Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the amendment filed 5/18/2026 in which Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 5-8, filed 5/18/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 12 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Zhang et al.
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a), the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(c) and potential pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a).
Claims 1-4, 6-15, 17-20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0029157 to Dabak in view of U.S. Patent 8,639,190 to Gore et al (“Gore”) in further view of U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0013328 to Zhang et al (“Zhang”).
As to Claim 1, Dabak teaches a receiver, comprising: a receive portion employing transmission signals from a transmitter having multiple antennas and capable of providing channel estimates (P transmit antennas 210-214 send signals that are detected by Q receive antennas 220-224, see ¶ 0021; channel estimation may be determined by the receiver (e.g., in block 252) and communicated to the transmitter by return channel, see ¶ 0024); and a feedback generator portion configured to provide a pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter (The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel, e.g. feedback, see ¶ 0023), wherein the pre-coder selection corresponds to a grouping of frequency-domain resource blocks into a plurality of groups (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each [group of contiguous resource blocks], and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027).
Dabak does not explicitly disclose wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter.
Gore teaches wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter (a feedback channel sometimes called a channel quality indication (CQI) channel 406 may be used to provide feedback of preceding, e.g. an index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces)…one or more precoding index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces) may be reported for multiple segments for a single user, even those on which the user is not scheduled, depending on the structure. That is, if each segment, has its own feedback channel a user may provide feedback, e.g. precoding index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces), for each of the segments on its or another segments feedback channel, see Col. 5, lines 25-28, 32-38; At 504, precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) are determined or calculated. The determination may be based upon a selected CQI-precoding matrix calculation from a look-up table or some other operation. Further, this may be calculated for one or more segment, or only the segment that the terminal is scheduled. This may be determined by the terminal, or part of the assignment or overhead information provide by the access point to the terminal, see Col. ; the selected precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) are feedback to the access point via one or more feedback channels, see Col. 5, line 62 – Col. 6, line 2; Means 606, which may be in communication with both means 702 and 704, may transmit the selected precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) as feedback to the access point via one or more feedback channels. As discussed above, the feedback channels used may relate to the segment, or segments, to which the precoding information relate or some other channels, see Col. 6, lines 22-28).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak with Gore to teach wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order for the subscriber selecting a set of candidate subcarriers, providing feedback information on the set of candidate subcarriers to the base station, and receiving an indication of subcarriers of the set of subcarriers selected by the base station for use by the subscriber (see ¶ 0008).
Dabak and Gore do not expressly disclose wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression.
Zhang teaches wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression (The CQI, or some other information derived from it such as a predicted frame error rate, may be transmitted by the receiver of FIG. 3A as feedback to the transmitter, such as the transmitter 70 shown in block diagram at FIG. 3B. The transmitter 70 encodes at a first coding rate a first input signal (or first set of information bits) at a joint encoder 74 that encodes over at least tow of space, time, and frequency… the encoder 72 and modulator 74 are combined into a signal space encoder that performs both functions, such as the coding and modulation block 34 of FIG. 1 where coding and modulation are performed together rather than serially. The encoded and modulated signal is then spread among the available spectrum and scrambled at the spreader block 78 using Walsh-type spreading codes 80 previously detailed. The spread and scrambled signal is then divided among the M (M=2 shown) transmit antennas 84 by a router 82, and transmitted over the multi-path channel, see ¶ 0051).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak and Gore with Zhang to teach wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order for constrained mutual information to provide a CQI measure that describes MIMO link quality (see ¶ 0022).
As to Claim 2, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the pre-coder selection provides a single pre-coder for each group of contiguous resource blocks (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each [group of contiguous resource blocks], and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027).
As to Claim 3, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 2, Dabak teaches wherein a number of contiguous resource blocks corresponding to each group is varied (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to distribute data bits among evenly-spaced carrier frequencies, or "tones". For each of the R data streams, a corresponding bit allocation block 260, 262, 264 apportions bits among the available tones, see ¶ 0025. Examiner construes that the number of streams and bits required to be distributed determine the number of adjacent tones required, e.g. contiguous resource blocks; size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group, see ¶ 0042) and configured by the transmitter employing signaling to the receiver via a broadcast or a common control channel (a separate channel may be used to communicate the matrix selection to the receiver. The separate channel [broadcast channel] can take the form of a narrowband signal broadcast from a single antenna at a frequency that is dedicated to carrying configuration information to the receiver, see ¶ 0024).
