DETAILED ACTION
This is a first Office action on the merits to the application filed 04/15/2023. Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 7, 9, 11 and 17 are objected to because of the following informalities:
All numerical references in both Claims 1 and 11 need to be removed per MPEP requirements. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 1 recites “ selecting, by a resource de-mapper at the receiver, …sequence or and the PUSCH payload…”. Applicant may mean “and/or” . For examination purposes, this limitation is interpreted to mean “and/or”. Applicant should correct.
Claim 1 recites “ liner or DFT interpolator to estimate…”. Applicant may mean “linear”. For examination purposes, this limitation is interpreted to mean “linear”. Applicant should correct.
Claims 7 and 17 recites “OCC re-spreading”. Applicant should define “OCC”. For examination purposes, “OCC” is interpreted to mean orthogonal cover code. Applicant should correct.
Claims 9 recites “… buffer status of the uplink PDI from the higher layers.” Without defining “PDI”. Applicant should correct.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 6, 10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 6 recites the limitation "the Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper " in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Applicant may correct this by changing this limitation to “a Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper”.
Claim 10 and 20 recites the limitation "the PUSCH data " in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Applicant may correct this by changing this limitation to “a PUSCH data”.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 2020/0162208), hereinafter “Moon”, in view of Yamada et al. (US 2020/0336355), hereinafter “Moon”, in further view of Li et al. (US 2019/0158206), hereinafter “Li”.
Regarding claim 1, Moon teaches:
A method of enabling transmission of uplink signal in a Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) system through dynamic DM-RS port allocation in a 5G New Radio network (Fig. 1. 5G network with base station 110-2 supporting MU-MIMO transmission with terminals 130-4, 130-5 [0058]. ), the method comprising:
transmitting (504) the scheduling information as Downlink Control Indicator (DCI) payload bits over a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) to the one or more paired UEs ([0093-0098]: PDCCH transport used to transmit UL grant (resource allocation and scheduling information [Abstract]) to UE/device [see Fig. 3), that schedules the first PUSCH instance. [0141, 0157]: When a PUSCH is scheduled by a DCI with a CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI, a configured grant may be used. ) ;
Demultiplexing (506), by a demultiplexer (UEDE-MUX), one of more paired UEs of the plurality of UE's based on the scheduling information (Fig. 3, [0093-0097]. Fig 4A [0099-0102]: A first PUSCH instance, and a second PUSCH instance is illustrated, where the second PUSCH instance is different than the first, and is allocated time-frequency resources that are in symbol 10 -13 in Fig. 3, and 1-4 in Fig 4A. These two PUSCH indicate separated transmissions to separate UEs indicated by the UL grant (scheduling information) in the PDCCH, in symbol 8 location. Separation or de-muxing of the paired UEs as indicated by the two separate PUSCH allocations is performed by the controller/processor: receive resource allocation information of the plurality of PUSCH [0021-0026], and identify a position of each of the plurality PUSCHs in a time domain). ;
performing (508) a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) Modulation based on the scheduling information extracted from the PDCCH from the one or more paired UEs ([0093-0098]: PDCCH transport used to transmit UL grant (resource allocation and scheduling information [Abstract]) to UE/device [see Fig. 3), that schedules the first PUSCH instance. [0141, 0157]: When a PUSCH is scheduled by a DCI with a CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI, a configured grant may be used. );
performing (510) Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) encoding and bit processing of the DCI payload bits obtained from each of the one or more ([0093-0098]: PDCCH transport used to transmit UL grant (resource allocation and scheduling information [Abstract]) to UE/device [see Fig. 3), that schedules the first PUSCH instance. [0141, 0157]: When a PUSCH is scheduled by a DCI with a CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI, a configured grant may be used. );
Moon does not teach:
creating (502), by a priority Quality of Service (QoS) scheduler, a scheduling information and a scheduling decision for MU-MIMO Scheduling of a plurality of User equipment's (UE's);
demultiplexing (506), by a demultiplexer (UEDE-MUX), one of more paired UEs of the plurality of UE's based on the scheduling information;
performing (512), at a receiver, at least one of data modulation mapping, layer mapping, precoding and resource mapping of a processed DCI payload bit data;
performing (514) antenna resource remapping and beam combining on the PUSCH channel; and
selecting (516), by a resource de-mapper at the receiver, DM-RS references from a received DM-RS sequence or and the PUSCH payload for channel estimation; and
obtaining (518), by a channel estimator unit, at the receiver improved channel estimates by dynamically reducing a despreading factor in Variable Spreading Factor Orthogonal Cover Code (VSFOCC) based on a Partial port occupancy (P-Poi) at a Base-station, wherein
the channel estimates obtained are interpolated (520) using a liner or DFT interpolator to estimate the channel over NPRBsubcarriers.
