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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter because A computer program product, per se is ineligible under 35 USC 101, because it does not fall under a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. Paragraph 0079 defines a computer program 430 comprising computer instructions (i.e. software). Functional descriptive material may be statutory if it resides on a "computer readable medium or computer-readable memory. The claim indicate a of lack structure, and do not define a computer readable medium and are thus non-statutory for that reason (i.e." When functional descriptive material is recorded on some computer-readable medium it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the function of the descriptive material to be realized." -Guidelines Annex IV). The scope of the presently claimed invention encompasses products that are not necessarily computer readable, and thus Not able to impart any functionality of the recited program. The examiner suggests:
1. Amending the claims(s) to embody the program on "Non-transitory computer-readable medium" or equivalent; assuming the specification does Not define the computer readable medium as a "signal", "carrier wave", or "transmission medium" which are deemed non-statutory; or
2. Adding structure to the body of the claim that would clearly define a statutory apparatus.
Any amendment to the claims should be commensurate with its corresponding disclosure.
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.
Claim(s) 1,3,4,14,17 and 27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Opshaug et al. (US 2017/0134128) in view of Chen et al. (WO 2014121697 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Chen et al. discloses a method (fig. 4B) for detecting (i.e. ameliorate effects of interference or jamming introduce by the second downlink signal) signal jamming in a cellular communication network (abstract), be characterized by comprising: determining correlation between reference signals (reference signals or PRS) received at a plurality of antennas in a cell (i.e. At block 452, a mobile device may receive a downlink signal comprising a PRS transmitted from a first cell transceiver using a one or two antenna port configuration (P:0026 and P:0062). Opshaug et al. differs from claim 1 of the present invention in that it does not explicit disclose determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell. Chen et al. teaches a UE measuring jamming intensity on a resource element (RE) corresponding to a first downlink signal, and determining whether to start to measure a non-serving cell based on the jamming intensity or not (abstract, fig. 1, steps 101, 102 and page 4, lines 17-42), on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load (load information) and non-zero power signal strength (non-signal power) in the cell (i.e. The non-zero-power CRS configuration information configured by the small cell is sent to the macro cell, or the macro base station allows the UE to receive the system information of the small cell, including the non-zero-power CRS configuration information based upon the load information in an X2 message between a Macro Cell and a small cell) (i.e. Preferably, before performing step 101, the base station of the serving cell further performs resource coordination with the small base station of the small cell, and may perform through an X2 interface )(page 4 lines 42-44, under step 401: Perform resource coordination between the Macro Cell and the small cell, page 8 last paragraph to page 9, first paragraph). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Opshaug et al. with determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell in order for the mobile device to reduce its power consumption based upon measurement of jamming intensity from downlink signals of neighboring cells and the load or neighbor cells when determining its position between a Macro cell and a Micro cell, as taught by Chen et al..
Regarding claim 3, Opshaug et al. discloses the reference signals are transmitted via a downlink channel (P:0026 and P:0062) .
Regarding claims 4 and 17, Opshaug et al. discloses a method/apparatus as discussed supra in claims 1 and 14. Chen et al. differs from claims 4 and 17 of the present invention in that it does not explicit disclose the reference signals are signals in one or more zero-power data signals transmitted from a terminal device, or a base station. Chen et al. teaches the first downlink signal may be a zero-power downlink signal of the current serving cell, wherein the zero-power downlink signal may be: a zero-power CSI-RS (page 4 lines 30-35). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Opshaug et al. with the reference signals are signals in one or more zero-power data signals transmitted from a terminal device, or a base station in order for the mobile device to determine the interference strength of the current cell station when determining its position between a Macro cell and a Micro cell, as taught by Chen et al..
Regarding claim 14, Chen et al. discloses an apparatus (user equipment/mobile device) (fig. 1number 100) for detecting (i.e. ameliorate effects of interference or jamming introduce by the second downlink signal) signal jamming in a cellular communication network (abstract), be characterized by comprising: determining correlation between reference signals (reference signals or PRS) received at a plurality of antennas in a cell (i.e. At block 452, a mobile device may receive a downlink signal comprising a PRS transmitted from a first cell transceiver using a one or two antenna port configuration (P:0026 and P:0062). Opshaug et al. differs from claim 14 of the present invention in that it does not explicit disclose determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell. Chen et al. teaches a UE measuring jamming intensity on a resource element (RE) corresponding to a first downlink signal, and determining whether to start to measure a non-serving cell based on the jamming intensity or not (abstract, fig. 1, steps 101, 102 and page 4, lines 17-42), on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load (load information) and non-zero power signal strength (non-signal power) in the cell (i.e. The non-zero-power CRS configuration information configured by the small cell is sent to the macro cell, or the macro base station allows the UE to receive the system information of the small cell, including the non-zero-power CRS configuration information based upon the load information in an X2 message between a Macro Cell and a small cell) (i.e. Preferably, before performing step 101, the base station of the serving cell further performs resource coordination with the small base station of the small cell, and may perform through an X2 interface )(page 4 lines 42-44, under step 401: Perform resource coordination between the Macro Cell and the small cell, page 8 last paragraph to page 9, first paragraph). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Opshaug et al. with determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell in order for the mobile device to reduce its power consumption based upon measurement of jamming intensity from downlink signals of neighboring cells and the load or neighbor cells when determining it position between a Macro cell and a Micro cell, as taught by Chen et al..
