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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-16 and 33-36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Abdelghaffar et al (US 2023/0163912). a) Regarding claim 1, Abdelghaffar et al disclose a guard gap configuration method, wherein the method is performed by a network device (105-b in Fig. 7), and comprises:
sending, based on at least one of channel quality (Pub [0003], channel estimation is interpreted as channel quality), transmit power information of a terminal, or a configuration request of the terminal (115-b), configuration information of a guard gap to the terminal (705; Pub [0097-0101],[0129]; the antenna switching is an adaptive system, wherein the SRS configuration is based on uplink channel estimation), wherein the configuration information is used for determining the guard gap between sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Pub [0050]; Fig. 3-6 shows guard period), and the configuration request is determined by the terminal based on the transmit power information (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because “at least one of … or…” statement). b) Regarding claims 2 and 11, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the configuration information comprises: first configuration information, used for indicating that a guard gap is configured after an end timepoint of a first SRS resource set of two adjacent ones of the SRS resource sets, and a guard gap is configured before a start timepoint of a second SRS resource set of the two adjacent ones of the SRS resource sets; or (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement).
second configuration information, wherein the second configuration information is different from the first configuration information (Pub [0050], second configuration information is interpreted as type of frequency hopping or time division cover coding). c) Regarding claims 3 and 12, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the second configuration information is used for indicating that a guard gap is configured before the start timepoint of the second SRS resource set, or is configured after the end timepoint of the first SRS resource set (Fig. 3; Pub [0103-0104]). d) Regarding claims 4 and 13, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending the configuration request of the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap to the terminal comprises: sending, based on at least one of a number of a time domain unit between the SRS resource sets, and at least one of the channel quality (Pub [0003], channel estimation is interpreted as channel quality), the transmit power information of the terminal, or the configuration request of the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap to the terminal. e) Regarding claim 10, Abdelghaffar et al disclose guard gap configuration method, wherein the method is performed by a terminal (115-b in Fig. 7), and comprises:
receiving configuration information of a guard gap sent by a network device (105-b) based on at least one of channel quality (Pub [0003], channel estimation is interpreted as channel quality), transmit power information of the terminal, or a configuration request of the terminal (705 in Fig. 7; Pub [0097-0101],[0129]; the antenna switching is an adaptive system, wherein the SRS configuration is based on uplink channel estimation), wherein the configuration information is used for determining the guard gap between sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Pub [0050]; Fig. 3-6 shows guard period), and the configuration request is determined by the terminal based on the transmit power information (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because “at least one of … or…” statement). f) Regarding claim 33, Abdelghaffar et al disclose a communication device, comprising: a processor (1540 in Fig. 15); and a memory (1530), storing an executable program capable of being run by the processor, wherein the processor, through running the executable program is configured to (Fig. 15; Pub [0207]):
send, based on at least one of channel quality (Pub [0003], channel estimation is interpreted as channel quality), transmit power information of a terminal, or a configuration request of the terminal (115-b), configuration information of a guard gap to the terminal (705; Pub [0097-0101],[0129]; the antenna switching is an adaptive system, wherein the SRS configuration is based on uplink channel estimation), wherein the configuration information is used for determining the guard gap between sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Pub [0050]; Fig. 3-6 shows guard period), and the configuration request is determined by the terminal based on the transmit power information (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because “at least one of … or…” statement). g) Regarding claim 34, Abdelghaffar et al disclose a non-transitory computer storage medium, storing an executable program, wherein the executable program, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform the guard gap configuration method according to claim 1 (Pub [0009]). h) Regarding claim 35, Abdelghaffar et al disclose a communication device, comprising: a processor (1540 in Fig. 15); and a memory (1530), storing an executable program capable of being run by the processor, wherein the processor, through running the executable program is configured to perform the guard gap configuration method according to claim 10 (Fig. 7).
i) Regarding claim 36, Abdelghaffar et al disclose a non-transitory computer storage medium, storing an executable program, wherein the executable program, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform the guard gap configuration method according to claim 10 (Pub [0009]). j) Regarding claim 6, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending, based on at least one of the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets, the channel quality, the transmit power information of the terminal, or the configuration request of the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap to the terminal comprises at least one of: sending, in response to transmit power of the terminal being greater than a preset power threshold, and the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets being greater than a number threshold, sending the first configuration information to the terminal; sending, in response to the transmit power of the terminal being less than or equal to the preset power threshold, sending the second configuration information to the terminal; sending, in response to power headroom of the terminal being less than or equal to a headroom threshold, and the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets being greater than the number threshold, sending the first configuration information to the terminal; or sending, in response to the power headroom of the terminal being greater than the headroom threshold, sending the second configuration information to the terminal. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement). k) Regarding claim 7, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending, based on at least one of the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets, and the channel quality, the transmit power information of the terminal, or the configuration request of the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap to the terminal comprises at least one of: in response to the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets being greater than a number threshold, sending, based on the configuration request, the first configuration information to the terminal; or in response to the number of the time domain unit between the SRS resource sets being less than or equal to the number threshold, sending, based on the configuration request, the second configuration information to the terminal. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement). l) Regarding claim 8, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending the configuration information of the guard gap to the terminal comprises: sending to the terminal, based on the configuration request and according to configuration information of the guard gap that has been sent to the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap that has not been provided to the terminal. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement in claim 1). m) Regarding claim 9, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending to the terminal, based on the configuration request and the configuration information of the guard gap that has been sent to the terminal, the configuration information of the guard gap that has not been provided to the terminal comprises: in response to having sent to the terminal the first configuration information of the guard gap, sending to the terminal, based on the configuration request, the second configuration information of the guard gap that has not been provided to the terminal; and in response to having sent to the terminal the second configuration information of the guard gap, sending to the terminal, based on the configuration request, the first configuration information of the guard gap that has not been provided to the terminal. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement in claim 1). n) Regarding claim 14, Abdelghaffar et al disclose sending the transmit power information of the terminal to the network device, wherein the transmit power information is used by the network device to determine the configuration information of the guard gap. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement in claim 1). o) Regarding claim 15, Abdelghaffar et al disclose further comprising: sending to the network device the configuration request determined based on the transmit power information of the terminal. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement in claim 1). p) Regarding claim 16, Abdelghaffar et al disclose wherein the sending to the network device the configuration request comprises at least one of: in response to configuration information of the guard gap that has been received by the terminal being the first configuration information, and transmit power of the terminal being less than or equal to a preset power threshold, sending the configuration request to the network device; in response to the configuration information of the guard gap that has been received by the terminal being the second configuration information, and the transmit power of the terminal being greater than the preset power threshold, sending the configuration request to the network device; in response to the configuration information of the guard gap that has been received by the terminal being the first configuration information, and power headroom of the terminal being greater than a headroom threshold, sending the configuration request to the network device; or in response to the configuration information of the guard gap that has been received by the terminal being the second configuration information, and the transmit power of the terminal being less than or equal to the headroom threshold, sending the configuration request to the network device. (underlined portion is not given any patent weight because of “or” statement in claim 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 is 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2021/0212070 Lou et al disclose quard symbol with request. US 2023/0254080 Gu et al disclose sounding reference signal.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Eva Y Puente whose telephone number is 571-272-3049. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
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February 2, 2026
/EVA Y PUENTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632