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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s elected Group I claims 1-10 and 17-26 for examination. in the reply to restriction, filed on October 10, 2025 is acknowledged. Upon entry of this Response, claims 1, 8, 9, 11, 24, 25 and 27 are amended for clarity.
Claims 1-10 and 17-26 is currently pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55. The certified copy has been filed in parent Application Number. IN202321001432, filed on January 07, 2023.
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 1-10 and 17-26 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1 and 17, claims recite “performing by the scheduler, a selection of the UE and the AP, which corresponds to a highest element of the first matrix as part of an iterative initial selection process and replacing, by the scheduler, the current selection obtained from one of the iterative initial selection process or the iteration of the iterative improvement process with the new selection as the current selection, if a weighted sum rate corresponding to the new selection is more than the weighted sum rate of the current selection obtained from one of the iterative initial selection process or the iteration of the iterative improvement process; and scheduling, by the scheduler, a current selection of the UE and beam for each AP, on at least one termination criterion being met” is considered indefinite for the following reasons.
First, regarding limitation “performing by the scheduler, a selection of the UE and the AP, which corresponds to a highest element of the first matrix as part of an iterative initial selection process” what is the highest element of the first matrix or what are the basis of selecting those highest elements in the first matrix in order to perform the iterative process.
Thus, claims need to define the elements of the matrix.
Second, regarding this limitation “if a weighted sum rate corresponding to the new selection is more than the weighted sum rate of the current selection obtained from one of the iterative initial”,
Claims do not disclose the results of if a weighted sum rate corresponding to the new selection is less than the weighted sum rate of the current selection obtained from one of the iterative initial. Examiner recommend to disclose the both scenarios which will clarify the iteration process as discussed in Figs 2A- 2B, specifically 2B for the above limitation, see steps 209-212.
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Third, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation “and scheduling, by the scheduler, a current selection of the UE and beam for each AP, on at least one termination criterion being met”. As current selection is already replacing with new selection and current selection is already defined prior in claims so it is not clear if current selection is part of “new selection”.
Examiner recommend to clarify the claim language regarding this limitation.
An appropriate correction is required.
Claimed Subject Matter and Status Over the Prior Art
The examiner notes there are no rejections made under any section of 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103. Even so, the examiner refrains from commenting on allowable subject matter over the prior art (previously cited relevant prior art on PTO-892 form) until the 35 U.S.C. 112nd rejection is resolved and any future claim amendments that result can be reviewed and examined.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Sahin et al. (US 11,509,361 B1) discloses the UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may determine a subset of the plurality of UEs that maximizes an estimated system capacity for the RBG. The UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may sort the plurality of UEs 905 based on their corresponding PF metrics. The UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may prepare an empty candidate set. The UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may prepare an empty list of reserved beams. The UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may add the first UE among the sorted UEs into the candidate set. The UE grouping/scheduling unit 923A may repeat removing a first UE from the sorted UEs as a candidate UE and adding the candidate UE into the candidate set when (1) a beam with the highest strength for the candidate UE is not in the list of reserved beams and (2) adding the candidate UE to the candidate set is determined not to decrease the estimated system capacity for UEs in the candidate set (Fig. 9, Col. 20, lines 1-30).
Kleinbeck et al. (US 20240292248 A1) discloses Systems, methods, and devices enable spectrum management by identifying, classifying, and cataloging signals of interest based on radio frequency measurements. In an embodiment, signals and the parameters of the signals may be identified and indications of available frequencies may be presented to a user. In another embodiment, the protocols of signals may also be identified. In a further embodiment, the modulation of signals, data types carried by the signals, and estimated signal origins may be identified (abstract).
Shattil (US 10,637,544 B1) discloses the base observation matrix 411 can comprise signal measurements from individual antennas of any antenna array, including (but not limited to) Massive MIMO arrays, distributed antenna system, mobile antenna systems, Cooperative-MIMO systems, and airborne relays. The base observation matrix 411 can comprise signal estimates for real and/or virtual antennas. In one aspect, a signal estimate for a virtual antenna is computed by extrapolating signal measurements between nearby real antennas. The base observation matrix 411 can comprise measurements of known and/or unknown transmission signals received by the antenna array. The base observation matrix 411 can comprise channel estimates, such as CSI. The base observation matrix 411 can comprise real-time measurements and/or historical data. In some aspects, the base observation matrix 411 comprises signal estimates computed from a channel model and known transmitter data (Col. 20, lines 48-65).
Jalloul et al. (US 20230098863 A1) discloses the base station iterates over combinations of UEs until an acceptable result is obtained. In a first example, the base station exhaustively searches over all available combinations. For example, the base station determines (512) if all CQI matrices Qs are determined and whether at least one CQI matrix Qs satisfies a quality threshold. The quality threshold is satisfied when the reward value of the utility function satisfies a threshold value. In some implementations, the base station stops iterating once the reward threshold is satisfied, even if the selected subset Ks does not have the highest possible utility value. The base station selects (514) the subset of UEs Ks associated with the Qs having a best reward value of searched Ks subsets (Fig. 4, paragraph 0097).
DAMPAHALAGE et al.: WEIGHTED-SUM-RATE MAXIMIZATION FOR RIS AIDED VEHICULAR NETWORK (IEEE document) this paper discloses the use of an RIS in a mmWave vehicular communication network. The problem of weighted sum-rate maximization in the uplink is considered, where an RIS is used to assist the communication. We focus on both single-user and multi-user cases. Single user case is solved using successive refinement algorithm, where two phase-optimization schemes that help reducing the channel estimation overhead are considered. In multi-user case, fractional programming technique is used to reformulate the original problem into a more convenient form, and an algorithm based on alternating optimization is proposed (Abstract).
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/ROMANI OHRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413