DETAILED ACTION
Status of Case
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is in response to the restriction response filed on 9/9/2026.
Claims 1-6, 8-17, and 19-44 are pending, with claims 8-17 and 37-44 being withdrawn.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 5/19/2026 has been considered by Examiner.
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.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim 20 is directed towards a program, which is software per se. As such, claim 20 is directed towards non-statutory subject matter. Although the terms “non-transitory medium” are recited in claim 20, claim 20 itself is actually directed towards the program.
In order to overcome this rejection, one suggestion is to change claim 20 so that it begins as: “A non-transitory medium….” rather than “A computer program…”
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 1-2, 4, 19-21, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sampath (USPAN 2021/0068050) in view of Picker (USPAN 2014/0092803).
Consider claims 1 and 19, Sampath discloses an apparatus (see figure 2: element 208; figure 6: element 608; Figure 7A/7B: element 704), and a corresponding method (see figures 6 and 7A/7B) comprising:
a registration controller circuit, wherein the registration controller circuit is arranged to discover and register a relay device in a wireless network (see figure 11: elements 1102 and 1104; figure 12: elements 1206-1212);
a path establisher circuit, wherein the path establisher circuit is arranged to determine and establish a wireless communication path to at least one target terminal device via at least one registered relay device (see paragraphs 78-80, 88, 103-108; see figures 7A/7B and 13: “[0078] FIGS. 7A and 7B provide additional details of how repeaters may help effectively overcome challenge of a blockage by one or more objects. As illustrated in FIG. 7A, a traditional repeater receives an RF signal in one panel (corresponding to a receive or Rx beam) and (re-)transmits the RF signal in another panel (corresponding to a transmit or Tx beam). For example, the repeater simply amplifies the received RF signal and forwards the RF signal to become the transmitted RF signal (Amplify-and-forward).[0079] In the example illustrated in FIG. 7A, a repeater r1 702 is able to receive the RF signal (for example, during DL) from a BS 704 and relay the RF signal to a UE 706, which may be blocked from receiving the RF signal directly from the BS 704 due to a presence of an object 708 (for example, a tree) between the BS 704 and the UE 706. In other direction (for example, during UL), the repeater r1 702 may receive the RF signal from the UE 706 and relay the RF signal to the BS 704.[0080] As illustrated in FIG. 7B, the repeater r1 702 may include receive panels (for example, a first receive panel 710 and a second receive panel 712) and transmit panels (for example, a first transmit panel 714 and a second transmit panel 716), which may be used to implement some fixed beam patterns. For wide coverage, the beam patterns are usually wide, therefore not achieving high array gains. The repeater r1 702 is typically not aware of whether the RF signal is a DL signal or an UL signal in a TDD system, and operates in both directions (full duplex) simultaneously. [0088] In contrast, the smart repeater can be controlled by the BS (e.g., the eNB/gNB), for example, in terms of transmit and receive switching and beamforming to adjust beams of the smart repeater to beamform (for instance, steer/point transmissions) to/from a particular UE being served. In wireless communication systems, such as 5G, the UE scheduled at any particular instance is dynamic, meaning the optimal setting for the beamforming is also dynamic. The optimal beamforming settings, for example, may allow for a selection of broader beams, for example, for discovery or acquisition purposes, or narrower beams to increase antenna gain, receive power and signal to noise ratio (SNR). [0103] FIG. 13 illustrates an example beam structure that may be conveyed by a repeater via a codebook map 1300. FIG. 13 is explained in conjunction with FIG. 12. As noted above with reference to FIG. 12, the codebook map 1300 is communicated by a repeater (e.g., the smart repeater 1202 of FIG. 12) to a gNB (e.g., the gNB 1204 of FIG. 12) as part of capability exchange. [0104] As illustrated, in some cases, the codebook map 1300 may indicate a hierarchical structure. The gNB may use information conveyed by the codebook map 1300, for example, as follows. After the gNB determines that the repeater belongs to a broader beam at a first level 1302, it may use QCL relationship information to configure the repeater to communicate via corresponding narrower beams at a next level. Similarly, the gNB may optimize a direction even further by configuring the repeater to use even narrower beams at a next level. [0105] The QCL relationship information may indicate a relationship of beams at different levels (for example, the first level 1302, a second level 1304, and a third level 1306). For example, the QCL relationship information may indicate that (intermediate width) beams 5 and 6 are under broad beam 1, narrow beams 13 and 14 are under beam 5, etc. In this example, if the gNB gets the information back about a quality of the beam 1, the gNB can request measurement the information for the beams 5 and 6 (and similarly for beams 13-16), and use that information for finding a narrowest beam with a best SNR.