DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/04/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-11, and 17-22 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.
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 1-5, and 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Beattie et al. (USPGPub 2018/0167927) in view of Yum et al. (USPGPub 2018/0331742).
As per claim 1, Beattie teaches a method for beamforming at a network node configured to communicate with a plurality of wireless device, WDs, the network node (Beattie, see paragraph [0062], receive end-user device information corresponding to a plurality of end-user devices communicating via a wireless access network, wherein the plurality of end-user devices; receive position and trajectory data corresponding to a position and a trajectory of the plurality of end-user devices… from the plurality of end-user devices and controls beamforming of the communication nodes) having a microphone array (Beattie, see paragraph [0311], The audio system 2312 can further include a microphone for receiving audible signals of an end user) the method comprising:
triggering a WD to transmit at least one acoustic pulse (Beattie, see paragraph [0077], a transmission device 101 begins operation under control of the training controller 230 by sending a plurality of guided waves as test signals such as pilot waves or other test signals at a corresponding plurality of candidate frequencies and/or candidate modes directed to a remote transmission device)
determining a direction of arrival of the at least one acoustic pulse received from the WD via the microphone array (Beattie, see paragraph [0062], communication resources of the wireless access network for communications to and from the plurality of end-user devices and controls beamforming of the communication nodes in accordance with the position and trajectory data to facilitate the communications to and from the plurality of end-user devices)
determining a radio frequency, RF, beam for communication with the WD based at least in part on the determined direction of arrival (Beattie, see paragraph [0063], controlling beamforming of the communication nodes in accordance with the position and trajectory data to facilitate the communications with the plurality of end-user devices).
Beattie doesn’t explicitly teach transmitting to the WD on the determined RF beam.
In analogous art Tum teaches transmitting to the WD on the determined RF beam (Yum, see paragraph [0110], the UE reports a beam index (BI) to the base station. The UE selects a resource to be used for transmitting data according to a reference such as CSI or the like and can transmit an index of the resource or a precoding to the base station).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to take the teaching of Yum and apply them on the teaching of Beattie as doing so would a channel state to be efficiently reported in a wireless communication system. (Yum, see paragraph [0018]).
As per claim 2, Beattie-Yum teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determined direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a weighted average of beam steering vectors (Beattie, see paragraph [0318], A classifier is a function that maps an input attribute vector, x=(x1, x2, x3, x4, . . . , xn), to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, that is, f(x)=confidence (class). Such classification can employ a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis (e.g., factoring into the analysis utilities and costs) to prognose or infer an action that a user desires to be automatically performed. A support vector machine (SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be employed)
As per claim 3, Beattie-Yum teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determined direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a largest eigenvector of a weighted singular value decomposition, SVD, matrix. (Beattie, see paragraph [0267], channel state information from user equipment (UE) that includes a channel quality indicator (CQI) that includes a requested modulation scheme, a rank indicator (RI) that indicates a number of usable layers, and a pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI) that indicates approximate antenna parameters)
As per claim 4, Beattie-Yum teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determined direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a beam synthesis process to determine an RF beam in a direction toward the WD (Beattie, see paragraph [0246], the local oscillator 1992 employs frequency division, frequency multiplication or other frequency synthesis, based on the pilot signal 1991, to generate the local oscillator signal 1997 at the proper frequency and phase to convert the channel signals 1994 at the carrier frequency associated with their placement in the spectrum of the distributed antenna system to their original/native spectral segments for transmission to fixed or mobile communication devices).
As per claim 5, Beattie-Yum teaches Beattie-Yum teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein determining an RF beam based at least in part on the determined direction of arrival is performed when a channel state information, CSI, is not available (Beattie, see paragraph [0267], Existing packet schedulers, such as those used in LTE 4G networks receive channel state information from user equipment (UE) that includes a channel quality indicator (CQI) that includes a requested modulation scheme, a rank indicator (RI) that indicates a number of usable layers, and a pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI) that indicates approximate antenna parameters).
