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 is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-6, 9-10, 12-17, 20-22, 25, 26, 28, 33 arerejected 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.
Claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: “transmitting scheduling information…network node” vs steps “receiving…determining… transmitting… and communicating … the first network node” are not related to. There is omitted a connection between steps. Same rejection for claims 12, 28 and 33
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 9, 12, 25-26, 28, 33 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a2) as being anticipated by Yuan (Pub. No. 20210119674).
- With respect to claims 1, 12, 28 and 33, Yuan teaches a method performed by a network entity in a communications network, the communications network including a plurality of network nodes communicatively coupled to the network entity via a cascaded topology (e.g. Fig. 1 with block 141, 110, 120), the method comprising: transmitting scheduling information to a first network node of the plurality of network nodes (e.g. Fig. 3, block 305, 307 discloses “Then, compressed CSI is delivered 304 from the RRU 110 to the BBU 120 and the two blocks UE scheduling 305 and partial precoding generation 306 are performed at the BBU 120”), the scheduling information including at least an indication of user layers to be used for communication with a communication device during a next transmission time interval and an indication of which user layers will be served by the first network node (e.g. by MU-MIMO scheduling, see par. 47, 66, 68 discloses “The BBU performs MU-MIMO scheduling by employing the received correlation-relationship matrix ρ”); receiving an indication of an intermediate beamforming weight from the first network node (e.g. par. 62-64; Fig. 3, block 302-304 ); determining a part of a frequency-domain beamforming weight based on the indication of the intermediate beamforming weight (e.g. Fig. 3 block 306 and par. 29, 60, 67 discloses “Partial MIMO Precoding Generation at the BBU 306, the BBU generates the partial precoding information for the scheduled UE set S”); transmitting an indication of the part of the frequency-domain beamforming weight to the first network node (e.g. fig. 3 block 307 and par. 68 discloses “Precoding and Scheduling Information Notification 307, the BBU delivers back the scheduled UE set S”); and communicating data with the communication device via the first network node (e.g. Fig. 3, block 308 Fig. 1, block 141, 110, 120 and par. 2, 69 discloses “The BBU 120 is responsible for advanced baseband signal processing like UE scheduling, precoding, and channel coding/decoding. To perform MIMO transmission, the CSI of each UE 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, i.e., MIMO vector, must be delivered from the RRU 110 to the BBU 120 via fronthaul link 130 for the purpose of MIMO scheduling and precoding at BBU 120.”).
- With respect to claim 2, Yuan teaches wherein receiving the indication of the intermediate beamforming weight comprises receiving an indication of a combined intermediate beamforming weight from the first network node, the combined intermediate beamforming weight being a combination of intermediate beamforming weights that are each associated with one of the plurality of network nodes (e.g. Fig. 303, 304, par. 63-64 discloses “CSI Compression 303, a CSI compression technique is applied to compress the triangle correlation-relationship matrix ρ.sub.net, which compress the contained K*K scalars into as few bits as possible. The CSI compression technique depends on implementation, which can be, but is not limited to, a universal quantizer, or other quantizer optimized for ρ.sub.net”).
- With respect to claim 3, Yuan teaches the combined intermediate beamforming weight and the part of the frequency-domain beamforming weight are each a Hermitian matrix of size K x K, where K is a total number of user layers served by the network entity (see par. 43).
- With respect to claim 4, Yuan teaches the indication of the combined intermediate beamforming weight and the indication of the part of the frequency-domain beamforming weight are each an indication of upper triangle components or lower triangle components of their respective Hermitian matrix (see par. 43, 62-65).
- With respect to claim 5, Yuan teaches the Hermitian matrix associated with the intermediate beamforming weight comprises a covariance matrix of a channel estimate of a channel between the first network node and the communication device (see par. 62).
- With respect to claim 9, Yuan teaches wherein communicating the data with the communication device comprises: receiving a beamformed uplink, UL, user-layer data stream associated with the communication device from the first network node (see par. 37); and determining UL data based on the beamformed UL user-layer data stream (see par. 29-30).
- With respect to claim 25, Yuan teaches the second network entity is the first network entity and comprises a baseband unit, BBU, and wherein each network node of the plurality of network nodes comprises a radio unit, RU, with one or more antennas (see Fig. 1 with BBU and RRU).
- With respect to claim 26, Yuan teaches the first network entity comprises a baseband unit, BBU, wherein the plurality of network nodes comprises the second network entity, and wherein each network node of the plurality of network nodes comprises a radio unit, RU, with one or more antennas (see Fig. 1 with BBU and RRU).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 10, 13-17, 20-22 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
. Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471