DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the pending claims, 30-35, 37-46, 49, received 25 August 2025. Accordingly, the detailed action of claims 30-35, 37-46, 49 is as follows:
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 25 August 2025 has been entered.
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 39-41, 44-46 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al (US 20240089773 A1, hereafter referred toas Matsumura) in view of Venugopal et al (US 20220007224 A1, hereafter referred to as Venugopal).
Regarding claim 39, Matsumura teaches a wireless device, comprising:
at least one antenna (Matsumura [Fig 22-230]);
at least one radio coupled to the at least one antenna (Matsumura [Fig 22-222]); and
one or more processor coupled to the at least one radio (Matsumura [Fig 22-210 and Fig 23-1001]); wherein the one or more processors are configured to cause the wireless device to:
receive, from a network device including at least a first Transmission and Reception Point (TRP) and a second TRP, a message (Matsumura [0247] teaches transmitting a CSI report configuration to a terminal, wherein the base station includes a plurality of TRPs) used for the wireless device to perform Layer 1 Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (L1-SINR) measurement (Matsumura [0089] teaches the resource configuration is for L1-SINR calculation);
wherein the message at least includes:
a first channel measurement resource (CMR) set including multiple first CMRs for the first TRP, and a first interference measurement resource (IMR) set including multiple first IMRs for the first TRP, which is corresponding to the first CMR set (Matsumura [0123 and 0129] discloses a first TRP associated with a set of CMRs and IMRs);
a second CMR set including multiple second CMRs for the second TRP, and a second IMR set including multiple second IMRs for the second TRP, which is corresponding to the second CMR set (Matsumura [0123 and 0129] teaches a second TRP associated with a set of CMRs and IMRs), wherein:
at least one of the first CMRs and the second CMRs includes Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) (Matsumura [0035-0036] teaches the RS used for CSI reporting includes CSI-RS and SSB) including periodic CSI-RS or semi-persistent CSI-RS (Matsumura [0093] teaches periodic or semi-persistent CSI is applied to each CSI report configuration), and at least one of the first IMRs and the second IMRs comprises a non-zero power (NZP) IMR (Matsumura [0108 and 0125] teaches using NZP-IMR), which includes the SSB or the CSI-RS (Matsumura [0105-106 and 0108] teaches using the SSB or CS-RS as the NZP-IMR for the second TRP) including the periodic CSI-RS or the semi-persistent CSI- RS (Matsumura [0093] teaches periodic or semi-persistent CSI is applied to each CSI report configuration); and
relation information, indicating a first relation between the first CMR set and the second IMR set, and a second relation between the second CMR set and the first IMR set (Matsumura [0125] discloses a specific RRC parameter configuration which indicates the CMR for another TRP as the NZP-IMR for the first TRP and CMR for the first TRP as the NZP-IMR for the other TRP);
receive additional information from the network device, wherein the additional information indicates configuring a first zero power (ZP) IMR for each of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and a second ZP IMR configured for each of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0095] teaches configuring two resource configurations wherein the second resource configuration is for interference measurement performed in a CSI-IM); and
perform the L1-SINR measurement with respect to multiple CMR pairs at least based on the received message (Matsumura [0121] teaches performing interference measurements for TRPs such that the UE measures N pairs of pieces of CSI form the two TRPs [0131]) and the additional information (Matsumura [0121] teaches performing interference measurements for TRPs such that the UE measures N pairs of pieces of CSI form the two TRPs [0131]), wherein the first ZP IMR and the second ZP IMR includes Channel State Information Interference Measurement (CSI-IM) (Matsumura [0095] discloses a CSI-IM or ZP-IMR [0118]), wherein the L1-SINR measurement is related to inter- beam interference for beams associated with the first TRP and the second TRP (Matsumura [0197-0198] teaches the measurement and report is related to pairs of beams from two TRPs).
However, Matsumura does not explicitly teach receiving [the additional information] in a second or separate or additional message (ie different from “the message”).
Venugopal, in an analogous art, teaches receiving the additional message (in a second or separate or additional message different from the message (Venugopal [Fig 16-16-4 and 0214] teaches receiving a message, after the configuration message [0210], wherein the update message indicates a mapping of CSI resource sets with report metrics, wherein the CSI resource sets include CMR resources and IMR resources [0202-0203, 0160-0161, 0125-0126, 0112]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Matsumura in view of Venugopal in order to configure the additional information, as taught by Matsumura, to be received in an additional or different message from the first message, as taught by Venugopal.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated in order to simplify the UE configuration for CSI reporting while minimizing consumed resources by avoiding multiple configuration messages from being transmitted (Venugopal [0007]).
