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 .
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 12/05/2025. Claims 1 – 30 are pending in this application.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: Last sentence of paragraph 0024 is not clear. Specifically, it states: “As wireless communications employ devices using larger number of antennas, such as base stations (BS) using massive MIMO in 5G NR and 6G NR systems, the reduce the complexity, overhead, power consumption, and latency of DPOD at the receiver (e.g., a UE) increases.” The italicized portion is not clear.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claims 1, 2, 11, 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20230163794 (Meir).
Regarding claims 1 and 26, Meir teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication (FIG 3 and paragraph 0112: UE 115-b), the apparatus comprising:
a memory storing computer executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the memory and configured to execute the computer executable code (inherent for the user equipment UE 115-b) and cause the apparatus to:
receive signaling from a network entity indicating one or more selected transmit antennas (FIG 3 and paragraphs 0113 – 0118: At 305, base station 105-b (“network entity”) may analyze power amplifier responses of each transmitter antenna of base station 105-b and group transmitter antennas based on similar power amplifier responses. At 310, base station 105-b may map each transmitter antenna to one of several antenna groups based on similarity between respective power amplifier responses. The base station 105-b may map a first set of one or more transmitter antennas with similar power amplifier responses to a first antenna group and map a second set of one or more transmitter antennas with similar power amplifier responses to a second antenna group, etc. At 315, base station 105-b may determine a power amplifier model for each group of antennas, such as determine a first amplifier model for a first group of antennas and a second amplifier model for a second group of antennas. At 320, base station 105-b may transmit an indication of the respective power amplifier models of each antenna group to a UE 115-b. At 325, UE 115-b may determine at least one power amplifier model of a transmitter antenna of base station 105-b based on the indication of the respective power amplifier models. UE 115-b may analyze the indication of the respective power amplifier models and determine an indicated power amplifier model maps to a transmitter antenna based on the indicated power amplifier model and the transmitter antenna both mapping to a same group of antennas. At 330, UE 115-b may select and implement a selected power amplifier model based on explicit signaling from base station 105-b.
Summarizing, the user equipment receives explicit signaling from the base station on a specific power amplifier model, for example, a first amplifier model. However, this specific first power amplifier model corresponds to a specific antenna group. Therefore, by explicitly signaling a specific power amplifier model, the base station thus indirectly notifies the UE of a specific antenna group corresponding to the this power amplifier model, antennas of which will be used for subsequent transmission. Thus, indication of a specific power amplifier model serves as an indication of “one or more selected transmit antennas” corresponding to this model);
receive a data transmission from the network entity (paragraph 0119: At 335, UE 115-b and base station 105-b may communicate with each other based on the implemented power amplifier model.); and
perform digital post distortion (DPoD) processing of the data transmission based on the one or more selected transmit antennas (paragraph 0120: At 340, UE 115-b may apply digital post distortion processing to communications from base station 105-b based on the implemented power amplifier model. However, as was explained above, the implemented power amplifier model corresponds to transmission using corresponding “one or more selected transmit antennas”).”
Regarding claims 2 and 27, Meir teaches “wherein the one or more selected transmit antennas comprises a subset of transmit antennas at the network entity (indeed, paragraph 0114: The base station 105-b (“network entity”) may map a first set of one or more transmitter antennas with similar power amplifier responses to a first antenna group and map a second set of one or more transmitter antennas with similar power amplifier responses to a second antenna group, etc. Each power amplifier model corresponds to a specific antenna group, and since there is more than one amplifier model, it means that there is more than one antenna group, or using the language of the claim, the selected antenna group (“the one or more selected transmit antennas”) “comprises a subset of transmit antennas at the network entity”).”
