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 filed 12/22/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 3 of the Applicant’s Response, Applicant: “However, Huang in steps 412, 414, and 416 of Fig. 4 show re-determination of MCS based on no. of NACKs but they are not talking about configure the number of receiver antennas based on no. of NACKs. Thus, Huang fails to disclose configuring the number of receiver antennas based on an indication of a count of HARQ acknowledgements/non-acknowledgements (ACKs/NACKs), such that when the number of NACKs exceeds a predefined threshold additional antennas are turned ON, and when the number of NACKs falls below the threshold one or more antennas are turned OFF“.
Examiner respectfully disagrees with Applicant’s argument. Mediatek discloses implementing two BWPs configured with a maximum number of layers of 2x2 and 4x4, respectively. The 2x2 configuration comprising 2 TX antennas and 2RX antennas; The 4x4 configuration comprising 4 TX antennas and 4 RX antennas. Mediatek discloses initiating a BWP switch to support the MIMO 4x4 when service require more capacity and falling back, through BWP switching, to MIMO 2x2 when the high capacity transmission is finished (Section 4: antenna diversity). Huang discloses triggering adaptive modulation and coding schemes when a number of NACKs exceed a threshold. Huang discloses implementing redundant data of extra data for error detection as one adaptive solution to the excessive NACKs, i.e. increase the amount of code bits and redundant data (fig. 4, p39). A person of ordinary skill in the art with knowledge of both Mediatek’s antenna/layer increasing based on capacity demand and Huang’s adaptive MCS based on a NACK threshold would have found it obvious to implement the increased transmission demand from AMC with the increase in capacity using dynamic MIMO configurations.
In view of the above discussions the rejection of claims 1-8, 10-11, 14-16, 19, and 22 still stands.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 10-11, 15, 16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mediatek (“NR UE Power Saving Designs”, 2/23/2019) in view of Kang et al. (US 2021/0298038) (“Kang”) in view of Huang (US 2015/0029952).
For claims 1 and 4; Mediatek discloses: network node configured to communicate with a wireless device, WD, the network node comprising processing circuitry configured to: receive at least one channel state information, CSI, report associated with at least one CSI measurement using more antennas than a maximum number of layers configured for a current active bandwidth part, BWP (section 2.1: Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP)(section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires).
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Kang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: determine a bandwidth part (BWP) to which the wireless device transitions to; inform the wireless device of the determined BWP (paragraph 282, 290, 339: To efficiently perform dynamic DL BWP switching, the base station needs to acquire the latest DL CSI for the target BWP to be switched. This is because so doing ensures that, while performing DL BWP switching, accurate multi-input multi-output (MIMO) precoding for PDSCH, transmission rank, and DL MCS (modulation & coding scheme) may be determined and transmitted. Accordingly, periodic/semi-persistent/aperiodic CSI measurement and reporting operations for inactive DL BWP need to be supported…when it is desired to previously perform time/frequency tracking or optimize the UE RX beam for the corresponding BWP before switching a specific inactive DL BWP to an active BWP, the above-described methods may be used to perform downlink reference signal measurement on the corresponding DL BWP without switching to the active BWP). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Kang in the adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve bwp/layer switching.
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Huang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: based on an indication of a number of hybrid automatic request, HARQ, acknowledgement/non-acknowledgements, ACKs/NACKs, configure for use a configuration change such that when the number of NACKs is greater than a predefined level configure higher redundancy, and when the number of NACKs is below the predetermined level configure lower redundancy (paragraph 39, fig. 4: 416, 412, 414). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the transmission redundancy as described by Huang in the antenna adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve the performance until the quality metric is satisfied.
For claims 2, 5, 8, and 16; Mediatek discloses: configured to initiate the at least one CSI measurement using the more antennas (section 2.1: Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP)(section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires).
For claims 3, 6, and 10; Mediatek discloses the subject matter in claim 1 as described above in the office action.
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Kang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: wherein the at least one CSI measurement is associated with an anticipated transition of the WD from a current BWP to another BWP (paragraph 282, 290, 339: To efficiently perform dynamic DL BWP switching, the base station needs to acquire the latest DL CSI for the target BWP to be switched. This is because so doing ensures that, while performing DL BWP switching, accurate multi-input multi-output (MIMO) precoding for PDSCH, transmission rank, and DL MCS (modulation & coding scheme) may be determined and transmitted. Accordingly, periodic/semi-persistent/aperiodic CSI measurement and reporting operations for inactive DL BWP need to be supported…when it is desired to previously perform time/frequency tracking or optimize the UE RX beam for the corresponding BWP before switching a specific inactive DL BWP to an active BWP, the above-described methods may be used to perform downlink reference signal measurement on the corresponding DL BWP without switching to the active BWP). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Kang in the adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve bwp/layer switching.
