DETAILED ACTION
It is hereby acknowledged that the following papers have been received and placed of record in the file: Amendment date 07/02/2026.
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 16, 19-21, 23, 25-31, 41-42 and 77 are presented for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-3, 5-9, 16, 19-21, 23, 25-31, 41-42 and 77 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1 line 6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 line 7 recites “the second time interval being shorter than the first time interval” contains subject matter which was not described in the specification. As discloses in specification ¶[0050], only disclose first time period prs and second time period pim instead of first time interval and second time interval (perform the channel measurement within a first period prs, configuring the UE to perform periodic interference measurements within the first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second period pim, where pim<prs”). In the broadest reason of interpretation, an interval refers to the space or gap between two events, points, or objects, whether in time, space, or pitch and a period, on the other hand, refers to the length of time during which an event occurs or a condition persists. Similar issue exists in claims 41, 42 and 77. Since claims 2-3, 5-9, 16, 19-21, 23, 25-31 depend on claim 1, they are also rejected for the same reason as described hereinabove.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 16, 19, 23, 25-31, 41-42 and 77 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2009/0274204 A1) in view of Xiao et al. (WO2018028549A1).
Note: Examiner will use Google English translation of Xiao et al. (WO 2018028549A1) for mapping purpose.
Regarding claim 1, Chen teaches a method of operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:
performing a channel measurement on a measurement resource for channel measurement within a first time interval (MS measure the channel quality metric (CQI) associated with each sub-band of multiple sub-bands of a frequency bandwidth employed by communication system 200 during a measuring period, such as a Transmission Time Interval see Chen: ¶[0029]);
for each interference measurement, determining a quality value associated with the interference measurement and the channel measurement (measure channel quality metric for CIR, SINR and CINR using variable of S or C and I and N see Chen: ¶[0031-0033]; ¶[0037]);
determining a statistical measure based on the quality values ("Based on the measured channel quality metrics for the sub-bands, MS determines a mean channel quality metric, that is, a first moment of the channel quality metric, preferably a mean SINR, for the frequency bandwidth"..."based on the channel quality measurements, MS determines one or more second order statistics for the channel quality metric, and more particularly one or more of a standard deviation of the channel quality, that is, a second moment of the channel quality, and a variance of the channel quality for the frequency bandwidth" see Chen: ¶[0030]); and
transmitting the statistical measure to a network node in a channel state information] (CSI) report (reporting channel quality information by a MS include the statistics measurement see Chen: ¶[0029]).
Chen does not explicitly teaches performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval.
However, Xiao teaches the performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval (M sets measurement resource and M1 and M2 are part of M set where M1+M2= M “receiving M sets of measurement pilot resources, where the M sets of measurement pilot resources include an M1 set of signal measurement pilot resources and The M2 sets of interference measurement pilot resources, wherein the M, M1, and M2 are positive integers; the M sets of measurement pilot resources are used for channel measurement to obtain channel state information; and the channel state information is feedback” see Xiao: Page 3 4th-5th Paragraphs; Page 4 3rd Paragraph) in order to enhance feedback information in measurement pilot resource (see Xiao: abstract).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to create the invention of Chen to include (or to use, etc.) the performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval as taught by Xiao in order to enhance feedback information in measurement pilot resource (see Xiao: abstract).
Regarding claim 2, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the quality measure comprises one or more of a channel quality indicator (CQI) symbol information, a Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) and a spectral efficiency (SE) (CQI and SINR see ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 3, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the statistical measure comprises one or more of a maximum value, a minimum value, a mean, a variance, a standard deviation and a percentile of distribution (mean SINR, standard deviation, variance see Chen: ¶[0017]).
Regarding claim 5, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 4 as described hereinabove. Chen further comprising, for each interference measurement within the first period, determining a channel quality indicator (CQI) value associated with the interference measurement (CQI value related to SINR “by a MS such as MS 202, of a mean SINR and an SINR variance determined by the MS to a CQI value that is reported by the MS” see Chen: ¶[0037]; Fig.6).
Regarding claim 6, the modified Chen taught the method of Claim 5 as described hereinabove. Chen further comprising generating the channel state information (CSI) report based on the channel measurement and the interference measurements, wherein the CSI report includes an indicator based on one or more of the CQI values (reporting Channel quality information (CQI) based on CQI and CIR, SINR and CINR and CQI values in table 600 see Chen: ¶[0029]; Fig.6).
