DETAILED ACTION
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 with respect to claims 1-4, 7-11, and 14-18 have 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.
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, 3, 8, 10, 15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhu et al (“Joint Design of Hybrid and Reflection Beamforming for RIS-Aided mmWave MIMO Communications", 2021 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GCWkshps), 24 January 2022, 6 pages; hereinafter Zhu) in view of Li et al (CN 113,258,980; hereinafter Li) in view of Haija et al (US 2024/0,405,807; hereinafter Haija) further in view of Moon et al (TW 202,135,379; hereinafter Moon).
Regarding claim 1, 8, and 15, Zhu disclose an apparatus, method implemented by a processor operably connected to a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) system that includes one or more RISs, and non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program comprising computer readable program code that when executed causes at least one processor to: establish a connection to a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) system that includes one or more RISs;
detect one or more wireless control signals from a transmitter (where an Nt-antenna transmitter transfers Ns data streams to an Nr antenna receiver, the transmitter precode the transmitted signal by a digital precoder and an analog precoder controlled by A bit low resolution phase shifters PSs, the transmitted signal is formulated as x = √PFAFDs, where P denotes transmit power, where the power constraint is enforced by normalizing FD; section II.A. col 1, line 25 - col 2, line 3); identify a channel state and one or more phases based on the detected one or more wireless control signals (the detected wireless signals has element FA which has an A bit quantized phase and a unit modulus and the RIS receiver channel Hr that receives the transmitted wireless signal has known channel state information; section II.A.; col 1, line 32 – col 2, line 21);
improve a beam-steering reflection matrix (Φ) of the RIS system based on a singular value decomposition of channel matrices, and configure the RIS system based on the beam-steering reflection matrix (Φ is defined as the RIS reflection matrix with joint optimization of analog beamforming FA, WA, and RIS reflection Φ by first considering fully digital beamformers F and W since they can be obtained via typical singular value decomposition of the effective channel matrix H = UΣVH where U is a unitary matrix Nr x Nr, V is an unitary matrix of dimension Nt x Nt, and Σ is a rectangular diagonal matrix of singular values, then the analog beamformer FA and WA can be designed with optimal phase θm,n of the element in the m-th row and n-th column of analog precoder FA given in formula (10) and optimal phase ϕm,n of the element in the m-th row and n-th column of analog combiner WA given in formula (11), and after repeating calculating θm,n and ϕm,n for all elements, the analog beamformers FA and WA can be designed, then with the obtained FA and WA, each element of the reflection matrix Φ is successively design with formula (16) and updating the analog beamformers and the RIS reflection matrix to maximize the spectral efficiency and digital beamforming is optimized through typical singular value decomposition to further improve the spectral efficiency; section II.A. col 2, line 16-17; section III.A. and III.B.);
wherein among the one or more RISs, each RIS is configured to redirect an incident electromagnetic (EM) signal toward an antenna array (Nr) of an intended receiver (RIS aided reflection link to redirect incident signal at RIS from Nt antenna array of transmitter; Fig. 1, section II.A. col 1, line 25 - col 2, line 10). Zhu do not explicitly disclose among the one or more RISs, the incident EM signal received from an antenna array of the transmitter at a wavelength (λ), wherein: in a vertical plane, a location of the RIS above ground differs from a vertical location of the transmitter by a height placement value; and in a horizontal plane, the location of the RIS is a first distance from the transmitter and a second distance from the receiver. In the same field of endeavor, Li disclose each RIS is configured to redirect an incident electromagnetic (EM) signal toward an antenna array of an intended receiver (paras. [0070]-[0071]; the incident EM signal received from an antenna array of the transmitter at a wavelength (λ) (¶ [0081]), wherein: in a vertical plane, a location of the RIS above ground differs from a vertical location of the transmitter (e.g. user) by a height placement value (zmD) and a vertical location of the receiver (e.g. base station) by a height placement value (zBm) (para. [0090]; and in a horizontal plane, the location of the RIS is a first horizontal distance (xmD) from the transmitter (e.g. user) and a dBm distance from the transmitter and a second horizontal distance (xBm) from the receiver (e.g. user) and a dBm distance from the receiver (paras. [0015], [0087], [0099]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so