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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action, and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Applicant filed after final amendment on April 2 2026 and May 8 2026. Both set claims are not entered. Claim for RCE should be underlined based on the last claims being entered.
The examiner left voicemail for representative Michael Tieff on June 17 2026 to discuss examiner’s amendment but no response is received.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-10, 15-23, 25 and 34 responded on May 08, 2026 are pending, claims 1 and 15 are amended, claim 34 is new and claims 2 and 16 are canceled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 May 22 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 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 invent, tion 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, 3-10, 15, 17-23, 25 and 34 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2019/0089437 A1, hereinafter "Chen") in view of Wei (US 11,139,875 B2, hereinafter "Wei").
Regarding claim 1, Chen discloses an enhanced channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission method, performed by a network device, and comprising:
determining K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for a terminal side, wherein the K quantity of CSI-RS resources comprise Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports in total, wherein
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, Pk is a quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports in a kth CSI-RS resource, and k ϵ [1, K] (Chen, [0085, 0106] the base station beam-forms one or more CSI-RS signals and then transmits the one or more CSI-RS signals to the terminal over the one or more configured CSI-RS resources (i.e. Pk). Different CSI-RS resources, different ports in a CSI-RS resource, different groups of ports in a CSI-RS resource (i.e. K), or different groups of ports in different CSI-RS resources can be beam-formed using different beam-forming weights); and
sending beam-formed CSI-RSs to the terminal side through the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports by using P different beams respectively (Chen, [0091] if the base station is configured with four antennas, and a CSI-RS resource includes four CSI-RS ports, then these CSI-RS ports may be grouped into two groups, the CSI-RS ports in these two groups of CSI-RS ports may be {0,2} and {1,3} respectively, and a mapping relationship between CSI-RS ports and antenna elements…a beam-forming matrix Wij represents a beam-forming weight for a CSI-RS port in the i-th group of CSI-RS ports, on the j-th antenna element in a polarization direction of the CSI-RS port).
Chen does not explicitly disclose K is an integer greater than 2, and Ptot is an integer greater than 2;
selecting P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports, wherein P < Ptot, and P is a quantity of beams to be sent; wherein the selecting of P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports comprises:
determining the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports selected from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to information of CSI-RS antenna ports carried in a received signaling indication; or sorting the K quantity of CSI-RS resources based on identification information of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources; respectively configuring index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports based on a sorting result of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources; and determining the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports selected from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports; wherein the identification information comprises at least one of identity documents (IDs) of the CSI-RS resources, a resource mapping position of the CSI-RS resources in a time domain, or a resource mapping position of the CSI-RS resources in a frequency domain (not given patentable weight due to not selected option)
Baligh from the same field of endeavor discloses K is an integer greater than 2, and Ptot is an integer greater than 2 (Baligh, Col. 1 line 54-56 a CSI-RS sequence using an N×K CSI-RS resource, the N×K CSI-RS resource comprising N adjacent or non-adjacent OFDM symbols by K adjacent or non-adjacent PRBs (i.e. K>2); Col. 11 line 36-37 each TRP of hypercell 100 is labeled with a CSI-RS port number between 1 and 8. (i.e. greater than 2));
selecting P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports, wherein P < Ptot, and P is a quantity of beams to be sent (Baligh, Col. 18 line 38-40 informing each UE of an initial set of CSI-RS ports from which the UE is to select a smaller number of high power ports to measure and report on); and wherein the selecting of P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports comprises:
determining the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports selected from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to information of CSI-RS antenna ports carried in a received signaling indication (Baligh, Col. 8 line 63-65 a group-based approach is used to allocate a determined number of CSI-RS ports to a group of UEs; With the group-based design, a set of CSI-RS ports is allocated to a group of UEs. The group of UEs that share the same set of CSI-RS ports are grouped together based on one or more factors).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified CSI feedback disclosed by Chen and CSI-RS ports disclosed by Baligh with a motivation to make this modification in order to greatly improve to improve the detection performance (Baligh, Col.15 line 56-57).
