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 .
This communication is response to claims filed on 03/08/24 via a preliminary amendment, which is considered by the examiner.
Claims 1-5, 7-9, 12, 15, 17-23, 25, 27 & 30 are presented for examination.
Claims 6, 10-11, 13-14, 16, 24, 26 & 28-29 are canceled.
Claims 5, 9, 12, 15, 19-23, 25, 27 & 30 are amended.
Information Disclosure Statement’s
6. The information disclosure statement(s) submitted on 03/08/24 have being considered by the examiner and made of record in the application file.
Drawing
7. The drawings filed on 03/08/24 are accepted by the examiner.
Specification
8. The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it contains a legal phraseology “comprises” in line 2. Correction is required. See MPEP § 608.01(b). The form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as "means" and "said," should be avoided. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims Objections
9. Claims 19-23, 25 & 27 are objected to because of minor informalities:
10. Claim 19, in part, recites, “…memory…in line 4. Since it is recited for the first time in the claim, for clarity it is suggested to change “memory” to “a memory”.
11. Claims 20-23, 25 & 27 are also objected since they are depend upon objected independent claims set forth above.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
12. 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 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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
13. Claims 1, 5, 19, 23 & 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jing et al. (hereinafter referred as Jing) Chinese application No. CN 112769719 A (as disclosed in the IDS), in view of Jian et al. (hereinafter referred as Jian) US Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0047993 A1.
Regarding claims 1 & 19: Jing discloses an apparatus/a method for wireless communication at a reconfigurable reflective surface (See FIG. 1 & Page 5; an intelligent reflecting surface), comprising:
receive one or more signals from a first wireless device (corresponding to a User (i.e., mobile or terminal) (See Page 5; receives the 0th and 1st OFDM staining symbols in sequence from a user (i.e., mobile or Terminal));
determine, based at least in part on the one or more signals, measurement information (corresponding to the frequency response) pertaining to a wireless channel between the reconfigurable reflective surface and the first wireless device (corresponding to user-to-base station equivalent combined channel on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier) (See pages 6-7; performs discrete Fourier transform to the received OFDM training symbols, extracts the received data on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier, and pre-multiplies the inverse of the diagonal matrix of the pilot frequency sequence to obtain the frequency response of the user-to-base station equivalent combined channel on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier); and
determine, based at least in part on the measurement information, a set of weights (corresponding to optimizing the passive beam forming vector θ (1) of the intelligent reflecting surface) for a plurality of reflective elements (corresponding to designing the ith training
reflection state of the intelligent reflection surface in the duration of ith OFDM training symbol and designing the training reflection state of the mth sub-surface) of the reconfigurable reflective
surface to be used in reflecting communications between the first wireless device and a second wireless device (corresponding to a base station) (See Pages 7-8; the base station uses the
obtained channel frequency response optimizing the passive beam forming vector θ (1) of the intelligent reflecting surface, and feeding back the optimization result to the controller of
the intelligent reflecting surface; the intelligent reflecting surface controller adjusts the reflecting state of the intelligent reflecting surface according to the optimizing result. in order
to extract gm, designing the ith training reflection state of the intelligent reflection surface in the duration of ith OFDM training symbols and designing the training reflection state of the mth sub-surface for the duration of the ith OFDM training symbol).
Jing does not explicitly disclose a reconfigurable reflective surface, comprising:
one or more processors;
memory coupled with the one or more processors; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to cause the apparatus to:
However, Jian from the same field of endeavor discloses a reconfigurable reflective surface (See FIG. 2 & Para. 0040; an intelligent reflecting device 200), comprising:
one or more processors (See FIG. 2 & Para. 0040; an intelligent reflecting device 200 includes Processor 208/a Controller 204);
memory (See FIG. 2 & Para. 0040; an intelligent reflecting device 200 includes memory 210) coupled with the one or more processors; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to cause the apparatus to:
determine, based at least in part on the one or more signals, measurement information pertaining to a wireless channel between the reconfigurable reflective surface and the first wireless device (See Para. 0048; the controller 204 … determine and/or set any of various communication parameters associated with receiving incident signals and/or outputting reflected signals for communication between other nodes in the wireless communication system).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a reconfigurable reflective surface, comprising: one or more processors and memory as taught by Jian in the system of Jing for use of intelligent reflecting devices in wireless communications (See Para. 0004; lines 1-2).
Regarding claims 5 & 23: The combination of Jing and Jian discloses an apparatus/a method.