Regarding claim 11, Meir teaches “estimate distortion added to the data transmission (paragraph 0107: the communication between base station 105-a and UE 115-a may include downlink signal 230. The base station 105-a may amplify the downlink signal 230 using a power amplifier. As the power amplifier nears saturation, this may result in a distortion that may generate non-linear noise by directly affecting the mapped symbols of downlink signal 230. Thus, aspects of the amplified downlink signal 230 may be distorted. This results in a “distortion added to the data transmission”. Paragraph 0108: The UE 115-a may apply the digital post distortion algorithm 245 to the downlink signal 230 one or more times estimating nonlinear noise 245-c (“estimate distortion”)); and
remove the estimated distortion from the received data transmission (paragraph 0107: UE 115-a may apply a digital post distortion algorithm 245 to the received downlink signal 230 to remove the non-linear noise from the downlink signal 230. Paragraph 0109: adder 240 may subtract the estimated nonlinear noise 245-c from the demodulated downlink signal 230-b).”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir).
Regarding claim 10, Meir does not teach “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the apparatus to…” “…receive signaling from the network entity indicating one or more selected transmit antennas (for explanation please see rejection of claim 1 above.).”
Meir does not teach that this is done “periodically”.
However, Meir is clear in paragraph 0054 that a UE 115 may include a personal electronic device such as a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet computer, a laptop computer, or a personal computer. Such personal electronic devices as cellular phones and others are known to be mobile in that they can move around from time to time.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that the mobile device 115 shown in the middle of FIG 1 receiving communication 125 from a particular set of antennas of the base station 105 may move around from time to time and at a different moment in time may find itself in a different area served by a different set of base station antennas. Antennas used to communicate with the device 115 initially may not be suitable for continuing communication when the device 115 is in a different area served by the base station 105, which would result in a selection of a different set of antennas, as is well-known in the art. However, a different set of antennas may have different power amplifier model associated with it which would require a different processing for the DPoD thus necessitating transmission of indication that a different power amplifier model is to be utilized by the device 115. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to periodically update the device 115 on the power amplifier model to be used for DPoD by sending appropriate signaling, from time to time, or “periodically”. Doing so would have allowed the device 115 to use the correct power amplifier model corresponding to the set of antennas on the base station used to communicate with the device 115. Furthermore, since each power amplifier model is associated with a respective set of antennas on the base station, this would have resulted in meeting the claimed limitation “to periodically receive signaling from the network entity indicating one or more selected transmit antennas.”
Claims 3, 5 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claims 1 and 26 above, and further in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman).
Regarding claims 3 and 28, Meir does not teach “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the apparatus to signal a capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection.”
In Meir, the device 115-b in FIG 3 is clearly capable of “performing DPoD based on antenna selection”, where “antenna selection” is indicated by means of indication of a particular power amplifier model associated with the selected antennas (otherwise the method of FIG 3 would be meaningless). What is missing from Meir is “the apparatus to signal a capability of the apparatus” to perform such action.
Gutman teaches in paragraph 0091 that the receiving device may indicate signal processing capabilities (e.g., DPOD capabilities) to the transmitting device. The receiving device may indicate the DPOD capabilities via L1 signaling, L2 signaling, or RRC signaling.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Gutman indication, by the receiver to the transmitter, of processing capabilities with respect to DPOD. Doing so would have allowed to increase the throughput of communications based on the signal processing capabilities of the receiving device (see Gutman, paragraph 0091).
Since the device of Meir is capable of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas), out of the plurality of models, based on indication from the base station (which also serves as an indication of “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, as explained in the rejection of claim 1 above), and the receiving device of Gutman indicates its processing capability with respect to DPoD in general, it would have further been obvious, in the device of combined Meir and Gutman’s disclosures, to adapt the indication of the receiver’s capability with respect to DPoD processing specifically to the disclosed by Meir capability of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas). Doing so would have further enhanced the functionality of the system by letting the base station know specific processing capabilities of the receiver.
Regarding claim 5, Meir in combination with Gutman teaches “wherein signaling the capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection is via a radio resource control (RRC) message (Gutman, paragraph 0091: The receiving device may indicate the DPOD capabilities via … RRC signaling.).”
Claims 4 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claims 3 and 28 above, and further in view of US 20200328839 (Zhang).
Regarding claims 4 and 29, Meir in combination with Gutman teaches or fairly suggests “signaling the capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection (please see explanation in the rejection of claim 3 above. Gutman in paragraph 0091 teaches indicating capabilities of the receiving device via RRC signaling)…”
Meir or Gutman do not teach that the signaling “is via a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).”