Regarding claim 3, Chen discloses wherein the configuring of the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports respectively based on the sorting result of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources comprises:
for each CSI-RS resource in the K quantity of CSI-RS resources, sequentially performing joint numbering on index numbers of CSI-RS antenna ports in each CSI-RS resource based on the sorting result of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources (depend on the limitation not given patentable weight);
wherein the determining of the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports selected from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports comprises:
sorting the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports; and selecting the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports with consecutive index numbers from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to a sorting result; wherein the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports are sorted in ascending order of the index numbers, beams in a first polarization direction are sent to the terminal side through first P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports sorted by the index numbers, and beams in a second polarization direction are sent to the terminal side through last P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports sorted by the index numbers (Chen, [0134] the terminal groups N CSI-RS ports in the CSI-RS resources configured by the base station into N/2 groups in the grouping scheme, so that each group includes two CSI-RS ports, where the indexes of CSI-RS ports in the i-th group of CSI-RS ports range from i to i+N/2…If the base station operates with an array of dually polarized antennas, then each group of polarized antennas will correspond to a port in a group of CSI-RS ports here, different groups of ports may be beam-formed using different beams, and ports in a group of ports may be beam-formed using the same beam).
Regarding claim 4, Chen discloses wherein the configuring of the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports respectively based on the sorting result of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources comprises: for each CSI-RS resource in the K quantity of CSI-RS resources, sequentially dividing the Pk quantity of antenna ports in the each CSI-RS resource into a first antenna port group and a second antenna port group, wherein the first antenna port group and the second antenna port group respectively comprise quantity of antenna ports; and sequentially performing joint numbering on index numbers of the CSI-RS antenna ports in the first antenna port group and the second antenna port group in each CSI-RS resource based on the sorting result of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources, wherein an index number of each CSI-RS antenna port in the first antenna port group is before an index number of each CSI-RS antenna port in the second antenna port group (depend on the limitation not given patentable weight); wherein the determining of the P quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports selected from the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports according to the index numbers of the Ptot quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports comprises: selecting P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports with consecutive index numbers from the first antenna port group; and selecting P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports with consecutive index numbers from the second antenna port group; wherein beams in a first polarization direction are sent to the terminal side through the P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports of the first antenna port group, and beams in a second polarization direction are sent to the terminal side through the P/2 quantity of CSI-RS antenna ports of the second antenna port group (Chen, [0134] the terminal groups N CSI-RS ports in the CSI-RS resources configured by the base station into N/2 groups in the grouping scheme, so that each group includes two CSI-RS ports, where the indexes of CSI-RS ports in the i-th group of CSI-RS ports range from i to i+N/2…If the base station operates with an array of dually polarized antennas, then each group of polarized antennas will correspond to a port in a group of CSI-RS ports here, different groups of ports may be beam-formed using different beams, and ports in a group of ports may be beam-formed using the same beam).
Regarding claim 5, Chen discloses wherein the determining of the K quantity of
CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side comprises:
determining the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from CSI-RS resources in at least one configured CSI-RS resource set (Chen, [0085, 0106] the base station beam-forms one or more CSI-RS signals and then transmits the one or more CSI-RS signals to the terminal over the one or more configured CSI-RS resources (i.e. Pk). Different CSI-RS resources, different ports in a CSI-RS resource, different groups of ports in a CSI-RS resource (i.e. K), or different groups of ports in different CSI-RS resources can be beam-formed using different beam-forming weights).
Regarding claim 6, Chen discloses wherein the determining of the K quantity of
CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from the CSI-RS resources in the at least one configured CSI-RS resource set comprises:
sorting the CSI-RS resources in the at least one CSI-RS resource set based on identification information of the CSI-RS resources in the at least one CSI-RS resource set; and determining the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side based on the sorting (Chen, [0090-91] Fig. 4 a beam-formed CSI-RS port can be mapped onto a part of antenna elements, or can be mapped onto all the antenna elements. For example, a CSI-RS port in a group of CSI-RS ports including two CSI-RS ports is mapped onto all the antenna elements corresponding to a polarization direction, and the other CSI-RS port is mapped onto all the
antenna elements corresponding to the other polarization
direction).
