DETAILED ACTION
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 1-11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sridharan et al. (US 2022/0399971, “Sridharan”; Provisional application (63/202,435) shows the same Figs.1-10 and the related paragraphs of Sridharan) in view of Tran et al. (US 2024/0188075, “Tran”).
Regarding claim 1, Sridharan discloses a method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
- receiving, from a network, configuration information related to a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) bundling for an uplink channel (See 410 Fig.4, UE receives ‘TDW start time/offset/ duration’ from BS; See 710 Fig.7, receive scheduling information for a set of uplink transmissions of the UE); and
- transmitting, to the network, the uplink channel in a first actual time domain window (TDW) within a configured TDW, or in the first actual TDW and a second actual TDW within the configured TDW (See 450 Fig.4, UE transmits the set of uplink transmissions (DMRS bundling of uplink transmissions within TDWs, not across TDWs; See 730 Fig.7, transmitting the set of uplink transmissions using a DMRS bundling configuration that is based at least in part on the set of time-domain windows for DMRS bundling),
- wherein the first actual TDW ends in relation to an event (See ¶.83, a TDW may end after the last uplink transmission that is to be bundled of a group of uplink transmissions. Thus, the TDW locations and durations may be coupled to PUSCH scheduling; See ¶.198, receiving a transmit power control (TPC) command during a time-domain window of the set of time-domain windows; and postponing application of the TPC command until an end of the time-domain window).
Sridharan discloses that “an offset for a TDW. The offset may indicate a start time of a next TDW. For example, in example 500, the offset may be “4,” indicating that a TDW starts each four slots The UE may receive, be configured with, or determine an offset indicating a start time for a time-domain window of the set of time-domain windows and a duration identifying a length of the time-domain window (Sridharan, See Fig.5-6 and ¶.78), but does not explicitly disclose what Tran discloses,
- wherein based on the event being a first type event, whether to generate the second actual TDW in response to the event is based on a capability of the terminal (Tran, See ¶.185, a benefit of this implementation is to achieve reasonable measurement effort and power consumption for a UE because the actual length of time domain window is based on its capability or channel condition/profiling; See ¶.186, the maximum duration is subject to the UE capability. For example, the gNB might not be aware of changes in (periodic) events for the UE; See ¶.188, the UE determines the actual length of time domain window based on one or more events which are transparent to gNB; These events could be categorized as semi-static events or dynamic events, wherein an event is categorized as a dynamic event if it is triggered by a DCI or MAC-CE, otherwise it is categorized as a semi-static event. Since these events are transparent to gNB, it can determine the actual length of time domain window of the UE).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply “wherein based on the event being a first type event, whether to generate the second actual TDW in response to the event is based on a capability of the terminal” as taught by Tran into the system of Sridharan, so that it provides a way of determining the actual length of time domain window of the UE according to one of those events (Tran, See ¶.188).
Regarding claim 2, Sridharan discloses the method of the TDW offset may indicate a start time of a next TDW (See ¶.78), but does not explicitly disclose what Tran discloses “based on the capability of the terminal supporting a restart of the DMRS bundling, the second actual TDW is generated in response to the first type event, or based on the capability of the terminal not supporting the restart of the DMRS bundling, the second actual TDW is not generated in response to the first type event (Tran, See Fig.19 and ¶.195, time domain windows #1 1902 and #2 1904 are used for the 1st hop 1910, while time domain windows #3 1906 and #4 1908 are used for the 2nd hop 1912. In each time domain window, DMRSs are bundled for joint CE. Starting positions of each hop may be aligned to starting positions of any of the time domain windows. For example, starting positions of the 1st hop 1910 and 2.sup.nd hop 1912 are aligned to starting positions of time domain windows #1 and #5).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, Sridharan and Tran disclose “based on an event in which power consistency and phase continuity are not maintained occurring across transmissions of a repetition of the uplink channel, the first actual TDW ends before the event (Sridharan, See ¶.66, If phase continuity were not provided for bundled DMRSs, then it may be difficult or impossible to combine DMRSs across PUSCH transmissions, thereby reducing or eliminating the benefit of DMRS bundling; See ¶.72, without information indicating a start of a DMRS bundled set of PUSCH transmissions and an end of the DMRS bundled set of PUSCH transmissions, it may be difficult for the UE to maintain a configuration that provides phase continuity; See ¶.86, the UE 120 may receive a transmit power control (TPC) command during a TDW. In some aspects, the UE 120 may postpone application of the TPC command until an end of the TDW, which avoids loss of phase continuity due to the TPC command; Tran, See ¶.186, UE cannot maintain requirements of power consistency and phase continuity for enabling joint CE within the length of a time domain window, if the time domain window was to be configured by a gNB. A gNB may assume to configure a UE with a length of time domain window as a cell-specific value for joint CE for Msg3 PUSCH, e.g., T slots, but the UE can only maintain requirements of power consistency and phase continuity within a shorter/actual length of time domain window, e.g., M slots, where M≤T).