DETAILED ACTION
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 9-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because a computer-readable storage medium typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se, particularly when the specification is silent. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. It is suggested that the claims be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claim. Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se.
The specification defines a “computer-readable storage medium” as “any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions” which are only examples of computer-readable storage media and is therefore non-limiting. In the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim, there is a possibility that the computer-readable storage medium can include a transitory signal, which is non-statutory subject matter.
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 1, 5, 7-9, 13, 14, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ariyavisitakul et al. (USPN 9,532,256) in view of Razaviyayn et al. (USPN 8,797,959).
Regarding claim 1, Ariyavisitakul et al. teaches a base station in a massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) radio access network (RAN) (mMIMO-RAN), comprising: a processing device operable to: compute a precoder based on jointly maximizing a signal with respect to noise and minimizing an interference with respect to the noise [Col. 3, line 29 – Col. 4, line 25, signal is precoded while minimizing interference, minimizing interference reduces noise maximizing signal quality, also knowledge about downlink channels affected by transmission is used to maximize signal quality]; and generate the precoder for precoding a downlink (DL) signal for transmission from the base station to a user equipment (UE) [Col. 4, lines 6-61, downlink signal is precoded using precoder]; and a transceiver operable to transmit the DL signal to the UE [Fig. 2, 206, RF Front-End module is used to transmit downlink signals from base station to UE].
However, Ariyavisitakul does not teach computing the precoder based on a power constraint using block coordinate descent.
Razaviyayn teaches computing the precoder based on a power constraint using block coordinate descent [Col. 3, lines 43-62 and Col. 5, lines 43-53, information to be transmitted is precoded using beams where the beams are based on power constraint using block coordinate descent].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention compute a precoder which maximizes signal quality and is precoded based on power constraint using block coordinate descent so that resource allocation can be done such that interference is minimized.
Regarding claims 5, 13 and 17, Razaviyayn teaches computing the precoder using iteration [Col. 15, lines 39-56], uses iteration to determine vectors].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to compute precoder using iteration so that communication parameters can be taken into consideration when determining precoder.
Regarding claim 7, Razaviyayn teaches random sampling is used to compute the precoder asynchronously [Col. 14, line 55 – Col. 15, line 38].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to compute precoder using random sampling so that large portion of resources can be allocated to the UE with poor resources.
Regarding claim 8, Ariyavisitakul teaches perform a joint configuration with the UE [Col. 9, line 59 – Col. 10, line 6].
Regarding claim 9, Ariyavisitakul teaches a computer-readable storage medium including computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a base station in a massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) radio access network (RAN) (mMIMO- RAN) to: compute a precoder based on jointly maximizing a signal with respect to noise and minimizing an interference with respect to the noise [Col. 3, line 29 – Col. 4, line 25, signal is precoded while minimizing interference, minimizing interference reduces noise maximizing signal quality, also knowledge about downlink channels affected by transmission is used to maximize signal quality]; and generate the precoder for precoding a downlink (DL) signal for transmission from the base station to a user equipment (UE) [Col. 4, lines 6-61, downlink signal is precoded using precoder].
However, Ariyavisitakul does not teach computing the precoder based on a power constraint using block coordinate descent.
Razaviyayn teaches computing the precoder based on a power constraint using block coordinate descent [Col. 3, lines 43-62 and Col. 5, lines 43-53, information to be transmitted is precoded using beams where the beams are based on power constraint using block coordinate descent].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention compute a precoder which maximizes signal quality and is precoded based on power constraint using block coordinate descent so that resource allocation can be done such that interference is minimized.
Regarding claim 14, Ariyavisitakul teaches a method for beamforming estimation in a massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) radio access network (RAN) (mMIMO-RAN), comprising: computing, at a base station, a precoder based on jointly maximizing a signal with respect to noise and minimizing an interference with respect to the noise using an approximate decoder [Col. 3, line 29 – Col. 4, line 25, signal is precoded while minimizing interference, minimizing interference reduces noise maximizing signal quality, also knowledge about downlink channels affected by transmission is used to maximize signal quality]; and generating, at the base station, the precoder for precoding a downlink (DL) signal for transmission from the base station to a user equipment (UE) [Col. 4, lines 6-61, downlink signal is precoded using precoder].
However, Ariyavisitakul does not teach computing, at the base station, the precoder based on a power.
Razaviyayn teaches computing, at the base station, the precoder based on a power constraint [Col. 3, lines 43-62 and Col. 5, lines 43-53, information to be transmitted is precoded using beams where the beams are based on power constraint using block coordinate descent].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention compute a precoder which maximizes signal quality and is precoded based on power constraint using block coordinate descent so that resource allocation can be done such that interference is minimized.
Regarding claim 20, Ariyavisitakul teaches the DL signal is based on one or more of a number of downlink layers for a component carrier, a number of transmit antenna elements, a number of receive antenna elements, a polarization, or a number of antenna ports [Col. 3, lines 29-50].
Claims 6 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ariyavisitakul et al. (USPN 9,532,256) in view of Razaviyayn et al. (USPN 8,797,959) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Huang et al. (USPN 12,451,937).
Regarding claims 6 and 12, the references teach a base station and a computer-readable storage medium as discussed in rejection of claims 1 and 9.
However, the references do not teach the precoder is computed using parallelization.
Huang teaches the precoder is computed using parallelization [Col. 17, lines 29-39, streams are generated in parallel].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to computer precoder using parallelization so that interference can be reduced.
Claims 16 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ariyavisitakul et al. (USPN 9,532,256) in view of Razaviyayn et al. (USPN 8,797,959) as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (USPN 11,855,719).
Regarding claim 16, the references teach a method as discussed in rejection of claim 14.
However, the references do not teach computing, at the base station, the precoder based on the power constraint using stochastic gradient descent.
Wang teaches computing, at the base station, the precoder based on the power constraint using stochastic gradient descent [Col. 9, lines 34-41].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use stochastic gradient descent so that required performance can be achieved.
Regarding claim 19, the references teach a method as discussed in rejection of claim 14.
However, the references do not teach computing, at the base station, the approximate decoder based on the UE.
Wang teaches computing, at the base station, the approximate decoder based on the UE [Col. 16, lines 31-67].
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to computer approximate precoder so that optimal precoding factor can be achieved.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 10, 11, 15 and 18 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.
Kim et al. (US-PGPUB 2018/0227022) teaches obtaining information about precoder for performing forming process of hybrid beam. Information about pre-compensation precoder is produced for forming the beam by using the information about the precoder.
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/Chandrahas B Patel/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2464