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 Objections
Claims 16 and 30 are objected to for better clarity. Expression “receive a sounding reference signal (SRS) from a first number of SRS ports of a user equipment (UE) and sequentially mapped …”, if written as “receive a sounding reference signal (SRS) from a first number of SRS ports of a user equipment (UE)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 16 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: the claims do not recite the step or steps between receiving by the network entity the SRS transmission from the UE and subsequently receiving the PUSCH transmission from the UE, which is known to carry data. Spec. e.g., in Fig. 9A and para [109] teaches, after receiving the SRS, a DCI with SRI is transmitted from the network entity to the UE, for the UE to transmit PUSCH based on the SRS port indicator in SRI.
Claims 17-27 are subjected to the same rejection due to their dependency on the rejected claim 16.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by CHOI; Kukheon et al US 20210083825 A1, hereinafter CHOI.
Regarding claims 1 and 28, CHOI teaches, an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory (see CHOI Fig. 1) and, based at least in part on information stored in the at least one memory, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to:
sequentially map a first number of Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) ports to a second number of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols, the first number and the second number each being greater than one (CHOI Fig. 12; [143] “FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating SRS port to SRS symbol mapping …”; [145] “In Equation, the number of SRS ports is set to 4. When the number of SRS symbols in each SRS slot is set to 4, if an SRS port is mapped to an SRS symbol according to Equation 2, it may be represented as shown in FIG. 12.”, teaches mapping of SRS ports to symbols, number of ports and symbols are greater than one. [135] “the port numbers of SRS ports sequentially mapped to SRS symbols in the time domain …”, Fig.12, Table 16, line 3 (configuration 2), teaches SRS ports are sequentially mapped to symbols. [46] “The symbol modulator 120 multiplexes the data and pilot symbols together and then transmits the multiplexed symbols to the transmitter 125 … symbols may include symbols of … orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) …”, teaches symbol can be OFDM symbol, which is also well-known in 4G and 5G wireless); and
transmit an SRS from the first number of SRS ports over the second number of OFDM symbols (CHOI [7] “The SRS may be transmitted on antenna ports respectively corresponding to the indicated symbols.”).
With respect to claim 28, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding method of a UE. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
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.
Claims 16 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI; Kukheon et al US 20210083825 A1, hereinafter CHOI, in view of Kim; Bonghoe et al US 20160338050 A1, hereinafter Kim.
Regarding claims 16 and 30, CHOI teaches, an apparatus for wireless communication at a network entity, comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory (see CHOI Fig. 1) and, based at least in part on information stored in the at least one memory, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the network entity to:
receive a sounding reference signal (SRS) from a first number of SRS ports of a user equipment (UE) and sequentially mapped over a second number of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols, wherein the second number is greater than one (CHOI Fig. 12; [143] “FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating SRS port to SRS symbol mapping …”; [145] “In Equation, the number of SRS ports is set to 4. When the number of SRS symbols in each SRS slot is set to 4, if an SRS port is mapped to an SRS symbol according to Equation 2, it may be represented as shown in FIG. 12.”, teaches mapping of SRS ports to symbols, number of ports and symbols are greater than one. [135] “the port numbers of SRS ports sequentially mapped to SRS symbols in the time domain …”, Fig.12, Table 16, line 3 (configuration 2), teaches SRS ports are sequentially mapped to symbols. [46] “The symbol modulator 120 multiplexes the data and pilot symbols together and then transmits the multiplexed symbols to the transmitter 125 … symbols may include symbols of … orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) …”, teaches symbol can be OFDM symbol, which is also well-known in 4G and 5G wireless. [7] “The SRS may be transmitted on antenna ports respectively corresponding to the indicated symbols.”, teaches receiving at the base station).
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Kim teaches, receive a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on the SRS (Kim [204] “SRS is transmitted on an uplink channel to support uplink channel measurement at an eNB and then it is used to perform scheduling for PUSCH.”, teaching scheduling for receiving PUSCH data from UE is based on the transmitted SRS).,
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Kim above in order to provide a method for an MTC user equipment to transmit a sounding reference signal (SRS) for supporting machine type communication (MTC) (Kim [0001]).