However, Yamada in a similar endeavor discloses receiver and transmitter procedures for processing downlink control information in the PDCCH for PUSCH and DMRS transmission involving a number of code division multiplexing groups, teaches:
creating (502), by a priority Quality of Service (QoS) scheduler, a scheduling information and a scheduling decision for MU-MIMO Scheduling of a plurality of User equipment's (UE's) (Yamada [0100]: Scheduling unit 1012 (see Fig. 2, base station) determines a frequency and subframe to which PUSCH (and PDSCH are allocated, the coding rate and a modulation scheme (MCS), the transmit power and the like. [0102]: Unit 102 generates the DCI that includes the information to be used for scheduling the PUSCH which is then sent to transmitter for coding, modulation and transmission to the terminal device [0103].);
performing (512), at a receiver, at least one of data modulation mapping ([0132]: Modulation unit 2032 (see Fig. 3) in the transmitter of the UE device that received the DCI signal from the base station, modulates the coded bits input from the coding unit 2031, in compliance with a modulation scheme that is notified in the downlink control information. ) ,
performing (514) antenna resource remapping and beam combining on the PUSCH channel ([0134]: Multiplexing unit 2034 in the UE device multiplexes the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated uplink reference signal (e.g. DM-RS) for each transmit antenna port, that is, the unit maps the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated reference signals to resource elements for each transmit antenna port.) ; and
selecting (516), by a resource de-mapper at the receiver, DM-RS references from a received DM-RS sequence or the PUSCH payload for channel estimation ([0111]: the demultiplexing unit 1042 (see Fig. 2, base station) demultiplexes the signals input from the receiver 1041 into signals such as the PUSCH and uplink reference signals (e.g. DM-RS uplink signal when combined. Reference signals are used by the measurement unit 205 [0129] to generate channel estimates that are used by the demultiplexing unit 2041 for channel compensation for the PDCCH [0127]. See Fig. 2.); and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Moon and Yamada do not teach:
obtaining (518), by a channel estimator unit, at the receiver improved channel estimates by dynamically reducing a de-spreading factor in Variable Spreading Factor Orthogonal Cover Code (VSFOCC) based on a Partial port occupancy (P-Poi) at a Base-station, wherein
the channel estimates obtained are interpolated (520) using a liner or DFT interpolator to estimate the channel over NPRBsubcarriers.
However, Li in a similar endeavor discloses a method for a device to generate and output a DM-RS signal according to DM-RS configurations using respective OCCs, and a second device receiving the DM-RS signal and estimating channel using the DM-RS configurations in a MU-MIMO network, teaches:
obtaining (518), by a channel estimator unit, at the receiver improved channel estimates by dynamically reducing a de-spreading factor in Variable Spreading Factor Orthogonal Cover Code (VSFOCC) based on a Partial port occupancy (P-Poi) at a Base-station (Fig. 6. OCC channel estimator 613 in receiver, to process DM-RS (OCC-x) signal(s). [0179-0192]: See Fig. 16. Apparatus [0180] (e.g. eNB or terminal device) configures or selects, at 1608, a DM-RS source configuration, using respective OCCs, for transmissions, to second device, using RRC signaling. This equates to the terminal UE device generating and modulating the DM-RS signal for PUSCH transmission, using OCCs. [0181-0182]: Apparatus transmits message 1612 indicating one or more prescribed DM-RA antenna port configurations to the second device, e.g. eNB. At 1614/1616 the message associated with the DM-RS antenna port resource configuration is received, and process the DM-RS signal according to the DM-RS mapping. [0183]: At 1618, Apparatus transits to second device one or more DM-RS signal, that is spread using orthogonal cover codes, over one or more antenna ports according to the DM-RS resource configuration previously sent. [0184]: Second device at 1620 receives and decodes the DM-RS signal per DM-RS resource configuration, i.e. dispreading the orthogonal cover codes, to extract the DM-RS signal. The number of types of OCC is used differently in the channel estimation process, namely UE with OCC-2 can be scheduled over two antenna ports, while UE with OCC-4 can be scheduled over four antenna ports [0008].), wherein
the channel estimates obtained are interpolated (520) using a liner or DFT interpolator to estimate the channel over NPRBsubcarriers ([0088]: Li teaches interpolation after channel estimation can further refine the channel estimation for improved use. Linear interpolation using the channel interpolation filter such as a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) filter, to yield a relatively accurate final estimation. See equation 00004, [0084]:
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Li into the method of Moon and Yamada in order to adapt improved method for processing the DM-RS signal received from the transmitter ( Li teaches in Fig. 16 [0179-0192] that the method can be implemented from a apparatus acting as a transmitter, sending DM-RS that are OCC’ed, to another apparatus acting as a receiver, that de-spreads the DM-RS signal, in support of a CDM arrangement, for channel estimation, and then further refining the estimation using linear interpolation, as an adaptation and refinement for a more accurate channel estimation [0088].
