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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the application filed on 03/27/2024 has a total of 16 claims pending in the application; there are 2 independent claims and 14 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner.
Title
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. The examiner suggests the title “Reduced DMRS configuration method and apparatus for transmitting data using PUSCH”.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 are objected to because of the following informality:
The claims recites limitation for performing certain step(s) only if a specific condition is satisfied (IF Statement), the limitations followed this statement are considered as optional limitations since they are not performed until specific conditions are met. Applicant should change the word “if’ to “responsive to determining that...” in order to alter an optional limitation to a required limitation. For the purpose of examination, claimed limitations will be considered as optional limitations since they are not performed until the specific conditions are met.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. Publication No. (US 2023/0216711 A1) in view of Wang et al. Publication No. (US 2021/0112535 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Yao teaches a User Equipment comprising at least one processor, and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the user equipment at least to:
receive a configuration for releasing demodulation reference signal resources for uplink transmission (the wireless device receives a DMRS configuration, the DMRS configuration including a channel estimation bundle window indicating channel estimation may be performed across multiple slots and a number of DMRS for each slot may be reduced [0132-134] FIG.15), wherein the releasing of the demodulation reference signal resources is contingent upon a resource allocation for the uplink transmission satisfying one or more criteria (the gNB may signal the UE to reduce the DMRS symbol number and allow the UE to transmit fewer DMRS samples. The gNB may signal the UE using a new field added in the DCI, or via a MAC-CE. For example, one bit may be added to the DCI or MAC CE [criteria] that indicates whether to reduce DMRS signaling. As another example, where multiple bits are available, a number of DMRS symbols to be reduced, or specific symbols may be indicated. For example, if the UE is relatively far from the gNB, or is moving rapidly [satisfying one or more criteria], or if the channel quality as between the UE and gNB is changing often the UE may be referred to being at or near the coverage limit and the gNB may configure the UE to more frequently transmit DMRS. [0122-123] FIG.15);
receive a resource allocation for the uplink transmission (receive a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS), a PTRS density (e.g., a number of resource elements on which a PTRS signal is transmitted) may be associated with an indicated DMRS density, such that an indication to reduce the number of DMRS symbols may result in a reduced PTRS density, and vice versa to help allow for greater frequency diversity allocation [0122-123] FIG.10);
release at least some of the demodulation reference signal resources if the resource allocation satisfies the one or more criteria and using at least some of the released demodulation reference signal resources as a data resource within the resource allocation (the UE may halve the number of DMRS transmitted, for example, reduce the number of DMRS transmitted from four DMRS symbols per slot to two symbols, or otherwise reduce the number of DMRS symbols (e.g., reducing the DRMS density) by a defined amount [0122-123] FIG.15).
Yao does not explicitly teach transmit data using at least some of the released demodulation reference signal resources.
Wang teaches transmitting data using at least some of the DMRS resources (Wang: allowing a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) pattern suitable for a terminal to be selected from among a plurality of DMRS patterns including Legacy DMRS and Reduced DMRS which improves the data rate per terminal and per subframe through replacement of part of DMRSs on a PUSCH with data. Reduced DMRS patterns (1) and (2) (see, FIGS. 4B and 4C) are each a pattern in which one of two DMRSs included in the legacy DMRS pattern (see, FIG. 4A) is replaced with data [0017-18] when terminal 200 uses Reduced DMRS, a large amount of transmission data is transmitted as compared with when terminal 200 uses Legacy DMRS [0295-296] FIGS.4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Yao by the teaching of Wang to transmit data using at least some of the released DMRS resources in order to improve the data rate by increasing the amount of resource allocation to data and allocating the resource elements (RE) to which no DMRS is mapped to data (Wang: [0017-18]).
Regarding claim 2, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, further comprising causing the user equipment to: enable the User Equipment to perform at least one of: informing a network entity that the User Equipment supports releasing demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission; requesting releasing of demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission (the wireless device transmits an indication that the wireless device supports bundling DMRS signals across multiple slots. For example, the UE may indicate support for cross slot channel estimation and/or dynamic DMRS configuration via a UE capability message [0132] FIG.15A).
