DETAILED ACTION
This Final Office Action is in response to application number 18/575,509 filed on December 29th 2023. 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 Statements
The information disclosure statements (IDS), submitted on December 29th , 2023, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-9,11,15-25,27,29 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (WO 2019028869) in view of Myung et al. (US 20240064750 A1) further in view of Takeda et al. (US 20200235894 A1)
Regarding claims 1,17,29 and 30, Liu et al. disclose a method for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE),comprising: receiving, from the base station, second control signaling comprising an indication of a first antenna port value of a plurality of antenna port values for wireless communications between the UE and the base station (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0075 discloses “In step 500, a UE 20 will receive information indicating the DMRS resource of an antenna port on which data will be transmitted from the UE. The antenna port may be assigned to the UE by the base station 10.”);
Liu et al fail to disclose explicitly receiving, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of a plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station
However in an analogous art Myung et al. teaches receiving, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of a plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station (US 20240064750 A1 Paragraph 0251 discloses “the UE may receive information related to an OCC length of a DMRS for PUCCH format 4 through an RRC signal (S1501).”; Paragraph 0251 discloses “The UE may generate a DMRS for PUCCH format 4 based on the OCC length…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Myung et al, to receive, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of a plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station in order to enable multi-layer uplink MIMO and to ensure orthogonality of multiple data streams.
Liu et al. and Myung et al. fail to explicitly disclose transmitting, to the base station, at least one demodulation reference signal via at least one antenna port of a plurality of orthogonal antenna ports, the at least one antenna port identified based at least in part on the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the first antenna port value.
However in an analogous art Takeda et al. teaches transmitting, to the base station, at least one demodulation reference signal via at least one antenna port of a plurality of orthogonal antenna ports, the at least one antenna port identified based at least in part on the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the first antenna port value ( Paragraph 0078 discloses “With a second example of the present invention, to provide a DMRS pattern, the density at which DMRSs are allocated in the frequency direction and/or the time direction (DMRS density) is determined based on the number of symbols (transmission period) in which the PDSCH/PUSCH is transmitted. To be more specific, at least one of the number of subcarriers where DMRSs are allocated, the number of symbols, the density, the number of DMRS antenna ports (also referred to as “DMRS ports” and the like), the CS value, and the OCC may be controlled based on the number of PDSCH/PUSCH-transmitting symbols.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. and Myung et al. to incorporate the teachings of Takeda et al, to transmit, to the base station, at least one demodulation reference signal via at least one antenna port of a plurality of orthogonal antenna ports, the at least one antenna port identified based at least in part on the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the first antenna port value in order to enable multi-layer uplink MIMO and to ensure orthogonality of multiple data streams.
Regarding claims 2 and 18, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, via the second control signaling, one or more antenna port field values comprising the indication of the first antenna port value, the first antenna port value associated with a subset of antenna ports of the plurality of antenna ports, the subset of antenna ports including the at least one antenna port; and receiving, from the base station based at least in part on the one or more antenna port field values, an indication of the at least one antenna port included within the subset of antenna ports, wherein transmitting the at least one demodulation reference signal is based at least in part on the indication of the at least one antenna port (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0075 discloses “In step 500, a UE 20 will receive information indicating the DMRS resource of an antenna port on which data will be transmitted from the UE. The antenna port may be assigned to the UE by the base station 10.”).
Regarding claims 3 and 19, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 2, further comprising: receiving the indication of the at least one antenna port of the subset of antenna ports via the first control signaling, third control signaling, or both (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0071 discloses “To save signaling overhead, separate DMRS port/transmission layer indication tables can also be provided as table l l, and the chosen of specific DMRS port/transmission layer indication table can be via RRC signaling, which will indicate which configuration is to be used.”).
Regarding claims 4 and 20, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 2, further comprising: receiving the indication of the at least one antenna port of the subset of antenna ports via one or more additional field values included within the second control signaling (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0071 discloses “According to other embodiment of the disclosure, other cases for a single UE with layers in addition to 1, 2, 4 and 8 can also be supported by adding additional rows to the table. 4 bits are may be used to indicate the detailed DMRS resource listed in the table. When the transmission layer can be informed from other scheduling information, such as precoding indication, the signaling overhead can be further reduced. For example, the precoding indication indicates that the transmission is two-layer transmission, and the DMRS resource indication can be reduced to 2 bits. Detailed DMRS resource indication can be carried by DCI to schedule transmission. The signaling decision according an embodiment of the disclosure will consider both the overhead efficiency and common bits number to avoid UE blind detecting different DCI bits”).
