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) 28, 33, 38 and 43 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao (US 20250219785) in view of Lim (US 20220239410) and further in view of Yamada (US 20200336355).
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim(s) 28/33/38/43, Gao teaches A method for wireless communication, comprising:
transmitting, by a base station to a terminal device, a Downlink Control Information (DCI) signaling message ([Fig.14 and 0231], a base station may send a “DCI” to a UE, the DCI may include “first information field.”), wherein the DCI signaling message comprises four bits ([0231 and Table 4], “the first information field includes 4 bits.”) indicating an association between eight Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) ports ([0230 and Table 4], “8 uplink DMRS ports are divided into 2 DMRS port groups.”) and two or more Phase Tracking Reference Signal (PTRS) ports ([Table 4 and 0231], uplink PTRS port 0 and uplink PTRS port 1 in second and fourth column in Table 4) for ... transmission ([0223], “the first information field is a PTRS-DMRS association field.”), wherein the four bits include two groups of bits ([0231 and Table 4, first column and third column], “2 bits of MSB” is a first group of bits, and “2 bits of LSB” is a second group of bits.), wherein each group corresponds to a PTRS port and a respective subset of up to four DMRS ports ([Table 4], “2 bits of MSB” is associated with PTRS port 0 and 4 DMRS ports in the first DMRS port group, and “2 bits of LSB” is associated with PTRS port 1 and 4 DMRS ports in the second DMRS port group. And [0230], “8 uplink DMRS ports are divided into 2 DMRS port groups: a first DMRS port group and a second DMRS port group.”), and wherein each group includes two bits indicating a value that corresponds to one of the respective subset of up to four DMRS ports ([0230], “a first DMRS port group and a second DMRS port group.”) that share the PTRS port ([Table 4], “2 bits of MSB” is associated with PTRS port 0 and 4 DMRS ports, and “2 bits of LSB” is associated with PTRS port 1 and 4 DMRS ports ) ...
wherein a first group of two bits having a value of 0 indicates that a first DMRS port of a first subset of DMRS ports ([0230 and Table 4], first DMRS port group in the second column of Table 4.) is associated with PTRS port 0 ([Table 4 and 0231], “the terminal, in response to the 4 bits being “0001”, determines that the first uplink DMRS port associated with the first uplink PTRS port 0 is the uplink DMRS port 0, and the second uplink DMRS port associated with the second uplink PTRS port 1 is the uplink DMRS port 1.”),
wherein the first group of two bits having a value of 1 indicates that a second DMRS port of a first subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 0 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “0110”, the terminal determines that the first uplink DMRS port associated with the first uplink PTRS port 0 is an uplink DMRS port 1, and the second uplink DMRS port associated with the second uplink PTRS port 1 is an uplink DMRS port 2.”),
wherein the first group of two bits having a value of 2 indicates that a third DMRS port of a first subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 0 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “1011”, determines that a first uplink DMRS port associated with a first uplink PTRS port 0 is an uplink DMRS port 2, and a second uplink DMRS port associated with a second uplink PTRS port 1 is an uplink DMRS port 3.”),
wherein the first group of two bits having a value of 3 indicates that a fourth DMRS port of a first subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 0 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “1100”, the terminal determines that the first uplink DMRS port associated with the first uplink PTRS port 0 is the uplink DMRS port 3 and the second uplink DMRS port associated with the second uplink PTRS port 1 is the uplink DMRS port 0.”),
wherein a second group of two bits having a value of 0 indicates that the first DMRS port of a second subset of DMRS ports ([0230 and Table 4], second DMRS port group in the fourth column of Table 4.) is associated with PTRS port 1 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “1100”, the terminal determines that the first uplink DMRS port associated with the first uplink PTRS port 0 is the uplink DMRS port 3 and the second uplink DMRS port associated with the second uplink PTRS port 1 is the uplink DMRS port 0.”),
wherein the second group of two bits having a value of 1 indicates that the second DMRS port of a second subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 1 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “0110”, the terminal determines that the first uplink DMRS port associated with the first uplink PTRS port 0 is an uplink DMRS port 1, and the second uplink DMRS port associated with the second uplink PTRS port 1 is an uplink DMRS port 2.”),
wherein the second group of two bits having a value of 2 indicates that the third DMRS port of a second subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 1 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “1011”, determines that a first uplink DMRS port associated with a first uplink PTRS port 0 is an uplink DMRS port 2, and a second uplink DMRS port associated with a second uplink PTRS port 1 is an uplink DMRS port 3.”), and
wherein the second group of two bits having a value of 3 indicates that the fourth DMRS port of a second subset of DMRS ports is associated with PTRS port 1 ([Table 4 and 0231], “in response to the 4 bits being “1011”, determines that a first uplink DMRS port associated with a first uplink PTRS port 0 is an uplink DMRS port 2, and a second uplink DMRS port associated with a second uplink PTRS port 1 is an uplink DMRS port 3.”); and
However, Gao does not specifically disclose a partial coherent or non-coherent codebook-based transmission; and receiving, by the base station, the partial coherent or non-coherent codebook-based transmission from the terminal device according to the DCI signaling message.
