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 .
Response to Arguments and Amendments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims filed 12/4/2025 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.
Terminal Disclaimer
Terminal Disclaimer filed 12/4/2025 has been approved.
Claims Status
Claims 1, 3, 9, 11, 17, 19, 24, 26 and 31 are cancelled.
Claims 2, 4, 6-8, 10, 12, 14-16, 18, 20-23, 25 and 27-30 and 34-37 are rejected under 35 USC 103.
Claims 5 and 13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent.
Claims 32 and 33 are rejected under 35 USC 112(b) only.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 32 and 33 are ejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 32 and 33, the limitation “receive UL data comprising the wake-up burst structure including a plurality of first reference signal bursts…” is indefinite. The apparatus most likely does not receive the structure itself in the UL data but rather it receives UL data comprising reference signal bursts arranged according to the wake-up burst structure.
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 2, 8, 10, 15, 16, 18, 23, 25, 29, 30 and 34-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al (US 2014/0204807) in view of in view of Nystrom et al. (US 2011/0075625).
Regarding claims 2, 10, 18 and 25, Li teaches a method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising: communicating with a network entity utilizing a plurality of self-contained subframes comprising a first subframe and a second subframe, each of the self-contained subframes comprising an uplink (UL) portion and a downlink (DL) portion (Li, 0043-0048 and 0074-0078- shows configuring single flexible subframe such that the first n symbols are allocated for downlink and the remaining symbols of the same subframe are allocated to the uplink. Li further shows that when the flexible subframe carries cell specific reference signals and DL control info while the remaining portion of the same subframe carries PUSCH. Li’s flexible subframe is interpreted as self-contained subframe because Li specifically discloses a single subframe partitioned into a DL portion followed by an UL portion with the same portion);
While Li teaches receiving DL control information from the network entity in the DL portion of the first subframe. Li fails to specifically disclose the DL control information indicating a suggested structure of a plurality of first reference signal bursts to be used for the first subframe; and transmitting UL data comprising the plurality of first reference signal bursts to the network entity in the UL portion of the first subframe, wherein the plurality of first reference signal bursts are configured to conform with the suggested structure and uniformly spaced in at least a portion of the UL portion of the first subframe.
However, Nystrom teaches providing a plurality of different pilot structures or configurations adapted to different radio conditions and selecting an appropriate pilot structure based on estimated channel conditions (Nystrom 0012, 0038-0040). Nystrom further teaches that after the appropriate pilot pattern is selected, the pilot manager informs the receiver of the selected pilot pattern so that channel estimation can be performed using the selected structure (Nystrom 0054). In addition, Nystrom teaches that in the uplink, the pilot manager at the base station determines the appropriate pilot pattern, transmits the request identifying the selected pilot pattern to the uplink control unit of the user and the control unit applies the proposed pilot pattern to the uplink traffic (Nystrom 0057). Worth noting, Nystrom discloses pilot structures having regular spacing (Nystrom 0031- uniform), pilot structures providing updates (0042) and periodically recurring (0041).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to combine Nystrom’s pilot pattern selection with Li’s flexible subframe framework in order to improve channel estimation while reducing pilot overhead as suggested by Nystrom in 0010-0014.
Regarding claims 8 and 23, Li as modified by Nystrom do not specifically disclose utilizing continuous phase modulation or constant phase modulation to transmit the plurality of first reference signal bursts.
However, official notice is taken that constant or continuous phase modulation was well known modulation techniques in the art prior to applicant’s effective filing date.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to substitute modulation techniques for transmitting the reference signal bursts in the system of Li as modified by Nystrom because the substitution merely shows the use of known modulation technique in place of another to obtain the same predictable result without changing the operation of the system.
Regarding claims 15 and 29, Li as modified by Nystrom are silent to configuring the DL control information to indicate a predetermined periodicity of the plurality of first reference signal bursts in the UL portion (Nystrom 0041 and 0060-0063, the pilot patterns may for example be periodically recurring with some period or pseudo-randomly designed. Since the network transmits the full description of the pilot pattern and that pattern includes pilot recurring every second OFDM symbol then the sent description inherently conveys the periodicity.)
Regarding claims 16 and 30, Li as modified by Nystrom teaches determining the predetermined periodicity based on at least one of: a time duration that the UE has been in a sleep mode; a link quality between the UE and the network entity in a previous wake-up period; an amount of DL data scheduled to be transmitted by the network entity; a delay spread of an uplink channel between the network entity and the UE; or a Doppler spread of an uplink channel between the network entity and the UE (Nystrom 0012 and 0043- teaches doppler shift).
Regarding claims 34-37, Li as modified by Nystrom teaches either in the UE side or the network side, the plurality of second reference signal bursts are uniformly spaced in at least a portion of the UL portion of the second subframe, and wherein the first subframe comprises a greater number of reference signal bursts than that of the second subframe (Nystrom 0038, 0041 and 0041 discloses using different pilot densities in different portions of the resource space. In other words, apply Nystrom pilot structure to the UL portion of Li’s first subframe and apply a less dense uniformly spaced Nystrom’s pilot structure to the UL portion of Li’s second subframe and therefore the first subframe would contain more bursts than the second.)
