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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 23-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 23 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 elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the elements. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted elements are: the steps “receiving…” and “determining…” are not related to each other, there is missing the elements to connect between the steps receiving and determining.
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) 1-2,4,13,16-20,23-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Prasad et al. (WO 2018004509).
- With respect to claims 1, 23 and 25, Prasad teaches an electronic apparatus for wireless communications, comprising: processing circuitry, configured to: determine a first emitting beam direction at a base station side of a direct link of the base station with respect to user equipment (UE) (e.g. in Fig. 6 block 1 shows the direct link from base station to UE), and a second emitting beam direction at the base station side of a reflective link of the base station with respect to a large intelligent surface (LIS) (e.g. the block 115, 2 in Fig. 6 shows the reflective link of base station to UE); determine, based on the first emitting beam direction at the base station side and the second emitting beam direction at the base station side, a first scanning range of a reflected beam of a reflective link of the LIS with respect to the UE and a second scanning range of a receiving beam of the UE (e.g. the rang 1 and 2 in Fig. 6 that UE receive from base station); and perform control to perform beam training of the reflective link between the LIS and the UE based on the first scanning range and the second scanning range (e.g. steps in Fig. 7 where the UE ranking the signals based on the quality, discloses “determining, by the user equipment, that the received wireless signals include signals from both primary path wireless beams and/or received reflected path wireless beams, based on the signal quality and the angle of arrival of the wireless signals; Step 706: ranking, by the user equipment, the received wireless signals to primary path wireless beams and/or received reflected path wireless beams, based on the signal quality”). Prasad implicitly fails to discloses the scanning range for directed and reflected link. However, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to know the ranging of reflected beam and directed beam are different, therefore the UE scans the primary beam and reflected beam as first and second scanning ranges.
- With respect to claim 2, Prasad teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the first emitting beam direction at the base station side by performing beam training on the direct link (e.g. Fig. 6 shows the block 1 as directed beam).
- With respect to claims 4, 13, Prasad teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the second emitting beam direction at the base station side by adopting one of the following manners: performing beam training on the reflective link between the base station and the LIS (e.g. Fig. 6 shows the reflected surface 115); determining based on a geometrical location relationship between the base station and the LIS (e.g. Fig. 4 show the location where UE appear in the network, and fig. 1).
- With respect to claim 7, Prasad teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the first scanning range and the second scanning range based on the first emitting beam direction at the base station side and the second emitting beam direction at the base station side, according to a geometrical location relationship among the base station, the LIS and the UE (e.g. Fig. 2 shows location of base station, UE and reflective surface as discloses “Figure 2: illustrates an example network diagram of a user equipment (UE) 100 located in a cell controlled by a 5G radio access point (5G-RAP) 110. The UE 100 is capable of reporting to the 5G-RAP 110 the strongest or best signal quality received primary beams 1 and the strongest or best signal quality received secondary beams 2 having a substantially different angle-of-arrival due to reflection at reflective surface 115 in the transmission path of the secondary beam 2”).
- With respect to claims 18-19 and 24, Prasad teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to obtain, from the UE, an identifier of an optimal emitting beam of the base station with respect to the direct link, and determine the first emitting beam direction at the base station side based on the optimal emitting beam of the base station (e.g. step calculation to determine the quality of signals in Fig. 7A).
- With respect to claim 20, Prasad teaches wherein the processing circuitry is configured to transmit, to a controller of the LIS, an identifier of a reflected beam in the first scanning range, and transmit, to the UE, an identifier of a receiving beam in the second scanning range, to perform beam scanning, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to perform the transmitting to the UE through a physical downlink control channel (e.g. the downlink beam from base station to UE in fig. 6A consider as PDCCH).
Claim(s) 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Prasad et al. (WO 2018004509) in view of Penna et al. (Pub. No. 20230176174).
- With respect to claims 16-17, Prasad discloses all the subject matter of the claimed invention but fails to transmit, to the LIS, a signaling indicating an LIS operating mode which comprises OFF and ON. Penna from the same or similar field of endeavor teaches a transmitting, to the LIS, a signaling indicating an LIS operating mode which comprises OFF and ON (see Fig. 5A block 550, 560) therefore it would have been obvious to a person ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to implement the method of control LIS ON/OFF for saving energy in communication.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 5-6, 8, 10, 12, 14 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
. Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471