As to Claim 4, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 2, Dabak teaches wherein a number of contiguous resource blocks corresponding to each group is varied (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to distribute data bits among evenly-spaced carrier frequencies, or "tones". For each of the R data streams, a corresponding bit allocation block 260, 262, 264 apportions bits among the available tones. Further, frequency coefficients from multiple data streams may be partitioned into tone groups, see ¶ 0003, 0025. Examiner construes that the number of streams and bits required to be distributed determine the number of adjacent tones required; size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group, see ¶ 0042) and configured by a network employing signaling to the receiver via a higher layer signaling (a separate channel may be used to communicate the matrix selection to the receiver. The separate channel [broadcast channel] can take the form of a narrowband signal broadcast from a single antenna at a frequency that is dedicated to carrying configuration information, e.g. higher layer signaling, to the receiver, see ¶ 0024).
As to Claim 6, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a combination of groups of contiguous resource blocks (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each, and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027. Examiner construes the set of antenna precoding matrices correspond to varied combinations of tones in each tone group).
As to Claim 7, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression (a MIMO system having closed loop selection of combined antenna and tone group precoding matrices. Block 344 performs channel estimation and selection of the combined precoding and combined distribution matrices based on the channel estimation, see ¶ 0041; Each matrix element may be more coarsely quantized to reduce the number of bits. In those embodiments having tone group preceding, the size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices (and hence the overall number of matrix elements) may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group. The tone group precoding and distribution matrices can be entirely eliminated by employing combined tone group and antenna precoding... if the matrices for adjacent tone groups are expected to be similar, the set of matrices may be efficiently compressed [feedback transmission compression] by using a differential encoding technique, in which each matrix is given by its difference from the previous matrix. Alternatively, the same matrix may be used for adjacent tone groups, see ¶ 0042; The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel...minimize the bandwidth requirements for the return channel, it is desirable to minimize the number of bits used to communicate the selected precoding matrix to the transmitter [feedback transmission compression], see ¶ 0023).
As to Claim 8, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is jointly encoded with a channel quality indicator (a MIMO system having closed loop selection of combined antenna and tone group precoding matrices. Block 344 performs channel estimation and selection of the combined precoding and combined distribution matrices based on the channel estimation, e.g. jointly encoded with channel quality indicator, see ¶ 0041).
As to Claim 9, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is based on one selected from the group consisting of: a sum throughput; a worst case throughput; and a specified maximum error rate (The outputs of the tone group precoding blocks are then taken as the frequency coefficients for multiple transmit signals, and precoded across multiple antennas by a set of antenna precoding matrices 266. In this manner, the data bits are distributed across multiple frequencies and multiple antennas (multiple transmission paths) to provide a high degree of resistance to fading while maximizing the communications bandwidth of the system [sum throughput], see ¶ 0036; The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel...minimize the bandwidth requirements for the return channel, it is desirable to minimize the number of bits used to communicate the selected precoding matrix to the transmitter, see ¶ 0023. Examiner construes that the pre-coder selection is performed with compressed data in a system where the communications bandwidth is maximized).
As to Claim 10, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the grouping of the resource blocks is variable or fixed based on signaling support (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to distribute data bits among evenly-spaced carrier frequencies, or "tones". For each of the R data streams, a corresponding bit allocation block 260, 262, 264 apportions bits among the available tones, see ¶ 0025; group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each, and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027; a separate channel may be used to communicate the matrix selection to the receiver. The separate channel [broadcast channel] can take the form of a narrowband signal broadcast from a single antenna at a frequency that is dedicated to carrying configuration information, e.g. higher layer signaling, to the receiver, see ¶ 0024; Examiner construes the set of antenna precoding matrices correspond to varied combinations of tones in each tone group).
As to Claim 11, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak teaches wherein the receiver operates in an OFDM or OFDMA system (multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) refers to the use of multiple transmitters and receivers (multiple antennas) on wireless devices... Various wireless standards that are based on MIMO orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) technology...closed-loop processing, whereby channel-state information is referred from the receiver to the transmitter to precode the transmitted data for better reception, see ¶ 0002).
As to Claim 12, Dabak teaches a method of operating a receiver, comprising: providing channel estimates employing transmission signals from a transmitter having multiple antennas (P transmit antennas 210-214 send signals that are detected by Q receive antennas 220-224, see ¶ 0021; channel estimation may be determined by the receiver (e.g., in block 252) and communicated to the transmitter by return channel, see ¶ 0024); and feeding back a pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter (The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel, e.g. feedback, see ¶ 0023), wherein the pre-coder selection corresponds to a grouping of frequency- domain resource blocks into a plurality of groups (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each [group of contiguous resource blocks], and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027).
