Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Application No. 18/847,029

METHOD, USER DEVICE, PROCESSING DEVICE, AND STORAGE MEDIUM FOR UPLINK SIGNAL TRANSMISSION, AND METHOD AND BASE STATION FOR UPLINK SIGNAL RECEPTION

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Sep 13, 2024
Priority
Apr 28, 2022 — RE 10-2022-0053051 +1 more
Examiner
KHAWAR, SAAD
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
LG Electronics Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
86%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
6m
Est. Remaining
94%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 86% — above average
86%
Career Allowance Rate
308 granted / 360 resolved
+25.6% vs TC avg
Moderate +8% lift
Without
With
+7.9%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 4m
Avg Prosecution
35 currently pending
Career history
399
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.8%
-39.2% vs TC avg
§103
82.3%
+42.3% vs TC avg
§102
3.4%
-36.6% vs TC avg
§112
9.9%
-30.1% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 360 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
CTNF 18/847,029 CTNF 93216 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 1-5 and 9-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20230171751 A1) in view of Chin (US 20210050901 A1) . Regarding claim 1, Li discloses: “A method comprising: receiving a downlink control information (DCI) format scheduling first uplink transmission on a cell,” ([¶ 0057]: “Generally, the uplink shared channel may be divided into different uplink shared channels according to different grant manners, such as a dynamic grant (DG) PUSCH, that is, a PUSCH dynamically scheduled by DCI, a configured grant (CG) PUSCH, a semi-persistent PUSCH (semi-persistent PUSCH), or the like.”) “wherein the first uplink transmission has a third priority that is not related to a first priority index indicating a low priority or a second priority index indicating a high priority;” ([¶ 0062]: “It should be noted that, a priority of control information may be divided into two priority levels such as a high priority and a low priority, may also be divided into three priority levels such as a high priority, a medium priority, and a low priority, and may also be divided into more priority levels, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of this application.”) “determining a slot for the first uplink transmission based on the DCI format;” ([¶ 0057]: “Generally, the uplink shared channel may be divided into different uplink shared channels according to different grant manners, such as a dynamic grant (DG) PUSCH, that is, a PUSCH dynamically scheduled by DCI, a configured grant (CG) PUSCH, a semi-persistent PUSCH (semi-persistent PUSCH), or the like.”; [¶ 0211]: “In a case that the first multiplexing rule is determined according to whether carrying aperiodic channel state information, a starting slot, a scheduling type, an index of a serving cell corresponding to an uplink transmission, or a location of a transmission symbol, selection may be performed according to a first multiplexing rule below.”) “based on the first uplink transmission overlapping in time with second uplink transmission related to the first priority index or the second priority index within the slot, multiplexing the first uplink transmission onto a first uplink channel…” ([¶ 0066]: “In the collision processing method provided in this embodiment of this application, in a case that a time domain resource of an uplink control channel overlaps a time domain resource of at least one uplink shared channel, one manner is that the UE directly multiplexes the first control information carried on the uplink control channel to an uplink shared channel in at least one uplink shared channel, and the other manner is that the UE may multiplex the first control information to an uplink shared channel in at least one uplink shared channel according to the information of the first control information carried on the uplink control channel for transmission.”; [¶ 0153]: “The UE multiplexes, in a case that the at least one uplink shared channel includes an uplink shared channel of a fifth priority, the control information carried on the first uplink control channel to the uplink shared channel of the fifth priority in the at least one uplink shared channel for transmission.”) “…transmitting the first uplink channel in the slot.” ([¶ 0077]: “For example, the UE may transmit the UCI by multiplexing according to the priority of the UCI according to a multiplexing manner 1-1, a multiplexing manner 1-2, or a multiplexing manner 1-3 below.”) Li does not explicitly disclose “by considering that a priority of the first uplink transmission is equal to a priority of the second uplink transmission.” However, Chin discloses the missing feature “by considering that a priority of the first uplink transmission is equal to a priority of the second uplink transmission” ([¶ 0238]: “In one implementation, if the overlapping UL-SCH resources are used to transmit data from an LCH and/or from a MAC CE (which is ready for transmission) with equally highest LCP order, the overlapping resources are considered as having equal priority.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Li and Chin, to implement the multiplexing as disclosed by Li , to consider the transmissions as equal priority as disclosed by Chin . The motivation for doing so is that it allows multiplexing without having to implement more complex techniques to do so. