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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-6, 9-11, 14-16, 19, and 20, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rahman et al. (US Patent No. 11128354) in view of Mittal et al. (US Publication No. 20250175232).
As to claims 1, 6, 11, and 16, Rahman teaches an information feedback method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, a communication chip, and a communication apparatus comprising: at least one processor; at least one memory configured to store a computer program that, when executed by the at least one processor (fig. 1, fig. 3, col. 1, line 45, a UE for CSI feedback), causes the communication apparatus to perform at least the following operations: sending first information to a network apparatus, wherein the first information comprises a total quantity of nonzero coefficients associated with all spatial layers of a terminal device (fig. 1, fig. 14, #1406, #1408, transmitting CSI feedback including a number of non-zero coefficients for each layer (l) of a total number of layers and a sum of the non-zero coefficients across each of the layers as a total number of non-zero coefficients, and col. 32, lines 42-46), and sending second information to the network apparatus (CSI part 2), wherein the first information and the second information are used to determine channel state information (CSI) (fig. 1, fig. 14, col. 35, lines 56-61, the CSI feedback is partitioned into two parts, CSI part 1 and CSI part 2, CSI part 1 includes the K.sup.NZ value and is transmitted via a UL control information (UCI) part 1, and CSI part 2 is transmitted via a UCI part 2, where UCI part 1 and UCI part 2 are parts of a two-part UCI transmitted over the UL channel). Although, Rahman teaches the concept of Type II CSI codebook reporting (see col. 18). However, Rahman fails to explicitly teach wherein the nonzero coefficients are used to constitute a weighting coefficient matrix in a codebook.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Mittal teaches the concept wherein the nonzero coefficients are used to constitute a weighting coefficient matrix in a codebook (fig. 2, pp0004, determine a total number of non-zero coefficients based on the codeword, where the codeword identifies the total number of non-zero coefficients, and where the total number of non-zero coefficients is associated with the CSI codebook over a set of transmission layers, and pp0060). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Rahman with the teachings of Mittal to achieve the goal of efficiently and reliably reporting channel condition or CSI and avoiding much overhead in a communication system (Mittal, pp0003).
As to claims 4, 9, 14, and 19, Rahman in view Mittal teaches the limitations of the independent claims as discussed above. Rahman further teaches wherein the first information is an uplink control information (UCI) part 1 of uplink control information, and the second information is a UCI part 2 of the uplink control information (fig. 1, fig. 14, col. 35, lines 56-61, the CSI feedback is partitioned into two parts, CSI part 1 and CSI part 2, CSI part 1 includes the K.sup.NZ value and is transmitted via a UL control information (UCI) part 1, and CSI part 2 is transmitted via a UCI part 2, where UCI part 1 and UCI part 2 are parts of a two-part UCI transmitted over the UL channel).
As to claims 5, 10, 15, and 20, Rahman in view Mittal teaches the limitations of the independent claims as discussed above. Rahman further teaches wherein a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients of the terminal device is equal to a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients that the network apparatus allows the terminal device to report (fig. 1, fig. 14, col. 35, lines 4-15, maximum number of non-zero coefficients the UE can report is based on the maximum allowed by CSI feedback configuration i.e. from the network).
Claim(s) 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, and 18, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rahman et al. (US Patent No. 11128354) in view of Mittal et al. (US Publication No. 20250175232) and further in view of Ramireddy et al. (US Publication No 20220224391).
As to claims 2, 7, 12, and 17, Rahman in view Mittal teaches the limitations of the independent claims as discussed above. However, failed to explicitly teach wherein based on a rank of the terminal device being equal to 1, the total quantity of nonzero coefficients comprised in the first information indicates a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients at a first spatial layer.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Ramireddy teaches the concept wherein based on a rank of the terminal device being equal to 1, the total quantity of nonzero coefficients comprised in the first information indicates a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients at a first spatial layer (fig. 2, pp0098, for rank indicator, RI = 1, configured to report the number of non-zero combining coefficients per layer or the total number of non-zero combining coefficients across all layers to the gNB. For instance, for RI=1, the UE may be configured with a single parameter K and the UE assigns K.sup.(0)≤K coefficients to layer 1, and pp0099, maximum number of non-zero combining coefficients for each layer). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Rahman and Mittal with the teachings of Ramireddy to achieve the goal of efficiently and accurately providing CSI in order to achieve high throughput in a communication system (Ramireddy, pp0006).
As to claims 3, 8, 13, and 18, Rahman in view Mittal teaches the limitations of the independent claims as discussed above. However, failed to explicitly teach wherein based on the rank of the terminal device being equal to 2, the total quantity of nonzero coefficients comprised in the first information indicates a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients at the first spatial layer and a second spatial layer.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Ramireddy teaches the concept wherein based on the rank of the terminal device being equal to 2, the total quantity of nonzero coefficients comprised in the first information indicates a maximum quantity of nonzero coefficients at the first spatial layer and a second spatial layer (fig. 2, pp0100, for RI=2, the UE may be configured by a single value K.sub.1=28 that denotes the maximum number of non-zero combining coefficients for each layer, and the number of reported non-zero combining coefficients calculated by the UE for the first and second layer). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Rahman and Mittal with the teachings of Ramireddy to achieve the goal of efficiently and accurately providing CSI in order to achieve high throughput in a communication system (Ramireddy, pp0006).
Conclusion
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/OMONIYI OBAYANJU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645