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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, and 21-27 responded on June 08, 2026 are pending, claims 1, 9, and 17 are amended.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on July 08, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1-2, 7, 9-10, 15, 17-18, and 21-27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (US 2025/0266871 A1, Provisional application No. 63/397,521, filed on Aug. 12, 2022, hereinafter "Gao") in view of Dai et al. (US 2025/0253992 A1, hereinafter "Dai").
Regarding claim 1, Gao discloses a user equipment (UE) (Gao, Fig. 10) comprising:
a transceiver (Gao, Fig. 10 1012) configured to receive, via higher layer signaling, first configuration information about a channel state information (CSI) report and second configuration information on Ntrp≥2 CSI reference signal (CSI-RS) resources (Gao, [0065, 0153-0154, 0180]configured by RRC (i.e. higher layer signaling) the network node 502 configures the UE with a Rel-16 or Rel-17 type-II codebook (CB) refinement for CJT CSI report, the configuration comprising NRS CSI-RS resources for channel measurement; where two CSI-RS resources (i.e. Ntrp≥1), CSI-RS #1 and CSI-RS #2, each containing a number of CSI-RS ports are configured and transmitted from two TRPs; The UE reports the CJT CSI in two Parts, i.e., Part 1 and Part 2),
a processor (Gao, Fig. 10 1002) operably coupled to the transceiver, the processor, based on the information, configured to: determine a CSI Part 1 including a Ntrp-bit bitmap indicator to indicate N selected CSI-RS resources (Gao, [0106, 0138] the CSI report comprises a first part and a second part, and wherein the first part comprises information indicating one or more of: the determined number of layers or rank v, the determined number of spatial beams or ports for each of the NRS CSI-RS resources, or a total number of reported non-zero coefficients; The UE indicates the associated beams and FD basis vectors of the non-zero coefficients with a bitmap, either one per TRP or one across all TRPs, where each bit in the bitmap is associated to a beam and FD basis vector pair and, if a bit is set to 1, the corresponding coefficient associated to the beam and FD basis vector pair is a non-zero coefficient); determine the CSI Part 2 for the CSI report based on omitting a portion of the CSI part 2 according to a priority order, wherein each reported element of i₂,4,l i₂,5,l and i₁,7,l is associated with a priority value Pri(l,i,f,r) for the priority order (Gao, [0140-0141, 0171] it may be determined and reported by the UE based certain criteria such as the received CSI-RS power; The coefficients and the bitmap are ordered according to their priority levels into different groups and a group with lower priority level is dropped first if needed; Part 2 comprises groups 1 and 2), wherein:, Pri (l,i,f,r) = 2⋅∑n=1NLϕ(n)⋅ υ ⋅π(f)+ υ (2⋅∑n=1r-1Lϕ(n)+ i)+ l, where: π(f) is a permutation function, Lr is a number of spatial-domain (SD) basis vectors associated with CSI-RS resource r ∈ {1,. . . , Ntrp}, υ is a number of layers, l=1,2,…,υ, i=0,1,…,2Lr-1, f=0,1,…,Mυ -1, Mυ is a number of frequency-domain (FD) basis vectors, and 1≤N≤Ntrp, wherein the transceiver is further configured to transmit the CSI report including and the determined CSI Part 2 (Gao, [0067, 0101]
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is used to identify the number of information bits in Part 2. Part 1 shall be transmitted in its entirety before Part 2; [0111] CSI Reference Signal (CSI-RS) resources indexed by s (s=1,2, . . . , NRS) (i.e. CSI-RS resource index r) for channel measurement);
wherein i₂,₄,L is an amplitude coefficient indicator, wherein i₂,5,L a phase coefficient indicator, and wherein i₁,7,1 is a bitmap for non-zero coefficients associated with i₂,₄,I and i₂,5,l (Gao, [0051, 0053] Selected coefficient subset for each layer is indicated with KlNZ… bitmap, i1,7,l ;The amplitude coefficients in W2,l are indicated by i 2,3,l (wideband) and i2,4,l (subband), and the phase coefficients in W2,l are indicated by i2,5,l.).