With respect to claim 30, claim recites the identical features of claim 16 for a corresponding method of a network entity e.g., base station. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Claims 2, 5-6 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of KARJALAINEN JUHA PEKKA et al WO 2024099530 A1, hereinafter KARJALAINEN.
Regarding claims 2 and 29, CHOI teaches the apparatus/method, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 28.
CHOI further teaches, further comprising a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor, wherein, to transmit the SRS, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to transmit the SRS via the transceiver (see CHOI Fig.1 having a transceiver).
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein the SRS ports is based on a codebook, wherein a first subset of the SRS ports are coherent and a second subset of the SRS ports are coherent, the first subset of the SRS ports being incoherent with the second subset of the SRS ports (KARJALAINEN Fig. 4B, Coherent, Non-coherent; [86] “FIG. 4B illustrates a schematic diagram of an exemplary UL SRS resource configuration for codebook in FIG. 4 A. As shown in FIG. 4B, the number N of TX antenna port at the UE 420 is 8, the number M of coherent antenna ports per group is 4, and the number Ng of antenna port coherency groups associated with UL SRS resource usage for codebook is 2. The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. In some embodiments, antenna ports in the first group and antenna ports in the second group may be non-coherent with each other.”, teaches codebook SRS, and coherent SRS antenna port groups, which are non-coherent between them).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Regarding claim 5, CHOI, in view of KARJALAINEN, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 2.
KARJALAINEN further teaches, wherein the first number of SRS ports are mapped to the second number of OFDM symbols within a same slot or sub-slot based on the first number of SRS ports being a coherent SRS port group (KARJALAINEN [86] “the UE 420 may be configured with UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 … The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. … the UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 may correspond to two non- consecutive symbols in the same slot …”, teaches coherent ports of SRS#2 and SRS#2 may be mapped to OFDM symbols within a same slot).
Regarding claim 6, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is further configured to cause the UE to: map non-coherent SRS port groups in the first number of SRS ports to different slots or sub-slots (KARJALAINEN [86] “the UE 420 may be configured with UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 … The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. … the UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 may correspond to two non- consecutive symbols … in the different slots …”, teaches port groups of SRS#2 and SRS#2, which are non-coherent between the groups, may be mapped to OFDM symbols within different slots).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Claims 17 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of KARJALAINEN JUHA PEKKA et al WO 2024099530 A1, hereinafter KARJALAINEN.
Regarding claim 17, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI further teaches, further comprising a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor, wherein, to receive the SRS, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the network entity to receive the SRS via the transceiver (see CHOI Fig.1 having a transceiver).
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein the SRS is for a codebook-based PUSCH, and a first subset of the SRS ports are coherent and a second subset of the SRS ports are coherent, the first subset of the SRS ports being incoherent with the second subset of the SRS ports (KARJALAINEN Fig. 4B, Coherent, Non-coherent; [86] “FIG. 4B illustrates a schematic diagram of an exemplary UL SRS resource configuration for codebook in FIG. 4 A. As shown in FIG. 4B, the number N of TX antenna port at the UE 420 is 8, the number M of coherent antenna ports per group is 4, and the number Ng of antenna port coherency groups associated with UL SRS resource usage for codebook is 2. The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. In some embodiments, antenna ports in the first group and antenna ports in the second group may be non-coherent with each other.”, teaches codebook SRS, and coherent SRS antenna port groups, which are non-coherent between them. “UL SRS resource configuration for codebook” is for UL data, therefore, is for codebook PUSCH, which carries UL data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Regarding claim 20, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein the first number of SRS ports are mapped to the second number of OFDM symbols within a same slot or sub-slot based on the first number of SRS ports being a coherent SRS port group (KARJALAINEN [86] “the UE 420 may be configured with UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 … The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. … the UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 may correspond to two non- consecutive symbols in the same slot …”, teaches coherent ports of SRS#2 and SRS#2 may be mapped to OFDM symbols within a same slot).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Regarding claim 21, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein non-coherent SRS ports are mapped to the second number of OFDM symbols in different slots or different sub-slots (KARJALAINEN [86] “the UE 420 may be configured with UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 … The first group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#2 and the second group of four antenna ports may be associated with SRI#4. The four antenna ports in the first group are coherent with each other and the four antenna ports in the second group are coherent with each other. … the UL SRS resources SRI#2 and SRI#4 may correspond to two non- consecutive symbols … in the different slots …”, teaches port groups of SRS#2 and SRS#2, which are non-coherent between the groups, may be mapped to OFDM symbols within different slots).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Claims 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and KARJALAINEN, as applied to claim 2 above, in view of Wang; Yuxin et al US 20190268185 A1, hereinafter Wang.