Regarding claim 40, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the wireless device wherein:
each of the first CMRs in the first CMR set corresponds to one of the first IMRs in the first IMR set (Matsumura [0127-0128] teaches N CMR resources and N IMR resources wherein CMR resources are associated with IMR resources according to the order of the CMR and IMR resources [0084]), and each second CMRs in the second CMR set corresponds to one of the second IMRs in the second IMR set (Matsumura [0127-0128] teaches N CMR resources and N IMR resources wherein CMR resources are associated with IMR resources according to the order of the CMR and IMR resources [0084]); and
the relation information indicates Quasi Co-Location (QCL) relations between the first CMRs in the first CMR set and the second IMRs in the second IMR set, and QCL relations between the second CMRs in the second CMR set and the first IMRs in the first IMR set (Matsumura [0098-0099] teaches a resource for channel measurement (CMR) and a resource for interference measurement (IMR) are QCLed for each resource in the relation, wherein the CMR for a first TRP corresponds to the IMR for another TRP [0101, 0106 and 0125]).
Regarding claim 41, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the wireless device, wherein:
each CMR pair of the multiple CMR pairs for the L1-SINR measurement includes one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0130-0131]), and the first IMR in the first IMR set corresponding to the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set is QCLed with the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set, and the second IMR in the second IMR set corresponding to the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set is QCLed with the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set (Matsumura [0098-0099] teaches a resource for channel measurement (CMR) and a resource for interference measurement (IMR) are QCLed for each resource in the relation, wherein the CMR for a first TRP corresponds to the IMR for another TRP [0101, 0106 and 0125]).
Regarding claim 44, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the network device wherein:
the relation information indicates that the second CMR set is used as the first IMR set, and the first CMR set is used as the second IMR set (Matsumura [0101 and 0106] teaches the CMR for another TRP as the IMR for a first TRP and the CMR for the first TRP as the IMR for the other TRP), and each of the first CMRs in the first CMR set correspond to one the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0085 and 0131] teaches a one to one mapping between the CMR and IMR associated with each other).
Regarding claim 45, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 44, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the wireless device wherein:
each CMR pair of the multiple CMR pairs for the L1-SINR measurement includes one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0130-0131]), and the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set is used as a first selected IMR corresponding to the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set, and the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set is used as a second selected IMR corresponding to the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0101, 0105-0106 and 0125]).
Regarding claim 46, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the wireless device wherein:
performing the L1-SINR measurement includes:
for each CMR pair of the multiple CMR pairs including one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0131-132] discloses measuring N pairs and reporting after the measurement of each pair):
using one receive (Rx) beam to receive the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and one or more of the first IMRs in the first IMR set corresponding to the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set that is QCLed with the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0130-0131] teaches measuring the pieces of CSI from two TRPs wherein each pair includes a CMR associated with each TRP and IMR of the other TRP [0101, 0105-0106 and 0125], wherein the CMR and IMR are QCLed [0098-0099]); and
using another Rx beam to receive (Matsumura [0198] teaches the UE measures each CSI pair of beams from two TRPs) the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set and one or more of the second IMRs in the second IMR set corresponding to the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set that is QCLed with the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set (Matsumura [0130-0131] teaches measuring the pieces of CSI from two TRPs wherein each pair includes a CMR associated with each TRP and IMR of the other TRP [0101, 0105-0106 and 0125], wherein the CMR and IMR are QCLed [0098-0099]).
Claim 42-43 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al (US 20240089773 A1, hereafter referred to as Matsumura) in view of Venugopal et al (US 20220007224 A1, hereafter referred to as Venugopal) as applied above regarding claim 39, further in view of Zhang et al (WO 2020143748 A9, hereafter referred to Zhang).
Regarding claim 42, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the network device wherein the relation information indicates Quasi Co-Location (QCL) relations between the first CMRs in the first CMR set and the second IMRs in the second IMR set, and QCL relations between the second CMRs in the second CMR set and the first IMRs in the first IMR set (Matsumura [0098-0099] teaches a resource for channel measurement (CMR) and a resource for interference measurement (IMR) are QCLed for each resource in the relation, wherein the CMR for a first TRP corresponds to the IMR for another TRP [0101, 0106 and 0125]).
However, Matsumura-Venugopal does not explicitly teach the network device wherein:
at least one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set corresponds to multiple of the first IMRs in the first IMR set, or at least one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set corresponds to multiple of the second IMRs in the second IMR set.