Regarding claim 3, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, further comprising causing the user equipment to: enable the User Equipment to perform at least one of: informing a network entity that the User Equipment supports releasing demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission; requesting releasing of demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission, and wherein the received configuration comprises an indication of a proportion of demodulation reference signal resources that are releasable (the DMRS configuration indicates a number of slots for the channel estimation bundle window, the number of slots may be indicated by specifying specific slots, a mapping, and/or a number of slots, the DMRS signals may be reconfigured based on a pattern of transmissions across the slots of the channel estimation bundle window [0134-135] FIG.15B).
Regarding claim 4, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, further comprising causing the user equipment to: enable the User Equipment to perform at least one of: informing a network entity that the User Equipment supports releasing demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission; requesting releasing of demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission, and wherein the indication comprises one or more parameters representing a relationship between allocated resources and a proportion of demodulation reference signal resources that are releasable (The gNB may determine that the DMRS for the UE has been over-configured and may be reduced. The gNB may then signal the UE, for example via DCI or MAC-CE to reduce the amount of DMRS signaling. In certain cases, the DMRS density may be reduced for each slot of the bundle window [0125] the wireless device receives a DMRS reconfiguration indication, the DMRS reconfiguration indication changing the number of DMRS signals to transmit in a slot [relationship between allocated resources] between the UE and eNodeBs [0135] FIG.10).
Regarding claim 5, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, further comprising causing the user equipment to: enable the User Equipment to perform at least one of: informing a network entity that the User Equipment supports releasing demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission; requesting releasing of demodulation reference signal resources for the uplink transmission, and wherein the indication comprises information indicating one or more input values for a function and the user equipment comprises means for using the input values and the function to determine the proportion of demodulation reference signal resources that are releasable (The gNB may then signal the UE, for example via DCI or MAC-CE to reduce the amount of DMRS signaling. In certain cases, the DMRS density may be reduced for each slot of the bundle window. In this example, the UE may have originally been configured to transmit the DMRS in symbols 2, 5, 8, and 11 of each slot and after the DMRS is reduced, the UE may transmit the DMRS in symbol 2 1006A and symbol 8 1006B of slot 0 1002 and symbol 2 1006C and symbol 8 1006D of slot 1 1004. The gNB may then perform joint channel estimation for slot 0 1002 and slot 1 1004 based on the received DMRS [0124-125] FIG.10).
Regarding claim 6, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, further comprising causing the user equipment to access a look up table to determine at least one of: a reduction level for the demodulation reference signal (DMRS pattern and reduction level [0213-18] FIG.21); time and frequency positions of the demodulation reference signal (maps the signals received as input from DFT section 211 (i.e., data symbol sequence, DMRS, and SRS), according to the indication from control section 205 to time and frequency resources allocated in the PUSCH subframe [0111-112])
Regarding claim 7, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the proportion of demodulation reference signal resources that are releasable is determined based, at least in part, on one or more service requirements (the cellular base station 102A may provide UEs 106 with various telecommunication capabilities, such as voice, SMS and/or data services [0059] FIG.4).
Regarding claim 8, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the received configuration comprises information indicating a validity timer for the releasing of the demodulation reference signal resources (the channel estimation bundle window may indicate a time over which channel estimation may be performed based on DMRS signals, the channel estimation bundle window may be provided as a period of time [0113] FIG.10).
Regarding claim 9, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration is received in a control channel (the physical downlink channel comprises one of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) [0144] FIG.14A).
Regarding claim 10, Yao teaches a User Equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration is received in a control channel, and wherein the control channel comprises a Physical Downlink Control Channel (the physical downlink channel comprises one of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) [0144] FIG.14A).
Regarding claims 11-16, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-5, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from the “network entity/base station” side (Yao: 102 FIG.4) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDELNABI O MUSA whose telephone number is (571)270-1901, and email address is abdelnabi.musa@uspto.gov ‘preferred’. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Bates, can be reached on 571-2723980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472