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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I claims 1 – 24 and 28 – 30 in the reply filed on 01/12/2026 is acknowledged.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 10 28, 29, 31 and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut).
Regarding claims 1 and 28, Shellmann teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (Abstract: a user device (120, 801a)), comprising:
one or more memories (p. 10 lines 26 – 27: a non-transitory memory 807a for storing data, e.g. the program code described in the disclosure); and
one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (Abstract: comprising: a processor (803a)), configured to:
perform measurements of a first plurality of interference measurement resources on a channel from a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to the UE, wherein the first plurality of interference measurement resources are associated with a plurality of beams (FIG 4 with corresponding description on p.p. 21 – 23. Particularly, p. 22 lines 13 – 18: BSi (interfering base station) transmit RSs in each of K successive time slots (“a first plurality of interference measurement resources”), whereby IRS switches the beam x ∈ [1 ,K] in each time slot (i.e. “a plurality of beams”). During RS transmission, beam x ∈ [1 ,K] is configured with phase factor φ = 0, enabling estimation of the sum beam bs = [reflected bx,n/i + serving / interfering bn/i ] at user device. Here, reflected bx,n/i represents “on a channel from a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to the UE”. P. 25 lines 27 – 28: K times RS transmission with beam switching at IRS from interfering BS 110b to user device 120);
transmit, to a network entity, a first report based at least in part on the measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 23 lines 9 – 10: The user device may signal the beam index x and the corresponding phase shift θ to BSn)…”
“…transmit, to the network entity, a second report based at least in part on the measurements of the second plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 23 lines 12 – 17: the user device may signal different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). Additionally, user device can signal: CQI corresponding to the overall SINR p; (quantized) SINR improvement represented by p.).”
Shellmann does not disclose “perform measurements of a second plurality of interference measurement resources on the channel from the RIS to the UE, wherein the second plurality of interference measurement resources are associated with a plurality of phases.”
Shellmann, however, on page 26 lines 9 – 12 teaches that the serving BS 110a configures 504 the IRS 130 for K different reflection beams, where each of these beams is constituted of a unique set of phase shifts to be applied to the antenna elements of the IRS. Additionally, Shellmann on page 2 lines 18 – 24 teaches that in the multi-cell scenario, the user device determines configuration parameters for the IRS to enable a maximization of the overall SINR conditions at the receiving user device, taking into account the useful signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up constructively) as well as the interfering signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up destructively). Thanks to the reduction of interference and increase of useful signal power at the same time, the SINR may be substantially increased by this method.
Kraut in paragraph 0040 suggests experimentally varying the phase of a test signal from 0° to 360° (phase sweep) and measuring the resulting signal varying between a minimum value (destructive interference) and a maximum value (constructive interference).
Since Shellmann does not explicitly disclose how to determine the phase θ, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to take suggested by Kraut experimentally varying the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to achieve minimum value for the resultant signal, and apply it to the system of Shellmann to determine the phase θ of the reflected by the RIS interfering signal on the selected beam to maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi. Doing so would have simply filled in where Shellmann is silent and allowed to determine the phase of the reflected by the RIS signal, thus maximizing performance of the system.
In the system of Shellmann and Kraut, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to allocate “a second plurality of interference measurement resources on the channel from the RIS to the UE” specifically to vary the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° (“associated with a plurality of phases”) to select the phase of the reflected signal that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi.
Regarding claims 3 and 29, Shellmann teaches “wherein the first report indicates a resource, of the first plurality of interference measurement resources, associated with a highest measurement of the measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 23 lines 9 – 10: The user device may signal the beam index x (“a resource, of the first plurality of interference measurement resources”) to BSn. P. 22 lines 28 – 29: user device can determine IRS beam index x and phase shift θ maximizing the SINR (= target metric) (“with a highest measurement of the measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources”)).”
