DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Application No. 18/725,620 filed on 6/28/2024. The amendment presented on 7/15/2026, which cancels claims 2, 14, and 17, amends claims 1, 4, 6, 9-11, 13, 16, and 19-20, and adds new claims 21-23, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 1, 3-13, 15-16, and 18-23 have been examined.
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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 3-13, 15-16, and 18-23 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The amendment presented on 7/15/2026 amending claims 4 and 19 obviates the outstanding 35 USC 112 rejections, and they are hereby withdrawn.
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.
Claims 1, 5-7, 10-13, 16, 20-21, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bae et al. (hereinafter Bae)(US 2020/0374896) in view of Su et al. (hereinafter Su)(US 2022/0029761).
Regarding claims 1, 16, and 20, Bae teaches as follows:
A user equipment (UE)(1220 in figure 12) for wireless communication, comprising:
at least one memory (1222 in figure 12); and
at least one processor (1221 in figure 12) coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the UE to:
receive configuration information (the UE receives uplink (UL)-downlink (DL) configuration information from a base station in S1010, see, ¶ [0248] and figure 10) regarding frequency hopping for a subset of symbols or slots of a plurality of available symbols or slots in a time domain (if the UE is configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-PUSCH, one of two frequency hopping modes can be configured: Intra-slot frequency hopping, applicable to single slot (equivalent to applicant’s a subset of symbols of available symbols) and multi-slot PUSCH transmission. Inter-slot frequency hopping, applicable to multi-slot PUSCH transmission (equivalent to applicant’s slots of a plurality of available slots), see, ¶ [0137]-[0139]); and
determine, based at least in part on the configuration information regarding frequency hopping, a frequency hopping operation in the subset of symbols or slots for at least one of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) resource (the UE performs uplink transmission through a frequency hopping for each non-slot on non-slots that are repeated at least two times within one slot based on the UL-DL configuration information in S1020, see, ¶ [0249] and figure 10)(if the UE is configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-PUSCH, one of two frequency hopping modes can be configured: Intra-slot frequency hopping, applicable to single slot and multi-slot PUSCH transmission. Inter-slot frequency hopping, applicable to multi-slot PUSCH transmission, see, ¶ [0137]-[0139]).
Bae does not teach the full duplex operation.
Su teaches as follows:
the UE obtains an indication about the transmission and mapping method in the full-duplex transmission configuration parameter, which may be a 1-bit indication field {distributed mapping, frequency hopping transmission}, and the full-duplex transmission configuration parameter may be a high-level configuration parameter for a bandwidth part allowed for the full-duplex transmission, or a configured bandwidth allowed for the full-duplex transmission, or a system bandwidth allowed for the full-duplex transmission… If the transmission and mapping method of the uplink physical channel and the downlink physical channel transmitted on the full duplex bandwidth part that is firstly obtained by the UE according to the full duplex configuration parameter is the frequency hopping transmission, the UE then obtains the indication of whether to enable the frequency hopping transmission or not according to the downlink control information, so as to perform the uplink and/or downlink physical channel transmission (see, ¶ [0359]); and
the full-duplex system allows users' uplink and downlink to be transmitted simultaneously in both the time domain and frequency domain. Therefore, the full-duplex system may theoretically achieve a throughput twice that of the half-duplex system (see, ¶ [0146]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae with Su to include the well-known full-duplex transmission as taught by Su in order to efficiently increase throughput.
Regarding claims 5-6, 11, and 21, Bae teaches as follows:
The physical resource blocks are numbered from 0 to NBWPisize−1 in a bandwidth part (BWP) and i represents the number of BWP. A relationship between the physical resource block nPRB and the common resource block nCRB in BWPi may be given by Equation 2 below (see, ¶ [0096]);
a starting RB during in each hop is defined by the following Equation 3.
Where RBstart is a starting resource within the UL BWP, as calculated from resource block assignment information of the resource allocation type 1, and RBoffset is a frequency offset in RBs between two frequency hops (see, ¶ [0143]-[0144]); and
an improper value, particularly, as illustrated in FIG. 8, when n resource blocks in RB_start-th resource block are allocated to the UE, RB_offset is used as a frequency hopping offset, and the number of resource blocks in BWP is N_RB (see, ¶ [0207] and figure 8)(equivalent to applicant’s second hop PRB).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae in view of Su to include the resource block assignment information in the configuration information in order to efficiently perform the requested frequency hopping.
Regarding claim 7, Bae teaches as follows:
Wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to perform the frequency hopping operation in the subset of symbols or slots based at part on an indication in uplink (UL) grant information (the frequency hopping on PUSCH is enabled, and for the resource allocation type 1, frequency offsets are configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-offset-set: when the size of the active BWP is less than 50 PRBs, one of two higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant. when the size of the active BWP is greater than 50 PRBs, one of four higher layer configured offsets is indicated in the UL grant, see, ¶ [0140]-[0142]).
