DETAILED ACTION
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 July 22, 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings were received on March 18, 2024. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 6, 8-9, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gong et al. (hereinafter “Gong”, EP 3 754 885 as recited in IDS dated July 22, 2024).
Regarding claims 1, and 9, Gong discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (i.e., terminal device 70 as shown in Fig. 7), and a method of wireless communication by a user equipment (UE) comprising:
one or more memories (i.e., memory as shown in Fig. 7); and
one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories (i.e., processor as shown in Fig. 7), the one or more processors being configured to:
receive a sounding reference signal (SRS) configuration from a network entity (i.e., the terminal device obtains, based on the indication of the SRS resource as described in paragraph 0077), the SRS configuration indicating a plurality of SRS ports of an SRS resource assigned to a plurality of symbols (i.e., the network device configures one or more SRS resources for the terminal device. This indicates a quantity of antenna ports used by the SRS resource for transmission as described in paragraphs 0004, 0077 and 0094);
determine a port transmit power for each of the plurality of SRS ports based on a total transmit power available for each of the plurality of symbols divided by a number of the SRS ports assigned in each of the plurality of symbols (i.e., determining the transmit power of each port based on the quantity of ports as described in paragraphs 0014, 0090 and 0100); and
transmit, to the network entity, a plurality of SRSs respectively via the plurality of SRS ports, wherein each SRS of the plurality of SRSs is transmitted using the port transmit power via a respective SRS port of the plurality of SRS ports in a respective symbol of the plurality of symbols (i.e., SRSs carried in plurality of SRS resources are simultaneously transmitted on the first time domain resource based on the transmit power of each port corresponding to each of the plurality of SRS resources as described in paragraph 0091).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Gong also discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: transmit, to the network entity, at least one of a capability report or a power headroom report indicating the total transmit power available for each symbol (i.e., transmitting to the network device indicating the power headroom as described in paragraphs 0092-0093).
Regarding claim 8, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Gong also discloses wherein the plurality of SRSs are transmitted on an active uplink bandwidth part of a carrier of a serving cell (i.e., transmitting an SRA in a carrier of a cell C as described in paragraph 0097).
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(s) 2-3, and 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gong in view of Cai et al. (hereinafter “Cai”, US 2025/0038920).
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above, but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Cai discloses communication method and communication apparatus. Cai also discloses wherein the plurality of symbols are a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols (i.e., OFDM symbols as described in paragraph 0213).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enhance the quality of the SRS.
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above, but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Cai discloses communication method and communication apparatus. Cai also discloses wherein each symbol of the plurality of symbols is assigned a same number of SRS ports (i.e., same number of ports are assigned to OFDM symbol as shown in Fig. 3, and its descriptions).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enhance the quality of the SRS.
Claim(s) 4, 7, 12, 15-16, 19, 21-24, 27, and 29-30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gong in view of Shi et al. (hereinafter “Shi”, EP 3 644 657 as cited in IDS dated July 22, 2024).
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above, but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Shi discloses power control method and device, and terminal. Shi also discloses wherein the plurality of SRSs are for a codebook based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or for an antenna switching for downlink channel state information (CSI) estimation (i.e., the UE estimates downlink channel information as described in paragraph 0026).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enable the UE to perform MIMO transmissions for PUSCHs in the NR.
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above, but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Shi discloses power control method and device, and terminal. Shi also discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
receive, from the network entity, a notification of a selected SRS port out of the plurality of SRS ports (i.e., network configures three single-ported SRSs as described in paragraphs 0044-0046); and
transmit an uplink communication using the selected SRS port (i.e., UE transmitting using the configured ports as described in paragraphs 0044-0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to maximize the transmitting power.
