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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 7 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Islam et al. US 2017/030141 A1.
Claims 1 and 19:
Islam discloses a user equipment (UE) comprising: a memory; and
a processor coupled with the memory, the memory and the processor (See para 9, processor and memory) configured to: receive a plurality of reference signals in a plurality of reference signal sounding occasions (See paras 81-83, UE receives BRSs, BRRSs or CSI-RSs. Also see figs. 11 and 12); and
transmit, to a network entity, first one or more indications of first one or more reference signal sounding occasions associated with a first level of channel quality and second one or more indications of second one or more reference signal sounding occasions associated with a second level of channel quality (See para 88 and fig. 12, “the UE transmits, to the base station, a feedback signal including information about one or more beams selected from the plurality of beams within one or more frequency bands…”. Also see para 91, “the UE ranks each beam of the plurality of beams based on the channel estimation, where the UE may select the one or more beams from the plurality of beams based on the ranking…”. Ranking beams corresponds to first and second level of quality).
Claim 7:
Islam discloses for each of the plurality of reference signal sounding occasions, multiple reference signals are received over a plurality of resources, each of the first one or more indications indicates a corresponding resource within one of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and each of the second one or more indications indicates a corresponding resource within one of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions (See para 88 and fig. 12, “the UE transmits, to the base station, a feedback signal including information about one or more beams selected from the plurality of beams within one or more frequency bands…”. Reference signal beams indicate corresponding resources on which they were sent).
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(s) 2 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Islam et al. in view of Cheng et al. WO 2016/177299 A1.
Claims 2 and 20:
Islam doesn’t disclose that the first one or more indications comprise first one or more indexes of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and
wherein the second one or more indications comprise second one or more indexes of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions.
Cheng discloses that the first one or more indications comprise first one or more indexes of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and
wherein the second one or more indications comprise second one or more indexes of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions (See claim 8, “reporting, by the UE, a set of reports corresponding to each set of antenna ports, including rank, Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) and Precoding Matrix Indicator (PMI) or the pre-coding matrix and their corresponding reference signal”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Islam with the teachings of Cheng to improve the method disclosed by Islam by including the feature of first and second indications comprising indexes. The motivation to combine would have been to provide all the information so that network provide good quality.
Claim(s) 10, 17 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Islam et al. in view of Haija et al. US 2024/0072849 A1.
Claims 10 and 25:
Islam discloses a network entity comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled with the memory, the memory and the processor configured to (See para 13, processor and memory): transmit a plurality of reference signals in a plurality of reference signal sounding occasions (See paras 81-83, UE receives BRSs, BRRSs or CSI-RSs. Also see figs. 11 and 12); receive, from a user equipment (UE), first one or more indications of first one or more reference signal sounding occasions associated with a first level of channel quality and second one or more indications of second one or more reference signal sounding occasions associated with a second level of channel quality (See para 88 and fig. 12, “the UE transmits, to the base station, a feedback signal including information about one or more beams selected from the plurality of beams within one or more frequency bands…”. Also see para 91, “the UE ranks each beam of the plurality of beams based on the channel estimation, where the UE may select the one or more beams from the plurality of beams based on the ranking…”. Ranking beams corresponds to first and second level of quality).
Islam doesn’t disclose transmit to a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) controller a third indication of a beamforming configuration for use by the RIS controller, the third indication based on the first one or more indications and the second one or more indications.
Haija discloses transmit to a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) controller a third indication of a beamforming configuration for use by the RIS controller, the third indication based on the first one or more indications and the second one or more indications (See para 193, “The BS 802 then may send 850 RIS configuration information to the RIS 804 (e.g. possibly in the form of a wide beam redirection comments) to configure the RIS for a beam being wide enough to encompass the destination for two way redirection based upon the measurement feedback information received from the UE 806 and frequency information of the UL and DL signals”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Islam with the teachings of Haija to improve the method disclosed by Islam by including the feature of transmitting third indication to the RIS. The motivation to combine would have been to improve communication quality.
Claim 17:
Islam discloses for each of the plurality of reference signal sounding occasions, multiple reference signals are transmitted over a plurality of resources, each of the first one or more indications indicates a corresponding resource within one of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and each of the second one or more indications indicates a corresponding resource within one of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions (See para 88 and fig. 12, “the UE transmits, to the base station, a feedback signal including information about one or more beams selected from the plurality of beams within one or more frequency bands…”. Reference signal beams indicate corresponding resources on which they were sent).
Claim(s) 11 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Islam et al. in view of Haija et al. and further in view of Cheng et al. WO 2016/177299 A1.
Claims 11 and 26:
Islam in view of Haija doesn’t disclose that the first one or more indications comprise first one or more indexes of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and wherein the second one or more indications comprise second one or more indexes of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions.
Cheng discloses that the first one or more indications comprise first one or more indexes of the first one or more reference signal sounding occasions, and wherein the second one or more indications comprise second one or more indexes of the second one or more reference signal sounding occasions (See claim 8, “reporting, by the UE, a set of reports corresponding to each set of antenna ports, including rank, Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) and Precoding Matrix Indicator (PMI) or the pre-coding matrix and their corresponding reference signal”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Islam in view of Haija with the teachings of Cheng to improve the method disclosed by Islam in view of Haija by including the feature of first and second indications comprising indexes. The motivation to combine would have been to provide all the information so that network provide good quality.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 8, 9, 12-16, 18, 21-24 and 27-30 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HASHIM S BHATTI whose telephone number is (571)270-7748. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
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HASHIM S. BHATTI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2472
/HASHIM S BHATTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475