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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 21-38 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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on March 11, 2026; June 25, 2026 and June 29, 2026 was filed after the mailing date of the Non-Final Office Action on February 5, 2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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) 21-22, 28-29, 33-34, and 37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiao et al. (hereinafter “Xiao ‘201”, US 2025/0184201) in view of Xiao et al. (hereinafter “Xiao ‘703”, US 2025/0233703).
Regarding claims 21, 28, 33, and 37, Xiao ‘201 discloses a method of wireless communication, comprising:
receiving/transmitting, by a communication device, or a network device, a reference signal indication (i.e., receiving a configuration for DMRS as described in Abstract); and
demodulating, by the communication device, a reference signal based on a plurality of resources associated with the reference signal indication (i.e., receiving a configuration for DMRS as described in Abstract);
wherein the plurality of resources are associated with at least one of: a generated sequence, a resource element or a subcarrier in a frequency domain, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port, a number of orthogonal DMRS ports in one code division multiplexing (CDM) group, an orthogonal cover code (OCC) length in the frequency domain, resource elements offset in one CDM group, an OCC related information in the frequency domain, or an OCC related information in time domain (i.e., DMRS sequence of different DMRS port within a CDM group as described in paragraph 0008);
wherein the generated sequence is based on r(x * n + k’) (i.e., sequence r(4n+k’) as described in paragraph 0148),
wherein x and k’ are associated with at least one of: a number of orthogonal DMRS ports in one CDM group, the OCC length in the frequency domain, or a DMRS port index (i.e., see DMRS port index in Table 1), and
wherein the generated sequence is further generated according to r(4*n+k’) (i.e., sequence r(4n+k’) as described in paragraph 0148).
However, Xiao ‘201 does not expressly disclose wherein the number of orthogonal DMRS ports in one CDM group or the OCC length in the frequency domain is 4.
In a similar endeavor, Xiao ‘703 discloses methods and apparatuses to facilitate larger number of DMRS ports. Xiao ‘703 also discloses wherein the number of orthogonal DMRS ports in one CDM group or the OCC length in the frequency domain is 4 (i.e., FD-OCC length is 4 as described in paragraph 0007).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to increase orthogonality with minimum overhead.
Regarding claims 22, 29, and 34, Xiao ‘201 and Xiao ‘703 disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Xiao ‘201 also discloses wherein the DMRS port is supported as DMRS type 1 and DMRS type 2 (i.e., DMRS type 1 and DMRS type 2 as shown in Table 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 26-27, 36, and 38 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With regard to independent claim 26, Xiao ‘201 discloses methods and apparatus of DMRS sequence generation. Xiao ‘201 also discloses DMRS ports type 1 and type 2, in which it reads on “DMRS ports” of claim language. Xiao ‘201 also discloses frequency domain orthogonal cover code (FD-OCC) length to be 4. However, Xiao ’201 does not expressly disclose “wherein a resource element or a subcarrier in frequency domain is determined based on an equation: k=a*n+b*k’+c+∆; wherein k is an index of the resource element or the subcarrier, a and b are associated with a number of CDM groups or a number of DMRS ports or a configured DMRS type, k' and ∆ are associated with a DMRS port index or a CDM group index, n is a serial integer from 0; wherein parameters in the equation are further determined from at least one of: for DMRS type 1, frequency domain orthogonal cover codes (FD-OCC) length is 4, a=8, b=2, c=0, then ∆=0 for a first CDM group and ∆=1 for a second CDM group, or for DMRS type 2, FD-OCC length is 4, a=12, b=1, c=0 or 4, then ∆=0 for the first CDM group, ∆=2 for the second CDM group, and ∆=4 for a third CDM group; wherein k' is presented as k' = 0,1,2,3 when FD-OCC length is 4; and wherein for DMRS type 2, c = 0 is associated with k' = 0,1 and c = 4 is associated with k'=2,3.”
It is further noted that there is no reference taken either alone or in combination teaches or suggests the above claim limitations. Therefore, the Examiner allows independent claim 26 at least for the reasons discussed above.
Claims 27, 36, and 38 depends either directly or indirectly upon independent claim 26; therefore, they are also allowed by virtue of their dependency.
Claims 23-25, 30-32, and 35 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644
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