Dabak does not explicitly disclose wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter.
Gore teaches wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter (a feedback channel sometimes called a channel quality indication (CQI) channel 406 may be used to provide feedback of preceding, e.g. an index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces)…one or more precoding index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces) may be reported for multiple segments for a single user, even those on which the user is not scheduled, depending on the structure. That is, if each segment, has its own feedback channel a user may provide feedback, e.g. precoding index(ces), vector(s), or matrix(ces), for each of the segments on its or another segments feedback channel, see Col. 5, lines 25-28, 32-38; At 504, precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) are determined or calculated. The determination may be based upon a selected CQI-precoding matrix calculation from a look-up table or some other operation. Further, this may be calculated for one or more segment, or only the segment that the terminal is scheduled. This may be determined by the terminal, or part of the assignment or overhead information provide by the access point to the terminal, see Col. ; the selected precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) are feedback to the access point via one or more feedback channels, see Col. 5, line 62 – Col. 6, line 2; Means 606, which may be in communication with both means 702 and 704, may transmit the selected precoding matrix(ces) or vector(s) as feedback to the access point via one or more feedback channels. As discussed above, the feedback channels used may relate to the segment, or segments, to which the precoding information relate or some other channels, see Col. 6, lines 22-28).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak and Gore with Zhang to teach wherein the pre-coder selection is based on channel estimates and wherein providing the pre-coder selection for data transmission to the transmitter includes providing indices of pre-coders for the plurality of groups for transmission to the transmitter. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order for the subscriber selecting a set of candidate subcarriers, providing feedback information on the set of candidate subcarriers to the base station, and receiving an indication of subcarriers of the set of subcarriers selected by the base station for use by the subscriber (see ¶ 0008).
Dabak and Gore do not expressly disclose wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression.
Zhang teaches wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression (The CQI, or some other information derived from it such as a predicted frame error rate, may be transmitted by the receiver of FIG. 3A as feedback to the transmitter, such as the transmitter 70 shown in block diagram at FIG. 3B. The transmitter 70 encodes at a first coding rate a first input signal (or first set of information bits) at a joint encoder 74 that encodes over at least tow of space, time, and frequency… the encoder 72 and modulator 74 are combined into a signal space encoder that performs both functions, such as the coding and modulation block 34 of FIG. 1 where coding and modulation are performed together rather than serially. The encoded and modulated signal is then spread among the available spectrum and scrambled at the spreader block 78 using Walsh-type spreading codes 80 previously detailed. The spread and scrambled signal is then divided among the M (M=2 shown) transmit antennas 84 by a router 82, and transmitted over the multi-path channel, see ¶ 0051).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak and Gore with Zhang to teach wherein at least two indices of the indices of the pre-coders for the plurality of groups are jointly encoded. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order for constrained mutual information to provide a CQI measure that describes MIMO link quality (see ¶ 0022).
As to Claim 13, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak teaches wherein the pre-coder selection provides a single pre-coder for each group of contiguous resource blocks (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each [group of contiguous resource blocks], and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027).
As to Claim 14, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 13, Dabak teaches wherein a number of contiguous resource blocks corresponding to each group is varied (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to distribute data bits among evenly-spaced carrier frequencies, or "tones". For each of the R data streams, a corresponding bit allocation block 260, 262, 264 apportions bits among the available tones, see ¶ 0025. Examiner construes that the number of streams and bits required to be distributed determine the number of adjacent tones required, e.g. contiguous resource blocks; size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group, see ¶ 0042) and configured by the transmitter employing signaling to the receiver via a broadcast or a common control channel (a separate channel may be used to communicate the matrix selection to the receiver. The separate channel [broadcast channel] can take the form of a narrowband signal broadcast from a single antenna at a frequency that is dedicated to carrying configuration information to the receiver, see ¶ 0024).
As to Claim 15, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 13, Dabak teaches wherein a number of contiguous resource blocks corresponding to each group is varied (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to distribute data bits among evenly-spaced carrier frequencies, or "tones". For each of the R data streams, a corresponding bit allocation block 260, 262, 264 apportions bits among the available tones. Further, frequency coefficients from multiple data streams may be partitioned into tone groups, see ¶ 0003, 0025. Examiner construes that the number of streams and bits required to be distributed determine the number of adjacent tones required; size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group, see ¶ 0042) and configured by a network employing signaling to the receiver via a higher layer signaling (a separate channel may be used to communicate the matrix selection to the receiver. The separate channel [broadcast channel] can take the form of a narrowband signal broadcast from a single antenna at a frequency that is dedicated to carrying configuration information, e.g. higher layer signaling, to the receiver, see ¶ 0024).