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Li with Chin to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. Regarding claim 2, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li further discloses “wherein based on the first uplink transmission not overlapping in time with uplink transmission with a priority different from the priority of the first uplink transmission within the slot, multiplexing the first uplink transmission onto a second uplink channel by considering that the priority of the first uplink transmission is either the low priority or the high priority.” ([¶ 0132]: “It should be noted that, in this embodiment of this application, in the foregoing several implementations, if a plurality of uplink control channels whose time domain resources do not overlap respectively overlap time domain resources of a plurality of uplink shared channels having different priorities, the control information carried in the plurality of uplink control channels may be respectively multiplexed to different uplink shared channels.”) Regarding claim 3, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li further discloses “receiving information regarding a priority to be used for the third priority in a state where transmission of the third priority does not overlap in time with uplink transmission having a different priority among the first priority and the second priority.” ([¶ 0073]: “It should be noted that, the priority of the first uplink shared channel may also be indicated by a priority index (priority index), be indicated by a type of information that is carried, be configured by the RRC signaling, or be indicated by an indication field in the DCI.”) Regarding claim 4, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li does not explicitly disclose “receiving a first resource configuration for the low priority and a second resource configuration for the high priority; based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the low priority, determining resources of the first uplink channel based on the first resource configuration; and based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the high priority, determining resources of the second uplink channel based on the second resource configuration.” However, Chin discloses the missing “receiving a first resource configuration for the low priority and a second resource configuration for the high priority; based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the low priority, determining resources of the first uplink channel based on the first resource configuration; and based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the high priority, determining resources of the second uplink channel based on the second resource configuration.” ([¶ 0240]: “In one implementation, the priority of an UL-SCH resource may be determined based on the specific LCH and/or specific MAC CE, which is ready for transmission (e.g., the criterion(s) to generate the MAC subPDU that includes data from the corresponding LCH and/or the criteria to generate the MAC subPDU that includes the corresponding MAC CE has been met) via the UL- SCH resource, and has the highest configured priority. This implementation may be under the assumption that a MAC CE and an LCH are configured with a priority value.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Li and Chin, to implement the resources as disclosed by Li , based on the configuration as disclosed by Chin . The motivation for doing so is that it allows efficient indication of what resources correspond to what priority. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Li with Chin to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. Claim 5 is substantially similar to claim 1 with the differences amounting to that claim 1 is directed towards a method while claim 5 is directed towards an apparatus containing generic hardware. Such hardware is taught by Li in paragraph 10. Thus, claim 5 is rejected for similar reasons to claim 1. Regarding claim 9, Li discloses: “A base station (BS) comprising: at least one transceiver; at least one processor; and at least one computer memory operably connected to the at least one processor and storing instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:” ([¶ 0265]: “Optionally, as shown in FIG. 7, this embodiment of this application further provides a communication device 700, including a processor 701, a memory 702, and a program or instruction stored on the memory 702 and executable on the processor 701.”) “transmitting a downlink control information (DCI) format scheduling first uplink transmission on a cell,” ([¶ 0057]: “Generally, the uplink shared channel may be divided into different uplink shared channels according to different grant manners, such as a dynamic grant (DG) PUSCH, that is, a PUSCH dynamically scheduled by DCI, a configured grant (CG) PUSCH, a semi-persistent PUSCH (semi-persistent PUSCH), or the like.”) “wherein the first uplink transmission has a third priority that is not related to a first priority index indicating a low priority or a second priority index indicating a high priority;” ([¶ 0062]: “It should be noted that, a priority of control information may be divided into two priority levels such as a high priority and a low priority, may also be divided into three priority levels such as a high priority, a medium priority, and a low priority, and may also be divided into more priority levels, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of this application.”) “determining a slot for the first uplink transmission based on the DCI format;” ([¶ 0057]: “Generally, the uplink shared channel may be divided into different uplink shared channels according to different grant manners, such as a dynamic grant (DG) PUSCH, that is, a PUSCH dynamically scheduled by DCI, a configured grant (CG) PUSCH, a semi-persistent PUSCH (semi-persistent PUSCH), or the like.”; [¶ 0211]: “In a case that the first multiplexing rule is determined according to whether carrying aperiodic channel state information, a starting slot, a scheduling type, an index of a serving cell corresponding to an uplink transmission, or a location of a transmission symbol, selection may be performed according to a first multiplexing rule below.”) “based on the first uplink transmission overlapping in time with second uplink transmission related to the first priority index or the second priority index within the slot, receiving a first uplink channel in the slot…” ([¶ 0066]: “In the collision processing method provided in this embodiment of this application, in a case that a time domain resource of an uplink control channel overlaps a time domain resource of at least one uplink shared channel, one manner is that the UE directly multiplexes the first control information carried on the uplink control channel to an uplink shared channel in at least one uplink shared channel, and the other manner is that the UE may multiplex the first control information to an uplink shared channel in at least one uplink shared channel according to the information of the first control information carried on the uplink control channel for transmission.”; [¶ 0153]: “The UE multiplexes, in a case that the at least one uplink shared channel includes an uplink shared channel of a fifth priority, the control information carried on the first uplink control channel to the uplink shared channel of the fifth priority in the at least one uplink shared channel for transmission.”) Li does not explicitly disclose “wherein the first uplink channel is determined by considering that a priority of the first uplink transmission is equal to a priority of the second uplink transmission.” However, Chin discloses the missing feature “wherein the first uplink channel is determined by considering that a priority of the first uplink transmission is equal to a priority of the second uplink transmission” ([¶ 0238]: “In one implementation, if the overlapping UL-SCH resources are used to transmit data from an LCH and/or from a MAC CE (which is ready for transmission) with equally highest LCP order, the overlapping resources are considered as having equal priority.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Li and Chin, to implement the multiplexing as disclosed by Li , to consider the transmissions as equal priority as disclosed by Chin . The motivation for doing so is that it allows multiplexing without having to implement more complex techniques to do so. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Li with Chin to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. Regarding claim 10, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li further discloses “wherein the operations comprise, based on the first uplink transmission not overlapping in time with uplink transmission with a priority different from the priority of the first uplink transmission within the slot, receiving a second uplink channel in the slot, and wherein the second uplink channel is determined by considering that the priority of the first uplink transmission is either the low priority or the high priority..” ([¶ 0132]: “It should be noted that, in this embodiment of this application, in the foregoing several implementations, if a plurality of uplink control channels whose time domain resources do not overlap respectively overlap time domain resources of a plurality of uplink shared channels having different priorities, the control information carried in the plurality of uplink control channels may be respectively multiplexed to different uplink shared channels.”) Regarding claim 11, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li further discloses “wherein the operations comprise transmitting information regarding a priority to be used for the third priority in a state where transmission of the third priority does not overlap in time with uplink transmission having a different priority among the first priority and the second priority.” ([¶ 0073]: “It should be noted that, the priority of the first uplink shared channel may also be indicated by a priority index (priority index), be indicated by a type of information that is carried, be configured by the RRC signaling, or be indicated by an indication field in the DCI.”) Regarding claim 12, Li in view of Chin disclose all the features of the parent claim. Li does not explicitly disclose “transmitting a first resource configuration for the low priority and a second resource configuration for the high priority; based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the low priority, determining resources of the first uplink channel based on the first resource configuration; and based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the high priority, determining resources of the second uplink channel based on the second resource configuration.” However, Chin discloses the missing “transmitting a first resource configuration for the low priority and a second resource configuration for the high priority; based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the low priority, determining resources of the first uplink channel based on the first resource configuration; and based on the priority of the second uplink transmission being the high priority, determining resources of the second uplink channel based on the second resource configuration.” ([¶ 0240]: “In one implementation, the priority of an UL-SCH resource may be determined based on the specific LCH and/or specific MAC CE, which is ready for transmission (e.g., the criterion(s) to generate the MAC subPDU that includes data from the corresponding LCH and/or the criteria to generate the MAC subPDU that includes the corresponding MAC CE has been met) via the UL-SCH resource, and has the highest configured priority. This implementation may be under the assumption that a MAC CE and an LCH are configured with a priority value.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Li and Chin, to implement the resources as disclosed by Li , based on the configuration as disclosed by Chin . The motivation for doing so is that it allows efficient indication of what resources correspond to what priority. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Li with Chin to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAAD KHAWAR whose telephone number is (571)272-7948. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm. 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, Charles Jiang can be reached at (571)-270-7191. 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. /SAAD KHAWAR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 2 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 3 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 4 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 5 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 6 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 7 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 8 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 9 Art Unit: 2412 Application/Control Number: 18/847,029 Page 10 Art Unit: 2412
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Prosecution Timeline

Sep 13, 2024
Application Filed
Jun 16, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §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
86%
Grant Probability
94%
With Interview (+7.9%)
2y 4m (~6m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 360 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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