Furthermore, Jing discloses an apparatus/a method, wherein the instructions to receive the one or more signals from the first wireless device are further executable by the one or more processors to cause the apparatus to:
receive a measurement report from the first wireless device; and determine the measurement information based at least in part on information included in the measurement report (See Page 7; obtaining the frequency response r (0) and r (1) of the user to the base station equivalent combining channel corresponding to the received OFDM training symbol on the sub-carrier).
Regarding claim 30: Jing discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communication at a reconfigurable reflective surface (See FIG. 1 & Page 5; an intelligent reflecting surface), the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to:
receive one or more signals from a first wireless device (corresponding to a User (i.e., mobile or terminal) (See Page 5; receives the 0th and 1st OFDM staining symbols in sequence from a user (i.e., mobile or Terminal));
determine, based at least in part on the one or more signals, measurement information (corresponding to the frequency response) pertaining to a wireless channel between the reconfigurable reflective surface and the first wireless device (corresponding to user-to-base station equivalent combined channel on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier) (See pages 6-7; performs discrete Fourier transform to the received OFDM training symbols, extracts the received data on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier, and pre-multiplies the inverse of the diagonal matrix of the pilot frequency sequence to obtain the frequency response of the user-to-base station equivalent combined channel on the pilot frequency bearing sub-carrier); and
determine, based at least in part on the measurement information, a set of weights (corresponding to optimizing the passive beam forming vector θ (1) of the intelligent reflecting surface) for a plurality of reflective elements (corresponding to designing the ith training reflection state of the intelligent reflection surface in the duration of ith OFDM training symbols and designing the training reflection state of the mth sub-surface) of the reconfigurable reflective surface to be used in reflecting communications between the first wireless device and a second wireless device (corresponding to a base station) (See Pages 7-8; the base station uses the obtained channel frequency response optimizing the passive beam forming vector θ (1) of the intelligent reflecting surface, and feeding back the optimization result to the controller of
the intelligent reflecting surface; the intelligent reflecting surface controller adjusts the reflecting state of the intelligent reflecting surface according to the optimizing result. in order
to extract gm, designing the ith training reflection state of the intelligent reflection surface in the duration of ith OFDM training symbols and designing the training reflection state of the mth sub-surface for the duration of the ith OFDM training symbol).
Jing does not explicitly disclose a reconfigurable reflective surface, comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communication at a reconfigurable reflective surface, the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to:
However, Jian from the same field of endeavor discloses a reconfigurable reflective surface (See FIG. 2 & Para. 0040; an intelligent reflecting device 200), comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium (See FIG. 2 & Para. 0040; an intelligent reflecting device 200 includes memory 210) storing code for wireless communication at a reconfigurable reflective surface, the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to:
determine, based at least in part on the one or more signals, measurement information pertaining to a wireless channel between the reconfigurable reflective surface and the first wireless device (See Para. 0048; the controller 204 … determine and/or set any of various communication parameters associated with receiving incident signals and/or outputting reflected signals for communication between other nodes in the wireless communication system).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a reconfigurable reflective surface, comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium as taught by Jian in the system of Jing for use of intelligent reflecting devices in wireless communications (See Para. 0004; lines 1-2).
14. Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jing, in view of Jian, further in view of Fulghum et al. (hereinafter referred as Fulghum) US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0152053 A1.
Regarding claim 17: The combination of Jing and Jian discloses all the limitations of the claimed invention with an exception of wherein the set of weights for at least the plurality of reflective elements comprise passive multiple-input multiple-output weights.
However, Fulghum from the same field of endeavor discloses the set of weights for at least the plurality of reflective elements comprise passive multiple-input multiple-output weights (See FIG. 1 & Para. 0017; MIMO communication to determine combining weights for MIMO receivers).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include passive multiple-input multiple-output weights as taught by Fulghum in the combined system of Jian and Jing for determining combining weights for a MIMO receiver (See Para. 0010; lines 1-2).
Allowable Subject Matter
15. Claims 2-4, 7-9, 12, 15, 18, 20-22, 25 & 27 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
16. The prior art of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
A. Zheng et al. 2023/0176174 A1 (Title: Reference signal transmission for reconfigurable intelligent surface…) (See Abstract, Para. 0012 & 0037-0038).
B. Elshafie et al. 2024/0120966 A1 (Title: Seed for providing device configuration) (See abstract, Para. 0006 & 00813-0016).
C. Bhamri et al. 2024/0097744 A1 (Title: System and methods for controlling reconfigurable intelligent service) (See FIG. 1, Para. 0046, 0050 & 0160).
17. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MEWALE A AMBAYE whose telephone number is (571)270-1076. The examiner can normally be reached on M.F 6a.m.-2p.m..
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ian Moore can be reached on (571)272-3085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MEWALE A AMBAYE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469