For claims 7 and 15; Mediatek discloses: network node configured to communicate with a wireless device, WD, the network node comprising processing circuitry configured to: use more antennas for at least one channel state information (CST) measurement; receive at least one channel state information, CSI, report associated with at least one CSI measurement using more antennas than a maximum number of layers configured for a current active bandwidth part, BWP (section 2.1: Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP)(section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires); wherein the current BWP is a first bandwidth part, BWP1, with a first maximum number of layers, L1, and the another BWP is a second bandwidth part, BWP2 with a second maximum number of layers, L2, where L1 is larger than L2, and wherein the WD and/or the radio interface and/or processing circuitry is configured to initially use all receiver antennas or a higher number of antennas than L2 on a move to BWP2 (section 2.1: Dynamic BWP switching via DCI… eliminate the delay of A-CSI reporting after BWP switching, Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP)(section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires); after a predetermined number of scheduling instances to turn off one or more receiver antennas (section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires).
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Kang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: receive a request from the network node for at least one channel state information (CSI) measurement (paragraph 293-294: method is to instruct to perform CSI-RS measurement (and corresponding CSI reporting) for inactive BWP(s) via DCI or MAC-CE that triggers/activates CSI reporting). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the signaling as described by Kang in the adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve bwp/layer switching.
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Huang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: based on an indication of a number of hybrid automatic request, HARQ, acknowledgement/non-acknowledgements, ACKs/NACKs, configure for use a configuration change such that when the number of NACKs is greater than a predefined level configure higher redundancy, and when the number of NACKs is below the predetermined level configure lower redundancy (paragraph 39, fig. 4: 416, 412, 414). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the transmission redundancy as described by Huang in the antenna adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve the performance until the quality metric is satisfied.
For claims 11 and 19; Mediatek discloses: wherein the current BWP is a first bandwidth part, BWP1, with a first maximum number of layers, L1, and the another BWP is a second bandwidth part, BWP2 with a second maximum number of layers, L2, where L1 is larger than L2, and wherein the WD (section 2.1: Dynamic BWP switching via DCI… eliminate the delay of A-CSI reporting after BWP switching, Rel-16 can allow UE to measure periodic CSI-RS covering the union frequency range of all configured BWPs and the initial BWP)(section 4: Switching to the BWP with maximum MIMO layer number equal to 4 whenever there is data arrival… Fall back to default BWP with maximum MIMO layer number no larger than 2 if BWP timer expires).
Claim(s) 14 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mediatek in view of Kang in view of Huang as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of Yang et al. (US 2021/0195517) (“Yang”).
For claims 14 and 22; Mediatek discloses the subject matter in claim 7 as described above in the office action.
Mediatek does not expressly disclose, but Yang from similar fields of endeavor teaches: omit power saving until a first CSI measurement or first N CSI measurements are performed, where N is a predetermined number, and then the WD applies a power saving antenna adaptation (paragraph 37-57: The normal power consumption mode may be a mode where the terminal receives first data, e.g., the PDCCH, the SS, the PDSCH, the CSI-RS or the CRS, based on a first power consumption… power-saving mode may be a mode where the terminal receives second data, e.g., the WUS, the PDCCH, the SS, the PDSCH, the CSI-RS or the CRS, based on a second power consumption smaller than the first power consumption… when the measurement value is greater than or equal to a first measurement value threshold, the base station may configure the normal power consumption mode for the terminal, and when the measurement value is smaller than the first measurement value threshold, the base station may configure a certain power-saving mode for the terminal). Thus it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the switching as described by Yang in the adaptation system as described by Mediatek. The motivation is to improve battery life.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Islam et al. (US 2022/0159574); Islam discloses when the UE receives the DCI format outside active time, the bits in UE-specific field may map to a set of parameters which can include one or more of the following: wake-up indication, e.g., whether UE transitions from outside active time to active time; cross-slot scheduling configuration; trigger for RS such as CSI-RS or TRS; indication of UL resource for CSI reporting; activation or deactivation of carriers or cells; trigger for BWP switching or adaptation; MIMO layer or number of antenna adaptation indication of a CORESET.
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.
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/JOHN D BLANTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466