DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to amended claims filed on 17 July 2026. Claims 1 and 6 are pending examination.
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
Claims 1 and 6 were previously pending the Non-Final Rejection of 26 April 2026.
Claims 1 and 6 have been amended.
Claims 1 and 6 remain pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments with respect to claims 1 and 6 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on Choi et al. (US 2022/0312446, hereinafter Choi) for the teaching or matter specifically challenged in Applicant’s arguments. Rather, a newly applied combination of Choi in view of Xiong et al. (US 2024/0224270) is relied upon as set forth below.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claims 1 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.321S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 2022/0312446 A1, previously cited, hereinafter Choi) in view of Xiong et al. (US 2024/0224270 A1) (hereinafter Xiong).
Regarding claim 1 and 6, Choi-Xiong teaches a user equipment (UE) (Choi, See fig. 11)/ a method for a user equipment (Choi, See fig. ), comprising:
higher-layer processing circuitry configured to acquire at least a first radio resource control (RRC) parameter for indicating whether available-slot counting is enabled or not (Choi, fig. 1-2 and 10, [0053]-[0060], [0110]-[0132], [0133]-[0145], [0163]-[0196]: [0110] When cross-carrier scheduling is not configured by UE-specific (or UE-group-specific or cell-specific) higher layer signaling, a CIF is disabled, and each DL CC can transmit only a PDCCH for scheduling its PDSCH without the CIF according to an NR PDCCH rule (non-cross-carrier scheduling, self-carrier scheduling). Meanwhile, if cross-carrier scheduling is configured by UE-specific (or UE-group-specific or cell-specific) higher layer signaling, a CIF is enabled, and a specific CC (e.g., DL PCC) may transmit not only the PDCCH for scheduling the PDSCH of the DL CC A using the CIF but also the PDCCH for scheduling the PDSCH of another CC (cross-carrier scheduling). On the other hand, a PDCCH is not transmitted in another DL CC. [0111] in the 3GPP NR system, the subframes of FIGS. 9 and 10 may be replaced with slots. [0131] The counter-DAI indicates a HARQ-ACK codebook bit indicating reception success or failure of downlink signals or channels among the downlink signals or channels for which reception success or failure is indicated through the HARQ-ACK codebook until a current cell of a current monitoring occasion. [0182] The user equipment does not expect that the time interval for k repetitive transmissions set to be larger than the time interval derived by the period P. If the user equipment determines the number of symbols available for the PUSCH transmission in a slot for the transmission occasion to be smaller than the number of symbols in the transmission interval, the user equipment does not transmit the PUSCH at the transmission occasion.);
reception circuitry configured to receive a downlink control information (DCI) format for scheduling of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (Choi, fig. 12a and 14, [0053]-[0060], [0110]-[0132], [0133]-[0145], [0163]-[0196]: [0171] The number of DMRS groups, DMRS ports, SRS resource indicator, DMRS sequence initialization are determined by DCI formats for scheduling of the PUSCH, and the antenna port value, the bit value for the DMRS sequence initialization, precoding information and the number of layers, and the SRS resource indicator are individually provided by antennaPort, dmrs-SeqInitialization, precodingAndNumberOfLayers, and srs-ResourceIndicator respectively.); and
transmission circuitry configured to transmit the PUSCH in one or more slots scheduled by the DCI format (Choi, fig. 4A, 12a, 13, 14, [0053]-[0060], [0061]-[0078], [0110]-[0132], [0133]-[0145], [0163]-[0196]: [0054] Referring to FIG. 2, a slot includes a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols in a time domain and includes a plurality of resource blocks (RBs) in a frequency domain. [0060] When the information on the symbol type is configured with the UE-specific RRC signal, the base station may signal whether the flexible symbol is a DL symbol or an UL symbol in the cell-specific RRC signal. In this case, the UE-specific RRC signal cannot change a DL symbol or a UL symbol configured with the cell-specific RRC signal into another symbol type. The UE-specific RRC signal may signal the number of DL symbols among the N.sup.slot.sub.symb symbols of the corresponding slot for each slot, and the number of UL symbols among the N.sup.slot.sub.symb symbols of the corresponding slot. In this case, the DL symbol of the slot may be continuously configured with the first symbol to the i-th symbol of the slot. In addition, the UL symbol of the slot may be continuously configured with the j-th symbol to the last symbol of the slot (where i<j). In the slot, symbols not configured with any one of a UL symbol and a DL symbol are flexible symbols.), wherein