Regarding claim 7, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 6 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the indicator comprises one or more of the CQI values (CQI values in table 600 see Chen Fig.6).
Regarding claim 8, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 6 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the indicator comprises a highest one of the CQI values for which a downlink transport block is received with an error probability not exceeding a predetermined probability (table 600 sing the highest CQI (such as 27<CQI<=31dB values enable to reach a given error probability error coding rate 5/6 see Chen: Fig.6; ¶[0039]).
Regarding claim 9, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 6 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the indicator comprises a CQI statistical metric generated based on one or more of the CQI values ("Based on the measured channel quality metrics for the sub-bands, MS determines a mean channel quality metric, that is, a first moment of the channel quality metric, preferably a mean SINR, for the frequency bandwidth"..."based on the channel quality measurements, MS determines one or more second order statistics for the channel quality metric, and more particularly one or more of a standard deviation of the channel quality, that is, a second moment of the channel quality, and a variance of the channel quality for the frequency bandwidth" see Chen: ¶[0030]).
Regarding claim 16, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further comprising: generating a statistical spectral efficiency (SE) value by multiplying a modulation order and a code rate in a CQI table; and mapping the statistical SE value to a CQI value (table 600 include spectral efficiency value and related to MCS to CQI mapping see Chen: ¶[0037]; Fig.6).
Regarding claim 19, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 16 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein mapping the statistical SE value to the CQI value comprises: finding a largest SE value (SE) in the CQI table that is smaller than the statistical SE value; and finding the statistical CQI value by locating the CQI value that corresponds to SE' using the CQI table (largest Modulation such as 64 QAM mapping to CQI column in table 600 see Chen: Fig.6).
Regarding claim 23, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 9 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the CQI statistical metric is conditioned on previously reported precoding matrix indicator (PMI), CQI, CRS-RS resource indicator (CRI), layer indicator (LI), or SS/PBCH resource block indicator (SSBRI) values (Channel quality metric include CQI values ("Based on the measured channel quality metrics for the sub-bands, MS determines a mean channel quality metric, that is, a first moment of the channel quality metric, preferably a mean SINR, for the frequency bandwidth"..."based on the channel quality measurements, MS determines one or more second order statistics for the channel quality metric, and more particularly one or more of a standard deviation of the channel quality, that is, a second moment of the channel quality, and a variance of the channel quality for the frequency bandwidth" see Chen: ¶[0030]).
Regarding claim 25, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 9 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the CQI statistical metric is reported for a configured percentile of distribution of the channel quality (mapping are uniform distributed “corresponding to the determined SINR mean and variance, to modulation schemes, coding rates, and repetition rates in accordance with another embodiment of present invention, where the mapping is uniformly distributed” see Chen: ¶[0040]).
Regarding claim 26, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 9 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the CQI statistical metric is computed based on demodulation reference signals included in data transmissions (channel quality metric are compute use variance and measurement time period and threshold see Chen: ¶[0031-0034]).
Regarding claim 27, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the channel measurement comprises a measurement on a measurement resource in a downlink channel (channel measurement on downlink 212 see Chen: ¶[0028]).
Regarding claim 28, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 27 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the measurement resource carries a downlink reference signal (channel quality metric associated with downlink 212 see Chen: ¶[0035]).
Regarding claim 29, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the interference measurement is performed on a measurement resource assigned by the network node (reporting channel quality information by a MS, such as MS 202, and scheduling MSs by a serving RAN see Chen: ¶[0029])
Regarding claim 30, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the CSI report comprises a channel quality indicator (CQI) value based on the statistical measure, wherein the CQI value is constructed based on the quality measures and a configured time duration between the measurements and when the CQI value should be applied (table 600 include CQI value related to subband time/TTI and CQI value applied see Chen: ¶[0029]; ¶[0037]).
Regarding claim 31, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 30 as described hereinabove. Chen further teaches wherein the time duration is fixed, configured via radio resource control, or signaled in a CSI request (Logic flow diagram 500 begins (502) when MS 202 measures (504) a channel quality metric, preferably measuring Channel Quality Information (CQI) as is known in the art, associated with each sub-band of multiple sub-bands of a frequency bandwidth employed by communication system 200 during a measuring period, such as a Transmission Time Interval (TTI) (also known as a sub-frame) or a radio frame transmission period see Chen: ¶[0029]).
Regarding claim 41, claim 41 is rejected for the same reason as claim 1 as described hereinabove. Claim 41 recites a user equipment that perform the same functionality as method of claim 1 as set forth hereinabove.