Regarding claims 10 and 23, Bae teaches as follows:
Wherein, during determining the frequency hopping operation, the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to determine a list of frequency hopping offsets used for the frequency hopping operation in the subset of symbols or slots based the configuration information regarding frequency hopping (the frequency hopping on PUSCH is enabled, and for the resource allocation type 1, frequency offsets are configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-offset-set, see, ¶ [0140]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae in view of Su to include the frequency-hopping-offset-set in the configuration information in order to efficiently perform the requested frequency hopping.
Regarding claim 12, Bae teaches as follows:
Wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the UE to transmit data on the PUSCH resource (if the UE is configured by higher layer parameter frequency-hopping-PUSCH, one of two frequency hopping modes can be configured: Intra-slot frequency hopping, applicable to single slot and multi-slot PUSCH transmission. Inter-slot frequency hopping, applicable to multi-slot PUSCH transmission, see, ¶ [0137]-[0139]).
Regarding claim 13, Bae teaches similar limitations as presented above in the rejection for claim 1 (see, ¶ [0259]-[0261] and figure 11). Bae further teaches as follows:
A network node (interpreted as the base station 1210 in figure 12) for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory (1212); and at least one processor (1211) coupled with the at least one memory (see. ¶ [0272]-[0275] and figure 12).
Claims 3, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bae et al. (hereinafter Bae)(US 2020/0374896) in view of Su et al. (hereinafter Su)(US 2022/0029761), and further in view of Choi et al. (hereinafter Choi ‘762)(US 2023/0028762).
Regarding claims 3, 15, and 18, Bae in view of Su teaches all limitations as presented above except for the time division dual (TDD) configuration information used to determine symbols or slots.
Choi ‘762 teaches as follows:
If there is no SFI configuration, the terminal may determine one or more uplink symbols, based on a higher signal for a time division duplex uplink-downlink configuration (TDD UL-DL configuration)(equivalent to applicant’s time division dual configuration information)(see, ¶ [0139]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae in view of Su with Choi ‘762 to include the time division duplex uplink-downlink configuration as taught by Choi ‘762 in order to efficiently determine one or more uplink symbols.
Claims 4 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bae et al. (hereinafter Bae)(US 2020/0374896) in view of Su et al. (hereinafter Su)(US 2022/0029761), and further in view of Yin (US 2023/0060179).
Regarding claims 4 and 19, Bae in view of Su teaches all limitations as presented above except for the RRC signaling carrying the frequency hopping configuration.
Yin teaches as follows:
The RRC configuration may indicate frequency hopping configurations for the subslot-based PUCCH repetition. Existing inter-slot and intra-slot frequency hopping parameters are reused for different cases to provide slot level, subslot level or PUCCH resource level frequency hopping. New parameters are defined to explicitly configure the frequency hopping methods at slot level, subslot level or PUCCH resource level frequency hopping (see, ¶ [0026]);
new parameters may be introduced in RRC signaling for frequency hopping configuration in PUCCH-FormatConfig. The frequency hopping is enabled with different orders from inter-slot, inter-subslot and inter-PUCCH (see, ¶ [0125]); and
If interPUCCHFrequencyHopping is enabled, frequency hopping is applied at each PUCCH transmission. No frequency hopping is applied within a PUCCH resource (see, ¶ [0127]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae in view of Su with Yin to include the well-known RRC signaling as taught by Yin in order to efficiently configure PUCCH resource level frequency hopping.
Claims 8-9 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bae et al. (hereinafter Bae)(US 2020/0374896) in view of Su et al. (hereinafter Su)(US 2022/0029761), and further in view of Choi et al. (hereinafter Choi ‘485)(US 2021/0274485).
Regarding claims 8-9 and 22, Bae in view of Su teaches all limitations as presented above except for indicating whether the frequency hopping operating is enabling or disabling.
Choi ‘485 teaches as follows:
The PUCCH configuration information may further include information indicating whether frequency hopping is enabled or disabled, and if frequency hopping is enabled, the spreading code index information may be determined based on the length of spreading code to be applied to a symbol in which UCI is transmitted in a first hop and the length of spreading code to be applied to a symbol in which UCI is transmitted in a second hop, and if frequency hopping is disabled, the spreading code index information may be determined based on the length of spreading code to be applied to a symbol in which the UCI is transmitted (see, ¶ [0009]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bae in view of Su with Choi ‘485 to include the configuration information indicating whether frequency hopping is enabled or disabled as taught by Choi ‘485 in order to selectively apply the frequency hopping.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jeong S Park whose telephone number is (571)270-1597. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 8:00-4:30 ET.
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, Rebecca E Song can be reached at 571-270-3667. 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.
/JEONG S PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2417
September 14, 2026
Prosecution Insights