Regarding claim 4, Shellmann in combination with Kraut teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the second plurality of interference measurement resources are associated with a beam, of the plurality of beams, that is associated with the resource indicated by the first report (indeed, in the rejection of claim 1 above it was shown the obviousness of allocating a “second plurality of interference measurement resources” specifically to sweep the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to select the phase of the reflected signal that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi. Therefore, these resources “are associated with a beam, of the plurality of beams that is associated with the resource indicated by the first report”, which is the beam index x).”
Regarding claims 6 and 31, Shellmann in combination with Kraut teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the second report indicates a resource, of the second plurality of interference measurement resources, associated with a lowest measurement of the measurements of the second plurality of interference measurement resources (indeed, in the rejection of claim 1 above “the second report” was mapped to signaling different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). Here, the phase angle θ directly or indirectly “indicates a resource, of the second plurality of interference measurement resources” (recall that “the second plurality of measurement resources” were used to sweep the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to select the phase of the reflected signal) “associated with a lowest measurement of the measurements of the second plurality of interference measurement resources”, where “a lowest measurement” represents the lowest level of the combined interfering signal.).”
Regarding claims 10 and 33, Shellmann teaches “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
receive, from the network entity, a message on a channel from the network entity to the UE (FIG 5 and p. 25 line 37: 513: data transmission from serving BS 110a to user device 120), wherein interference on a channel from a neighbor cell to the UE, wherein the interference is at least partially combined, destructively, with interference on a channel from the RIS to the UE (p. 2 lines 18 – 24: In the multi-cell scenario, the user device determines configuration parameters for the IRS to enable a maximization of the overall SINR conditions at the receiving user device, taking into account the interfering signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up destructively).), wherein the channel from the RIS to the UE is based at least in part on the first report and the second report (p. 25 lines 32 – 36: 509: transmit IRS configuration pair(s), CQI from user device 120 to serving BS 110a (“the first report and the second report”); 510: Select appropriate IRS configuration pair from user device feedback at serving BS 110a; 511: configure IRS with selected configuration pair from serving BS 110a to IRS 130; 512: adapt data rate according to improved CQI at serving BS 110a).”
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of CN 112422162 (Chen) (references are given according to English translation).
Regarding claim 2, Shellmann teaches “wherein the first plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 22 lines 13 – 18: BSi (interfering base station) transmit RSs in each of K successive time slots (“the first plurality of interference measurement resources”), whereby IRS switches the beam x ∈ [1 ,K] in each time slot.)…”
Shellmann does not teach that it “include at least one resource associated with a scatterer configuration of the RIS.”
Chen in paragraph 0059 teaches IRS and receiver communicating using passive backscattering mode (“a scatterer configuration of the RIS”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to try an additional passive backscattering mode to reflect incoming beams by the IRS to the user equipment in the system of Shellmann. Doing so would have allowed to compare performance of the system using only passive reflection with that of using active reflection.
In the system of Shellmann modified with the usage of passive backscattering mode for the IRS, it would have further been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to perform channel measurements similar to those described by Shellmann but with the passive backscattering mode of the IRS by allocating “at least one resource associated with a scatterer configuration of the RIS.” Doing so would have allowed to perform the actual comparison of the system performance with different configurations for Shellmann’s IRS.
Claims 5 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20180219664 (Guo).
Regarding claims 5 and 30, Shellmann does not teach “wherein the first report indicates a difference between a highest measurement, of the measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources, and a lowest measurement, of the measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources.”
In Shellmann, “the first plurality of interference measurement resources” is used to select a beam resulting in lowest interference from the neighbor cell.
In similar art, Guo in paragraph 0112 teaches the UE reporting the strongest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI and the weakest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI, accompanied with ordering of the N reported beams. The UE can be requested to report one largest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI and one smallest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI; the UE can be request to report the largest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI value and the difference between largest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI the smallest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI (i.e., Δ=largest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI smallest RSRP/RSRQ/CQI).