Regarding claims 5 and 21, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 4, wherein the one or more additional field values comprise a time domain resource allocation field value, a frequency domain resource allocation field value, a sounding reference signal cyclic shift field value, or any combination thereof (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0023 discloses “Recently released RAN1#89 updated two types of DMRS configurations for DL/UL, wherein according to configuration I, when the DMRS resource is transmitted in one symbol, I group of frequency domain resources, i.e., 2 combs and l group of code domain resources, i.e. 2 CSs (cyclic shift) can be used to generate DMRS resources. While, when the each DMRS resource is transmitted in two symbols, 2 comb, 2 CS, and 2 TD-OCC (time domain-orthogonal cover code) can be used to generate the DMRS resources. In the other hand, according to configuration 2, when the DMRS resource is 1.rnnsmitted in one symbol, 2 FD-OCC (frequency domain-orthogonal cover code) across adjacent REs (resource elements) and 3 frequency domain shift in the frequency domain can be used to generate the DMRS resources. ·while when the DMRS resource is transmitted in 2 symbols, 3 frequency domain shift, 2 FD-OCC across adjacent REs in the frequency domain, and 2 TD-OCC can be used to generate the DMRS resources.”).
Regarding claims 6 and 22, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, via the second control signaling, a plurality of antenna port field values comprising the indication of the first antenna port value, the plurality of antenna port field values comprising four or more antenna port field values (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0039 discloses “Thus, the DMRS resources for a single UE with 8 layers can be indicated based on the priority order of combining the domain resources. According to an embodiment of the disclosure, 3 bits may be used to indicate the priority order. The 3 bits can be carried by RRC signaling. The 3 bits can also be included in the DCI to schedule the DMRS transmission.”).
Regarding claims 7 and 23, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 6, further comprising: receiving, via the first control signaling or additional control signaling, an activation of at least one antenna port field value of the plurality of antenna port field values, wherein receiving the indication of the first antenna port value is based at least in part on the activation of the at least one antenna port field value (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0039 discloses “Thus, the DMRS resources for a single UE with 8 layers can be indicated based on the priority order of combining the domain resources. According to an embodiment of the disclosure, 3 bits may be used to indicate the priority order. The 3 bits can be carried by RRC signaling. The 3 bits can also be included in the DCI to schedule the DMRS transmission.”).
Regarding claims 8 and 24, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, via the first control signaling, the second control signaling, additional control signaling, or any combination thereof, an indication of a rank associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0039 discloses “In step 404, the UE 20 receives a precoding matrix indicating the number of layers on which the data will be transmitted.”); receiving, via the second control signaling, a plurality of antenna port field values comprising the indication of the first antenna port value; and identifying the at least one antenna port based at least in part on the plurality of antenna port field values and the rank (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0039 discloses “Thus, the DMRS resources for a single UE with 8 layers can be indicated based on the priority order of combining the domain resources. According to an embodiment of the disclosure, 3 bits may be used to indicate the priority order. The 3 bits can be carried by RRC signaling. The 3 bits can also be included in the DCI to schedule the DMRS transmission.”).
Regarding claims 9 and 25, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 8, further comprising: identifying one or more additional antenna ports of the plurality of antenna ports based at least in part on the plurality of antenna port field values and the rank, wherein transmitting the at least one demodulation reference signal is based at least in part on the one or more additional antenna ports (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0039 discloses “While, as shown in FIG.5, a method for receiving DMRS resources for UL is little different from that for DL according to an embodiment of the disclosure. In step 500, a UE 20 will receive information indicating the DMRS resource of an antenna port on which data will be transmitted from the UE. The antenna port may be assigned to the UE by the base station 10. In step 402, the UE will detem1ine the number of symbols for carrying the DMRS resource in time domain. In step 404, the UE 20 receives a precoding matrix indicating the number of layers 011 which the data will be transmitted. Then, step 404, when the DE 20 transmits the data, it will perform the transmission based on the received DMRS resource and precoding matrix.”).
