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 .
Claim Status
This office action is in response to the communication(s) filed on 02/27/2024.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are currently presenting for examination.
Claim(s) 1 and 11 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim(s) 1, 3, 11, and 13 is/are rejected.
Claim(s) 2, 4-10, 12, and 14-20 is/are objected to.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 11, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US_20200076647_A1_Zhang in view of US_20240314012_A1_Tervo.
Regarding claim 1, Zhang discloses a method, comprising: determining a first phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) pattern (Zhang figure 13, element 1301), wherein the first PTRS pattern belongs to a first PTRS pattern set, the first PTRS pattern set comprises a plurality of PTRS patterns (Zhang paragraph 215, “…if a quantity of all possible PTRS patterns is 20, the PTRS patterns are identified
by five bits…”), and the PTRS pattern indicates a distribution rule of a PTRS in the OFDM symbol (Zhang paragraph 181, “Step 1301: A first device determines a PTRS pattern based on at least one of the following types of information: an inter-symbol PTRS time domain density, an intra-symbol PTRS chunk (chunk) density, a quantity of PTRS samples (sample), and a distribution location of a chunk within a symbol”, paragraph 182, OFDM symbols); and the PTRS pattern comprises a plurality of PTRS groups (Zhang paragraph 144, “….where the PTRS pattern includes one or more PTRS chunks…”), and each PTRS group comprises a plurality of consecutive PTRS sampling points (Zhang paragraph 144, “….each PTRS chunk includes one or more PTRS samples”); and transmitting the PTRS based on the first PTRS pattern (Zhang figure 13, step of “Send, to the second device, the one or more symbols to which the PTRS is mapped”), but does not disclose none of all PTRS groups in each PTRS pattern in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol is located at a tail of the OFDM symbol.
Tervo discloses each PTRS pattern in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol is located at a tail of the OFDM symbol (Tervo paragraph 56, “Another significant issue may be that, in most PTRS patterns, one of the PTRS groups is inserted into the beginning of the DFT-s-OFDM symbol, and one is inserted into the end of the DFT-s-OFDM symbol. Therefore, the end of the DFT-s-OFDM symbol may experience significant interference, for example due to energy leakage from the data sub-symbols, or from other impairments related to the beginning or end of DFT-S-OFDM symbols. These may be seen as corner or boundary effects.”, paragraph 62, “A shifted PTRS pattern refers to a pattern, wherein the last and/or the first PTRS group is shifted from the end of the DFT-s-OFDM symbol…”).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Tervo’s the last and/or the first PTRS group is shifted from the end of the DFT-s-OFDM symbol in Zhang’s system to reduce inter-symbol interference (Tervo paragraph 56, 61). This method for improving the system of Zhang was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Tervo. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Zhang and Tervo to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, Zhang and Tervo disclose the method according to claim 1, and Zhang further discloses wherein a quantity of PTRS sampling points in a PTRS group in any one of the plurality of PTRS patterns is not equal to 4 (Zhang paragraph 202, “…the quantity of PTRS samples included in a PTRS chunk may be 1, 2, 4, 8, 16…”. Therefore, in the cases of the quantity of PTRS samples included in a PTRS chunk is 1, 2, 8, or 16, the quantity of PTRS samples included in a PTRS chunk is not equal to 4).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang and Tervo disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Zhang further discloses a device, comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program to be executed by the processor (Zhang paragraph 329).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang and Tervo disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 3.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4-10, 12, and 14-20 is/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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WEIBIN HUANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3695. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:30AM - 6:00PM.
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/W.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471