In an analogous art, Lim discloses a partial coherent or non-coherent codebook-based transmission ([0295], “When the UE transmits the PUSCH based on a partial-coherent or non-coherent codebook, an uplink layer transmitted by PUSCH antenna ports 1000 and 1002 (antenna port number “1000-1011” are defined in TS 38.211) is associated with the PTRS port 0, and an uplink layer transmitted by PUSCH antenna ports 1001 and 1003 is associated with the PTRS port 1.”); and
receiving, by the base station ([0294], “the UE determines one DMRS port to be associated with a PTRS port by referring to a bit indicated by the PTRS-DMRS association in the DCI, and transmits the PTRS accordingly.”), the partial coherent or non-coherent codebook-based transmission ([0295], “When the UE transmits the PUSCH based on a partial-coherent or non-coherent codebook, an uplink layer transmitted by PUSCH antenna ports 1000 and 1002 (antenna port number “1000-1011” are defined in TS 38.211) is associated with the PTRS port 0, and an uplink layer transmitted by PUSCH antenna ports 1001 and 1003 is associated with the PTRS port 1.”) from the terminal device according to the DCI signaling message ([0293], “A DMRS port of Tables 19-1 and 19-2 is determined by a table determined ... Antenna ports field indicated by same DCI indicating PTRS-DMRS association.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Gao to specify PTRS-DMRS association indication as taught by Lim. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need to transmit PTRS according to PTRS-DMRS association indication.
However, the combination of Gao and Lim does not teach a Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) group having an orthogonal cover code (OCC) that has a length of four.
In an analogous art, Yamada teaches a Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) group having an orthogonal cover code (OCC) that has a length of four ([0168], “The DMRS configuration type 1 supports up to eight DMRS antenna ports ... The DMRS is multiplexed by Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) with Orthogonal Cover Code (OCC). The OCC has a code length of up to 4 and has a length of 2 in the frequency direction and a length of 2 in the time direction.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Gao to specify OCC having a length of four as taught by Yamada. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need to have “a length of 2 in the frequency direction and a length of 2 in the time direction.”
Claim(s) 30, 35, 40 and 45 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao in view of Lim, and further in view of Jiang (US 20200413433).
Regarding claim(s) 30/35/40/45, Jiang teaches wherein the transmission is a partial coherent or non-coherent code-book-based transmission, and wherein the transmission is associated with eight antenna ports, wherein antenna ports {0, 4, 1, 5} share PTRS port 0, and wherein antenna ports {2, 6, 3, 7} share PTRS port 1 ([0072], “four-antenna partial coherent transmissions. The eight antenna ports are grouped into two coherent port sets: port set 0 includes ports {0, 1, 4, 5} and port set 1 includes ports {2, 3, 6, 7}. The two pairs of cross-polarization antenna ports in each set allow coherent transmissions by the UE.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Gao to specify pairs of cross-polarization antenna ports as taught by Jiang. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need for partial coherent transmissions.
Claim(s) 31-32, 36-37, 41-42 and 46-47 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao in view of Lim, and further in view of Qi (US 20210400598).
Regarding claim(s) 31/36/41/46, Qi teaches wherein a power ratio per layer per resource element for the PTRS for a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is determined according to a rule, wherein the rule is associated with a coherent type of each transmission group of DMRS ports that share the PTRS port ([0069], “In the case of coherence ... [0070], “where n.sub.coherent layer.sup.PUSCH is the number of coherent PUSCH layers whose corresponding DMRS ports share the same PTRS port.”), wherein the rule specifies that the power ratio for a non-coherent or non-codebook based transmission is determined as 10 X log( Qp), and wherein a PTRS port number is represented as Qp ([0078], “If the UE reports ‘Non-Coherent’ ... for non-coherent case and therefore, the power boosting factor can be shown to be: ρ.sub.PTRS,i=−10 log.sub.10(N.sub.PTRS).” And [0067], “where N.sub.PTRS is the number of total PTRS ports.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Gao to specify boosting power as taught by Qi. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need to “improve CPE accuracy.” ([0007], Qi)
Regarding claim(s) 32/37/42/47, Qi teaches wherein a power ratio per layer per resource element for the PTRS for a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is determined according to 10 x log( QDMRS) + 3 * Qp-3, and wherein Qpmrs represents a number of DMRS ports that share one PTRS port, and wherein a PTRS port number is represented as Qp ([0083], first row begins with “00”, layer 3 and layer 4 discloses the formula.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claim invention to have modified the method of Gao to specify boosting power as taught by Qi. The motivation/suggestion would have been because there is a need to “improve CPE accuracy.” ([0007], Qi)
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims filed on 02/09/2026 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection in instant Office action does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the Applicant’s arguments.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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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/ZHIREN QIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2411