Regarding claim 27, Chen et al. discloses a computer program product ( a non-transitory storage medium comprising computer readable instructions) (fig. 1 number 140 and P:0022) for detecting (i.e. ameliorate effects of interference or jamming introduce by the second downlink signal) signal jamming in a cellular communication network (abstract), the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable storage medium (P:0022) and comprising computer instructions for carrying out the following steps (P:0022): determining correlation between reference signals (reference signals or PRS) received at a plurality of antennas in a cell (i.e. At block 452, a mobile device may receive a downlink signal comprising a PRS transmitted from a first cell transceiver using a one or two antenna port configuration (P:0026 and P:0062). Opshaug et al. differs from claim 27 of the present invention in that it does not explicit disclose determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell. Chen et al. teaches a UE measuring jamming intensity on a resource element (RE) corresponding to a first downlink signal, and determining whether to start to measure a non-serving cell based on the jamming intensity or not (abstract, fig. 1, steps 101, 102 and page 4, lines 17-42), on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load (load information) and non-zero power signal strength (non-signal power) in the cell (i.e. The non-zero-power CRS configuration information configured by the small cell is sent to the macro cell, or the macro base station allows the UE to receive the system information of the small cell, including the non-zero-power CRS configuration information based upon the load information in an X2 message between a Macro Cell and a small cell) (i.e. Preferably, before performing step 101, the base station of the serving cell further performs resource coordination with the small base station of the small cell, and may perform through an X2 interface )(page 4 lines 42-44, under step 401: Perform resource coordination between the Macro Cell and the small cell, page 8 last paragraph to page 9, first paragraph). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Opshaug et al. with determining whether the cell is in a jamming-suspicious state on the basis of the correlation and consistency between a traffic load and non-zero power signal strength in the cell in order for the mobile device to reduce its power consumption based upon measurement of jamming intensity from downlink signals of neighboring cells and the load or neighbor cells when determining it position between a Macro cell and a Micro cell, as taught by Chen et al..
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Opshaug et al. (US 2017/0134128) in view of Chen et al. (WO 2014121697 A1) as applied to claim 1 above and in further view of Liew (US 6,415,153).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Opshaug et al. and Chen et al. differs from claim 9 of the present invention in that they do not explicit disclose the traffic load is measured by at least one selected from a group consisting a Bit Error Rate (BER), a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in the cell. Liew teaches By scaling aggregate I- and Q-channel transmit signals when load level measurements indicate a high load situation, handoff control measurements made at mobile subscriber terminals, such as received signal strength from the base station, bit/frame error rates, and signal-to-noise ratio, will be affected, thereby prompting mobile subscriber terminals at the cell/sector boundaries to request handoff to an adjacent cell/sector. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Liew of the traffic load is measured by at least one selected from a group consisting a Bit Error Rate (BER), a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in the cell in order for the mobile device to determine its position based upon the received strength and the load of the cells for a dependable reliable wireless connection with cells when computing its position, as taught by Liew.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2,5,6,8,10-13,15,18,19,21 and 23 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.
7. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Regarding claim 2, the prior art of record fails to teach or suggest alone, or in combination if in the jamming-suspicious state, distinguishing between the signal jamming and other interference(s) on the basis of characteristics over frequency and time of the reference signals.
Regarding claim 5, the prior art of record fails to teach or suggest alone, or in combination wherein the step of determining the correlation comprising: determining a covariance matrix for a group of subcarriers during one or more Transmission Time Intervals (TTIs) from the reference signals; and determining an indicator for measuring the correlation from the covariance matrix.
Regarding claim 15, the prior art of record fails to teach or suggest alone, or in combination the processor configured to execute the computer instructions further to: if in the jamming-suspicious state, distinguish between the signal jamming and other interference(s) on the basis of characteristics over frequency and time of the reference signals.
Regarding claim 18, the prior art of record fails to teach or suggest alone, or in combination wherein the processor configured to execute the computer instructions to determine the correlation by: determining a covariance matrix for a group of subcarriers during one or more Transmission Time Intervals (TTIs) from the reference signals; and determining an indicator for measuring the correlation from the covariance matrix.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEITH FERGUSON whose telephone number is (571)272-7865. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7 am -3 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wesley L Kim can be reached at (571) 272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEITH FERGUSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648