Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 17, 2026
Application No. 18/399,046

TECHNIQUES FOR CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK FRAMEWORK ENHANCEMENTS FOR ADAPTATION OF SPATIAL ELEMENTS

Final Rejection §102
Filed
Dec 28, 2023
Priority
Feb 17, 2023 — provisional 63/485,836
Examiner
FANG, PAKEE
Art Unit
2409
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Qualcomm Incorporated
OA Round
2 (Final)
68%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
5m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 68% — above average
68%
Career Allowance Rate
363 granted / 538 resolved
+9.5% vs TC avg
Strong +37% interview lift
Without
With
+36.9%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 0m
Avg Prosecution
30 currently pending
Career history
574
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.3%
-36.7% vs TC avg
§103
62.3%
+22.3% vs TC avg
§102
17.9%
-22.1% vs TC avg
§112
11.0%
-29.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 538 resolved cases

Office Action

§102
DETAILED ACTION Claims 1 - 20 are presented for examination. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claims 1-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li et al. (US Pub. 20160080052 A1). For claims 1 and 17, Li discloses a user equipment (UE) (UEO) for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories (Fig. 1A, [0092], "As shown in further detail in FIG. 1A, each system 120 for the UE (UEO) depicted in FIG. 1 and other, similar UEs (not shown) ... include: a processor 121, a memory 122, a transceiver 123 including a transmitter and a receiver, and an antenna array 124."), the one or more processors individually or collectively configured to (Fig. 20; [0202], "The overall procedure is illustrated in FIG. 20, wherein the pattern is termed the "array geometry pattern," or "antenna subsampling/ downsampling pattern," or "CSI-RS subsampling/downsampling pattern"; [0196-201]): receive a reduced antenna port indication for spatial element adaptation associated with at least one reduced channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) antenna port configuration (Fig. 20, item 2002; [0202], "The procedure 2000 begins with an eNB signalling one or more array subsampling or geometry pattern(s) to UE(s) served by the eNB (step 2001). Each UE receives the one or more array geometry pattern(s) (step 2002). "; Fig. 6A, [0110], "In some embodiments, in order to maintain small CSI-RS overhead, the eNB transmits CSI-RS only on a subset of antennas as illustrated in FIG. 6A (hence the term "antenna subsampling" or "antenna array subsampling")."; [0093], "With such antennas, the eNB can form beams in both horizontal and vertical domain, fully exploiting the spatial diversity, and is capable to support high-order MU-MIMO. To steer beams towards User Equipments (UEs), the eNB must acquire channel state information (CSI) of the UEs, which is typically obtained by downlink training (e.g., via CSI reference signal, or "CSI-RS") and uplink feedback of precoding matrix indicator (PMI) information and channel quality indicator (CQI) information in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems."); receive at least one CSI-RS based on the at least one reduced CSI-RS antenna port configuration (Fig. 20, item 2003, [0202], "The eNB then eNB transmits CSI-RS according to patterns (step 2003)."); and compute channel state information (CSI) based on the at least one CSI- RS (Fig. 20, item 2004; [0202], "The UE constructs a feedback report for associated array pattern(s) based on the received CSI-RSs (step 2004)."). Claim 17 differs from claim 1 only by the additional recitation of the following limitation, which is also taught by the cited prior art. The cited prior art further discloses a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 20). All other identical limitations are rejected based on the same rationale as shown above. For claims 9 and 25, Li discloses a network node (101) for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories (Fig. 1A, [0092], "As shown in further detail in FIG. 1A, each system 120 for the eNB depicted in FIG. 1... include: a processor 121, a memory 122, a transceiver 123 including a transmitter and a receiver, and an antenna array 124."); and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors individually or collectively configured to (Fig. 20; [0202], "The overall procedure is illustrated in FIG. 20, wherein the pattern is termed the "array geometry pattern," or "antenna subsampling/ downsampling pattern," or "CSI-RS subsampling/downsampling pattern"; [0196-201]): transmit a reduced antenna port indication for spatial element adaptation associated with at least one reduced channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) antenna port configuration (Fig. 20, item 2001; [0202], "The procedure 2000 begins with an eNB signalling one or more array subsampling or geometry pattern(s) to UE(s) served by the eNB (step 2001). Each UE receives the one or more array geometry pattern(s) (step 2002). "; Fig. 6A, [0110], "In some embodiments, in order to maintain small CSI-RS overhead, the eNB transmits CSI-RS only on a subset of antennas as illustrated in FIG. 6A (hence the term "antenna subsampling" or "antenna array subsampling")."; [0093], "With such antennas, the eNB can form beams in both horizontal and vertical domain, fully exploiting the spatial diversity, and is capable to support high-order MU-MIMO. To steer beams towards User Equipments (UEs), the eNB must acquire channel state information (CSI) of the UEs, which is typically obtained by downlink training (e.g., via CSI reference signal, or "CSI-RS") and uplink feedback of precoding matrix indicator (PMI) information and channel quality indicator (CQI) information in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems."); and transmit at least one CSI-RS based on the at least one reduced CSI-RS antenna port configuration (Fig. 20, item 2003; [0202], "The UE constructs a feedback report for associated array pattern(s) based on the received CSI-RSs (step 2003)."). Claim 25 differs from claim 9 only by the additional recitation of the following limitation, which is also taught by the cited prior art. The cited prior art further discloses a method of wireless communication performed by a network node (Fig. 20). All other identical limitations are rejected based on the same rationale