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 Guo reporting the difference between the highest and lowest values of the performed measurements (e.g. interference measurements), in the system of Shellmann simply as design choice with predictable results, the results being specific type of numerical values to be conveyed by the user equipment to the base station, nothing more, nothing less, 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 7 and 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20110194639 (Nakao).
Regarding claims 7 and 32, Shellmann teaches “…estimate a first channel from the neighbor cell to the UE (p. 21 line 35 – p.22 line 23: For the multi-cell case with two adjacent BSs 110a, 110b, the following assumptions are made: Serving (bn) and interfering beam (bi) are provided by a coordinated beamforming scheme between the base stations 110a, 110b ignoring the IRS 130. The use of orthogonal pilots preference signals allows the user device 120 to measure bn and bi simultaneously, i.e., if the two BSs transmit their orthogonal RS during the same time slot. Here, bi represents “a first channel from the neighbor cell to the UE”. Serving/interfering beam bn/i can be measured by using an additional time slot of RS transmission where the IRS is switched off) and a second channel from the RIS to the UE (p. 22 lines 25 – 26: Subtracting the measured serving beam bn and interfering beam bi from sum beam bs then yields the channels for the reflected beams bx,n/i) based at least in part on the second plurality of interference measurement resources (indeed, in the rejection of claim 1 above it was shown the obviousness of allocating a “second plurality of interference measurement resources” specifically to sweep the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to select the phase of the reflected signal (“a second channel from the RIS”) that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi.), wherein the second report is based at least in part on the estimated first channel and the estimated second channel (indeed, in the rejection of claim 1 above, “the second report” was mapped to signaling different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). However, maximization of SINR results, at least partially, from the minimization of interference from neighboring base station, which is the same as maximization of destructive interference between “the estimated first channel and the estimated second channel”).”
Shellmann does not teach “receive, from the network entity, an indication of a reference signal configuration associated with a neighbor cell.”
Nakao in paragraph 0124 teaches that to ease measurement processing of a reference signal transmitted in the adjacent cell, base station 200 may explicitly report transmission position information (frequency, time) of the reference signal (P-SCH+, S-SCH+) in the adjacent cell to terminal 100 or implicitly report the transmission position information by issuing an indication to perform measurement in the corresponding frequency at the timing the adjacent cell transmits the reference signal.
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 Nakao transmission of position information (frequency, time) of the reference signal in the adjacent cell to the terminal (“an indication of a reference signal configuration associated with a neighbor cell”), in the system of Shellmann. Doing so would have allowed to easily measure a reference signal transmitted in the adjacent cell (see Nakao, paragraph 0124).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and US 20110194639 (Nakao) as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of CN 112422162 (Chen).
Regarding claim 8, Shellmann in combination with Kraut teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the second plurality of interference measurement resources (indeed, in the rejection of claim 1 above it was shown the obviousness of allocating a “second plurality of interference measurement resources” specifically to sweep the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to select the phase of the reflected signal that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi.)…”
Shellmann does not teach that it “include at least one resource associated with a scatterer configuration of the RIS.”
However, this limitation is rejected in view of Chen as explained in the rejection of similar limitation of claim 2 above.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and US 20110194639 (Nakao) as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of US 20130058279 (Kakishima).
Regarding claim 9, Shellmann in combination with Kraut teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the second report includes (as was explained in the rejection of claim 1, “the second report” was mapped to disclosed in p. 23 lines 12 – 17 the user device signaling different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). Additionally, user device can signal: CQI corresponding to the overall SINR p; (quantized) SINR improvement represented by p.)…” “…based at least in part on the estimated first channel and the estimated second channel (determination of these parameters are based on determination of bi from the interfering base station to the user equipment (representing “the estimated first channel”) and the reflected by the RIS to the user equipment signal b2,i (representing “the estimated second channel”) and their destructive interference).”
