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 .
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 03/04/2026.
The applicant's arguments to the rejection of independent claims are fully considered, however they are not deemed to be persuasive; for examiner response to the applicant’s arguments see “Response to Arguments” section below.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to rejection of claims 4, 17 and 22 have been fully considered and found to be persuasive. The rejection of claims 4, 17 and 22 has been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
On page 7 of the Remarks, the Applicant argues applicability of Liu to the rejection by citing a portion of 3GPP TS 36.213 and stating that there may be other situations with respect to the TPC command beyond those disclosed by Liu, such as when the command involves other values in addition to +1 and -1, as in Liu. Because of this, as the Applicant alleges,
“…a "TPC sum" as described in Liu's algorithm is not equivalent to/is not a representation of an accumulated power adjustment value of the 3GPP CLPC accumulation framework used in LTE prior to Liu's priority date, contrary to the supposition of the Office. Accordingly, the Office's position that Liu's "TPC sum" is equivalent to/representative of the recited "TPC power adjustment value" is not sufficiently substantiated.”
The Examiner disagrees. In Liu, paragraph 0006 states the following:
“Let TPC command DOWN be represented by -1 and TPC command UP by +1.”
What this means that this is simply an example of transmit power control commands. Further, contrary to the Applicant’s argument, the Examiner maintains that the accumulated TPC sum is used to determine a transmit power of the user equipment.
To support this assertion, please see US 20100285830 (Englund) which was published prior to the publication of Liu.
Particularly, paragraph 0005:
“…the transmitter output power is further calculated as a function of a parameter representing accumulated transmit power control (TPC) commands received by the mobile terminal.”
Paragraph 0009 provides more details on how the method operates:
“In an exemplary method for controlling transmit power at a mobile terminal, a plurality of transmit power control commands are received, each transmit power control command directing an adjustment in transmit power relative to a prior transmission by the mobile terminal. An accumulated power control value is adjusted in response to each transmit power control command that directs a negative adjustment in transmit power, i.e., each "DOWN" power control command. However, the accumulated power control value is adjusted in response to an "UP" power control command, i.e., a transmit power control command that directs a positive adjustment in transmit power, only if the mobile terminal is not in a power-limited state. … The method further comprises calculating transmit power settings for each transmission by the mobile terminal based on the accumulated power control value and the one or more radio link parameters.”
Paragraph 0021:
“…the transmitter output power is further calculated as a function of a parameter representing accumulated transmit power control (TPC) commands received by the mobile terminal. If the calculated transmitter output power setting exceeds a maximum output power for the mobile terminal, then the mobile terminal transmits at the maximum level. Thus, a transmit power setting for transmissions on the LTE physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) is calculated as:”
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“TPCaccum is an accumulated power control value representing an accumulation of transmit power commands received from the serving eNodeB. A similar formula is used to compute a transmit power setting for transmissions on the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).”
As may be seen, and contrary to the Applicant’s argument, the accumulated TPS sum (value) is used to calculate a transmit power of the user equipment and thus is equivalent to the claimed “a transmit power control (TPC) power adjustment value that is used to determine a transmit power of the UE”.
Therefore, the Examiner maintains that Liu is fully relevant to the rejection, and the rejection is maintained.
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.
Claims 1 – 3, 14 – 16 and 19 – 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20150215019 (Bengtsson) in view of US 20130242794 (Liu) evidenced by US 20100285830 (Englund).
Regarding claims 1, 14 and 19, Bengtsson teaches “A method of a user equipment (UE) (FIG 1 and FIG 3A with corresponding description), comprising:
performing an antenna transmit diversity (ATD) antenna switch at an ATD switch trigger (paragraph 0006: Adaptive antenna selection (also referred to as antenna switching or antenna swapping) can be used in a terminal for uplink communications transmission to mitigate fading dips. FIG 6 and paragraph 0139: At step 64 the terminal monitors the current uplink communications transmission power level (P). If the power level (P) is above a threshold level representing good signal conditions, the antenna selection algorithm might not be beneficial and may be temporarily deactivated. At step 65 an inquiry is made whether power (P) has dropped more than a prescribed amount. If yes, then at step 67 an inquiry is made whether minimum time (T) between swaps has expired (line (i) in Table A), i.e., how much time has expired since the last antenna swapping occurred and does that time equal or exceed the minimum time (T). If yes (representing “an ATD switch trigger”), then at step 68 antenna swapping occurs (representing “performing an antenna transmit diversity (ATD) antenna switch”).)…”
“…sending a transmission to a base station using the transmit power (FIG 6 and paragraph 0139: at step 68 antenna swapping occurs and then loop 66 is followed which points to the step 63 in which the terminal carries out uplink communications transmission to a base station..)…”
Bengtsson does not teach “resetting a transmit power control (TPC) power adjustment value that is used to determine a transmit power of the UE to a reset value in response to the ATD antenna switch; determining, after resetting the TPC power adjustment value, the transmit power based on the TPC power adjustment value.”
Liu in paragraphs 0005 – 0009 teaches that in case of SATD (switched antenna transmit diversity), there are two TX antennas and single full-power power amplifier in the UE. With the scheme described in TR 25.863, the UE selects the TX antenna according to the TPC statistic. The UE accumulates all received TPC commands (corresponds to the claimed “a transmit power control (TPC) power adjustment value” and “a transmit power that is determined based on the TPC power adjustment value”). Every time an antenna switch occurs, the accumulated TPC sum is reset to 0, which is the same as the claimed “resetting a transmit power control (TPC) power adjustment value” “to a reset value in response to the ATD antenna switch”. This accumulated TPC sum “is used to determine a transmit power of the UE” so that the step of “determining, after resetting the TPC power adjustment value, the transmit power based on the TPC power adjustment value” is at least implicitly performed. This may be confirmed by Englund, paragraphs 0005, 0009 and 0021. For example, paragraph 0021:
“…the transmitter output power is further calculated as a function of a parameter representing accumulated transmit power control (TPC) commands received by the mobile terminal. If the calculated transmitter output power setting exceeds a maximum output power for the mobile terminal, then the mobile terminal transmits at the maximum level. Thus, a transmit power setting for transmissions on the LTE physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) is calculated as:”
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“TPCaccum is an accumulated power control value representing an accumulation of transmit power commands received from the serving eNodeB. A similar formula is used to compute a transmit power setting for transmissions on the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Liu resetting of the accumulated TPC sum to zero upon antenna switching, in the system of Bengtsson. Doing so would have simply conformed to the appropriate standards and procedures of transmission power control.
Additional explanations may be found in section Response to Arguments above which is incorporated herein by reference.
Regarding claims 2, 15 and 20, Bengtsson teaches “wherein the ATD switch trigger comprises an expiration of an ATD hysteresis timer (FIG 6 and paragraph 0139: At step 67 an inquiry is made whether minimum time (T) between swaps has expired (line (i) in Table A), i.e., how much time has expired since the last antenna swapping occurred and does that time equal or exceed the minimum time (T) (representing “an ATD hysteresis timer”). If yes, then at step 68 antenna swapping occurs.).”
Regarding claims 3, 16 and 21, Bengtsson in combination with Liu teaches “wherein the reset value is zero (Liu, paragraph 0009: Every time an antenna switch occurs the accumulated TPC sum is reset to 0.).”
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 5, 17, 18, 22 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.
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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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648