Regarding claim 3, CHOI, in view of KARJALAINEN, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 2.
CHOI and KARJALAINEN do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to: map the first subset of the SRS ports to a first contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols; and map the second subset of the SRS ports to a second contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols (Wang [316], Fig. 8(d) shows, Port group 1 comprising Ports 0 and 1 is transmitted in contiguous symbols of s0 and s1, and Port group 2 comprising Ports 2 and 3 is transmitted in contiguous symbols of s2 and s3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and KARJALAINEN to include the features as taught by Wang above in order to achieve an antenna switching of the SRS in the SRS design of NR (Wang [0008]).
Regarding claim 4, CHOI, in view of KARJALAINEN and Wang, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 3.
Wang further teaches, wherein the first contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols is contiguous or non-contiguous with the second contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols (see Wang Fig. 8(d) for contiguous, and Fig. 8(f) for non-contiguous, between two sets of symbols).
Claims 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim and KARJALAINEN, as applied to claim 17 above, and in view of Wang; Yuxin et al US 20190268185 A1, hereinafter Wang.
Regarding claim 18, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 17.
CHOI and Kim and KARJALAINEN do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches, wherein the first subset of the SRS ports are mapped to a first contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols, and the second subset of the SRS ports are mapped to a second contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols (Wang [316], Fig. 8(d) shows, Port group 1 comprising Ports 0 and 1 is transmitted in contiguous symbols of s0 and s1, and Port group 2 comprising Ports 2 and 3 is transmitted in contiguous symbols of s2 and s3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim and KARJALAINEN to include the features as taught by Wang above in order to achieve an antenna switching of the SRS in the SRS design of NR (Wang [0008]).
Regarding claim 19, CHOI, in view of Kim and KARJALAINEN and Wang, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 18.
Wang further teaches, wherein the first contiguous subset of the OFDM symbols is contiguous or non-contiguous with the second subset of the OFDM symbols (see Wang Fig. 8(d) for contiguous, and Fig. 8(f) for non-contiguous, between two sets of symbols).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Gong; Zhengwei et al US 20200374814 A1, hereinafter Gong, and further in view of Wang (Wang; Yuxin et al US 20190268185 A1).
Regarding claim 7, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Gong teaches, wherein a usage of the first number of SRS ports is for codebook-based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and codebooks for the first number of SRS ports are for an antenna switching scheme (Gong [73] “A usage of an SRS resource set may be configured. It may be considered that the usage is related to a transmission characteristic, and an optional usage includes one or more of .. antenna switching, codebook-based uplink transmission, … codebook-based uplink antenna selection transmission, …”, suggests codebook for antenna switching. [81] “A quantity of antenna ports of the PUSCH may be determined, in codebook-based transmission …”, suggests usage of SRS ports for codebook-based PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Gong above in order to provide an SRS transmission method and an apparatus, to support allocation of transmit power of each port when a plurality of SRSs are simultaneously transmitted (Gong [0006]).
CHOI and Gong do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to: map the first number of SRS ports to contiguous or non-contiguous symbols based on the antenna switching scheme (Wang [309]-[310]; Fig. 8(b), teaches antenna switching case resulting in mapping of ports to contiguous symbols).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Gong to include the features as taught by Wang above in order to achieve an antenna switching of the SRS in the SRS design of NR (Wang [0008]).
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of Gong; Zhengwei et al US 20200374814 A1, hereinafter Gong, and further in view of Wang (Wang; Yuxin et al US 20190268185 A1).
