DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Application No. 18/569,028 filed on 12/11/2023. The amendment presented on 3/9/2026, which amends claims 21, 30, and 39, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 21-40 have been examined.
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 on 1/29/2026 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
The amendment presented on 3/9/2026 providing change to the claims is noted. All prior objections to the claims are hereby withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 21, 30, and 39 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.
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.
Claims 21-23, 27, 30-32, 36, and 39-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (hereinafter Zhou)(US 2022/0124711) in view of Abraham et al. (hereinafter Abraham)(US 2014/0369302), and further in view of Huang et al. (hereinafter Huang)(US 2024/0088980).
Regarding claims 21 and 30, Zhou teaches as follows:
A station (STA)(interpreted as the UE and terminal), comprising:
receiver circuitry (interpreted as the receiving hardware) configured to receive a frame (the skilled in the art may understand that the “UE” and “terminal” used herein include not only a wireless signal receiver device, which is a device only having a wireless signal receiver without a transmitting capability, but also a device with receiving and transmitting hardware, which is a device having receiving and transmitting hardware capable of performing a bidirectional communication over a bidirectional communication link, see, ¶ [0032]); and
transmitter circuitry (interpreted as the transmitting hardware) configured to transmit, responsive to a measured CSI variation exceeding the threshold, a measurement report which includes an indication of the measured CSI variation within predefined boundaries (the UE in the connected state performs the CSI measurement when a first predetermined condition is met, and performs the CSI report when a second predetermined condition is met, the reported CSI being the CSI measured last time within a time range determined according to the second predetermined condition, or the CSI corresponding to the first predetermined condition. For example, the UE triggers the CSI measurement when the RSRP is below a predetermined threshold, and when the variation of the measured CSI relative to the CSI measured last time exceeds a threshold, reports the current CSI, see, ¶ [0265]).
Zhou does not teach the null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame.
Abraham teaches as follows:
An access point (AP) may transmit to one or more user stations (STAs)(STA may comprise a user terminal, for example the user terminal 120 or the wireless device 302, see, ¶ [0070]) a Null Data Packet Announcement (NDPA) frame 402 followed by a Null Data Packet (NDP) frame 404 after a Short Inter-Frame Symbol (SIFS) period 406 (see, ¶ [0071] and figure 4); and
the NDPA frame 422 may be referred to as a CSI request message, which may be of type control frame. The NDPA frame 422 may comprise one or more of a frame control field 502, a duration field 504, an RA broadcast field 506, a TA field 508, a CSI sequence field 512, an STA information field 514, and a CRC field 516. The NDPA frame 422 may be transmitted or broadcast by the AP, as described above (see, ¶ [0076] and figure 5).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou with Abraham to include transmitting the well-known NDPA (CSI request message) frame to user stations as taught by Abraham in order to efficiently specify required CSI variation threshold.
Zhou in view of Abraham does not teach the CSI variation value.
Huang teaches as follows:
At 3506, the UE sends a report indicating the channel status variance information (CSVI) to the network entity in accordance with the configuration. The CSVI may indicate the CSI variance values relative to the one or more CSI metrics… The UE may calculate the CSI variance values based on statistics of all measured/calculated values in a CSI measurement period (see, ¶ [0251]-[0252] and figure 35).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou in view of Abraham with Huang to include reporting the channel status variance information (CSVI) indicating the CSI variance values as taught by Huang in order to efficiently indicates a variance relative to previously measured CSI metrics.
Regarding claims 22, 31, and 40, Zhou teaches the variation of the measured CSI within a time range as presented above (see, ¶ [0265]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou in view of Abraham and Huang to include comparing ratio of measured CSI from different time in order to efficiently calculate the variation over time.
Regarding claims 23 and 32, Zhou teaches as follows:
The UE in the connected state performs the CSI measurement periodically, and performs the CSI report periodically. The reported CSI is the CSI measured last time within a time range determined according to a predetermined condition… The UE performs the periodic CSI measurement from Subframe x1 to Subframe x2, and reports the measured periodic CSI in Subframe x1+Y or Subframe x2+Y (see, ¶ [0262]).
Therefore, the variation of the measured CSI comprises a change in the measure CSI over time.
Regarding claims 27 and 36, Zhou teaches as follows:
Wherein the measurement report is transmitted responsive to the measured CSI variation exceeding the threshold (the UE triggers the CSI measurement when the RSRP is below a predetermined threshold, and when the variation of the measured CSI (referred to as the current CSI for convenience) relative to the CSI measured last time exceeds a threshold, reports the current CSI, see, ¶ [0265]) and receiving a trigger frame (triggers the CSI report when a first predetermined condition is met or after receiving a signaling indicating an aperiodic CSI report (equivalent to applicant’s trigger frame, see, ¶ [0263]).
Regarding claim 39, Zhou in view of Abraham and Huang teaches similar limitations as presented above in the rejection for claim 22 because the state equivalent to a base station inherently includes the transmitter circuitry and the receiver circuity to communicate with the UE.
Claims 24-26, 28-29, 33-35, and 37-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (hereinafter Zhou)(US 2022/0124711) in view of Abraham et al. (hereinafter Abraham)(US 2014/0369302) and Huang et al. (hereinafter Huang)(US 2024/0088980), and further in view of Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang)(US 2019/0175074).
Regarding claims 24-25 and 33-34, Zhou in view of Abraham and Huang teaches all limitations as presented above except for the CSI magnitude or the CSI phase.
Zhang teaches as follows:
From the CSI stream perspective, as the variances of the phase difference across two antennas is the sum of individual variance on each antenna, while implies that the phase difference is more sensitive to the environment changes than the amplitude, thus the CSI phase difference seems to be a better base signal compared to the CSI amplitude for characterizing human activities (see, ¶ [0070]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou in view of Abraham and Huang with Zhang to include determining variances of the CSI phase difference as taught by Zhang in order to efficiently determine CSI phase variance over time.
Regarding claims 26 and 35, Zhang teaches as follows:
Wherein the CSI variation comprises time-domain CSI variation and/or frequency-domain CSI variation (the interpolation module is configured to interpolate in the first CSI stream to obtain an interpolated first CSI stream with a continuous time-frequency domain spectrum, see, ¶ [0185]).
Therefore, they are rejected for similar reason as presented above.
Regarding claims 28 and 37, Zhou teaches as follows:
Wherein the indication of the measured CSI variation is based on a normalized value of the measured CSI variation (extracting the following features of the first CSI stream or the second CSI stream the normalized standard deviation (STD), see, ¶ [0025]).
Therefore, they are rejected for similar reason as presented above.
Regarding claims 29 and 38, Zhou teaches the CSI variation threshold and periodically measuring CSI within a time range (see, ¶ [0265]).
Abraham teaches the NDPA frame (see, ¶ [0076] and figure 5).
Zhang teaches a presentation of a normalized value as presented above.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou in view of Abraham, Huang and Zhang to include indicating the normalized CSI variation threshold in a subfield in order to efficiently specify the CSI request message using the NDPA frame.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jeong S Park whose telephone number is (571)270-1597. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 8:00-4:30 ET.
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/JEONG S PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
May 16, 2026
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