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 1-16 responded on April 20, 2026 are pending, claims 1, 3-5, 7-9, 11-13, 15, and 16 are amended.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-6, 8-10, 12-14 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guan et al. (US 2025/0393050 A1, hereinafter "Guan") in view of Matsumura et al. (WO 2024/009497 A1, hereinafter "Matsumura") .
Regarding claim 1, Guan discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Guan, Fig. 2 120 (i.e. user equipment)), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station (BS), configuration information associated with an uplink (UL), the configuration information including sounding reference signal (SRS) resource set information configuring a first SRS resource set and a second SRS resource set, and information configuring a simultaneous transmission across multi-panel (STxMP) with a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) scheme for the UL (Guan, [0110, 0179, 0293] the network device transmits 210 a configuration of SRS transmission to the terminal device 120. In some embodiments, the SRS configuration may comprise two SRS resource sets; the network device 110 may transmit 410 an indication of STxMP to the terminal device 120…or a SDM repetition scheme; the terminal device 120 deployed with first and second panels (e.g., the panels 125-1 and 125-2) (i.e. at most two ports) receives an indication of simultaneous transmission over the first and second panels);
receiving, from the BS, downlink control information (DCI) (Guan, [0212] the number of DMRS CDM groups without data may be provided in “antenna ports” field in DCI); and
transmitting, based on the DCI (Guan, [0002] for UL single downlink control information (DCI) for MTRP operation).
Guan does not explicitly disclose receiving information indicating that at most two phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS) ports are used for the UL, downlink control information (DCI) including association information between a PT-RS port and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port and the PT-RS using a first PT-RS port and a second PT-RS port, according to the received configuration of the STxMP.
Matsmura from the same field of endeavor discloses receiving, from the BS, information indicating that at most two phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS) ports are used for the UL, downlink control information (DCI) including association information of 2 bits for an association between a PT-RS port and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port (Matsumura, [0027, 46, 49, 60] In simultaneous multi-panel transmission (STxMP) in a single DCI-based multi-TRP system, the following scheme may be applied for UL transmission (eg, PUSCH); it has been agreed to support up to two PTRS ports (first PTRS port and second PTRS port) for single PDCCH-based multi-panel/TRP transmission. The number of applied/configured PTRS ports (eg, 1 or 2 PTRS ports) may be informed to the UE; When two PTRS ports (for example, PTRS port #0 and PTRS port #1) are configured, the association between each PTRS and DMRS is the code point specified in the PTRS-DMRS association field of the DCI and each code point; PTRS-DMRS related fields when two PTRSs are configured/applied); and
transmitting, based on the DCI, PT-RSs using a first PT-RS port and a second PT-RS port, according to the configuration information and the association information (Matsumura, [0060] When using one or two PTRS ports with a maximum rank greater than 2 (e.g., maxrank>2), the PTRS-DMRS association of two TRPs includes a PTRS-DMRS association field and a second PTRS-DMRS association field);
wherein a value of a most significant bit (MSB) of the association information indicates whether the first PT-RS port is associated with a first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set or a second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set, and a least significant bit (LSB) of the association information indicates whether the second PT-RS port is associated with a first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set or a second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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[0094] If two SRI fields are reused and the two SRI fields correspond to two beams/panels/TRPs of FDM-A, Rel. 17 PTRS-DMRS associations may be applied).
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 uplink configuration disclosed by Guan and uplink configuration disclosed by Matsumura with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve UL throughput/reliability (Matsumura, [0016]).
Regarding claim 2, Guan discloses wherein the DCI further includes a first SRS resource indicator (SRI) field associated with the first SRS resource set, and a second SRI field associated with the second SRS resource set (Guan, [0082] the DCI comprises one or more SRI fields. A SRI field may indicate one power control configuration (e.g., SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl) comprised in the configuration of PUSCH transmission. As indicated by reference sign 152, the one or more SRI fields may comprise a first SRI indicating a first SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl and a first SRS resource and a second SRI indicating SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl and a second SRS resource).
Regarding claim 4, Guan does not explicitly disclose wherein the value of the MSB being 0 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set and the value of the MSB being 1 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set, and
wherein the value of the LSB being 0 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set and the value of the LSB being 1 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set.
Matsumura from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the value of the MSB being 0 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set and the value of the MSB being 1 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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), and
wherein the value of the LSB being 0 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set and the value of the LSB being 1 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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).
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 uplink configuration disclosed by Guan and uplink configuration disclosed by Matsumura with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve UL throughput/reliability (Matsumura, [0016]).
Regarding claim 5, Guan discloses a method performed by a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system (Guan, Fig. 2 110 (i.e. base station)), the method comprising:
transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), configuration information associated with an uplink (UL), the configuration information configuring sounding reference signal (SRS) resource set information including a first SRS resource set and a second SRS resource set, and information configuring a simultaneous transmission across multi-panel (STxMP) with a spatial domain multiplexing (SDM) scheme for the UL (Guan, [0110, 0179, 0293] the network device transmits 210 a configuration of SRS transmission to the terminal device 120. In some embodiments, the SRS configuration may comprise two SRS resource sets; the network device 110 may transmit 410 an indication of STxMP to the terminal device 120…or a SDM repetition scheme; the terminal device 120 deployed with first and second panels (e.g., the panels 125-1 and 125-2) (i.e. at most two ports) receives an indication of simultaneous transmission over the first and second panels);
transmitting, to the UE, downlink control information (DCI) (Guan, [0212] the number of DMRS CDM groups without data may be provided in “antenna ports” field in DCI); and
receiving, based on the DCI (Guan, [0002] for UL single downlink control information (DCI) for MTRP operation).