Regarding claims 16 and 24, Gong discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a network entity (i.e., base station 80 as shown in Fig. 8), and a method of wireless communication by a network entity, comprising:
one or more memories (i.e., memory 8021 as shown in Fig. 8); and
one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories (i.e., processor 8022 as shown in Fig. 8), the one or more processors being configured to:
provide an SRS configuration to a user equipment (UE), the SRS configuration indicating a plurality of sounding reference signal (SRS) ports of an SRS resource assigned to a plurality of symbols (i.e., the network device configures one or more SRS resources for the terminal device. This indicates a quantity of antenna ports used by the SRS resource for transmission as described in paragraphs 0004, 0077 and 0094), wherein a port transmit power for each of the plurality of SRS ports is based on a total transmit power divided by a number of the SRS ports assigned in each of the plurality of symbols (i.e., determining the transmit power of each port based on the quantity of ports as described in paragraphs 0014, 0090 and 0100);
obtain, from the UE, a plurality of SRSs respectively via the plurality of SRS ports, wherein each SRS of the plurality of SRSs is obtained via a respective SRS port of the plurality of SRS ports in a respective symbol of the plurality of symbols using the port transmit power (i.e., SRSs carried in plurality of SRS resources are simultaneously transmitted on the first time domain resource based on the transmit power of each port corresponding to each of the plurality of SRS resources as described in paragraph 0091).
Gong, however, does not expressly disclose:
estimate a plurality of uplink channel qualities respectively associated with the plurality of SRS ports based on the plurality of SRSs.
In a similar endeavor, Shi discloses power control method and device, and terminal. Shi also discloses:
estimate a plurality of uplink channel qualities respectively associated with the plurality of SRS ports based on the plurality of SRSs (i.e., the network indicates one or more SRSs according to a measurement result of the SRSs as described in paragraph 0026).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enable the UE to perform MIMO transmissions for PUSCHs in the NR.
Regarding claims 19 and 27, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Shi also discloses wherein the plurality of SRSs are for a codebook based physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or for an antenna switching for downlink channel state information (CSI) estimation (i.e., the UE estimates downlink channel information as described in paragraph 0026).
Regarding claims 21 and 29, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Gong also discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: obtain, from the UE, at least one of a capability report or a power headroom report indicating the total transmit power available for each symbol (i.e., transmitting to the network device indicating the power headroom as described in paragraphs 0092-0093).
Regarding claims 22 and 30, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Shi also discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
select an SRS port out of the plurality of SRS ports based on the plurality of uplink channel qualities (i.e., the network indicates one or more SRSs according to a measurement result of the SRSs as described in paragraph 0026);
provide a notification of the selected SRS port to the UE (i.e., network configures three single-ported SRSs as described in paragraphs 0044-0046); and
obtain an uplink communication from the UE using the selected SRS port (i.e., UE transmitting using the configured ports as described in paragraphs 0044-0046).
Regarding claim 23, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Gong also discloses wherein the plurality of SRSs are obtained on an active uplink bandwidth part of a carrier of a serving cell (i.e., transmitting an SRA in a carrier of a cell C as described in paragraph 0097).
Claim(s) 5, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gong in view of Guo et al. (hereinafter “Guo”, US 2025/0310911).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Gong discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Guo discloses systems and methods for uplink timing alignment for inter-cell mobility. Guo also discloses wherein the total transmit power is derived based on an SRS power control loop driven by SRS power control commands indicated by the network entity (i.e., the UE determines a transmission power for an SRS transmission based on open loop power control parameter configured for the SRS transmission and/or pathloss computed by the UE using a reference signal associated with the SRS transmission and a TPC command included in DCI as described in paragraph 0085).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to maximize the transmission power.
Claim(s) 17-18, and 25-26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gong in view of Shi and further in view of Cai.
Regarding claims 17 and 25, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above, but do not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Cai discloses communication method and communication apparatus. Cai also discloses wherein the plurality of symbols are a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols (i.e., OFDM symbols as described in paragraph 0213).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enhance the quality of the SRS.
Regarding claims 18 and 26, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above, but does not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Cai discloses communication method and communication apparatus. Cai also discloses wherein each symbol of the plurality of symbols is assigned a same number of SRS ports (i.e., same number of ports are assigned to OFDM symbol as shown in Fig. 3, and its descriptions).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enhance the quality of the SRS.
Claim(s) 20, and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gong in view of Shi, and further in view of Guo.
Regarding claims 20 and 28, Gong and Shi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. but do not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Guo discloses systems and methods for uplink timing alignment for inter-cell mobility. Guo also discloses wherein the total transmit power is derived based on an SRS power control loop driven by SRS power control commands indicated by the network entity (i.e., the UE determines a transmission power for an SRS transmission based on open loop power control parameter configured for the SRS transmission and/or pathloss computed by the UE using a reference signal associated with the SRS transmission and a TPC command included in DCI as described in paragraph 0085).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to maximize the transmission power.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644