Shellmann does not teach that the report includes “one or more rank indicators (RIs)”.
Kakishima in paragraph 0025 teaches transmitting PMI and RI to the base station apparatus eNodeB together with a CQI as feedback 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 Kakishima transmission of PMI and RI to the base station together with a CQI as feedback information, in the system of Shellmann. Doing so would have provided more complete picture of the channel state between the base station and the user device.
Claims 11, 12, 14, 15, 18 and 22 – 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and further in view of US 20210345399 (Levy).
Regarding claim 11, Shellmann teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication at a network entity (abstract: serving node (110a, 820)), comprising:
one or more memories (p. 10 line 34: a non-transitory memory 817 for storing data, e.g. the program code); and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories (p. 10 lines 30 – 31: a serving node 820 may comprises a processing circuitry 813 for instance, a processor 813, for processing and generating data, e.g. the program code), configured to…”
“…a first plurality of interference measurement resources on a channel from a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to the UE, wherein the first plurality of interference measurement resources are associated with a plurality of beams (FIG 4 with corresponding description on p.p. 21 – 23. Particularly, p. 22 lines 13 – 18: BSi (interfering base station) transmit RSs in each of K successive time slots (“a first plurality of interference measurement resources”), whereby IRS switches the beam x ∈ [1 ,K] in each time slot (i.e. “a plurality of beams”). During RS transmission, beam x ∈ [1 ,K] is configured with phase factor φ = 0, enabling estimation of the sum beam bs = [reflected bx,n/i + serving / interfering bn/i ] at user device. Here, reflected bx,n/i represents “on a channel from a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to the UE”. P. 25 lines 27 – 28: K times RS transmission with beam switching at IRS from interfering BS 110b to user device 120);
receive, from the UE, a first report based at least in part on measurements of the first plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 23 lines 9 – 10: The user device may signal the beam index x and the corresponding phase shift θ to BSn)…”
“…receive, from the UE, a second report based at least in part on measurements of the second plurality of interference measurement resources (p. 23 lines 12 – 17: the user device may signal different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). Additionally, user device can signal: CQI corresponding to the overall SINR p; (quantized) SINR improvement represented by p.).”
Shellmann does not disclose “a second plurality of interference measurement resources on the channel from the RIS to the UE, wherein the second plurality of interference measurement resources are associated with a plurality of phases.”
Shellmann, however, on page 26 lines 9 – 12 teaches that the serving BS 110a configures 504 the IRS 130 for K different reflection beams, where each of these beams is constituted of a unique set of phase shifts to be applied to the antenna elements of the IRS. Additionally, Shellmann on page 2 lines 18 – 24 teaches that in the multi-cell scenario, the user device determines configuration parameters for the IRS to enable a maximization of the overall SINR conditions at the receiving user device, taking into account the useful signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up constructively) as well as the interfering signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up destructively). Thanks to the reduction of interference and increase of useful signal power at the same time, the SINR may be substantially increased by this method.
Kraut in paragraph 0040 suggests experimentally varying the phase of a test signal from 0° to 360° (phase sweep) and measuring the resulting signal varying between a minimum value (destructive interference) and a maximum value (constructive interference).
Since Shellmann does not explicitly disclose how to determine the phase θ, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to take suggested by Kraut experimentally varying the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to achieve minimum value for the resultant signal, and apply it to the system of Shellmann to determine the phase θ of the reflected by the RIS interfering signal on the selected beam to maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi. Doing so would have simply filled in where Shellmann is silent and allowed to determine the phase of the reflected by the RIS signal maximizing performance of the system.
In the system of Shellmann and Kraut, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to allocate “a second plurality of interference measurement resources on the channel from the RIS to the UE” specifically to vary the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° (“associated with a plurality of phases”) to select the phase of the reflected signal that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi.
Next, Shellmann does not disclose “transmit, to a user equipment (UE), a first measurement configuration associated with” the first plurality of interference measurement resources and “transmit, to the UE, a second measurement configuration associated with” the second plurality of interference measurement resources.