Regarding claim 22, CHOI, in view of Kim teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Gong teaches, wherein a usage of the first number of SRS ports is for codebook-based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and codebooks for the first number of SRS ports are for an antenna switching scheme (Gong [73] “A usage of an SRS resource set may be configured. It may be considered that the usage is related to a transmission characteristic, and an optional usage includes one or more of .. antenna switching, codebook-based uplink transmission, … codebook-based uplink antenna selection transmission, …”, suggests codebook for antenna switching. [81] “A quantity of antenna ports of the PUSCH may be determined, in codebook-based transmission …”, suggests usage of SRS ports for codebook-based PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Gong above in order to provide an SRS transmission method and an apparatus, to support allocation of transmit power of each port when a plurality of SRSs are simultaneously transmitted (Gong [0006]).
CHOI and Kim and Gong do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches, wherein the first number of SRS ports are sequentially mapped to the second number of OFDM symbols in contiguous or non-contiguous symbols based on the antenna switching scheme (Wang [309]-[310]; Fig. 8(b), teaches antenna switching case resulting in mapping of ports to contiguous symbols).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim and Gong to include the features as taught by Wang above in order to achieve an antenna switching of the SRS in the SRS design of NR (Wang [0008]).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Gong (Gong; Zhengwei et al US 20200374814 A1), and further in view of KARJALAINEN (KARJALAINEN JUHA PEKKA et al WO 2024099530 A1).
Regarding claim 8, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Gong teaches, wherein a usage of the first number of SRS ports is for codebook-based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and codebooks for the first number of SRS ports are for an antenna switching scheme (Gong [73] “A usage of an SRS resource set may be configured. It may be considered that the usage is related to a transmission characteristic, and an optional usage includes one or more of … antenna switching, codebook-based uplink transmission, … codebook-based uplink antenna selection transmission, …”, suggests codebook for antenna switching. [81] “A quantity of antenna ports of the PUSCH may be determined, in codebook-based transmission …”, suggests usage of SRS ports for codebook-based PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Gong above in order to provide an SRS transmission method and an apparatus, to support allocation of transmit power of each port when a plurality of SRSs are simultaneously transmitted (Gong [0006]).
CHOI and Gong do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to: map the first number of SRS ports to a same slot, a same sub-slot, different slots, or different sub-slots based on the antenna switching scheme (KARJALAINEN [48] teaches, SRS resources that are assigned to SRS ports are mapped to slots for antenna switching case).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Gong to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of Gong (Gong; Zhengwei et al US 20200374814 A1), and further in view of KARJALAINEN (KARJALAINEN JUHA PEKKA et al WO 2024099530 A1).
Regarding claim 23, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Gong teaches, wherein a usage of the first number of SRS ports is for codebook-based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and codebooks for the first number of SRS ports are for an antenna switching scheme (Gong [73] “A usage of an SRS resource set may be configured. It may be considered that the usage is related to a transmission characteristic, and an optional usage includes one or more of … antenna switching, codebook-based uplink transmission, … codebook-based uplink antenna selection transmission, …”, suggests codebook for antenna switching. [81] “A quantity of antenna ports of the PUSCH may be determined, in codebook-based transmission …”, suggests usage of SRS ports for codebook-based PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Gong above in order to provide an SRS transmission method and an apparatus, to support allocation of transmit power of each port when a plurality of SRSs are simultaneously transmitted (Gong [0006]).
CHOI and Kim and Gong do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, wherein the first number of SRS ports are sequentially mapped to the second number of OFDM symbols in a same slot, a same sub-slot, different slots, or different sub-slots based on the antenna switching scheme (KARJALAINEN [48] teaches, SRS resources that are assigned to SRS ports are mapped to slots for antenna switching case).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim and Gong to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of KIM; Kyuseok et al US 20250286679 A1, hereinafter Kyuseok.
Regarding claim 9, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Kyuseok teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to: map the first number of SRS ports to a subset of the second number of symbols, the subset of the second number of symbols being based on the second number of symbols divided by a repetition factor, wherein a mapping from the first number of SRS ports to the subset of the second number of symbols is repeated on the second number of symbols by a time specified by the repetition factor (Kyuseok [7], [135]-[136] teaches, repetition-factor based antenna port mapping to a subset of SRS symbols).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Kyuseok above in order to provide a method for performing transmission and reception of a sounding reference signal (SRS) based on a plurality of symbols in a wireless communication system (Kyuseok [0004]).