Regarding claim 2, Moon does not teach:
inputting the determined channel estimates to an equalizer module and
performing one or more of demodulation, scrambling, Low-Density Parity- Check (LDPC) processing and CRC detachment of the inputted channel estimates.
However, Yamada teaches:
inputting the determined channel estimates to an equalizer module (Fig. 2. Base station transmitter 103 collects measurement unit 106 output [0115] including RSRP/RSRQ/RSSI, received power, reception quality, etc. which the transmitter uses as channel estimation information to code 1031, modulated 1032 and multiplex 1034 the DCI, payload and/or reference signal for transmission [0103-0114]. The coding unit 1031, modulation 1032 and multiplexing unit 1034 singly and/or combined in some degree function as the equivalent or substitute for an “equalizer module”.)and
performing one or more of demodulation, scrambling, Low-Density Parity- Check (LDPC) processing and CRC detachment of the inputted channel estimates (Fig. 3. Terminal unit. [0130-0137]: Transmitter 203 of the terminal processes the uplink data and uplink reference signal, through coding unit 2031 (for LDPC coding) [0131], modulation unit 2032 (for modulation) [0132], multiplexing unit 2034 and transmitter unit 2035. .
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Regarding claim 3, Moon does not teach:
scheduling decisions comprises at least one of user pairing details, user layers, Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) assignment and resource assignment across time frequency grids.
However, Yamada teaches:
scheduling decisions comprises at least one of ([0104]: modulation unit 1032 modulated the coded bits input in compliance with modulation scheme determined by radio resource unit 1011/higher layer processing unit 101 (see Fig. 2)and resource assignment across time frequency grids.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Regarding claim 4, Moon does not teach:
bit processing comprises at least one of Code Block segmentation, LDPC Encoding, Rate-Matching, Code-block concatenation and Scrambling at ULSCH (Uplink transport block).
However, Yamada teaches:
bit processing comprises at least LDPC Encoding ([0131]: the coding unit 2031 (see Fig. 3in the UE transmitter starts the encoding process of the payload data to include LDPC encoding, Polar coding, and the like),.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Regarding claim 6, Moon does not teach:
wherein the Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper performs port assignment for reference signal (DM-RS) ports based on a Scheduling Information structure, where the Scheduling Information structure to assign the DM-RS ports comprises data layers, allocated MCS and the number of antenna ports.
However, Yamada teaches:
wherein the Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper performs port assignment for reference signal (DM-RS) ports based on a Scheduling Information structure, where the Scheduling Information structure to assign the DM-RS ports comprises data layers, allocated MCS and the number of antenna ports. ([0134]: Multiplexing unit 2034 in the UE device multiplexes the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated uplink reference signal (e.g. DM-RS) for each transmit antenna port, that is, the unit maps the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated reference signals to resource elements for each transmit antenna port. [0132]: Modulation unit 2032 in the UE modulates the coded bits in compliance with modulation scheme notified in the downlink control information. Together the 2034 multiplexing unit and the 2032 modulation unit serve to interpret (equates to Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper function) the DCI signaling information to modulate and generate the PUSCH with DM-RS signal for each transmit antenna port, also identified as data layers.) ; and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Regarding claim 7, Moon and Yamada do not teach:
channel estimation is performed through at least one of least square, OCC de-spreading, frequency domain interpolation and denoising and time axis interpolation of DMRS reference signals.
However, Li teaches:
channel estimation is performed through at least one of [0183]: At 1618, Apparatus transits to second device one or more DM-RS signal, that is spread using orthogonal cover codes, over one or more antenna ports according to the DM-RS resource configuration previously sent. [0184]: Second device at 1620 receives and decodes the DM-RS signal per DM-RS resource configuration, i.e. dispreading the orthogonal cover codes (OCCs), to extract the DM-RS signal, to be used for channel estimation and interpolation. ([0088]: Li teaches interpolation after channel estimation can further refine the channel estimation for improved use. Linear interpolation using the channel interpolation filter such as a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) filter, to yield a relatively accurate final estimation. See equation 00004, [0084].)
Regarding claim 8, Moon does not teach:
the PUSCH resources to be mapped to time-frequency grid is derived from the Scheduling Information.