Zhang teaches in paragraph 0166 that the UE may transmit the UE capability information to the base station via RRC signaling. Particularly, the UE may transmit the UE capability information via RRC signaling on one or more of a PUCCH or a PUSCH during the connection establishment procedure. Accordingly, the base station may use the UE capability information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Zhang usage of PUCCH to transmit the capabilities of the user equipment to the base station during the connection establishment procedure, in the system of combined Meir and Gutman’s disclosures simply as design choice with predictable results, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claims 6, 7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20250112599 (Tan).
Regarding claims 6 and 7, Meir does not teach “wherein the signaling from the network entity indicating the one or more selected transmit antennas comprises dynamic signaling of the one or more selected transmit antennas” (as in claim 6) and “wherein the dynamic signaling of the one or more selected transmit antennas is via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)” (as in claim 7).
Meir teaches transmission of power amplifier model(s) (corresponding to the claimed indication of “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above) from the base station to the user equipment.
On the other side, Tan in paragraph 0057 teaches that when the PA parameters are estimated at the gNB, the parameters can be signaled with, e.g., physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or MAC CE to the UE. This represents recited in claim 6 “dynamic signaling” and in claim 7 signaling “via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)”.
Therefore, since Meir does not disclose how exactly the signaling is performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Tan signaling via physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), in the system of Meir simply as design choice with predictable results and to fill in where Meir is silent, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Regarding claim 9, Meir does not teach “wherein the signaling from the network entity indicating the one or more selected transmit antennas comprises a bitmap indicating the one or more selected antennas.”
Meir teaches transmission, from the base station to the user equipment, of power amplifier model(s) that indicate “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above.
On the other side, Tan in paragraph 0057 teaches that when the PA parameters are estimated at the gNB, the parameters can be signaled to the UE using, for example, 24-bits to signal a PA model. This represents recited in claim 9 “a bitmap”.
Therefore, since Meir does not disclose how exactly the signaling is performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Tan signaling by using a bitmap, in the system of Meir simply as design choice with predictable results and to fill in where Meir is silent, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20230155617 (Meir’617).
Regarding claim 8, Meir does not teach “wherein the signaling from the network entity indicating the one or more selected transmit antennas comprises one or more indexes of the one or more selected transmit antennas.”
Meir teaches transmission of power amplifier model(s) (corresponding to the claimed indication of “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above) from the base station to the user equipment.
On the other side, Meir’617 in paragraph 0105 teaches that the base station 105-a may indicate, to the UE 115-a, one or more parameters for the PA model. For example, the base station 105-a may transmit a representation of the PA model defined in terms of a lookup table (LUT). The LUT may include a set of different PA models. Each PA model of the set of PA models may correspond to an index. The base station may indicate one of the set of PA models via an index corresponding to the LUT. Paragraph 0116: The LUT configuration information may include a LUT. A LUT may include a set of indices, each index associated with a particular PA model. The base station 105-b may indicate (e.g., via higher layer signaling such as RRC signaling, or dynamic signaling such as downlink control information (DCI) signaling) an index value. The UE 115-b, upon receiving the index, may identify (e.g., via the LUT) a PA model.
Therefore, since Meir does not disclose how exactly the signaling is performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Meir’617 signaling via an index, in the system of Meir simply as design choice with predictable results and to fill in where Meir is silent, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Since in the system of Meir, an indicated power amplifier model corresponds to “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, using an index pointing to a specific power amplifier model would correspond to using an index to indicate corresponding “the one or more selected transmit antennas.”
Claim 9 is alternatively rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20140126667 (Kwun).
Regarding claim 9, Meir does not teach “wherein the signaling from the network entity indicating the one or more selected transmit antennas comprises a bitmap indicating the one or more selected antennas.”
Meir teaches transmission, from the base station to the user equipment, of power amplifier model(s) that indicate “the one or more selected transmit antennas”, as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above.