Regarding claim 11 and 27, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the base station, fourth control signaling comprising an indication of a second antenna port value of the plurality of antenna port values for wireless communications between the UE and the base station (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0075 discloses “In step 500, a UE 20 will receive information indicating the DMRS resource of an antenna port on which data will be transmitted from the UE. The antenna port may be assigned to the UE by the base station 10.”);
Liu et al fail to explicitly disclose receiving, from the base station, third control signaling indicating a second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of the plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station, the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length different from the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length.;
However in an analogous art Myung et al. teaches receiving, from the base station, third control signaling indicating a second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of the plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station, the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length different from the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length (US 20240064750 A1 Paragraph 0251 discloses “the UE may receive information related to an OCC length of a DMRS for PUCCH format 4 through an RRC signal (S1501).”); and the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length (Paragraph 0251 discloses “The UE may generate a DMRS for PUCCH format 4 based on the OCC length…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Myung et al, to receive, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length of a plurality of frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence lengths associated with wireless communications with the base station and the transmission of the DMRS signal based on first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length in order to enable multi-layer uplink MIMO and to ensure orthogonality of multiple data streams.
Liu et al. and Myung et al. fail to disclose transmitting, to the base station, at least one additional demodulation reference signal via at least one additional antenna port of the plurality of orthogonal antenna ports identified based at least in part on the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the second antenna port value.
However in an analogous art Takeda et al. teaches transmitting, to the base station, at least one additional demodulation reference signal via at least one additional antenna port of the plurality of orthogonal antenna ports identified based at least in part on the second frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the second antenna port value( Paragraph 0078 discloses “With a second example of the present invention, to provide a DMRS pattern, the density at which DMRSs are allocated in the frequency direction and/or the time direction (DMRS density) is determined based on the number of symbols (transmission period) in which the PDSCH/PUSCH is transmitted. To be more specific, at least one of the number of subcarriers where DMRSs are allocated, the number of symbols, the density, the number of DMRS antenna ports (also referred to as “DMRS ports” and the like), the CS value, and the OCC may be controlled based on the number of PDSCH/PUSCH-transmitting symbols.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. and Myung et al. to incorporate the teachings of Takeda et al, to transmit, to the base station, at least one demodulation reference signal via at least one antenna port of a plurality of orthogonal antenna ports, the at least one antenna port identified based at least in part on the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length and the first antenna port value in order to enable multi-layer uplink MIMO and to ensure orthogonality of multiple data streams.
Regarding claim 15, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the first control signaling comprises a radio resource control message, a medium access control-control element message, or both, and wherein the second control signaling comprises a downlink control information message(WO2019028869 Paragraph 002 discloses “for UL DMRS transmission, the port mapping order is indicated in UE-specific DCI (Downlink Control Information)…”) (US 20240064750 A1 Paragraph 0251 discloses “Referring to FIG. 15, the UE may receive information related to an OCC length of a DMRS for PUCCH format 4 through an RRC signal (S1501).”).
Regarding claim 16, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1, wherein a first subset of the plurality of orthogonal antenna ports are orthogonal to a second subset of the plurality of orthogonal antenna ports (WO2019028869 Paragraph 0035 discloses “…for example a gNB can determine a DMRS resource to an antenna port and indicates it to an UE. The gNB itself is responsible for guaranteeing determined DMRS resources being orthogonal for multiple UEs.”).
Claims 10,12 26 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (WO 2019028869) in view of Myung et al. (US 20240064750 A1) in view Takeda et al. (US 20200235894 A1) further in view of Bhattad et al. (US 20210044981 A1)
Regarding claims 10 and 26, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1.
Liu et al fail to disclose explicitly identifying a set of cyclic shift values, a Walsh sequence, or both, associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station based at least in part on the indication of the first antenna port value; and identifying the at least one antenna port of the plurality of antenna ports in accordance with the set of cyclic shift values, the Walsh sequence, or both .
However in an analogous art Bhattad et al. teaches identifying a set of cyclic shift values, a Walsh sequence, or both, associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station based at least in part on the indication of the first antenna port value; and identifying the at least one antenna port of the plurality of antenna ports in accordance with the set of cyclic shift values, the Walsh sequence, or both (US 20210044981 Paragraph 0115 discloses “In an example, the frequency spreading codes 510, 512, 514 and 516 may be defined based on Walsh codes…. The orthogonal frequency spreading codes 510 and 512 enable a BS to distinguish DMRS transmissions of the UE A from DMRS transmissions of the UE B.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Bhattad et al, to identify a Walsh sequence, associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station based at least in part on the indication of the first antenna port value; and identifying the at least one antenna port of the plurality of antenna ports in accordance with the Walsh sequence in order to achieve orthogonality for multiple data streams transmitted on the same time and frequency resources.
