to claim 2 above in further view of Ma et al. (US 2022/0361254 A1). Regarding claim 4, Elshafie et al. in view of Elshafie II discloses the claimed invention as set forth in claim 2 above. Elshafie et al. in view of Elshafie II does not explicitly discloses an apparatus, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to select a DMRS scrambling sequence for the future slot that is different than a DMRS scrambling sequence for a current slot. However Ma et al. discloses an apparatus, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to select a DMRS scrambling sequence for the future slot that is different than a DMRS scrambling sequence for a current slot (Para 114 teaches “the UE may scramble one PUSCH repetition 706 in the POs 702, 704 based on a first one of the scrambling sequences 708 (e.g., scrambling sequence 1), the UE may scramble another PUSCH repetition in the POs 702, 704 based on a second one of the scrambling sequences (e.g., scrambling sequence 2), and the UE may scramble a further PUSCH repetition in the POs 702, 704 based on a third one of the scrambling sequences (e.g., scrambling sequence 3). One or more of the scrambling sequences 708 may be different from the other scrambling sequences. By applying different scrambling sequences, interference (e.g., between neighboring msgA transmissions) may be minimized.”). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the method of using different scrambling sequence of Ma et al. with the method of Elshafie et al. in view of Elshafie II in order to provide a system that would reduce interference between neighboring transmission.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 and 15-18 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 AJAY P CATTUNGAL whose telephone number is (571)270-7525. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:00 PM.
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/AJAY CATTUNGAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467