Regarding claim 42, Chen teaches a method of operating a network node, comprising:
configuring a user equipment (UE) to perform a channel measurement on a channel measurement resource within a first time interval (MS measure the channel quality metric (CQI) associated with each sub-band of multiple sub-bands of a frequency bandwidth employed by communication system 200 during a measuring period, such as a Transmission Time Interval see Chen: ¶[0029]);
configuring the UE to determine, for each interference measurement, a quality value associated with the interference measurement and the channel measurement (measure channel quality metric for CIR, SINR and CINR using variable of S or C and I and N see Chen: ¶[0031-0033]; ¶[0037]);
configuring the UE to determine a statistical measure based on the quality values ("Based on the measured channel quality metrics for the sub-bands, MS determines a mean channel quality metric, that is, a first moment of the channel quality metric, preferably a mean SINR, for the frequency bandwidth"..."based on the channel quality measurements, MS determines one or more second order statistics for the channel quality metric, and more particularly one or more of a standard deviation of the channel quality, that is, a second moment of the channel quality, and a variance of the channel quality for the frequency bandwidth" see Chen: ¶[0030]); and
receiving the statistical measure from the UE in a channel state information (CSI) report (reporting channel quality information by a MS include the statistics measurement see Chen: ¶[0029]).
Chen does not explicitly teaches performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval.
However, Xiao teaches the performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval (M sets measurement resource and M1 and M2 are part of M set where M1+M2= M “receiving M sets of measurement pilot resources, where the M sets of measurement pilot resources include an M1 set of signal measurement pilot resources and The M2 sets of interference measurement pilot resources, wherein the M, M1, and M2 are positive integers; the M sets of measurement pilot resources are used for channel measurement to obtain channel state information; and the channel state information is feedback” see Xiao: Page 3 4th-5th Paragraphs; Page 4 3rd Paragraph) in order to enhance feedback information in measurement pilot resource (see Xiao: abstract).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to create the invention of Chen to include (or to use, etc.) the performing periodic interference measurements within a first period, wherein the periodic interference measurements are taken according to a second time interval, the second time interval is shorter than the first time interval as taught by Xiao in order to enhance feedback information in measurement pilot resource (see Xiao: abstract).
Regarding claim 77, claim 77 is rejected for the same reason as claim 42 as described hereinabove. Claim 77 recites a user equipment that perform the same functionality as method of claim 42 as set forth hereinabove.
Claims 20-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2009/0274204 A1) in view of Xiao et al. (WO2018028549A1) and further in view of Liu et al. (US 2019/0281487 A1).
Regarding claim 20, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 1 as described hereinabove. The modified Chen does not explicitly teaches wherein the CSI report includes multiple rank indicator (RI), or precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and associated CQI values
However, Liu teaches the wherein the CSI report includes multiple rank indicator (RI), or precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and associated CQI values (PMI, RI and CQI “The UE may decode the data and/or DMRS and may measure and report CSI (e.g., CQI, PMI, RI, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) level, RSRP, RSRQ, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), channel covariance matrix, interference level, interference covariance matrix, delta CQI, delta RSRP, delta RSRQ, and/or delta interference), or the UE may measure and report the general condition of the transmission (e.g., acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) or the probability of a decoding error)” see Liu: ¶[0111]) in order to enhance channel measurement (see Liu: ¶[0002]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to create the invention of the modified Chen to include (or to use, etc.) the wherein the CSI report includes multiple rank indicator (RI), or precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and associated CQI values as taught by Liu in order to enhance channel measurement (see Liu: ¶[0002]).
Regarding claim 21, the modified Chen taught the method of claim 20 as described hereinabove. Liu further teaches wherein the CSI report includes a probability and/or frequency value that indicates a probability and/or frequency value associated with each reported RI and/or PMI (“The UE may decode the data and/or DMRS and may measure and report CSI (e.g., CQI, PMI, RI, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) level, RSRP, RSRQ, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), channel covariance matrix, interference level, interference covariance matrix, delta CQI, delta RSRP, delta RSRQ, and/or delta interference), or the UE may measure and report the general condition of the transmission (e.g., acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) or the probability of a decoding error)” see Chen: ¶[0111]) in order to enhance channel measurement (see Liu: ¶[0002]).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GUANG W LI whose telephone number is (571)270-1897. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7AM-5PMET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Avellino can be reached at (571) 272-3905. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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GUANG W. LI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2478
September 1, 2026
/GUANG W LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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