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of KIM; Kyuseok et al US 20250286679 A1, hereinafter Kyuseok.
Regarding claim 24, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Kyuseok teaches, wherein the first number of SRS ports are each mapped to a subset of the second number of OFDM symbols, the subset of the second number of OFDM symbols being based on the second number of OFDM symbols divided by a repetition factor, wherein a mapping from the first number of SRS ports to the subset of the second number of OFDM symbols is repeated on the second number of OFDM symbols by a time specified by the repetition factor (Kyuseok [7], [135]-[136] teaches, repetition-factor based antenna port mapping to a subset of SRS symbols).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Kyuseok above in order to provide a method for performing transmission and reception of a sounding reference signal (SRS) based on a plurality of symbols in a wireless communication system (Kyuseok [0004]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Kyuseok (KIM; Kyuseok et al US 20250286679 A1).
Regarding claim 10, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Kyuseok teaches, wherein, to sequentially map the first number of SRS ports to the second number of OFDM symbols, the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is configured to cause the UE to: map a subset of the first number of SRS ports to a single symbol, the subset being based on a repetition factor (Kyuseok [7], [135]-[136] teaches, repetition-factor based antenna port mapping to a subset of SRS symbols, number of symbols in the subset can be assumed to be one i.e., single).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Kyuseok above in order to provide a method for performing transmission and reception of a sounding reference signal (SRS) based on a plurality of symbols in a wireless communication system (Kyuseok [0004]).
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of Kyuseok (KIM; Kyuseok et al US 20250286679 A1).
Regarding claim 25, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Kyuseok teaches, wherein a subset of the first number of SRS ports are mapped to a single symbol, and the subset is based on a repetition factor (Kyuseok [7], [135]-[136] teaches, repetition-factor based antenna port mapping to a subset of SRS symbols, number of symbols in the subset can be assumed to be one i.e., single).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Kyuseok above in order to provide a method for performing transmission and reception of a sounding reference signal (SRS) based on a plurality of symbols in a wireless communication system (Kyuseok [0004]).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Zhang; Yushu et al US 20250260542 A1, hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding claim 11, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Zhang teaches, wherein the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is further configured to cause the UE to: associate a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission with a most recent transmission of an SRS resource indicated by an SRS resource indicator (SRI) that does not include a skipped transmission of at least one SRS port of the first number of SRS ports (Zhang [43], [52] teaches, SRI based transmission of PUSCH, based on previous sounding with SRS. It is obvious that the selected SRI by gNB for PUSCH transmission will be at least one that was transmitted in an SRS port during previous sounding, i.e., not skipped).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Zhang above in order to provide an SRS transmission method to improve upon data transmission speed, reliability, availability, and more in 5G wireless (Zhang [0002]).
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of Zhang; Yushu et al US 20250260542 A1, hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding claim 26, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Zhang teaches, wherein the PUSCH transmission is associated with a most recent SRS resource indicated by an SRS resource indicator (SRI) that does not include a skipped transmission of at least one SRS port of the first number of SRS ports (Zhang [43], [52] teaches, SRI based transmission of PUSCH, based on previous sounding with SRS. It is obvious that the selected SRI by gNB for PUSCH transmission will be at least one that was transmitted in an SRS port during previous sounding, i.e., not skipped).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Zhang above in order to provide an SRS transmission method to improve upon data transmission speed, reliability, availability, and more in 5G wireless (Zhang [0002]).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Frenne; Mattias et al US 20240187174 A1, hereinafter Frenne.
Regarding claim 12, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Frenne teaches, wherein the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is further configured to cause the UE to: determine whether to use a partial SRS transmission for a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on one or more of SRS usage, a codebook, or a coherency (Frenne [0019] “SRS resources may be mapped to antenna ports. SRS resources can be configured with four different usages: ‘beamManagement’, ‘codebook’, ‘nonCodebook’ or ‘antennaSwitching’”. [104]-[105], [109]-[110] teaches, dropping transmission (i.e., partial transmission) of certain SRS resource set or subset of SRS resources based on their usage. [21] teaches, SRS for PUSCH transmission).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Frenne above in order to provide an enhanced method directed to colliding aperiodic sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Frenne [0001]).