However, Yamada teaches:
the PUSCH resources to be mapped to time-frequency grid is derived from the Scheduling Information. ([0132]: Modulation unit 2032 (see Fig. 3) in the transmitter of the UE device that received the DCI signal from the base station, modulates the coded bits input from the coding unit 2031, in compliance with a modulation scheme that is notified in the downlink control information. Additionally ([0134]: Multiplexing unit 2034 in the UE device multiplexes the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated uplink reference signal (e.g. DM-RS) for each transmit antenna port, that is, the unit maps the PUSCH and PUCCH signals and the generated reference signals to resource elements for each transmit antenna port.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Regarding claim 9, Moon teaches:
the priority QoS scheduler creates the scheduling information based on the PHY measurements and buffer status of the uplink PDI from the higher layers ([0100-0103]: Scheduling unit 1012 determines time-frequency resources (in a subframe) to which the PDSCH and PUSCH are allocated MCS, transmit power and the like. Controller 102 processes the scheduling unit output, with information from the measurement unit 106 (see Fig. 2), into input to the transmitter 103 that then generates the transmission signal (DCI over PDCCH).
Regarding claim 10, Moon does not teach:
the PUSCH data generated from the one or more UEs are combined through a Precoder, mapped to antennae through Antenna Mapping and subjected to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) Modulation and Radio Processing at the UE.
However, Yamada teaches:
PUSCH data generated from the one or more UEs are combined through a Precoder ([0131]: the coding unit 2031 (see Fig. 3) in the UE transmitter starts the encoding process of the payload data to include LDPC encoding, Polar coding, and the like), mapped to antennae through Antenna Mapping and subjected to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) Modulation ([0132]: Modulation unit 2032 (see Fig. 3) in the transmitter of the UE device that received the DCI signal from the base station, modulates the coded bits input from the coding unit 2031, in compliance with a modulation scheme that is notified in the downlink control information. ) and Radio Processing ([0135]: Radio transmitting unit 2035 prepares the signals from the multiplexer for IF and RF transmission (modulation of the OFDM scheme) at the transmit antenna(s) at the UE.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yamada into the method of Moon in order to adapt simplified receive processing and transmit processing with PUSCH that can be payload data only and/or DM-RS signaling for channel estimation, for improving reliability, frequency utilization efficiency or throughput in the case of performing beamforming transmission [0009], Yamada.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 5 recites limitations related to a HARQ process for each TB by storing a different RV of the data for each ULSCH (uplink transport block) for re-transmission, AND scheduling HARQ re-transmission based on CRC failure AND data corresponding to HARQ data maintained in a HARQ buffer. There are no explicit teachings to the above limitations found in the prior art cited in this office action and from the prior art search, particularly the ULSCH transport block adapting to HARQ input ( different RV value) followed by re-transmission based on CRC failure.
Claims 11 -20 are allowed.
Reasons for Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: No prior art was found to anticipate nor render obvious elements of independent claim 11 (and by extension their respective dependent claims.)
Regarding claim 11, no new art was found that would teach or suggest the claim, in particular,
“A Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) system (400) for enabling transmission of uplink signal through dynamic DM-RS port allocation in a 5G New Radio (NR) network, the system comprising: a transmitter (402) comprising of:
a priority Quality of Service (QoS) scheduler (404) to:
generate a scheduling information and a scheduling decision for MU- MIMO Scheduling of a plurality of User equipment's (UE's); transmit the scheduling information as Downlink Control Indicator (DCI) payload bits over a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) to one or more paired UEs;
a demultiplexer (UEDE-MUX) (406) to demultiplex one of more paired UEs of the plurality of UE's based on the scheduling information;
a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) Modulation unit (408) to perform a PUSCH modulation based on the scheduling information extracted from the PDCCH from the one or more paired UEs;
a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) Unit (410) to perform Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) encoding and bit processing of the DCI payload bits obtained from each of the one or more paired UEs; and
a receiver comprising of:
a Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper Unit (416) to:
perform at least one of data modulation mapping, layer mapping, precoding and resource mapping of a processed DCI payload bit data; perform antenna resource remapping and beam combining on the PUSCH channel; and select DM-RS references from a received DM-RS sequence or and the PUSCH payload for channel estimation; and
a channel estimator unit (418) to obtain improved channel estimates by dynamically reducing a de-spreading factor in Variable Spreading Factor Orthogonal Cover Code (VSFOCC) based on a Partial port occupancy (P-Poi) at a Base-station,
an interpolator (420) to interpolate the channel estimates obtained to estimate the channel over NPRB subcarriers.”
The prior art fails to teach the hardware structure of the transmitter comprising of a priority Quality of Service (QoS) scheduler, a demultiplexer (UEDE-MUX), a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) Modulation unit, and a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) Unit. Furthermore, the prior art fails to teach the hardware structure of the receiver comprising of a Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper Unit, a channel estimator unit, and an interpolator.
The closest prior art Moon ( US 2020/0162208) does not teach the hardware structure of a demultiplexer (UEDE-MUX), a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) Modulation unit, and a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) Unit, and the Scheduling Aware UE Port Mapper Unit.
As no prior art teaches or suggests all elements of independent claim 11, all of independent claim 1’s dependent claims are also considered allowable.
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.”
Conclusion
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/R.M./Examiner, Art Unit 2461
/HUY D VU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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