DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
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.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-17 are allowed for the reasons previously provided.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application is a continuation of a continuation of a US non-provisional application that claims a domestic benefit to a US provisional application, filed 28 Aug 2012.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements, submitted on 30 Sept 2020, 7 Aug 2025, and 26 Nov 2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
The Reply alleges the combination of Gaal and Blankenship fails to “teach or suggest all features of claim 1.” Reply, 7. As provided below, Sorrentino is now cited in combination with Gaal, which renders the arguments provided in the Reply moot.
Election/Restrictions
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 2 and 16, drawn to the default CRS RE set being a set for a serving cell.
II. Claim 8, drawn to the default CRS RE set being a set for a non-serving cell.
The inventions are independent or distinct, each from the other because:
Inventions I and II are directed to related CRS patterns for PDSCH rate matching. The related inventions are distinct if: (1) the inventions as claimed are either not capable of use together or can have a materially different design, mode of operation, function, or effect; (2) the inventions do not overlap in scope, i.e., are mutually exclusive; and (3) the inventions as claimed are not obvious variants. See MPEP § 806.05(j). In the instant case, the inventions as claimed are mutually exclusive in terms of which network node defines the default CRS RE set. Furthermore, the inventions as claimed do not encompass overlapping subject matter and there is nothing of record to show them to be obvious variants.
Because claim 2 was originally presented (see claim 2 of originally filed claim set), this is a requirement for restriction based on original presentation. As a result, claim 8 is considered withdrawn and is not examined.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because it would require examination of two mutually exclusive embodiments.
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 9, and 18-20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gaal ( US 20120113917 A1) in view of Sorrentino (US 20150181570).
Regarding claim 1, Gaal teaches a method for determining physical downlink shared channel ( PDSCH) rate-matching comprising ( Fig 2-3, [0008],[0010], discloses a rate matching when transmitting a PDSCH to a UE):
determining, at a user equipment (UE) configured for downlink coordinated multi-point transmission (Gaal, ¶71 and figure 8 – DL CoMP operation facilitated by the resource map of figure 8), whether downlink control information (DCI) for a radio subframe received from a base station . . . (Gaal, ¶70 and figure 8 – configuration identifies REs, including CRS REs that are marked with an “R” in figure 8; Gaal, ¶62 – DCI format defines PDSCH transmission scheme, including CRS-based ones) or indicates a fall-back transmission (Gaal, ¶¶59-60 – DCI format 1A indicates a fallback operation when executing downlink transmissions),
wherein each CRS RE set in a plurality of CRS RE sets configured via a radio resource control (RRC) layer . . . (Gaal, ¶60 – RRC signaling may reconfigure the downlink transmission mode for a UE; Gaal, ¶¶86-87 – transmission mode defines a PDSCH rate matching operation, which creates a CRS RE set, like the one shown in figure 8) ; and
in response to determining that the DCI indicates the fall-back transmission, performing PDSCH demodulation assuming PDSCH rate-matching based upon a . . . CRS RE set included in the plurality of CRS RE sets (Gaal, ¶¶86-89 – when DCI format 1A is used, PDSCH rate matching may or may not discount muted REs or CSI-RS REs [which creates multiple RE sets]; Gaal, figure 8 – a CRS RE set is shown, where CRS REs are marked with an “R”).
