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 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 17-24, 42-43 and 49 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.
In regards to claims 17-24, 42-43 and 49 parent claims 13 and 37 recite and require that explicit antenna switching is not indicated. However, claims 17-24 recite examples of explicit antenna switching; for example claim 17 recites “how many receive chains are associated with a transmit chain”; claim 21 recites “one or more ASCs at least comprise t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6”.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 13-14, 16-17, 19, 37-38, 40-41 and 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Go et al. (US Publication 2022/0201696 A1) as stated above, and further in view of Hu et al. (CN 111464275 A).
In regards to claims 1 and 13, Go et al. teaches, method performed by a wireless device comprising up to eight transmit and receive chains, the method comprising: obtaining a sounding reference signal (SRS) antenna switching capability of the wireless device, the antenna switching capability including and an indication that the wireless device supports unbalanced antenna switching (see paragraph 271; a case where a panel switching capability of a 2-panel UE is “1Tp2Rp”, and “1T2R” is supported in a first panel and “1T4R” is supported in a second panel for each panel is assumed. In this case, in the capability related to the SRS resource setting for the panel switching; paragraph 227; the capability of the UE related to the antenna switching may be ‘1T2R’, ‘2T4R’, ‘1T4R’, ‘1T4R/2T4R’, ‘1T1R’, ‘2T2R’, ‘4T4R’, etc. Here, ‘mTnR’ may mean a UE capability supporting m transmissions and n receptions; the 1T2R, 2T4R, 1T4R read on the unbalance antenna switching); transmitting the SRS antenna switching capability to a network node (see paragraph 271; the UE may be configured to report, to the BS, integrated capability information by considering hierarchies of the panel switching and the antenna switching as in {“1Tp2Rp” with “1T2R” for panel0 and “1T4R” for panel1}; see paragraph 279; UE may report, to the BS, capability information such as {“1Tp2Rp” with “1T2R” for panel0 and “1T4R” for panel1, whether the SRS resource set of each panel may be simultaneously transmitted; see); and receiving, from the network node, a SRS configuration for one or more SRS resource sets based on at least the unbalanced antenna switching indication (see paragraph 271; the BS may configure/indicate, to the UE, the SRS for the panel switching and the antenna switching corresponding to the corresponding capability information).
In further regards to claims 1 and 13, Go fails to teach, the unbalance antennal switching not being explicitly indicated; thus Go fails to teach, the indication being an indication without indicating how many receive chains are associated with each transmit chain.
Hu et al. (CN 111464275 A) however teaches, the indication being an indication without indicating how many receive chains are associated with each transmit chain (the terminal may use the same number of receiving antennas as the maximum number of layers of the MIMO indicated by the first indication signaling to receive, that is, the number of receiving antennas is implicitly indicated (see the highlighted section of the HU CN 111464275 A publication)).
Go and Hu are both related to antenna switching.
Therefore it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the implicit indication as taught by Hu into teachings of Go. The motivation to do so would be to save resources by allow for an implicit indication that provides reduced latency, lower overhead and channel reciprocity.
In regards to claim 37, Go teaches, a network node comprising processing circuitry operable to: receive a sounding reference signal (SRS) antenna switching capability from a wireless device comprising up to eight transmit and receive chains, the antenna switching capability comprising an indication that the wireless device supports unbalanced antenna switching (see paragraph 271; a case where a panel switching capability of a 2-panel UE is “1Tp2Rp”, and “1T2R” is supported in a first panel and “1T4R” is supported in a second panel for each panel is assumed. In this case, in the capability related to the SRS resource setting for the panel switching; paragraph 227; the capability of the UE related to the antenna switching may be ‘1T2R’, ‘2T4R’, ‘1T4R’, ‘1T4R/2T4R’, ‘1T1R’, ‘2T2R’, ‘4T4R’, etc. Here, ‘mTnR’ may mean a UE capability supporting m transmissions and n receptions; the 1T2R, 2T4R, 1T4R read on the unbalance antenna switching); transmitting the SRS antenna switching capability to a network node (see paragraph 271; the UE may be configured to report, to the BS, integrated capability information by considering hierarchies of the panel switching and the antenna switching as in {“1Tp2Rp” with “1T2R” for panel0 and “1T4R” for panel1}; see paragraph 279; UE may report, to the BS, capability information such as {“1Tp2Rp” with “1T2R” for panel0 and “1T4R” for panel1, whether the SRS resource set of each panel may be simultaneously transmitted; see); determine a SRS configuration for one or more SRS resource sets based on at least the unbalanced antenna switching indication and transmit the SRS configuration to the wireless device (see paragraph 271; the BS may configure/indicate, to the UE, the SRS for the panel switching and the antenna switching corresponding to the corresponding capability information).