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI and Kim, as applied to claim 16 above, and in view of Frenne; Mattias et al US 20240187174 A1, hereinafter Frenne.
Regarding claim 27, CHOI, in view of Kim, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
CHOI and Kim do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Frenne teaches, wherein an association of the SRS with the PUSCH transmission is based on whether at least a part of an SRS transmission has been dropped and based on one or more of an SRS usage, a codebook, or a coherency (Frenne [0019] “SRS resources may be mapped to antenna ports. SRS resources can be configured with four different usages: ‘beamManagement’, ‘codebook’, ‘nonCodebook’ or ‘antennaSwitching’”. [104]-[105], [109]-[110] teaches, dropping transmission (i.e., partial transmission) of certain SRS resource set or subset of SRS resources based on their usage. [21] teaches, SRS for PUSCH transmission).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Frenne above in order to provide an enhanced method directed to colliding aperiodic sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Frenne [0001]).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Frenne (Frenne; Mattias et al US 20240187174 A1), and further in view of KARJALAINEN (KARJALAINEN JUHA PEKKA et al WO 2024099530 A1).
Regarding claim 13, CHOI, in view of Frenne, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 12.
Frenne further teaches, wherein the SRS usage of the first number of SRS ports is for a codebook-based PUSCH, … and the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is further configured to cause the UE to: in response to a drop of at least one SRS port of the first number of SRS ports in communication with a network entity, drop all the first number of SRS ports (Frenne [21] teaches, SRS usage for codebook-based PUSCH transmission [0019] “SRS resources may be mapped to antenna ports. SRS resources can be configured with four different usages: ‘beamManagement’, ‘codebook’, ‘nonCodebook’ or ‘antennaSwitching’”. [112] teaches, “dropping the entire set” (i.e., all of SRS ports) of SRS resources for SRS transmission).
CHOI and Frenne do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KARJALAINEN teaches, the first number of SRS ports include a third number of SRS ports having codebooks that are coherent (KARJALAINEN Fig. 4B teaches, SRS ports include a number of coherent ports; Coherent codebook is understood to be related to coherent ports, as found in the art).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Frenne to include the features as taught by KARJALAINEN above in order to provide a method for sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configurations to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications (KARJALAINEN [1]-[2]).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI, as applied to claim 1 above, and in view of Gong (Gong; Zhengwei et al US 20200374814 A1), and further in view of Frenne (Frenne; Mattias et al US 20240187174 A1).
Regarding claim 15, CHOI teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
CHOI does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Gong teaches, wherein an SRS usage of the first number of SRS ports is for codebook-based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and codebooks for the first number of SRS ports are for an antenna switching scheme (Gong [73] “A usage of an SRS resource set may be configured. It may be considered that the usage is related to a transmission characteristic, and an optional usage includes one or more of .. antenna switching, codebook-based uplink transmission, … codebook-based uplink antenna selection transmission, …”, suggests codebook for antenna switching. [81] “A quantity of antenna ports of the PUSCH may be determined, in codebook-based transmission …”, suggests usage of SRS ports for codebook-based PUSCH).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI to include the features as taught by Gong above in order to provide an SRS transmission method and an apparatus, to support allocation of transmit power of each port when a plurality of SRSs are simultaneously transmitted (Gong [0006]).
CHOI and Gong do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Frenne teaches, wherein the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, is further configured to cause the UE to: in response to a drop of at least one SRS port of the first number of SRS ports in communication with a network entity, continue the communication with the network entity with the SRS ports that have not been dropped ([104]-[105], [109]-[110] teaches, dropping transmission (i.e., partial transmission) of certain SRS resource, therefore, suggesting continuing SRS transmission for non-dropped SRS).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of CHOI and Kim to include the features as taught by Frenne above in order to provide an enhanced method directed to colliding aperiodic sounding reference signal (SRS) resource sets (Frenne [0001]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 14 is 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. Prior art fails to teach claim 14 limitation that discloses, in response to dropping of SRS ports having codebooks that are non-coherent, continue communication with non-dropped SRS port.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Liu, US 20250168041 A1 - METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ENHANCEMENT OF SRS.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475