Regarding claim 7, Chen discloses wherein the determining of the K quantity of
CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from the CSI-RS resources in the at least one configured CSI-RS resource set, comprises:
for the at least one CSI-RS resource set, dividing Ks quantity of CSI-RS resources in the CSI-RS resource set into M quantity of resource groups, wherein M≥2, and each of the resource groups comprises at least one CSI-RS resource (Chen, [0122-0123] the group of CSI-RS ports. CSI-RS ports corresponding to elements with the value of 1 in respective column selection vectors in a pre-coding matrix set constitute CSI-RS ports (CSI-RS ports) corresponding to the pre-coding matrix set; group is assumed to be M); and
determining the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from the CSI-RS resources in the M quantity of resource groups (Chen, [0122-0123] a CSI-RS port(s) can be selected by pre-coding using a pre-coding matrix generated from a column selection vector or a column selection vector group corresponding to the
CSI-RS port(s) to be selected).
Regarding claim 8, Chen discloses wherein after the dividing the Ks quantity of CSI-RS resources in the CSI-RS resource set into the M quantity of resource groups, the method further comprises:
for each resource group of the M quantity of resource groups, selecting a first CSI-RS resource from the resource group, selecting a second CSI-RS resource from other resource groups except for the resource group, and combining the first CSI-RS resource and the second CSI-RS resource into a CSI-RS resource pair (Chen, [0133] the terminal may group the CSI-RS ports in the CSI-RS resources configured by the base station, and further select a CS I-RS port according to a result of grouping, where in an implementation, a group of CSI-RS ports is defined as a unit (i.e. resource pair));
wherein the determining of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from the CSI-RS resources in the M quantity of resource groups comprises: determining the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side from CSI-RS resources in N quantity of CSI-RS resource pairs, wherein N is a quantity of resource pairs in the M quantity of resource groups (Chen, [0133] CSI-RS ports are selected in the same way as CSI-RS ports are selected as described above; and in an implementation, a plurality of CSI-RS ports are selected as
described above, and for example, a pre-coding matrix set corresponding to groups of CSI-RS ports is consisted of column selection vector groups, where each column selection vector in a column selection vector group corresponds
to a CSI-RS port in a group of CSI-RS ports).
Regarding claim 9, Chen discloses wherein the determining of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side comprises:
determining the K quantity of CSI-RS resources configured for the terminal side according to information of the CSI-RS resources carried in a received signaling indication (Chen, [0133] if the base station further configures the terminal with
a grouping scheme of CSI-RS ports, for example, the base station notifies it to the terminal via higher-layer signaling, the base station and the terminal agreed on it in advance).
Regarding claim 10, Chen discloses wherein at least one of following configuration parameters: CSI-RS resource types, CSI-RS resource bandwidths, power offsets of physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) resource elements (REs) relative to CSI-RS REs, power offsets of the CSI-RS REs relative to secondary synchronization signal (SSS) REs, or associated quasi co-located (QCL) resources and QCL
types for periodic CSI-RSs, of the K quantity of CSI-RS resources is same (Chen, [0077, 0148] a full set of CSI-RS resource configuration parameters, e.g., the number of CSI-RS ports, a periodicity, a start position, a type of pilot structure, an intra-sub-frame position identifier, and etc. The base station beam-forms a CSI-RS signal and then transmits the CSI-RS signal to the terminal over a configured CSI-RS resource, where different CSI-RS resources can be beam-formed using different beam-forming weights; the pre-coding matrixes in the pre-coding matrix set may be recycled over the physical resources in the bandwidth).
Regarding claims 15, 17-23, 25 and 34, these claims recite "a network device" (Chen Fig. 2 201) and "a computer device" (Chen Fig. 2 202) that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 1 and 3-10, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1 and 3-10 as presented above.
Conclusion
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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