in order to select a suitable intelligent reflecting surface to provide an auxiliary link for the user which uses the distances from the RIS to the transmitter and receiver to compute the angle of arrival of the beamforming vector of the base station, channel gain and path loss from the smart reflector of the reflecting intelligent surface to achieve passive beamforming gain so that the information transmission rate from the base station to the user is improved to optimize communication performance (Li; paras. [0005], [0084]-[0093]). Zhu and Li do not explicitly disclose a receiver base station. In the same field of endeavor, Haija disclose the receiver is a base station (paras. [0068]-[0069]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reflect the signal to a receiver, that can be a base station in order for the RIS sense environment information and then feeds the environment information that has been sensed back to the network system so that the system may optimize transmission mode parameters and RIS parameters through smart radio channels (Haija, para. [0069]). Zhu, Li, and Haija do not disclose an antenna panel separation distance (dt) of the antenna array of the transmitter is related to an antenna panel separation distance (dr) of the antenna array of the receiver. In the same field of endeavor, Moon disclose an antenna panel separation distance (dt) of the antenna array of the transmitter is related to an antenna panel separation distance (dr) of the antenna array of the receiver (pg. 8, lines 1-24; Fig. 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so in order to have the antenna panels of the receiving antenna array and the transmitter antenna array have separation distances that are related with each other with respect to a center point to maximize communication throughput between the antenna panels and improve overall performance of the transmitter and receiver.
Regarding claim 3, 10 and 17, Zhu, Li, and Haija disclose the method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, 8, and 15 respectively, wherein the one or more RISs includes a first mirrored RIS that is among a pair of mirrored RISs that includes the first mirrored RIS and a second mirrored RIS (Haija; ¶ [0068]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so in order to provide enhanced reflective characteristics.
Claim 2, 4, 9, 11, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhu et al (“Joint Design of Hybrid and Reflection Beamforming for RIS-Aided mmWave MIMO Communications", 2021 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GCWkshps), 24 January 2022, 6 pages) in view of Li et al (CN 113,258,980) in view of Haija et al (US 2024/0,405,807) further in view of Fang (US 2020/0,028,262).
Regarding claim 2, 9, and 16, Zhu, Li, and Haija disclose the method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, 8, and 15 respectively, wherein they do not disclose a first RIS is from among the one or more RISs that extend a range between the transmitter and a receiving base station; the intended receiver of the first RIS is a second RIS among the one or more RISs; and the intended receiver of a last RIS among the one or more RISs is the receiver base station. In the same field of endeavor, Fang disclose a first RIS (310) is from among the one or more RISs (310, 312 of high gain relay antenna system 306, 408) that extend a range between the transmitter (302, 402) and a receiving base station (404; Fig. 4); the intended receiver of the first RIS (310) is a second RIS (312) among the one or more RISs; and the intended receiver of a last RIS (312) among the one or more RISs is the receiver base station (404) (¶ [0032]; Fig. 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so in order to provide a multiple reflect array configurations in the high gain relay antenna system to avoid spatial interference because the passive reflect arrays are optimally placed for the optimum orientations with both the base station and coverage areas wherein the positioning of the high gain relay antenna system enables the transmitter station to provide wireless coverage to the receiver station at a high gain, and thus, achieve the desired performance and wireless experience to users (Fang; para. [0020]). Fang do not explicitly disclose a last RIS and the receiver station is a base station. However, the examiner takes official notice that the one or more RISs may comprise a last, e.g. third RIS, and the receiver station is a base station. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so to facilitate the relaying of signals via the reflective intelligent surface from the transmitting source that may have been obstructed to a receiving network node, e.g. a base station, and to have another passive reflective array in the high gain relay antenna system to further extend the wireless range of the wireless transmitter, e.g. the base station 302, since it has been held that mere duplication of the essential working part of a device involves only routine skill in the art. St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8.