Regarding claims 12 and 28, Liu et al disclose the method of claim 11.
Liu et al. fail to explicitly disclose transmitting, to the base station, an indication of a channel quality associated with a channel between the UE and the base station, wherein receiving the third control signaling, receiving the fourth control signaling, or both, is based at least in a part on transmitting the indication of the channel quality.
However in an analogous art Bhattad et al. teach transmitting, to the base station, an indication of a channel quality associated with a channel between the UE and the base station, wherein receiving the third control signaling, receiving the fourth control signaling, or both, is based at least in a part on transmitting the indication of the channel quality (US 20210044981 Paragraph 0111 discloses.” FIGS. 5A and 5B collectively illustrate an UL control channel multiplexing scheme 500 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. In the scheme 500, a PUCCH signal 530 may carry PUCCH format 2 UCI 520 and a DMRS 522. The UCI 520 may include a channel quality indicator (CQI), a scheduling request (SR), hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NAK), and/or any UL control related information. In an example, a UE (e.g., the UEs 115 and/or 300) may transmit a CQI to provide a BS (e.g., the BSs 105 and/or 400) with channel measurement and/or quality information.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Bhattad et al, to transmit, to the base station, an indication of a channel quality associated with a channel between the UE and the base station, in order to ensure efficiency and performance on the forementioned link by reducing retransmission and increasing throughput.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C.103(a) as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (WO 2019028869) in view of Myung et al. (US 20240064750 A1) in view of Takeda et al. (US 20200235894 A1) further in view of Jin et al. (EP 3340515 A1)
Regarding claim 13, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1.
Liu et al fail to explicitly disclose wherein the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length is greater than two .
However in an analogous art Jin et al. teach wherein the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length is greater than two (EP 3340515 A1 Paragraph 0099 discloses The BS may allocate a length of the allocated OCCs of 4 for a total number of orthogonal user data flows greater than 2.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Jin et al, to implement, whereby the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length is greater than two, in order to support multiple data streams.
Claims14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C.103(a) as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (WO 2019028869) in view of Myung et al. (US 20240064750 A1) in view of Takeda et al. (US 20200235894 A1) further in view of Li et al. (WO 2017196483 A1)
Regarding claim 14, Liu et al. disclose the method of claim 1.
Liu et al. fail explicitly to disclose wherein the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length is based at least in part on a subcarrier spacing associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station, a quantity of frequency combs associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station, or both.
However in an analogous art Li et al. teach wherein the first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length is based at least in part on a subcarrier spacing associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station, a quantity of frequency combs associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station, or both (Pages 19-20 Lines 31-37, 1-7 disclose “In the embodiment illustrated, each DM-RS of an antenna port is associated with 4 resource elements. Therefore, assuming resource elements of the ODFM symbols 5 and 6 and subcarriers 1 1 correspond to a predetermined antenna port, such as, for example, antenna port 7, a given bit of a DM-RS signal would be multiplied by the respective OCC-4 values dictated by the a, b, c, d, indices and transmitted using the respective resource elements of OFDM symbols 5, 6 in a first time slot 708, and OFDM symbols 12, 13 in a second time slot 710 using subcarriers 1 1. Therefore, a given DM-RS bit value would be multiplied by OCC-4 of 1, 1, 1 , 1 for the first antenna port. It can be appreciated that embodiments can be realized in which the same DM-RS signal, having been multiplied by or spread by the selected OCC-4, can be carried by at least one or more than one further subcarriers. In the embodiment depicted, it can be appreciated that the spread DM-RS signal is carried by a set of subcarriers. The set of subcarriers can comprise, for example, subcarriers 1, 6 and 11. The set of subcarriers could comprise different subcarriers or a different set of such subcarriers. It can be seen that the same OFDM symbols are used, that is, symbols 5, 6 and 12, 13.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu et al. to incorporate the teachings of Li et al, to implement, first frequency domain orthogonal cover code sequence length that is based at least in part on a subcarrier spacing associated with wireless communications between the UE and the base station, in order to ensure that the channel response is constant over the resources the codes is spread across.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim one 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.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached on 571-272-8586.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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