Gaal does not explicitly teach (1) a DCI that “includes a cell-specific reference symbol (CRS) resource element (RE) signaling field,” (2) a ”default” CRS RE set, (3) each CRS RE set “is associated with a respective value in the CRS RE signaling field,” or (4) “wherein each CRS RE in the plurality of CRS RE sets corresponds to a CRS antenna port.” However, Sorrentino teaches the following:
(1) a DCI that “includes a cell-specific reference symbol (CRS) resource element (RE) signaling field” (Sorrentino, ¶58 – at least one bit in the DCI is dedicated for indicating which REs are reserved for transmitting at least one CRS and is encoded in the “CRS-information” field),
(2) a ”default” CRS RE set (Sorrentino, figure 8a and ¶53 – the network is assumed to transmit CRS continuously in the reserved RE; Sorrentino, ¶86 – the CRS REs are pre-defined and then transmitted by the network in a semi-static fashion, which becomes the default CRS REs),
(3) each CRS RE set configured by RRC “is associated with a respective value in the CRS RE signaling field” (Sorrentino, ¶¶57, 83 – RRC signaling may include the at least one bit, where each bit defines a different CRS RE configuration), and
(4) wherein each CRS RE in the plurality of CRS RE sets corresponds to a CRS antenna port. Sorrentino, figure 2c and ¶¶10, 48, 90 (each antenna port had a different CRS RE mapping configuration).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to indicate a CRS RE pattern for CRS ports, as taught by Sorrentino, when executing the PDSCH rate matching, taught by Gaal, in order to enable the UE to operate predictably within the sub-bands where it anticipates continuous transmission of CRS. Sorrentino, ¶93.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino also teaches wherein the default CRS RE set is the serving base station CRS RE set (Sorrentino, figure 8a and ¶53 – the network node is assumed to transmit CRS continuously in the reserved RE; Sorrentino, ¶86 – the CRS REs are pre-defined and then transmitted by the network in a semi-static fashion, which becomes the default CRS REs; Sorrentino, ¶60 – network node serves the UE).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino also teaches wherein the fall-back transmission is on a compact downlink control information (DCI) format ( Gaal, [0059], [0060], discloses DCI format 1A used with fallback operation, as a result, the communication between the eNB and UE can be performed without any interruption).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino also teaches wherein the DCI format is fall-back scheduling on a DCI 1A format (Gaal, [0059],[0060], [0085], discloses DCI format 1A used with fallback operation).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino also teaches determining a value of a CRS resource element (RE) signaling field in a downlink control information (DCI) signal received from a base station ( Gaal, Fig 3, [0055]-[0057], discloses a transmission mode received by a UE; Gaal, [0086], [0088], PDSCH rate matching operations scheduled via DCI format, a TX mode-dependent DCI format ( 1, 1B, 1D, 2, 2A, 2B, 2C, etc.) would be considered as a value of a CRS RE (Gaal, [0038], including CRS) signaling field ); and
in response to the DCI signal indicating that no fall-back transmission is received, performing PDSCH demodulation (Gaal, [0064], discloses a DM-RS for demodulation) assuming rate-matching based upon a CRS RE set corresponding to the value in the CRS RE signaling field in the DCI signal (Gaal, [0062], [0086], the mode-dependent DCI format [i.e. any format other than 1A] associated with a particular PDSCH transmission scheme, and the rate-matching performed differently based on the value; Sorrentino, ¶58 – each value of the bit in the DCI represents a different CRS pattern).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino also teaches wherein the CRS RE signaling field includes n bits, where n ≥ 2 (Sorrentino, ¶58 – at least one bit [i.e. 2 or more are within this range] in the DCI is dedicated for indicating which REs are reserved for transmitting at least one CRS and is encoded in the “CRS-information” field ).
Claim 18 is the apparatus claim corresponding to method claim 1 respectively, and rejected under the same rationale set forth in connection with the rejection of claim 1 respectively above. In addition, Gaal teaches UE with receiver and processor (Fig 6).
Claim 19 is the apparatus claim corresponding to method claims 6 and 9 respectively, and rejected under the same rationale set forth in connection with the rejection of claims 6 and 9 respectively above.
Claim 20 is the apparatus claim corresponding to method claim 2, and rejected under the same rationale set forth in connection with the rejection of claim 2 respectively above.
Claims 3 and 7 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gaal ( US 20120113917 A1) in view of Sorrentino (US 20150181570) and further in view of Yue (US 20140044061 A1).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach wherein the default CRS RE set is a CRS RE set associated with a value 0 in the CRS RE signaling field. However, Yue teaches a CRS RE pattern that is associated with a value of zero. Yue, ¶¶25, 150, and tables 3 and 4 – “00”).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use the 2-bit mapping indicator, as taught by Yue, in as the one or more bits in the DCI, as taught by the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino, in order to dynamically or semi-statically signal the CRS mapping pattern. Yue, ¶128 and ¶147.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Gaal and Sorrentino teaches the method of claim 1 and . . . a plurality of cells in a CoMP transmission system. Gaal, ¶67 (CoMP operation with PDSCH muting configurations). The combination of Gaal and Sorrentino does not explicitly teach “wherein the each CRS RE set of the plurality of CRS RE sets corresponds to a respective cell.” However, in a CoMP operation (Yue, title), Yue teaches a plurality of CRS RE sets, where each set is indicated by a given indicator. Yue, ¶118 (each mapping indicator is associated with a different TP); Yue, ¶153 and table 4 (each mapping indicator creates a “set” of CRS REs).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, including paragraph 60 of Xiao, which teaches a pre-defined set of REs for CRS, and paragraph 225 of Zirwas, which teaches CRSs for antenna ports 0 and 1 being transmitted continuously for fall-back.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461