Levy teaches in abstract a base station transmitting to a first UE of a plurality of UEs a channel state report configuration indicating a set of one or more interference measurement resources and precoding information associated with the set of one or more interference measurement resources. The BS receives, from the first UE, a channel state report including interference prediction information based on the set of one or more interference measurement resources and the precoding information. The BS uses the channel state report to determine a group configuration for the plurality of UEs.
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 Levy transmission, by the base station to the user equipment, a channel state report configuration indicating plurality of interference measurement resources, in the system of Shellmann. Doing so would have allowed the user equipment to know which resources are to be used for interference measurements.
It was shown above in the rejection of this claim that, according to Shellmann, an interfering base station BSi transmit RSs in each of K successive time slots (“a first plurality of interference measurement resources”), whereby IRS switches the beam x ∈ [1 ,K] in each time slot. It was also shown, based on Shellmann and Kraut, the obviousness of allocating “a second plurality of interference measurement resources on the channel from the RIS to the UE” specifically to vary the phase of the signal from 0° to 360° to select the phase of the reflected signal that would maximize the destructive interference between the reflected by the RIS signal b2,i from the interfering base station, and direct interfering beam bi. In view of this, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, and based on Levy, to transmit, from the base station to the user equipment, first and second measurement configuration, whether separately or together, associated with the first and second pluralities of interference measurements.
Regarding claim 12, Shellmann teaches or fairly suggests “transmit, to the RIS, one or more instructions associated with the first measurement configuration (as was explained in the rejection of claim 11 above, “the first measurement configuration” corresponds to plurality of beams x ∈ [1 ,K] configured with phase factor φ = 0. In this respect, page 26 lines 9 – 12: the serving BS 110a configures 504 the IRS 130 for K different reflection beams. Therefore, transmission of the claimed instructions to measure the beams is implicit); and
transmit, to the RIS, one or more instructions associated with the second measurement configuration (similarly, “the second measurement configuration” is associated with sweeping the phase for the beams. In this respect, page 26 lines 9 – 12: the serving BS 110a configures 504 the IRS 130 for K different reflection beams, where each of these beams is constituted of a unique set of phase shifts to be applied to the antenna elements of the IRS. Therefore, transmission of the claimed instructions to measure the phases is implicit).”
Regarding claim 14, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 3 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 15, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 4 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 18, 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, Shellmann teaches or fairly suggests “transmit, to the RIS, a configuration based at least in part on the first report and the second report (p. 23 lines 9 – 17: The user device may signal the beam index x and the corresponding phase shift θ to BSn, which configures the IRS accordingly. Alternatively, the user device may signal different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). Additionally, user device can signal: CQI corresponding to the overall SINR p; (quantized) SINR improvement represented by p. Using all these values at the base station to configure the IRS represents “at least in part on the first report and the second report” as was mapped in the rejection of claim 11 above); and
transmit, to the UE, a message on a channel from the network entity to the UE (FIG 5 and p. 25 line 37: 513: data transmission from serving BS 110a to user device 120), wherein interference with the message from a neighbor cell is reduced based at least in part on the configuration transmitted to the RIS (p. 2 lines 18 – 24: In the multi-cell scenario, the user device determines configuration parameters for the IRS (“the configuration transmitted to the RIS”) to enable a maximization of the overall SINR conditions at the receiving user device, taking into account the interfering signal (whose direct and reflected IRS beam are supposed to add up destructively).).”