On the other side, Kwun in paragraph 0046 teaches sending, by a transmitter to the receiver, information on a subset of the antennas selected for subsequent transmission of data. The information on the subset of the selected antennas may be transmitted in the form of a bitmap.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Kwun transmission of information on a selected antennas subset using bitmap, in the system of Meir as part of the signaling, with predictable results, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of US 20160191020 (Velazquez).
Regarding claim 13, Meir does not teach “wherein the one or more processors being configured to cause the apparatus to estimate the distortion added to the data transmission comprises the one or more processors being configured to cause the apparatus to perform Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and inverse FFT (IFFT) processing to generate a set of non-linearity kernels associated with the data transmission, and wherein a number of FFT operations and a number of IFFT operations is based on a number of the selected one or more transmit antennas.”
Velazquez teaches a compensator for removing nonlinear distortion. The compensator operates in a digital post-compensation configuration for linearization of devices or systems (see abstract).
Particularly, Velazquez teaches “the apparatus to perform Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and inverse FFT (IFFT) processing to generate a set of non-linearity kernels associated with the data transmission (paragraph 0089: Data at measured frequencies can be interpolated and extrapolate to a set of uniformly-spaced frequencies corresponding to those of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The inverse FFT translates these frequency-domain measurements to time-domain Volterra kernels.).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Velazquez operations of FFT and IFFT to generate Volterra kernels, in the system of Meir. Doing so would have provided an additional method of removing nonlinear distortion.
With respect to the requirement that “a number of FFT operations and a number of IFFT operations is based on a number of the selected one or more transmit antennas”, this appears to be implicit since, in general, the more transmit antennas are used to transmit information, the more received data is accumulated at the receiver thus causing the number of operations of FFT and IFFT to increase.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of WO 2022236456 (ELSHAFIE).
Regarding claim 12, Meir does not teach “decode one or more demodulation reference signals (DMRS); and determine precoding based on the one or more DMRS.”
ELSHAFIE in paragraph 0055 teaches that the precoded channel f1(Hk) may be signaled in a demodulation reference signal (DMRS). The UE may estimate the channel precoder function (“determine precoding based on the one or more DMRS”) by decoding a DMRS (“decode one or more demodulation reference signals (DMRS)”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by ELSHAFIE decoding of demodulation reference signal (DMRS) to estimate the channel precoded function, in the system of Meir. Doing so would have allowed to estimate the precoder used by the transmitter.
Claims 17, 18, 20, 25 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman).
Regarding claims 17 and 30, Meir teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication (FIG 3 and paragraph 0112: a base station 105-b), the apparatus comprising:
a memory storing computer executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the memory and configured to execute the computer executable code (inherent for the base station 105-b) and cause the apparatus to…”
“…output signaling to the UE indicating one or more selected transmit antennas of the apparatus; and output a data transmission to the UE using the one or more selected transmit antennas (these limitations are reciprocal to corresponding limitations of claim 1, therefore, they are rejected because of the same reasons as explained in the rejection of claim 1, the explanation being incorporated herein by reference).”
Meir does not teach “obtain signaling from a user equipment (UE) of a capability of the UE for performing digital post distortion (DPoD) based on antenna selection.”
However, this limitation is rejected in view of Gutman as explained in the rejection of similar limitation of claim 3 above, the explanation being incorporated herein by reference.
Regarding claim 18, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 2 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 20, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 3 and 5 because claim 20 has limitations similar to the limitations of claim 5 (which includes the limitations of claim 3 by dependency).
Regarding claim 25, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 10 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20200328839 (Zhang).
Regarding claim 19, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 3 and 4 because claim 19 has limitations similar to the limitations of claim 4 (which includes the limitations of claim 3 by dependency).
Claims 21, 22 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20250112599 (Tan).
Regarding claim 21, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 6 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 22, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 7 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 24, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 9 in Section 12 above because they have similar limitations.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20230155617 (Meir’617).
Regarding claim 23, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 8 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 24 is alternatively rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230163794 (Meir) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20140126667 (Kwun).
Regarding claim 24, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 9 in Section 14 above because they have similar limitations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14 – 16 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
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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648