[0106] While the example in FIG. 13 shows a hierarchy with 3 layers/levels, depending on a particular implementation, a hierarchy could have fewer layers (2) or more layers than this example.[0107] In some cases, the codebook map selection (e.g., exactly which sets of the beams are included at each level) associated with the repeater may be done based on a location and an orientation of a placement of the repeater. For example, if the repeater is deployed on a corner wall, the repeater may only need to cover 90 degrees, so the codebook map associated with the repeater may not include a very wide set of broad beams (at a highest level). The codebook map associated with the repeater may be updated/customized, for example, if the repeater is relocated or re-oriented.[0108] The number of beams per repeater need not be specified in the codebook map associated with the repeater, but a maximum value that a message can transport will be specified (e.g., in a similar manner as the L_max definition for SSB in NR that defines the number of SSBs in an SSB burst”).; and
a state controller circuit, wherein the state controller circuit is arranged to control, broadly construed, a redirection pattern of the at least one relay device in accordance with the established wireless communication path (see paragraph 88 and figure 11 element 1108: “[0088] In contrast, the smart repeater can be controlled by the BS (e.g., the eNB/gNB), for example, in terms of transmit and receive switching and beamforming to adjust beams of the smart repeater to beamform (for instance, steer/point transmissions) to/from a particular UE being served. In wireless communication systems, such as 5G, the UE scheduled at any particular instance is dynamic, meaning the optimal setting for the beamforming is also dynamic. The optimal beamforming settings, for example, may allow for a selection of broader beams, for example, for discovery or acquisition purposes, or narrower beams to increase antenna gain, receive power and signal to noise ratio (SNR).”).
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Although Sampath can be construed to disclose the claimed redirection pattern (see the cited sections above), Sampath does not explicitly disclose controlling a redirection pattern.
Picker explicitly discloses controlling a redirection pattern (see paragraph 103: “the change redirects the radiation pattern to a second radiation pattern”; also, see paragraph 27: “redirecting the radiation pattern of the base-station in-motion to cover only a single geographical region”).
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 invention of Sampath and combine it with the noted teachings of Picker. The motivation to combine these references is to provide a mobile base station which provides a geographical advantage and can move through any physical medium: it may fly, move on land, or move through water (see paragraphs 2 and 3 of Picker).
Consider claims 2 and 21, Sampath discloses looking up the relay device in a relay installation database, wherein the registration controller circuit is arranged to obtain identity information and metadata from the relay device (see paragraph 141, wherein disclosed is said relay installation database that is tied to the “determining” steps by Sampath).
Consider claims 4 and 29, Sampath discloses that the state controller circuit is arranged to control the redirection pattern applied to at least one beam on the wireless communication path using a scheduling request (see paragraph 100: “[0100] At 1214, upon receiving the repeater indication, the gNB 1204 may include, in an RRC connection response, a request for information from the repeater 1202 (e.g., via a “capability inquiry related to a repeater” field). The request for the information from the repeater 1202 may ask about beam support of the repeater 1202, such as how many beams the repeater 1202 supports, how those beams might be addressed by the gNB 1204 via the control interface, and the like”).
Consider claim 20, Sampath discloses a computer program stored on a non-transitory medium, wherein the computer program when executed on a processor performs the method as claimed in claim 19 (see figure 1, wherein disclosed is said program).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3,5-6,22-28 and 30-36 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 Jamal Javaid whose telephone number is 571-270-5137 and email address is Jamal.Javaid@uspto.gov.
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/JAMAL JAVAID/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
JAMAL JAVAID
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