Regarding claim 4, 11, and 18, Zhu, Haija, and Li disclose the method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, 8, and 15 respectively, wherein they do not disclose the RIS includes a plurality of passive reflectors configured to reflect the incident EM signal at a predetermined phase such that the reflected signal propagates toward the intended receiver, and an arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS is identical to an arrangement of a plurality of antenna elements of the antenna array of the transmitter. In the same field of endeavor, Fang disclose the RIS includes a plurality of passive reflectors (passive reflective arrays 310, 312) configured to reflect the incident EM signal (304) at a predetermined phase such that the reflected signal propagates toward the intended receiver (308, 404) (Li; Figs. 2-4; paras. [0026], [0032]). Zhu, Haija, and Li do not specifically disclose an arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS is identical to an arrangement of a plurality of antenna elements of the antenna array of the transmitter. However, the examiner takes official notice that an arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS is identical to an arrangement of a plurality of antenna elements of the antenna array of the transmitter. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so since it has been held that rearranging parts of an invention, i.e. rearranging the antenna elements of the antenna array of the transmitter in a same manner as the arrangement of the passive reflectors in the RIS, involved only routine skill in the art. In re Japikse, 86 USPQ 70 (CCPA 1950).
Claims 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhu et al (“Joint Design of Hybrid and Reflection Beamforming for RIS-Aided mmWave MIMO Communications", 2021 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GCWkshps), 24 January 2022, 6 pages) in view of Li et al (CN 113,258,980) in view of Haija et al (US 2024/0,405,807) further in view of Chen et al (CN 113,746,578; hereinafter Chen).
Regarding claim 7 and 14, Zhu, Haija, and Li disclose the method and apparatus of claim 4 and 11 respectively, wherein the transmitter is a transmitter base station (Haija; paras. [0068]-[0069]. Fig. 1). Zhu, Li, and Haija do not disclose the arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS includes at least one of: a uniform rectangular array; or a circular array. In the same field of endeavor, Chen disclose the arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS includes at least one of: a uniform rectangular array; or a circular array (IRS is uniform rectangular array (UPA) where W represents the row number of the UPA antenna array, H represents the array number of the UPA antenna array, and m, n represents the m-th row, n-th column of the UPA antenna array, pg. 10, lines 25-26; pg. 14, lines 8-12). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so in order to have a particular shaped array, e.g. uniform rectangular or circular, since such an antenna array would have involved a mere modification in shape of a component which is generally recognized as being within the level of ordinary skill in the art.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 are 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.
Regarding claim 5, 12, and 19, Zhu, Li, Haija, and Fang disclose the method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4, 11, and 18 respectively, wherein the cited prior art fails to further disclose or fairly suggest the arrangement of the passive reflectors within the RIS includes a uniform linear array that includes a number (W) of reflector panels separated by a reflector panel separation distance (dRIS); W antenna panels of the antenna array of a transmitter are separated by the antenna panel separation distance (dt) that is equivalent to the dRIS; and each of the W reflector panels includes at least one passive reflector.
Regarding claim 6, 13 and 20, the cited prior art fails to further disclose or fairly suggest the method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 5, 12, and 19 respectively, wherein: among the W reflector panels, a first reflector panel includes a subset of the plurality of passive reflectors arranged as a uniform planer subarray having Nsub columns and Msub rows; within each of the columns of the subarray, adjacent passive reflectors are separated from each other by a columnar separation distance (dsubarray-RIS); among the W antenna panels, a first antenna panel includes a subset of the plurality of antenna elements arranged as an Nsub×Msub uniform planer subarray in which adjacent antenna elements within a single row are separated from each other by a row-wise separation distance (dsubarray); and the dsubarray and the dsubarray-RIS are equivalent to half the wavelength (λ/2).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LANA N LE whose telephone number is (571) 272-7891. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30am-4:30pm.
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/LANA N LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648