Gao does not explicitly disclose ϕ(n) is a function, determined based on the Ntrp-bit bitmap indicator, to map an index n∈{1,…,N} to a CSI-RS resource index r∈{1,…,Ntrp}.
Dai from the same field of endeavor discloses determine a CSI Part 1 including a Ntrp-bit bitmap indicator to indicate N selected CSI-RS resources among the Ntrp CSI-RS resources (Dai, Fig. 14 [0156, 0188] the UE may select the TRPs based on reference signal received power (RSRP) of CSI-RS resources for each TRP; The TRP selection field 1418 may indicate the selected N TRPS out of a configured number of TRPs (NTRP). In some examples, the TRP selection field 1418 may be implemented as a bitmap-based TRP selection field. The bitmap-based TRP selection field may include a bitmap that includes a number of bits equal to a number (NTRP) of possible TRPs available for CJT communication. F) and ϕ(n) is a function, determined based on the Ntrp -bit bitmap indicator, to map an index n∈{1,…,N} to a CSI-RS resource index r∈{1,…,Ntrp} (Dai, [0188] for NTRP=4, the bitmap may include a set of 4 bits with each bit corresponding to a particular TRP in the set of four possible TRPs. As an example, a first value (e.g., a "1") may indicate that the corresponding TRP is selected, and a second value (e.g., a "0") may indicate that the corresponding TRP is not selected. As an example, a first bit of the bitmap may correspond to TRP A, a second bit of the bitmap may correspond to TRP B, a third bit of the bitmap may correspond to TRP C, and a fourth bit of the bitmap may correspond to TRP D. In such an example, a bitmap value of {0101} may indicate that TRP Band TRP Dare selected by the UE).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified CSI reporting disclosed by Gao and CSI report disclosed by Dai with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve reliability, coverage, and/or capacity (Dai, [0033]).
Regarding claim 2, Gao discloses wherein the permutation function π(f) corresponds to π(f) =
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, where
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is a FD basis vector index, and N3 is a number of precoding matrices (Gao, [0182]
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).
Regarding claim 7, Gao discloses wherein the CSI part 2 includes a group G2, the group G2 includes
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lowest priority elements of i1, 7, l , min
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, lowest priority elements of i2, 4, l, and min
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lowest priority elements of i2, 5, l, (l=1, …,υ,), and wherein KNZ is a total number of the non-zero coefficients (Gao, table 4 part 2 group 2 [0081]
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)
Regarding claims 9-10, 15 and 26-27, these claims recite "a base station" (Gao, Fig. 11) that disclose similar steps as recited by the claims 1-2, 7 and 24-25, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1-2, 7 and 24-25 as presented above.
Regarding claims 17-18 and 21-23, these claims recite "a method performed by a user equipment (UE)" that disclose similar steps as recited by the claims 1-2, 7 and 24-25, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1-2, 7 and 24-25 as presented above.
Regarding claim 24, Gao discloses wherein:
the CSI part 2 includes a group G1, and
the group G1 includes
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highest priority elements of i1,7,l, max ( 0, [KNZ /2] - v ), highest priority elements of i2,4,l, and max ( 0, [KNZ /2] - v) highest priority elements of i2,5,l (Gao, [0081] table 4 part 2 group 1).
Regarding claim 25, Gao discloses wherein:
the first configuration information includes codebook configuration information,
the codebook configuration information includes codebook type information indicating a Type II coherent joint transmission (CJT) codebook (Gao, [0083] it has been agreed to support downlink Coherent Joint Transmission (CJT) from multiple Transmission and Reception Points (TRPs) by extending Rel-16 and Rel-17 enhanced type II codebook across multiple TRPs), and
the NTRP CSI-RS resources correspond to NTRP transmission and reception points (TRPs) associated with the Type II CJT codebook (Gao, [0095] Per-TRP/TRP group (port-group or resource) SD basis selection and joint (across N TRPs) FD basis selection. Example formulation (N=number of TRPs or TRP groups)).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LUNA WEISSBERGER whose telephone number is (571)272-3315. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:30pm.
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
