DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/291514 filed on 01/23/2024 is presented for examination by the examiner.
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 . 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 for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection.
Allowable Subject Matters
Claims 3, 9, 13, 17, 23, 27 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. Claims 10-12, 24-26 are objected since they depend on claims 9 and 23 respectively
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 of this title, 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, 2, 14-16, 28-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) in view of Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1).
As per claim 1, LIU discloses “An apparatus for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), comprising: a memory; and a processor, coupled to the memory, and configured to:” as [(Figure 6.)] “receive, from a base station, one or more channel state information reference signals;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE.] “perform one or more channel state information measurements on the one or more channel state information reference signals;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE and receive a CSI report including RI/PMI/channel quality indicator (CQI) from the UE.] “transmit, to the base station, an uplink channel state information report based at least in part on the one or more channel state information measurements;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE and receive a CSI report including RI/PMI/channel quality indicator (CQI) from the UE.] “and receive, from the base station and in response to transmission of the uplink channel state information report, downlink control information comprising an indication of a transmission precoding matrix indicator to be used by the UE for uplink signaling” [(par. 0099), Based at least in part on the map between DL and UL transmission parameters, the gNB can calculate one or more UL transmission parameters such as UL TPMI for the UE, and send downlink control information (DCI) to the UE to indicate the TPMI. The UE may perform UL physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) codebook based transmission to the gNB by using the indicated TPMI.]
LIU does not explicitly disclose “the report comprising a set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a set of candidate rank indicators, or a combination thereof”.
However, Nilsson discloses “the report comprising a set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a set of candidate rank indicators, or a combination thereof” as [(par. 0203), Alternatively or in addition, the candidate set of TPMIs may be reported by the UE 100 to the gNB 200, e.g., as a function of a relative arrangement of antennas at the UE 100 for the precoded transmission in the step 306 (i.e., the step 306 of transmitting the data using the precoders to control a radio signal at each of the antennas.]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Nilsson’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to allow the UE to report candidate set of TPMIs for selections.
As per claim 2, LIU in view of Nilsson discloses “The apparatus of claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
LIU discloses “wherein the apparatus is further configured to: monitor for the one or more channel state information reference signals using a first set of ports,” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE and receive a CSI report including RI/PMI/channel quality indicator (CQI) from the UE.] “wherein receiving the one or more channel state information reference signals is based at least in part on the monitoring;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE and receive a CSI report including RI/PMI/channel quality indicator (CQI) from the UE.] “and
transmit, to the base station, uplink signaling using the indicated transmission precoding matrix indicator for uplink signaling on a physical uplink shared channel using the first set of ports” [(par. 0099), Based at least in part on the map between DL and UL transmission parameters, the gNB can calculate one or more UL transmission parameters such as UL TPMI for the UE, and send downlink control information (DCI) to the UE to indicate the TPMI. The UE may perform UL physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) codebook based transmission to the gNB by using the indicated TPMI.]
As per claim 14, LIU discloses “An apparatus for wireless communications at a base station, comprising: a memory; and a processor, coupled to the memory, and configured to:” as [(Figure 6.)] “transmit, to a user equipment (UE), one or more channel state information reference signals;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE.] “receive, from the UE, an uplink channel state information report based at least in part on the one or more channel state information reference signals;” [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE and receive a CSI report including RI/PMI/channel quality indicator (CQI) from the UE.] “transmit, to the UE and in response to receiving the uplink channel state information report, downlink control information comprising an indication of a transmission precoding matrix indicator to be used by the UE for uplink signaling” [(par. 0099), Based at least in part on the map between DL and UL transmission parameters, the gNB can calculate one or more UL transmission parameters such as UL TPMI for the UE, and send downlink control information (DCI) to the UE to indicate the TPMI. The UE may perform UL physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) codebook based transmission to the gNB by using the indicated TPMI.]
LIU does not explicitly disclose “the report comprising a set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a set of candidate rank indicators, or a combination thereof”
However, Nilsson discloses “the report comprising a set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a set of candidate rank indicators, or a combination thereof” as [(par. 0203), Alternatively or in addition, the candidate set of TPMIs may be reported by the UE 100 to the gNB 200, e.g., as a function of a relative arrangement of antennas at the UE 100 for the precoded transmission in the step 306 (i.e., the step 306 of transmitting the data using the precoders to control a radio signal at each of the antennas.]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Nilsson’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to allow the UE to report candidate set of TPMIs for selections.
As per claim 15. LIU in view of Nilsson discloses “The apparatus of claim 14,” as [see rejection of claim 14.]
LIU discloses “wherein the apparatus configured to transmit the one or more channel state information reference signals is further configured to: transmit the one or more channel state information reference signals using a first set of ports” as [(fig. 1 and par. 0099), the gNB can configure channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) transmission for the UE.]
As per claim 16, LIU in view of Nilsson discloses “The apparatus of claim 15,” as [see rejection of claim 15.]
LIU discloses “wherein the apparatus is further configured to: receive, from the UE using the first set of ports, uplink signaling according to the indicated transmission precoding matrix indicator” [(par. 0099), Based at least in part on the map between DL and UL transmission parameters, the gNB can calculate one or more UL transmission parameters such as UL TPMI for the UE, and send downlink control information (DCI) to the UE to indicate the TPMI. The UE may perform UL physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) codebook based transmission to the gNB by using the indicated TPMI.]
As per claims 28, 29, as [see rejection of claims 1, 2.]
