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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 6-9 and 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 6 recites the limitation "the current cycle" in lines 4-5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Similar issue for claims 7-9 and 13-18.
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, 11, 12 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al (US 2017/0264355, hereinafter Zhang) and in view of IEEE paper: “BeamRaster: A Practical Fast Massive MU-MIMO System with Pre-computed Precoders (May 2019, hereinafter Meng).
Regarding claim 1, Zhang discloses a user pairing method, applied to a base station, the user pairing method comprising: obtaining beam domain to which users in a set of paired users belong, and a target beam domain to which a user to be paired belongs, wherein the beam domain to which the paired users belong are different from the target beam domain (coverage area of the BS is divided into grids, Para [0166], grid index of the UE is determined, Para [0168], users in different grids, Para [0169]); obtaining correlations between the target beam domain and the beam domain respectively (the positions of the two grids are far from each other and do not interfere with each other, Para [0169]); and in response to that the correlations satisfy a preset condition, adding the user to be paired into the set of paired users (select a user with a space position farther than a predefined distance as the candidate paired user, Para [0169]); but does not explicitly disclose beam domain rasters. Meng discloses beamraster pre-computes a set of angle-domain beam filters that divide the channel into directional subspaces, abstract, grating table to track correlation among beams and interference-aware user-beam selection to select best concurrent users without strong interference, section 1. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the techniques taught by Meng in the system of Zhang in order to mitigate cross interference and accelerate procoding processing using beamraster.
Regarding claim 2, Zhang discloses the user pairing method according to claim 1, but not wherein, prior to obtaining beam domain rasters to which users in a set of paired users belong, and a target beam domain raster to which a user to be paired belongs, the method comprising: calculating beam domain rasters to which users accessed by the base station belong; and storing the beam domain rasters to which users belong in a raster table; obtaining beam domain rasters to which users in a set of paired users belong, and a target beam domain raster to which a user to be paired belongs comprising: obtaining beam domain rasters to which users in a set of paired users belong, and a target beam domain raster to which a user to be paired belongs from the raster table. Meng discloses establishes grating table to track the correlation among the precomputed beams, Section 2 with interference aware user beam selection using the table, determine user-beam pair, Section 4.2, further storing information in a table and performing lookup is a known in the art to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding claim 3, Zhang discloses the user pairing method according to claim 2, but not wherein, calculating beam domain rasters to which users accessed by the base station belong comprising: obtaining a channel estimation value of the user's channel sounding reference signal and an antenna array mode; obtaining a spatial position of the user's channel based on the channel estimation value of the channel sounding reference signal and the antenna array mode; and determining the beam domain raster to which the user belongs based on the spatial position of the channel and a spatial location range of the beam domain raster. Meng discloses an array of antenna, Section 3.2, determining angle of arrival, Section 3.2, user is assigned to a beam, Section 4.2 and it is known in the art CSI is from measuring the SRS.
Regarding claim 4, Zhang discloses the user pairing method according to claim 3, but not wherein, obtaining a spatial position of the user's channel based on the channel estimation value of the channel sounding reference signal and the antenna array mode comprising: obtaining a vertical covariance matrix and a horizontal covariance matrix of the channel based on the channel estimation value of the channel sounding reference signal and the antenna array mode; and obtaining a vertical angle and a horizontal angle of the channel by transforming the vertical covariance matrix and the horizontal covariance matrix of the channel in an angle domain. Meng discloses creating beams in the 3D domain, angles of elevation and azimuth, Section 7, obtaining covariance matrix and obtaining vertical and horizontal angles is well known in the art to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding claim 5, Zhang discloses the user pairing method according to claim 3, but not wherein, obtaining a spatial position of a channel to which a user belongs based on the channel estimation value of the channel sounding reference signal of the channel to which the user belongs and the antenna array mode comprises: obtaining a vertical component and a horizontal component of a downlink beamforming weight vector based on the channel estimation value of the channel sounding reference signal and the antenna array mode; and obtaining a vertical angle and a horizontal angle of the channel by transforming the vertical component and the horizontal component of the downlink beamforming weight vector in an angle domain. Meng discloses creating beams in the 3D domain, angles of elevation and azimuth, Section 7, obtaining covariance matrix and obtaining vertical and horizontal angles is well known in the art to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding claim 11, Zhang discloses an electronic device (base station, claim 1), comprising: at least one processor and a memory (memory and processor, inherent) in communication connection with the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores instructions that can be executed by the at least one processor, and the instructions are executed by the at least one processor so as to enable the at least one processor to implement the user pairing method according to claim 1 (see claim 1).
Regarding claim 12, Zhang discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, storing a computer program, when executed by a processor, implementing the user pairing method according to claim 1 (computer readable storage medium implementing the method would be known in the art to one of ordinary skill).
Regarding claim 19, Zhang discloses a user pairing apparatus (base station, claim 1), comprising: at least one processor and a memory (processor and memory, inherent) in communication connection with the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to perform a user pairing method, the user pairing method comprising: obtaining beam domain to which users in a set of paired users belong, and a target beam domain to which a user to be paired belongs, wherein the beam domain to which the paired users belong are different from the target beam domain (coverage area of the BS is divided into grids, Para [0166], grid index of the UE is determined, Para [0168], users in different grids, Para [0169]); obtaining correlations between the target beam domain and the beam domain respectively (the positions of the two grids are far from each other and do not interfere with each other, Para [0169]); and in response to that the correlations satisfy a preset condition, adding the user to be paired into the set of paired users (select a user with a space position farther than a predefined distance as the candidate paired user, Para [0169]); but does not explicitly disclose beam domain rasters. Meng discloses beamraster pre-computes a set of angle-domain beam filters that divide the channel into directional subspaces, abstract, grating table to track correlation among beams and interference-aware user-beam selection to select best concurrent users without strong interference, section 1. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the techniques taught by Meng in the system of Zhang in order to mitigate cross interference and accelerate procoding processing using beamraster.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEVIN CUNNINGHAM whose telephone number is (571) 272-1765. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Thursday 7:30-18:00 (EST).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Huy Vu can be reached on (571) 272-3155. The fax number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEVIN M CUNNINGHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461