Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/594,988

METHODS, DEVICES, AND SYSTEMS FOR MAPPING MULTIPLE TRANSPORT BLOCKS IN FREQUENCY DOMAIN

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Mar 04, 2024
Examiner
MEJIA, ANTHONY
Art Unit
2451
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
ZTE CORPORATION
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
83%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
2y 10m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 83% — above average
83%
Career Allow Rate
600 granted / 720 resolved
+25.3% vs TC avg
Strong +19% interview lift
Without
With
+18.8%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 10m
Avg Prosecution
10 currently pending
Career history
730
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
14.2%
-25.8% vs TC avg
§103
45.0%
+5.0% vs TC avg
§102
17.5%
-22.5% vs TC avg
§112
12.0%
-28.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 720 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Response to Amendment Acknowledgement is made in that Claims 7-9, 16, 21-29, 31 are canceled and Claims 13-14, 17, and 30 have been amended in the instant application presented herein. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 11-12 and 14-15 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. 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 (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 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. Claims 1-6, 10, 13, 18-20, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US 2018/0279281 A1) (hereinafter as Li) and in further view of Yeo et al. (US 2021/0321414 A1) (hereinafter as Yeo). Regarding Claim 1, Li teaches a method for wireless communication, comprising: transmitting a set of transport blocks (TBs) between a first wireless device and a second wireless device by: mapping the set of TBs in a resource space comprising a time unit in a time domain and a frequency unit in a frequency domain (transmitting, by the network device, at least two or three transport blocks TBs to the target terminal network device by using the target frequency domain, pars [0008] and [0023], the terminal device and the network device may further perform access processing according to a preset time-frequency resource specified in a protocol, par [0131], a network device is a base station, and a terminal device is user equipment, pars [0056-0057] are being equated to the first and second wireless devices). Li does not explicitly teach wherein: each TB mapped to a same codeword in the set of TBs is separated in frequency domain, the set of TBs comprises n TBs mapped to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1; and each TB in the set of TBs is capable of being packaged separately at a transmitting end, and capable of being delivered separately to an upper layer at a receiving end. However, Yeo in a similar field of endeavor discloses a data communication method and device using multiple MCS in a wireless communication system including wherein: each TB mapped to a same codeword in the set of TBs is separated in frequency domain, the set of TBs comprises n TBs mapped to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1 ( two TBs may be divided by a total number of layers and mapped to same codeword, pars [0155-0156]); and each TB in the set of TBs is capable of being packaged separately at a transmitting end, and capable of being delivered separately to an upper layer at a receiving end. (codeword indicates TB. x.sup.(a)(i) may refer to i.sup.th data symbol mapped to a.sup.th layer, and d.sup.(b)(i) may refer to i.sup.th data symbol of b.sup.th TB or codeword, pars [0155-0156]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 2. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the resource space corresponds to the set of TBs in a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process in a carrier (Yeo: The NR system has adopted a hybrid automatic repeat request (Yeo: HARQ) scheme of retransmitting data at a physical layer when a decoding failure occurs in initial transmission, par [0058]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 3. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: each TB in the set of TBs corresponds to a media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) (Yeo: data in a TB to be transmitted may include a Medium Access Control (MAC) header, a MAC control element (MAC CE), one or more MAC Service Data Units (MAC SDUs), and padding bits. Alternatively, a TB may refer to a data unit or a MAC Protocol Data Unit (MAC PDU) provided from a MAC layer to a physical layer., par [0089]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 4. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the time unit comprises at least one of the following: a transmission time interval (TTI), a slot, a sub-frame, or a mini slot (Yeo: length of a transmission time interval (TTI) used in URLLC transmission may be shorter than a length of a TTI used in eMBB or mMTC transmission. , par [0095]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 5. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the frequency unit comprises at least one of the following: a subcarrier, a resource block (RB), a subband, a bandwidth part (BWP), or a carrier (Yeo: TBs are mapped to different resources, a frequency resource allocation unit of a frequency resource allocation bit field may be interpreted as 2N. In a case of a transmission mode of one TB or a two-TB transmission mode in which TBs are mapped to a same resource as in a legacy manner, a frequency resource allocation unit may be interpreted as N. N may be a value that varies according to a system frequency band or a size of a bandwidth part, par [0151]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 6. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the same codeword comprises at least one of the following: a first codeword, or a second codeword (Yeo: two TBs may be divided by a total number of layers and mapped to same codeword, pars [0155-0156]); and each TB in the set of TBs is capable of being packaged separately at a transmitting end, and capable of being delivered separately to an upper layer at a receiving end. (codeword indicates TB. x.sup.(a)(i) may refer to i.sup.th data symbol mapped to a.sup.th layer, and d.sup.(b)(i) may refer to i.sup.th data symbol of b.sup.th TB or codeword, pars [0155-0156]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 10. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, further including: receiving by the second wireless device, control information corresponding to resource allocation of the set of TBs from the first wireless device (Yeo: pars [0066-0068] discloses Downlink Control Information (DCI)), wherein the control information comprises at least one of the following: a resource space in a time-frequency domain for the n TBs; a resource indication in a frequency domain for the n TBs (Frequency domain resource allocation, par [0070]); a resource indication in a time domain for the n TBs; a mapping rule; an MCS for the n TBs (Yeo: par [0073] discloses Modulation and coding scheme (MCS): indicates a modulation scheme and a coding rate used in transmission of data); spatial multiplexing information related to a number of layers for the set of TBs; power control information for the set of TBs; an identification (ID) number for the n TBs; a resource mapping configuration for the n TBs; a number of TBs in the n TBs; a symbol position information in the time domain for each TB in the n TBs; or a frequency position information in the frequency domain for each TB in the n TBs. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Claim 13. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 10 wherein: the control information is transmitted via at least one of the following: a downlink control information (DCI) ((Yeo: pars [0066-0068] discloses Downlink Control Information (DCI)), a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, a high layer signaling, a MAC control element (CE), or system information. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Li with Yeo to map TBs to the same codeword, and n is an integer larger than 1. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reduce path loss of radio waves and increase a transmission distance of radio waves in the ultra-high frequency bands. Regarding Clam 18, The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the first wireless device is configured to schedule transmission of the set of TBs, and the first wireless device comprises at least one of the following: a base station; a MAC layer in a wireless device; a scheduling unit; a user equipment (UE); an on-board unit (OBU); a road-side unit (RSU); or an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node (Li: a network device is a base station, and a terminal device is user equipment, pars [0056-0057]). Regarding Claim 19, The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the second wireless device is configured to receive transmission of the set of TBs, and the second wireless device comprises at least one of the following: a user equipment (UE); or an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node (Li: a network device is a base station, and a terminal device is user equipment, pars [0056-0057]). Regarding Claim 20, The combined teachings of Li/Yeo teach the method according to claim 1, wherein: the third wireless device is configured to receive transmission of the set of TBs, and the second wireless device comprises at least one of the following: a user equipment (UE); or an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node (Li: a network device is a base station, and a terminal device is user equipment, pars [0056-0057]). Regarding Claim 30, this apparatus claim comprises limitations(s) substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable. The combined teachings of Li/Yeo further teach a wireless communications apparatus (Li: network device a terminal device is user equipment, pars [0056-0057] and further teaches a memory and processor, par [0054). Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY MEJIA whose telephone number is (571)270-3630. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10:30 AM-6:30 PM EST. 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, CHRISTOPHER PARRY can be reached at (571)272-8328. 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. /ANTHONY MEJIA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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Prosecution Timeline

Mar 04, 2024
Application Filed
Mar 19, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (current)

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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
83%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+18.8%)
2y 10m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 720 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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