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 4, Sridharan does not explicitly disclose what Tran discloses “wherein: based on the event being a second type event, the second actual TDW in response to the event is generated (Tran, See ¶.185, a benefit of this implementation is to achieve reasonable measurement effort and power consumption for a UE because the actual length of time domain window is based on its capability or channel condition/profiling; See ¶.186, the maximum duration is subject to the UE capability. For example, the gNB might not be aware of changes in (periodic) events for the UE; See ¶.188, the UE determines the actual length of time domain window based on one or more events which are transparent to gNB; These events could be categorized as semi-static events or dynamic events, wherein an event is categorized as a dynamic event if it is triggered by a DCI or MAC-CE, otherwise it is categorized as a semi-static event. Since these events are transparent to gNB, it can determine the actual length of time domain window of the UE).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 5, Sridharan discloses “wherein: based on the event being the second type event, the second actual TDW in response to the event is generated regardless of the capability of the terminal (Sridharan, See Fig.5-6 and ¶.78, an offset for a TDW. The offset may indicate a start time of a next TDW. For example, in example 500, the offset may be “4,” indicating that a TDW starts each four slots The UE may receive, be configured with, or determine an offset indicating a start time for a time-domain window of the set of time-domain windows and a duration identifying a length of the time-domain window).”
Regarding claim 6, Sridharan discloses “the first type event includes an event triggered by downlink control information (DCI) other than frequency hopping or by a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE), or corresponds to a dynamic event (See ¶.72, scheduling of the multiple PUSCHs may occur via multiple grants, such as via DCI transmissions. If the UE is to maintain phase continuity across a set of bundled DMRSs, then the UE may need to have information indicating, before transmission of the set of bundled DMRSs, that the DMRSs are to be bundled; See ¶.75, each PUSCH transmission of the set of PUSCH transmissions (that is, all PUSCH transmissions of the set of PUSCH transmissions) may be scheduled via a single DCI message; See ¶.89, the UE may receive, signaling that activates or deactivates DMRS bundling. For example, the signaling may be MAC-CE signaling or DCI-based signaling. Thus, impact to power saving procedures may be mitigated by preserving power saving opportunities; See ¶.114, suspending inter-slot frequency hopping while the DMRS bundling configuration is active).”
Regarding claim 7, Sridharan does not explicitly disclose what Tran discloses “wherein: the second type event includes frequency hopping or an event not triggered by DCI or by a MAC-CE, or corresponds to a semi-static event (Tran, See ¶.188, the UE determines the actual length of time domain window based on one or more events which include frequency hopping, (vii) precoder cycling, etc. These events could be categorized as semi-static events or dynamic events, wherein an event is categorized as a dynamic event if it is triggered by a DCI or MAC-CE, otherwise it is categorized as a semi-static event. Since these events are transparent to gNB, it can determine the actual length of time domain window of the UE).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 8, Sridharan discloses “wherein: power consistency and phase continuity are maintained across transmissions of a repetition of the uplink channel within each actual TDW (See ¶.169, a scenario of other physical signals/channels in-between PUCCH or PUSCH repetitions from the UE perspective, e.g., SRS or PUCCH transmission in-between the PUSCH repetition from the other UEs, the value of Z is small depending on UE capability or channel condition such that UE can maintain phase continuity; See ¶.186, It is possible that the time domain window is greater than a maximum duration that the UE is able to maintain power consistency and phase continuity subject to power consistency and phase continuity requirements).”
Regarding claim 9, Sridharan and Tran disclose “wherein: information related to the DMRS bundling is provided through higher layer signaling (Sridharan, See ¶.179, the CU may host one or more higher layer control functions. Such control functions can include RRC functions; Tran, See ¶.126, RRC is a higher layer signaling used for UE and gNB configuration; See ¶.180, the length of time domain window is indicated semi-statically by RRC).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 10, Sridharan discloses “wherein: the uplink channel includes at least one of a physical uplink shared channel (PUCCH) or a physical uplink control channel (PUSCH) (See Fig.3, PUCCH and/or PUSCH; See ¶.77, independent TDWs can be used for DMRS bundling for PUSCHs or for PUCCHs).
Regarding claim 11, it is a terminal claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitations “at least one transceiver, at least one processor (See Fig.2)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 13, it is a base station claim corresponding to the method claim 1, except the limitations “at least one transceiver, at least one processor (See Fig.2)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung H Park whose telephone number is 571-272-8565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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/JUNG H PARK/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411