Regarding claim 23, Shellmann teaches or fairly suggests “transmit, to the RIS, an updated configuration associated with the network entity (p. 23 lines 19 – 26: If BS, 110b changes its beam, but user device 120 remains static, it may be sufficient for the user device 120 to estimate only the interfering beam bi, and its reflection by (pre-selected) beam x. Recalculate the SINR and the gain p based on θ only. Signal the updated θ (and SINR improvement p) to BSn. This implies that based on the updated θ, the base station BSn transmits updated configuration to the IRS); and
transmit, to the UE, an additional message on the channel from the network entity to the UE and on an additional channel from the RIS to the UE (not explicitly disclosed, but implicit based on updated configuration that follows from the teaching on p. 23 lines 19 – 26).”
Regarding claim 24, Shellmann teaches or fairly suggests “transmit, to the RIS, an updated configuration associated with the network entity (p. 23 lines 19 – 26: If BS, 110b changes its beam, but user device 120 remains static, it may be sufficient for the user device 120 to estimate only the interfering beam bi, and its reflection by (pre-selected) beam x. Recalculate the SINR and the gain p based on θ only. Signal the updated θ (and SINR improvement p) to BSn. This implies that based on the updated θ, the base station BSn transmits updated configuration to the IRS which is “associated with the network entity” changing its beam);
transmit, to the UE, a first additional message on the channel from the network entity to the UE (this would correspond to transmission of a message to the user equipment via the IRS prior to the base station changing its beam described on page 23, line 19); and transmit, to the UE, a second additional message on an additional channel from the RIS to the UE (this would correspond to transmission of another message to the user equipment via the IRS after to the base station changing its beam described on page 23, line 19).”
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and US 20210345399 (Levy) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of CN 112422162 (Chen).
Regarding claim 13, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 2 because they have similar limitations.
Claims 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and US 20210345399 (Levy) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of US 20180219664 (Guo).
Regarding claim 16, this claim is rejected in view of Guo because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 5 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 17, Shellmann in combination with Guo teaches or fairly suggests “transmit, to the RIS, one or more instructions based at least in part on the difference indicated by the first report (indeed, Shellmann teaches in p. 23 lines 9 – 17: The user device may signal the beam index x and the corresponding phase shift θ to BSn (representing “the first report”), which configures the IRS accordingly (“transmit, to the RIS, one or more instructions based at least in part on … the first report”). On the other side, Guo teaches in paragraph 0112 reporting, by the user equipment to the base station, the difference between the largest and the smallest values of the measured parameter. In view of this, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize the transmitted difference in generating the configuration for the IRS.).”
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut) and US 20210345399 (Levy) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of US 20110194639 (Nakao).
Regarding claim 19, Shellmann teaches or fairly suggests “…the second report is based at least in part on an estimated first channel from the neighbor cell to the UE and an estimated second channel from the RIS to the UE based at least in part on the second plurality of interference measurement resources (indeed, in the rejection of claim 11 above, “the second report” was mapped to signaling different pairs of (x, θ), allowing for different choices of beams (e.g., yielding SINR improvement above a threshold). However, maximization of SINR is a result of minimization of interference from neighboring base station, which is the same as maximization of destructive interference between “an estimated first channel from the neighbor cell to the UE and an estimated second channel from the RIS to the UE”. Therefore, “the second report is based” on this minimization of interference. Further, the pairs of (x, θ) within “the second report” are based on the phase measurements resulting in minimization of interference, the measurements taken on “the second plurality of interference measurement resources”, as was explained in the rejection of claim 11 above.).”
Shellmann does not teach “transmit, to the UE, an indication of a reference signal configuration associated with a neighbor cell.”
However, this is rejected in view of Nakao as explained in the rejection of similar limitation of claim 7 above.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut), US 20210345399 (Levy) and US 20110194639 (Nakao) as applied to claim 19 above, and further in view of CN 112422162 (Chen).
Regarding claim 20, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 8 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2022199818 (Shellmann) in view of US 20210156983 (Kraut), US 20210345399 (Levy) and US 20110194639 (Nakao) as applied to claim 19 above, and further in view of US 20130058279 (Kakishima).
Regarding claim 21, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 9 because they have similar limitations.
Conclusion
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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648