As per claim 30, as [see rejection of claim 14.]
Claims 4, 6, 18, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) in view of Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1) in view of Pelletier et al. (US 2013/0322276 A1).
As per claim 4, LIU in view of Nilsson discloses “The apparatus of claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
LIU in view of Nilsson does not explicitly disclose “wherein the apparatus is further configured to: receive, from the base station, control signaling comprising an indication of a number of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators in the set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a number of rank indicators to include in the uplink channel state information report, a wideband reporting mode, a subband reporting mode, or any combination thereof”.
However, Pelletier discloses “wherein the apparatus is further configured to: receive, from the base station, control signaling comprising an indication of a number of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators in the set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators, a number of rank indicators to include in the uplink channel state information report, a wideband reporting mode, a subband reporting mode, or any combination thereof” as [(par. 0135), The measuring device may be configured to report a single metric in a specific subband. The measuring device may determine the subband to report for example based on eNB configuration (e.g., RRC, L2 or L1).]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and Pelletier et al. (US 2013/0322276 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Pelletier’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to improve the overall spectrum efficiency. (Pelletier, par. 0003)
As per claim 6, LIU in view of Nilsson in view of Pelletier discloses “The apparatus of claim 4,” as [see rejection of claim 4.]
Pelletier discloses “wherein the control signaling comprises radio resource control signaling, a media access control (MAC) control element (CE), or a combination thereof” as [(par. 0135), The measuring device may be configured to report a single metric in a specific subband. The measuring device may determine the subband to report for example based on eNB configuration (e.g., RRC, L2 or L1).]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and Pelletier et al. (US 2013/0322276 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Pelletier’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to improve the overall spectrum efficiency. (Pelletier, par. 0003)
As per claims 18, 20, as [see rejection of claims 4, 6.]
Claims 5, 7, 19, 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) in view of Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1) in view of Pelletier et al. (US 2013/0322276 A1) in view of ETEMAD et al. (US 2013/0322273 A1).
As per claim 5, LIU in view of Nilsson in view of Pelletier discloses “The apparatus of claim 4,” as [see rejection of claim 4.]
LIU in view of Nilsson in view of Pelletier does not explicitly disclose “wherein the apparatus configured to receive the control signaling is further configured to: receive the control signaling during a channel state information reference signal configuration procedure”.
However, ETEMAD discloses “wherein the apparatus configured to receive the control signaling is further configured to: receive the control signaling during a channel state information reference signal configuration procedure” as [(par. 0061), The method 900 can also include sending, from the eNB to the UE, an IE through RRC signaling containing configuration information to add, remove, or replace CSI-RS resources for which the UE should measure the CSI-RS based RRM measurements.]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and ETEMAD et al. (US 2013/0322273 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Pelletier’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to improve capacity in hot-zones or at the boundaries between the macro nodes' coverage areas. (ETEMAD, par. 0003)
As per claim 7, LIU in view of Nilsson in view of Pelletier discloses “The apparatus of claim 4,” as [see rejection of claim 4.]
LIU in view of Nilsson in view of Pelletier does not explicitly disclose “wherein the control signaling comprising the indication is associated with a channel state information reference signal resource, a set of channel state information resources, or a combination thereof”.
However, ETEMAD discloses “wherein the control signaling comprising the indication is associated with a channel state information reference signal resource, a set of channel state information resources, or a combination thereof” as [(par. 0061), The method 900 can also include sending, from the eNB to the UE, an IE through RRC signaling containing configuration information to add, remove, or replace CSI-RS resources for which the UE should measure the CSI-RS based RRM measurements.]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and ETEMAD et al. (US 2013/0322273 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Pelletier’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to improve capacity in hot-zones or at the boundaries between the macro nodes' coverage areas. (ETEMAD, par. 0003)
As per claims 19, 21, as [see rejection of claims 5, 7.]
Claims 8, 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) in view of Nilsson et al. (US 2024/0421864 A1) in view of Sun et al. (US 2021/0258886 A1).
As per claim 8, LIU in view of Nilsson discloses “The apparatus of claim 1,” as [see rejection of claim 1.]
LIU in view of Nilsson does not explicitly disclose “wherein the apparatus configured to receive the downlink control information is further configured to: receive a single-stage downlink control information message comprising an index associated with a precoding matrix indicator of the set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators”.
However, Sun discloses “wherein the apparatus configured to receive the downlink control information is further configured to: receive a single-stage downlink control information message comprising an index associated with a precoding matrix indicator of the set of candidate transmission precoding matrix indicators” as [(par. 0009), eceiving, from a UE, data indicative of a TPMI list generated by the UE, the TPMI list including one or more TPMIs selected from a set of available TPMIs stored at the BS; receiving, from the UE, an index of the TPMI list; transmitting, to the UE, DCI including an indication of at least one TPMI from the TPMI list based on the index; and receiving, from the UE, uplink data from a PUSCH based on the at least one TPMI.]
LIU et al. (US 2022/0286249 A1) and Sun et al. (US 2021/0258886 A1) are analogous art because they are the same field of endeavor of network communication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Pelletier’s teaching into LIU’s teaching. The motivation for making the above modification would be to improve channel usage efficiency. (Sun, par. 0009)
As per claim 22, as [see rejection of claim 8.]
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MANG HANG YEUNG whose telephone number is (571)270-7319. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rebecca Song can be reached on (571) 270-3667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANG HANG YEUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2417