in a case that the first RRC parameter indicates that the available-slot counting is enabled and the PUSCH is transmitted in unpaired spectrum, the transmission circuitry is configured to determine whether a first slot where at least one of symbols indicated by a time domain resource assignment (TDRA) field overlaps with a downlink (DL) symbol or a symbol of an synchronization signal (SS)/physical broadcast channel (PBCH) block is not counted as a second slot for a transmission of the PUSCH or not, based on whether a transport block is included on the PUSCH or not (Choi, fig. 4A, 12a, 13, 14, [0053]-[0060], [0061]-[0078], [0110]-[0132], [0133]-[0145], [0163]-[0196]: [0069] The synchronization signal can be classified into PSS and SSS. The PSS may be used to obtain time domain synchronization and/or frequency domain synchronization, such as OFDM symbol synchronization and slot synchronization. The SSS can be used to obtain frame synchronization and cell group ID. Referring to FIG. 4A and Table 2, the SS/PBCH block can be configured with consecutive 20 RBs (=240 subcarriers) in the frequency axis and can be configured with consecutive 4 OFDM symbols in the time axis. [0187] In addition, as described in FIGS. 12 and 13, the RRC configuration information may include parameters for configuration according to each type (Type 1, Type 2) of the configured grant.),
the first slot is not counted as the second slot… (Choi, fig. 13, [0163]-[0197]: Examiner views the omitted PUSCH transmission as the first slot not being counted as the second slot. [0182] The user equipment does not expect that the time interval for K repetitive transmissions set to be larger than the time interval derived by the period P. If the user equipment determines the number of symbols available for the PUSCH transmission in a slot for the transmission occasion to be smaller than the number of symbols in the transmission interval, the user equipment does not transmit the PUSCH at the transmission occasion.),
and the first slot is counted as the second slot…. (Choi, fig. 13, [0163]-[0197]: Examiner views the transmission over successive slots as the first slot being counted as the second slot. [0183] For Type 1 and Type 2 PUSCH transmissions for the configured grant, when the value of repK is set to be greater than 1, the user equipment has to repetitively transmit TB over successive slots according to the repK value by applying the same symbol allocation in each slot.)
Thus, the system of Choi does not explicitly teach …if the transport block is included on the PUSCH and …if the transport block is not included on the PUSCH.
Similar to the system of Choi, Xiong teaches that the transport block is included on the PUSCH, which can be seen as, …if the transport block is included on the PUSCH (Xiong, [0055]-[0146]: [0094] For PUSCH transmissions of TB processing over multiple slots, when a DCI format 0_1 and DCI format 0_2 schedules aperiodic CSI report(s) on PUSCH with transport block by a ‘CSI request’ field on a DCI, the CSI report(s) is transmitted only on the N.sup.th slot of the N.Math.K slots determined for the PUSCH transmission.), and
Similar to the system of Choi, Xiong teaches that the transport block is not included on the PUSCH, which can be seen as, …if the transport block is not included on the PUSCH (Xiong, [0055]-[0146]: [0099] For PUSCH transmissions of TB processing over multiple slots, when a DCI format 0_1 and DCI format 0_2 schedules aperiodic CSI report(s) on PUSCH with no transport block by a ‘CSI request’ field on a DCI, the number of slots used for TBS determination is assumed to be 1 regardless of the value of numberOfSlotsTBoMS, and the number of repetitions is assumed to be 1 regardless of the value of numberOfRepetitions. The CSI report(s) is transmitted only on the first transmission occasion.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Choi with Xiong to improve the link budget for PUSCH transmission (Xiong, [0022]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Francesca Lima Santos whose telephone number is (571)272-6521. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday 7:30am-5pm, ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Marcus R Smith can be reached at (571) 270-1096. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/F.L.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2468
/Thomas R Cairns/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468