Claims 4, 12, 14, 20, 27 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al (US 2014/0204807) in view of in view of Nystrom et al. (US 2011/0075625) and further in view of Koo et al (US 2011/0200143).
Regarding claims 4, 12, 20 and 27, Li and Nystrom fail to specifically disclose the transmitting UL data comprises precoding the plurality of first reference signal bursts differently from one another such that the plurality of first reference signal bursts are transmitted by different antennas of the UE.
However, Koo teaches mapping different SRS sequences to different antennas, precoding the SRS sequence before transmission through multiple antennas and transmitting through a plurality of antennas by precoding the same sequence for the antennas (0009, 0018, 0083 and 0116).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to combine Koo known multi antenna SRS precoding technique to the uplink reference signal transmission of Li as modified by Nystrom, in order to efficiently support uplink multiple antenna transmission and improve channel estimation.
Regarding claims 14 and 28, Li and Nystrom disclose a plurality of first reference signal burst but fail to specifically disclose receiving the plurality of first reference signal bursts respectively from different antennas of the UE.
However, Koo teaches plurality of first reference signal bursts respectively from different antennas of the UE (0009, 0018 and 0083).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to combine Koo known multi antenna SRS precoding technique to the uplink reference signal transmission of Li as modified by Nystrom, in order to efficiently support uplink multiple antenna transmission and improve channel estimation.
Claims 6, 7, 21 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al (US 2014/0204807) in view of in view of Nystrom et al. (US 2011/0075625) and further in view of Larmo (US 2015/0282076).
Regarding claim 6 and 21 Li as modified by Nystrom fails to specifically disclose waking up from a discontinuous reception (DRX) off mode to receive the DL control information in the first subframe.
However, Larmo discloses UE operating in DRX mode that wakes up at the beginning of a DRX cycle to monitor downlink control signalling in a single subframe and waking from a receiver sleep state prior to a scheduled DRX on-time to receive DL signaling (Larmo 0026, 0039 and 0049).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to use Li’s wake-up procedure with Li’s system in order to reduce power consumption as is standard practice with any wake-up procedure.
Regarding claim 7 and 22, Li as modified by Nystrom teach transmitting UL data comprising a plurality of second reference signal bursts to the network entity in the UL portion of the second subframe such that the plurality of second reference signal bursts are uniformly spaced in at least a portion of the UL portion of the second subframe (as shown in claim 2).
Larmo teaches waking up from a discontinuous reception (DRX) off mode during a DL-centric subframe (examiner’s note – DL-centric subframe is not defined in the claim and examiner is interpreting it functionally as a subframe used primarily for DL control reception) of the plurality of self-contained subframes, wherein the DL-centric subframe is earlier in time than the second subframe; receiving DL control information, from the network entity, in the DL-centric subframe (Larmo 0026, 0033, 0039 and 0049 disclose UE operating in DRX mode wakes from a receiver sleep state prior to a scheduled DRX on-time and monitors DL control signaling in a subframe before subsequent communication).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling data of the claimed invention to use Li’s wake-up procedure with Li’s system in order to reduce power consumption as is standard practice with any wake-up procedure.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 13 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.
Regarding claims 5 and 13, the closest prior art teaches multi antenna precoded SRS transmission but fails to specifically disclose that for each of the plurality of first reference signal bursts use respective distinct precoding for each of a plurality of symbols in a later part of the UL portion of the first subframe.
Claims 32 and 33 are presently rejected under 35 USC 112(b). However would be allowable over the prior art of record once corrected.
The prior art of record, including Li, Nystrom, Koo, Larmo and Parkvall, teaches various aspects of TDD/flexible subframe operation and adaptive pilot/reference signal structures. For example, Li teaches a flexible subframe having downlink control in a forepart and uplink transmission in a later portion, Nystrom teaches adapting pilot patterns based on radio conditions, and Parkvall teaches TDD/flexible subframe architecture.
However, the cited prior art, alone or in combination, does not teach or reasonably suggest the particular claimed arrangement in which an apparatus is configured to communicate using a plurality of self-contained subframes each having a UL portion and a DL portion; receive/transmit DL control information in the DL portion of a first subframe indicating a wake-up burst structure; the wake-up burst structure comprises more than a nominal number of reference signal bursts; transmit/receive UL data in the UL portion of the first subframe comprising a plurality of first reference signal bursts that are uniformly spaced in at least a portion of the UL portion; transmit/receive UL data in the UL portion of a second subframe comprising a plurality of second reference signal bursts that are also uniformly spaced in at least a portion of the UL portion; and the first subframe comprises a greater number of reference signal bursts than the second subframe.
The combination of the DL indicated wake-up burst structure, more than nominal first subframe reference signal burst density, uniform spacing of reference signal bursts in both first and second subframes, and relative burst-count relationship between the first and second subframes is not shown or suggested by the cited references. Accordingly, claims 32 and 33 would be allowable once pending 112(b) issue is overcome.
Conclusion
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/EDAN ORGAD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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