In further regards to claim 37, Go fails to teach, the unbalance antennal switching not being explicitly indicated; thus Go fails to teach, the indication being an indication without indicating how many receive chains are associated with each transmit chain.
Hu et al. (CN 111464275 A) however teaches, the indication being an indication without indicating how many receive chains are associated with each transmit chain (the terminal may use the same number of receiving antennas as the maximum number of layers of the MIMO indicated by the first indication signaling to receive, that is, the number of receiving antennas is implicitly indicated (see the highlighted section of the HU CN 111464275 A publication)).
Go and Hu are both related to antenna switching.
Therefore it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the implicit indication as taught by Hu into teachings of Go. The motivation to do so would be to save resources by allow for an implicit indication that provides reduced latency, lower overhead and channel reciprocity.
In regards to claims 14 and 38, Go teaches, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further indicates the wireless device supports balanced antenna switching (paragraph 227; the capability of the UE related to the antenna switching may be ‘1T2R’, ‘2T4R’, ‘1T4R’, ‘1T4R/2T4R’, ‘1T1R’, ‘2T2R’, ‘4T4R’, etc. Here, ‘mTnR’ may mean a UE capability supporting m transmissions and n receptions; the 1T1R, 2T2R, 4T4R read on the balance antenna switching).
In regards to claims 16 and 40, Go teaches, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further indicates the wireless device supports single or partial antenna switching (see paragraph 225; in the case of a terminal with a partial reciprocity, SRS transmission based on antenna switching (i.e., transmission antenna switching) may be supported for downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) acquisition through the SRS transmission in a situation such as time division duplex (TDD)).
In regards to claims 17 and 41, Go teaches, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further comprises one or more antenna switching configuration (ASCs) indicating how may receive chains are associated with a transmit chain (see paragraph 227; ‘mTnR’ may mean a UE capability supporting m transmissions and n receptions).
In regards to claims 19 and 43, Go teaches, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further indicates that one transmit chain is fixed to one antenna and the transmit chain may transmit with repetition (see paragraph 227; ‘1T1R’).
Claim(s) 18, 20-24, 42 and 49 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Go and Hu, and further in view of Shi et al. (US Publication 2022/0369214 A1).
In regards to claims 18 and 42, Go and Hu teaches, all the limitations of the parent claim as stated above.
Go and Hu however fail to teach, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further indicates that one of the up to eight transmit chains may be switched between antennas and the remaining transmit chains of the up to eight transmit chains are each fixed to one antenna.
Shi however teaches, Shi teaches, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability indicates that one of the up to eight transmit chains may be switched between antennas and the remaining transmit chains of the up to eight transmit chains are each fixed to one antenna (see figure 13, PA0 transmit chain can correspond to any of the 8 receiving changes and each the PA1-PA7 transmit chains only correspond the corresponding 7 receiving chains on a one to one basis).
Go, Hu and Shi all relate to UE antenna switching capability.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the receive chains as taught by Shi into the teachings of Go and Hu. The motivation to do so would be optimize uplink performance by improving coverage and throughput since the gNB can using the capability for more accurate beamforming.
In regards to claim 20, Go and Hu teach all the limitations of the parent claim as stated above.