Zhang, in an analogous art, teaches at least one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set corresponds to multiple of the first IMRs in the first IMR set, or at least one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set corresponds to multiple of the second IMRs in the second IMR set (Zhang [0117] teaches a configuration with one CMR and multiple IMRs).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Matsumura-Venugopal in view of Zhang in order to configure CMR and IMR relationship, as taught by Matsumura-Venugopal, include at least one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set corresponds to multiple of the first IMRs in the first IMR set, or at least one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set corresponds to multiple of the second IMRs in the second IMR set, as taught by Zhang.
Regarding claim 43, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 42, as rejected above.
Additionally, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the wireless device wherein:
each CMR pair of the multiple CMR pairs for the L1-SINR measurement includes one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set and one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set (Matsumura [0130-0131]), and
one of the first IMRs in the first IMR set corresponding to the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set is QCLed with the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set, and one of the second IMRs in the second IMR set corresponding to the one of the second CMRs in the second CMR set is QCLed with the one of the first CMRs in the first CMR set (Matsumura [0098-0099] teaches a resource for channel measurement (CMR) and a resource for interference measurement (IMR) are QCLed for each resource in the relation, wherein the CMR for a first TRP corresponds to the IMR for another TRP [0101, 0106 and 0125]).
KSR rationale B, simple substitution of one known element (a one-to-one relationship between CMR and IMR, as taught by Matsumura-Venugopal) for another known element (a one-to-many relationship between CMR and IMR, as taught by Zhang) in order to yield predictable results (perform measurement of reference signals and report to a network node) supports the conclusion of obviousness.
Claim 49 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al (US 20240089773 A1, hereafter referred to as Matsumura) in view of Venugopal et al (US 20220007224 A1, hereafter referred to as Venugopal) as applied above regarding claim 39, further in view of Kim et al (US 20220256561 A1, hereafter referred to as Kim).
Regarding claim 49, Matsumura-Venugopal teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
However, Matsumura-Venugopal does not explicitly teach the wireless device wherein the wireless device is further configured to: for another CMR pair which does not belong to the multiple CMR pairs used to perform the L1-SINR measurement: do not generate a first report of the LI -SINR measurement for the another CMR pair: or generate a second report of the L1-SINR measurement for the another CMR pair. and the second report does not include information related to the inter-beam interference for the beams associated with the first TRP and the second TRP.
Kim, in an analogous art, teaches the wireless device wherein the wireless device is further configured to:
for another CMR pair which does not belong to the multiple CMR pairs used to perform the L1-SINR measurement (Kim [0273 and 0008] teaches one or more CRMS used to derive CSI, wherein any CMR included in the one or more CMR pairs is not used to derive the CSI):
do not generate a first report of the LI -SINR measurement for the another CMR pair; or
generate a second report of the L1-SINR measurement for the another CMR pair and the second report does not include information related to the inter-beam interference for the beams associated with the first TRP and the second TRP (Kim [0301, 0304] teaches CSI reporting using only CMRs that do not belong to CMR pairs).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Matsumura-Venugopal in view of Kim in order to configure the wireless device, as taught by Matsumura-Venugopal, to generate a second report of the L1-SINR measurement for the another CMR pair. and the second report does not include information related to the inter-beam interference for the beams associated with the first TRP and the second TRP for another CMR pair which does not belong to the multiple CMR pairs used to perform the L1-SINR measurement, as taught by Kim.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to perform more suitable link adaptation and improve the wireless communication system performance (Kim [0012]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 30-35, 37-38 allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: prior art of record fails to teach neither singly nor in combination, the claimed limitations of “generate a message used for a wireless device to perform Layer 1 Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (L1-SINR) measurement, wherein the message is generated based on priori information, which includes at least a report of previous L1 Reference Signal Received Power (L1-RSRP) measurement performed by the wireless device associated with the first TRP and the second TRP……relation information, indicating a first relation between the first CMR set and the second IMR set, and a second relation between the second CMR set and the first IMR set; update the message based on a relation information change included in the message and a change of the priori information” as stated in claim 30. After search and consideration these limitations in conjunction with other limitations in the independent claims are not specifically disclosed or remotely suggested in the prior art of record. A review of claims 30-35, 37-38 indicated claims 30-35 and 37-38 are allowable over the prior art of record.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 39-46 and 49have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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SHEAN TOKUTA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2446
/SHEAN TOKUTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2419
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