As to Claim 17, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a combination of groups of contiguous resource blocks (group adjacent, e.g. contiguous, tones together and apply one antenna preceding matrix 266 to each tone group; divides 256 available tones into 32 groups of eight tones each, and accordingly, only 32 antenna precoding matrices are employed, e.g. each antenna precoding matrix is associated with a group of eight tones. The set of antenna preceding matrices 266 [precoders] produce a set of frequency coefficients for each transmit signal, see ¶ 0027. Examiner construes the set of antenna precoding matrices correspond to varied combinations of tones in each tone group).
As to Claim 18, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is jointly encoded to achieve feedback transmission compression (a MIMO system having closed loop selection of combined antenna and tone group precoding matrices. Block 344 performs channel estimation and selection of the combined precoding and combined distribution matrices based on the channel estimation, see ¶ 0041; Each matrix element may be more coarsely quantized to reduce the number of bits. In those embodiments having tone group preceding, the size of the tone group precoding and distribution matrices (and hence the overall number of matrix elements) may be reduced by reducing the number of tones in each tone group. The tone group precoding and distribution matrices can be entirely eliminated by employing combined tone group and antenna precoding... if the matrices for adjacent tone groups are expected to be similar, the set of matrices may be efficiently compressed [feedback transmission compression] by using a differential encoding technique, in which each matrix is given by its difference from the previous matrix. Alternatively, the same matrix may be used for adjacent tone groups, see ¶ 0042; The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel...minimize the bandwidth requirements for the return channel, it is desirable to minimize the number of bits used to communicate the selected precoding matrix to the transmitter [feedback transmission compression], see ¶ 0023).
As to Claim 19, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is jointly encoded with a channel quality indicator (a MIMO system having closed loop selection of combined antenna and tone group precoding matrices. Block 344 performs channel estimation and selection of the combined precoding and combined distribution matrices based on the channel estimation, e.g. jointly encoded with channel quality indicator, see ¶ 0041).
As to Claim 20, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak teaches wherein the pre- coder selection is based on one selected from the group consisting of: a sum throughput; a worst case throughput; and a specified maximum error rate (The outputs of the tone group precoding blocks are then taken as the frequency coefficients for multiple transmit signals, and precoded across multiple antennas by a set of antenna precoding matrices 266. In this manner, the data bits are distributed across multiple frequencies and multiple antennas (multiple transmission paths) to provide a high degree of resistance to fading while maximizing the communications bandwidth of the system [sum throughput], see ¶ 0036; The precoding matrix selection is communicated from the receiver to the transmitter by a return channel...minimize the bandwidth requirements for the return channel, it is desirable to minimize the number of bits used to communicate the selected precoding matrix to the transmitter, see ¶ 0023. Examiner construes that the pre-coder selection is performed with compressed data in a system where the communications bandwidth is maximized).
Claims 5, 16 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0029157 to Dabak in view of U.S. Patent 8,639,190 to Gore et al (“Gore”) in further view of U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0013328 to Zhang et al (“Zhang”) and in further view of U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0263735 to Tong et al (“Tong”).
As to Claim 5, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 1, Dabak, Gore and Zhang do not expressly disclose wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks. Tong teaches wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks (Nused used sub-carriers are preferably first partitioned into bands, each having 4 bins, Each bin is constructed by 3 contiguous sub-bins (tile) [subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks], see ¶ 0240; a space-time coding operation on a per sub-carrier basis using a pre-coding vector or matrix, see ¶ 0047).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak, Gore and Zhang to teach wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order to assign different sub-block patterns to different users (see ¶ 0033).
As to Claim 16, Dabak, Gore and Zhang depending on Claim 12, Dabak, Gore and Zhang do not expressly disclose wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks. Tong teaches wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks (Nused used sub-carriers are preferably first partitioned into bands, each having 4 bins, Each bin is constructed by 3 contiguous sub-bins (tile) [subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks], see ¶ 0240; a space-time coding operation on a per sub-carrier basis using a pre-coding vector or matrix, see ¶ 0047).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Dabak, Gore and Zhang to teach wherein the pre-coder selection provides a set of pre-coders corresponding to a subgroup of resource blocks contained in each group of contiguous resource blocks. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order to assign different sub-block patterns to different users (see ¶ 0033).
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.
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/EBONI N GILES/ Examiner, Art Unit 2622
/PATRICK N EDOUARD/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2622
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