Go and Hu however fail to teach, wherein the SRS antenna switching capability further indicates that one or more transmit chains of the up to eight transmit chains are not used.
Shi teaches wireless device of claim 15 wherein the SRS antenna switching capability indicates that one or more transmit chains of the up to eight transmit chains are not used (see paragraph 431; it is implicit that in 1T6R ASC, the two receiving antennas will not be used).
Go,Hu and Shi both relate to UE antenna switching capability.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the receive chains as taught by Shi into the teachings of Go and Hu. The motivation to do so would be optimize uplink performance by improving coverage and throughput since the gNB can using the capability for more accurate beamforming.
In regards to claims 21-24, Go and Hu teaches all the limitations of the parent claims as stated above.
Go and Hu however fail to teach, Shi teaches, wherein the one or more ASCs at least comprise tlrl-tlr2-tlr4-tlr6, wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4-t4r8, tlrl-tlr2-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4-t4r6, tlrl-tlr2-t2r2-t2r4-t2r6, tlrl-tlr2-tlr4-t2r2-t2r4-t2r6-t2r8, and tirl-tlr2-tlr4-tlr6-tlr8, wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4- t1r6-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r6-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r8-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2- t1r4-t1r8-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4, and t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4 and wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-tlr4-t2r4-tlr6-t2r6, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8, t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-t1r4-t2r4-t1r6-t2r6-t1r8-t2r8, and t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-tlr4-t2r4-t1r6-t2r6-t1r8-t2r8-t4r8.
Shi however teaches, wherein the one or more ASCs at least comprise tlrl-tlr2-tlr4-tlr6 (see paragraphs 336 and 340; antenna switching capabilities indicated by the first UE capability, that is, reporting antenna switching capabilities: ‘t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6’. [0340] 1T1R, 1T2R, 1T4R, 1T6R (t1r1, t1r2, t1r4, t1r6)), wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4-t4r8 (see paragraph 195; reporting antenna switching capabilities: ‘t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4-t4r8), tlrl-tlr2-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4-t4r6, tlrl-tlr2-t2r2-t2r4-t2r6, tlrl-tlr2-tlr4-t2r2-t2r4-t2r6-t2r8, and tirl-tlr2-tlr4-tlr6-tlr8, wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t2r2 (see paragraph 152; reporting antenna switching capabilities: ‘t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t2r2-t2r4-t2r8’), t1r1-t1r2-t1r4- t1r6-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r6-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r8-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8-t2r2, t1r1-t1r2- t1r4-t1r8-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4, and t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8-t2r2-t2r4-t4r4 and wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least one of t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-tlr4-t2r4-tlr6-t2r6 (see paragraph 264; [0264] 1T1R, 1T2R, 1T3R, 1T4R, 1T5R, 1T6R, 1T6R, 1T7R, 1T8R, 2T2R, 2T4R, 2T6R, 2T8R, 4T4R, 4T8R), t1r1-t1r2-t1r4-t1r6-t1r8, t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-t1r4-t2r4-t1r6-t2r6-t1r8-t2r8, and t1r1-t1r2-t2r2-tlr4-t2r4-t1r6-t2r6-t1r8-t2r8-t4r8.
Go, Hu and Shi both relate to UE antenna switching capability.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the receive chains as taught by Shi into the teachings of Go and Hu. The motivation to do so would be optimize uplink performance by improving coverage and throughput since the gNB can using the capability for more accurate beamforming.
In regards to claim 49, Go and Hu teach all the limitations of the parent claims as stated above.
Go and Hu however fails to teach, wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least t1r1-t1r3.
Shi however teaches, wherein the one or more ASCs comprise at least t1r1-t1r3 (see paragraph 166; t1r1, t1r2, t1r3).
Go, Hu and Shi both relate to UE antenna switching capability.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the receive chains as taught by Shi into the teachings of Go and Hu. The motivation to do so would be optimize uplink performance by improving coverage and throughput since the gNB can using the capability for more accurate beamforming.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended claim language have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection under 35 USC 103 presented above.
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.
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/JAY P PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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