as shown above. For claims 2, 10, 18, and 26, Li discloses the reduced antenna port indication comprises a bitmap indicating, for each antenna port of a plurality of antenna ports of the UE, whether the antenna port is to be used for deriving a CSI-RS resource ([0243] that "a subsampling pattern is indicated by an antenna port bitmap, wherein i-th bit indicates whether the i-th antenna port carries non-zero power CSI-RS or zero-power CSI-RS"). For claims 3, 11, 19, and 27, Li discloses to receive the reduced antenna port indication, are individually or collectively configured to receive a channel state information (CSI) report configuration including the reduced antenna port indication (Fig. 20, item 2002; [0202], "The procedure 2000 begins with an eNB signalling one or more array subsampling or geometry pattern(s) to UE(s) served by the eNB (step 2001). Each UE receives the one or more array geometry pattern(s) (step 2002). "; Fig. 6A, [0110], "In some embodiments, in order to maintain small CSI-RS overhead, the eNB transmits CSI-RS only on a subset of antennas as illustrated in FIG. 6A (hence the term "antenna subsampling" or "antenna array subsampling")."; [0093], "With such antennas, the eNB can form beams in both horizontal and vertical domain, fully exploiting the spatial diversity, and is capable to support high-order MU-MIMO. To steer beams towards User Equipments (UEs), the eNB must acquire channel state information (CSI) of the UEs, which is typically obtained by downlink training (e.g., via CSI reference signal, or "CSI-RS") and uplink feedback of precoding matrix indicator (PMI) information and channel quality indicator (CQI) information in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems."). For claims 4, 12, 20, and 28, Li discloses the CSI report configuration comprises at least one CSI report setting, and wherein the at least one reduced CSI-RS antenna port configuration corresponds to the at least one CSI report setting (Fig. 20, item 2002; [0202], "The procedure 2000 begins with an eNB signalling one or more array subsampling or geometry pattern(s) to UE(s) served by the eNB (step 2001). Each UE receives the one or more array geometry pattern(s) (step 2002). "; Fig. 6A, [0110], "In some embodiments, in order to maintain small CSI-RS overhead, the eNB transmits CSI-RS only on a subset of antennas as illustrated in FIG. 6A (hence the term "antenna subsampling" or "antenna array subsampling")."; [0093], "With such antennas, the eNB can form beams in both horizontal and vertical domain, fully exploiting the spatial diversity, and is capable to support high-order MU-MIMO. To steer beams towards User Equipments (UEs), the eNB must acquire channel state information (CSI) of the UEs, which is typically obtained by downlink training (e.g., via CSI reference signal, or "CSI-RS") and uplink feedback of precoding matrix indicator (PMI) information and channel quality indicator (CQI) information in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems."). For claims 5, 13, 21, and 29, Li discloses the CSI report configuration comprises a plurality of CSI report sub-configurations ([0243] that "The eNB configures one or more patterns out of Q patterns to the UE."). For claims 6, 14, 22, and 30, Li discloses the CSI report configuration comprises a CSI report setting associated with all of the CSI report sub-configurations of the plurality of CSI report sub-configurations (Fig. 20, item 2002; [0202], "The procedure 2000 begins with an eNB signalling one or more array subsampling or geometry pattern(s) to UE(s) served by the eNB (step 2001). Each UE receives the one or more array geometry pattern(s) (step 2002). "; Fig. 6A, [0110], "In some embodiments, in order to maintain small CSI-RS overhead, the eNB transmits CSI-RS only on a subset of antennas as illustrated in FIG. 6A (hence the term "antenna subsampling" or "antenna array subsampling")."; [0093], "With such antennas, the eNB can form beams in both horizontal and vertical domain, fully exploiting the spatial diversity, and is capable to support high-order MU-MIMO. To steer beams towards User Equipments (UEs), the eNB must acquire channel state information (CSI) of the UEs, which is typically obtained by downlink training (e.g., via CSI reference signal, or "CSI-RS") and uplink feedback of precoding matrix indicator (PMI) information and channel quality indicator (CQI) information in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems."). For claims 7, 15, and 23, Li discloses the CSI report configuration comprises a plurality of codebook configurations associated with a single CSI-RS resource ([0103] that "The invention exploits statistical correlations among signals emitted on or received from the TRX's (which mean logical, or physical antennas or antenna ports or V-TRXs) that are imposed by the propagating channel and precoding codebook structures in the current LTE specifications."). For claims 8, 16, and 24, Li discloses the CSI report configuration includes at least one additional reduced antenna port indication associated with at least one additional reduced CSI-RS antenna port configuration ([0243] that "The eNB configures one or more patterns out of Q patterns to the UE."). Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20210320704 A1; US 20190036579 A1 Inquiries Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to PAKEE FANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3633. The Examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9:00AM-5:00PM. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Armouche, Hadi can be reached on 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /PAKEE FANG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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Prosecution Timeline

Dec 28, 2023
Application Filed
Apr 13, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102
Jun 11, 2026
Interview Requested
Jun 22, 2026
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
Jun 22, 2026
Examiner Interview Summary
Jul 09, 2026
Response Filed
Aug 14, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §102 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
68%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+36.9%)
3y 0m (~5m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 538 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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