As per claim 12, Beattie teaches a network node configured to communicate with a plurality of wireless device, WDs, (Beattie, see paragraph [0062], receive end-user device information corresponding to a plurality of end-user devices communicating via a wireless access network, wherein the plurality of end-user devices; receive position and trajectory data corresponding to a position and a trajectory of the plurality of end-user devices… from the plurality of end-user devices and controls beamforming of the communication nodes) the network node comprising:
a microphone array configured to receive an acoustic pulse from a WD; (Beattie, see paragraph [0311], The audio system 2312 can further include a microphone for receiving audible signals of an end user) processing circuitry configured to:
trigger the WD to transmit at least one acoustic pulse; determine a direction of arrival of the at least one acoustic pulse received from the WD via the microphone array; (Beattie, see paragraph [0077], a transmission device 101 begins operation under control of the training controller 230 by sending a plurality of guided waves as test signals such as pilot waves or other test signals at a corresponding plurality of candidate frequencies and/or candidate modes directed to a remote transmission device) and
determine a radio frequency, RF, beam for communication with the WD based at least in part on the determined direction of arrival; (Beattie, see paragraph [0063], controlling beamforming of the communication nodes in accordance with the position and trajectory data to facilitate the communications with the plurality of end-user devices).
Beattie doesn’t explicitly teach a radio interface configured to transmit to the WD on the determined RF beam.
In analogous art Tum teaches a radio interface configured to transmit to the WD on the determined RF beam (Yum, see paragraph [0110], the UE reports a beam index (BI) to the base station. The UE selects a resource to be used for transmitting data according to a reference such as CSI or the like and can transmit an index of the resource or a precoding to the base station).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to take the teaching of Yum and apply them on the teaching of Beattie as doing so would a channel state to be efficiently reported in a wireless communication system. (Yum, see paragraph [0018]).
As per claim 13 Beattie-Yum teaches the network node of Claim 12, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determine direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a weighted average of beam steering vectors. (Beattie, see paragraph [0318], A classifier is a function that maps an input attribute vector, x=(x1, x2, x3, x4, . . . , xn), to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, that is, f(x)=confidence (class). Such classification can employ a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis (e.g., factoring into the analysis utilities and costs) to prognose or infer an action that a user desires to be automatically performed. A support vector machine (SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be employed)
As per claim 14 Beattie-Yum teaches the network node of Claim 12, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determined direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a largest eigenvector of a weighted singular value decomposition, SVD, matrix. (Beattie, see paragraph [0267], channel state information from user equipment (UE) that includes a channel quality indicator (CQI) that includes a requested modulation scheme, a rank indicator (RI) that indicates a number of usable layers, and a pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI) that indicates approximate antenna parameters)
As per claim 15 Beattie-Yum teaches the network node of Claim 12, wherein the determined RF beam is based at least in part on a beam index corresponding to the determined direction of arrival, the beam index being based at least in part on a beam synthesis process to determine an RF beam in a direction toward the WD. (Beattie, see paragraph [0246], the local oscillator 1992 employs frequency division, frequency multiplication or other frequency synthesis, based on the pilot signal 1991, to generate the local oscillator signal 1997 at the proper frequency and phase to convert the channel signals 1994 at the carrier frequency associated with their placement in the spectrum of the distributed antenna system to their original/native spectral segments for transmission to fixed or mobile communication devices).
As per claim 16 Beattie-Yum teaches the network node Claim 12, wherein determining an RF beam based at least in part on the determined direction of arrival is performed when a channel state information, CSI, is not available. (Beattie, see paragraph [0267], Existing packet schedulers, such as those used in LTE 4G networks receive channel state information from user equipment (UE) that includes a channel quality indicator (CQI) that includes a requested modulation scheme, a rank indicator (RI) that indicates a number of usable layers, and a pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI) that indicates approximate antenna parameters).
Conclusion
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/HERMON ASRES/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449