Guan does not explicitly disclose transmitting information indicating that at most two phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS) ports are used for the UL, downlink control information (DCI) including association information between a PT-RS port and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port and the PT-RS using a first PT-RS port and a second PT-RS port, according to the received configuration of the STxMP.
Matsmura from the same field of endeavor discloses receiving, from the BS, information indicating that at most two phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS) ports are used for the UL, downlink control information (DCI) including association information of 2 bits for an association between a PT-RS port and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port (Matsumura, [0027, 46, 49, 60] In simultaneous multi-panel transmission (STxMP) in a single DCI-based multi-TRP system, the following scheme may be applied for UL transmission (eg, PUSCH); it has been agreed to support up to two PTRS ports (first PTRS port and second PTRS port) for single PDCCH-based multi-panel/TRP transmission. The number of applied/configured PTRS ports (eg, 1 or 2 PTRS ports) may be informed to the UE; When two PTRS ports (for example, PTRS port #0 and PTRS port #1) are configured, the association between each PTRS and DMRS is the code point specified in the PTRS-DMRS association field of the DCI and each code point; PTRS-DMRS related fields when two PTRSs are configured/applied); and
receiving, based on the DCI, PT-RSs on a first PT-RS port and a second PT-RS port, according to the configuration information and the association information (Matsumura, [0060] When using one or two PTRS ports with a maximum rank greater than 2 (e.g., maxrank>2), the PTRS-DMRS association of two TRPs includes a PTRS-DMRS association field and a second PTRS-DMRS association field);
wherein a value of a most significant bit (MSB) of the association information indicates whether the first PT-RS port is associated with a first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set or a second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set, and a least significant bit (LSB) of the association information indicates whether the second PT-RS port is associated with a first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set or a second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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[0094] If two SRI fields are reused and the two SRI fields correspond to two beams/panels/TRPs of FDM-A, Rel. 17 PTRS-DMRS associations may be applied).
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 uplink configuration disclosed by Guan and uplink configuration disclosed by Matsumura with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve UL throughput/reliability (Matsumura, [0016]).
Regarding claim 6, Guan discloses wherein the DCI further includes a first SRS resource indicator (SRI) field associated with the first SRS resource set, and a second SRI field associated with the second SRS resource set (Guan, [0082] the DCI comprises one or more SRI fields. A SRI field may indicate one power control configuration (e.g., SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl) comprised in the configuration of PUSCH transmission. As indicated by reference sign 152, the one or more SRI fields may comprise a first SRI indicating a first SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl and a first SRS resource and a second SRI indicating SRI-PUSCH-PowerControl and a second SRS resource).
Regarding claim 8, Guan does not explicitly disclose wherein the value of the MSB being 0 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set and the value of the MSB being 1 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set, and
wherein the value of the LSB being O indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set and the value of the LSB being 1 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set.
Matsumura from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the value of the MSB being 0 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set and the value of the MSB being 1 indicates that the first PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the first SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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), and
wherein the value of the LSB being 0 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the first DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set and the value of the LSB being 1 indicates that the second PT-RS port is associated with the second DMRS port corresponding to the second SRS resource set (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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).
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 uplink configuration disclosed by Guan and uplink configuration disclosed by Matsumura with a motivation to make this modification in order to improve UL throughput/reliability (Matsumura, [0016]).
Regarding claims 9-10, 12-14 and 16, these claims recite "a user equipment" and "a base station" that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 1-2, 4-6 and 8, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1-2, 4-6 and 8 as presented above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 7, 11 and 15 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.
Claims 3, 7, 11 and 15 are potentially allowable over the prior art of record Guan et al. (US 2025/0393050 A1, hereinafter "Guan") in view of Matsumura et al. (WO 2024/009497 A1, hereinafter "Matsumura") as applied to the claim above.
Regarding claims 3, 7, 11 and 15, Guan discloses wherein a usage of each of the first SRS resource set and the second SRS resource set is configured to a non-codebook (Guan, [0110] two SRS resource sets may be configured with parameter “usage” set to “noncodebook”),
Matsumura discloses wherein the information configuring the first SRS resource set and the second SRS resource set configures at least one SRS resource for each of the first SRS resource set and the second SRS resource set (Matsumura, [0092] the first beam/first panel/first TRP (or first frequency domain resource in PUSCH transmission opportunity), PTRS0 is associated with DMRS port 0, and in the second beam/second It may mean that in the panel/second TRP (or second frequency domain resource in PUSCH transmission opportunity) PTRS0 is associated with DMRS port1
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) and includes information on a PTRS port associated with the at least one SRS resource (Matsumura, Fig. 30
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[0094] If two SRI fields are reused and the two SRI fields correspond to two beams/panels/TRPs of FDM-A, Rel. 17 PTRS-DMRS associations may be applied) .
Guan in view of Matsumura fails to teach alone or in combination "wherein, if two PT-RS ports are used and the STxMP is configured, the information on the PT-RS port associated with the at least one SRS resource is ignored".
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/ Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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