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 1-30 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.
Claims 1, 16, 29 and 30 recites “channel state information (CSI) comprising a fractional rank indication (RI) value” which lacks clarity. The claims do not define “fractional rank indication (RI)”. The term fractional RI is not an established technical term. It is therefore unclear as to the meaning of the technical features to which it refers. Other claims are subjected to the same rejection because of their dependency on the above rejected claims.
Claims 1, 16, 29 and 30 further recite expressions “channel state information (CSI) comprising … a first indication of a first layer or first singular vector, and a second indication of a second layer or second singular vector”. It is not clear about what the indications represent for the layers or singular vectors. Claims are, therefore, indefinite. Other claims are subjected to the same rejection because of their dependency on the above rejected claims.
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 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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-7, 9-10, 29 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over IDS Reference, Yu; Zhibin et al US 20210250069 A1, hereinafter Yu, in view of KIM; Hyungtae et al US 20160165466 A1, hereinafter KIM.
Regarding claim 1, 29 and 30, Yu teaches, a method (Yu Fig. 2) for wireless communications by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
generating channel state information (CSI) comprising a fractional rank indication (RI) value for a set of candidate ranks, a first indication of a first layer or first singular vector, and a second indication of a second layer or second singular vector (Fractional RI or partial RI can be interpreted as probability or hypotheses based RI or soft RI, and first and second indication of layers is interpreted as PMI (Pre-coder Matrix Indicator) of layers, in line with the Spec. Yu Fig.2, step (6); [72] “ In step (6), instead of making the hard-decision on the RI value based on thresholds over eigenvalues for the rank estimation, soft-decision can be generated which maps the normalized eigenvalues into a confidence metric for each RI hypothesis. As one example, the RI confidence metric can be determined by Euclidean distances between the normalized eigenvalues obtained from EVD, and the theoretical optimal eigenvalues associated to a RI hypothesis.”, [78] “And for each CSI-RS resource, the required operation is a function mapped by: the number of down-sampled CSI-RS REs, the number of RI hypotheses to test, and the number of PMI hypotheses to compute per RI hypothesis.”, teaches generating a number of RI hypotheses and PMI corresponding to each RI i.e., rank layer).
Yu does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KIM teaches, transmitting the CSI to a network entity (KIM Claim 2 “calculating partial rank indicators (RIs) corresponding to the plurality of CSI-RSs; and reporting the partial RIs to the base station through the feedback chains”, Claim 5 “wherein the CSI items including the partial CQIs include information about partial precoding matrix indices (PMIs).”, Claim 6 “wherein the partial PMIs include a PMI for a vertical channel and a PMI for a horizontal channel”, teaches transmitting a CSI comprising partial (=fractional) RI and PMI for channels (=layers). Therefore, RI hypotheses values and PMI values of layers in Yu can also be transmitted to the base station (=network entity)).
Therefore, 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 Yu to include the features as taught by KIM above in order to provide a method for feeding a partial channel quality indicator (CQI) back by a terminal in a wireless communication system (KIM [0003]).
With respect to claim 29, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding apparatus. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 30, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding computer-readable medium (CRM). Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Claims 16, 18, 20-23 and 25-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM; Hyungtae et al US 20160165466 A1, hereinafter KIM, in view of IDS Reference, Yu; Zhibin et al US 20210250069 A1, hereinafter Yu.
Regarding claim 16, Kim teaches, A method for wireless communications by a network entity, comprising:
receiving, from a user equipment (UE), channel state information (CSI) comprising a fractional rank indication (RI) value for a set of candidate ranks, a first indication of a first layer or first singular vector, and a second indication of a second layer or second singular vector (Fractional RI or partial RI can be interpreted as probability or hypotheses based RI or soft RI, and first and second indication of layers is interpreted as PMI (Pre-coder Matrix Indicator) of layers, in line with the Spec. KIM Claim 2 “calculating partial rank indicators (RIs) corresponding to the plurality of CSI-RSs; and reporting the partial RIs to the base station through the feedback chains”, Claim 5 “wherein the CSI items including the partial CQIs include information about partial precoding matrix indices (PMIs).”, Claim 6 “wherein the partial PMIs include a PMI for a vertical channel and a PMI for a horizontal channel”, teaches transmitting a CSI comprising partial (=fractional) RI and PMI for channels (=layers) to the base station (=network entity)).
KIM does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Yu teaches, obtaining a precoding matrix indicator (PMI) based on the first indication, the second indication, and weights or probabilities determined based on the fractional RI value (Yu Fig. 2, (9)-(11); [81] “In step (10), the joint RI-PMI search is applied on the finally down-selected RI hypotheses for CSI-RS resources from all CCs. Note that the disclosed method in this disclosure is fully compatible with any additional multi-stage PMI search schemes. In step (11), the best RI-PMI combination is detected after the joint search and the associated CQI is measured to generate the CSI feedback report for each CC.”, [82] “As a result, instead of relying on simplified received power to identify the best CSI-RS resource per CC, soft-decisions e.g. RI confidence metrics can be generated over multiple candidate CSI-RS resources per CC and jointly sorted in step (10) to derive the best RI and PMI in step (11).”, teaches obtaining a RI-PMI based on sorting and searching of RI hypotheses and PMI values. This method, while done in the UE, can be executed in the network node, based on KIM’s teaching above about transferring the fractional RIs and PMIs per layer to the network node).
Therefore, 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 KIM to include the features as taught by Yu above in order to provide a method for adaptive and hierarchical CSI acquisition for 5G NR (New Radio) UE (User Equipment) computation complexity reduction (Yu [0002]).
Regarding claim 2, Yu, in view of KIM, teaches the method, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
Yu further teaches, further comprising: deriving weights or probabilities for the first and second layers or first and second singular vectors; and selecting the fractional RI value as an indication of the weights or probabilities (Yu [72]-[76] defining a confidence level (that is, a probability) for each RI hypothesis, therefore for its associated ranks (=layers)).
Regarding claims 4 and 20, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates a codepoint corresponding to a candidate rank of the set of candidate ranks, wherein the candidate rank is a fractional rank value or an integer rank value (Yu [61] discloses a confidence metric for each RI hypothesis (=candidate rank) and the confidence metric is according to Euclidean distance, therefore, an integer value, and a codepoint).
Regarding claims 5 and 21, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates a codepoint corresponding to a condition number based on singular values of channel estimates (Yu [74][76] calculation of a metric based on eigenvalues (formula (3) in paragraph [0075]). Said metric can be viewed as a condition number; Moreover, eigenvalues can be singular values.).
Regarding claims 6 and 22, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates a codepoint corresponding to a probability profile of the set of candidate ranks
CLM-6/1, 22/16 (Yu [76] “confidence level of an RI hypothesis” can be probability profile of candidate ranks).
Regarding claims 7 and 23, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates separate probabilities for different candidate ranks in the set of candidate ranks (Yu [76] “confidence level of an RI hypothesis” can indicate separate probability of candidate ranks).
Regarding claims 9 and 25, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates a codepoint corresponding to a weight or probability profile of a set of layers corresponding to the set of candidate ranks (see claim 6, 22 rejections above, where YU teaches confidence level as probability profile. Satisfies “or” criteria).
Regarding claims 10 and 26, Yu/KIM, in view of KIM/Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 16.
Yu further teaches, wherein the fractional RI value indicates separate weights or probabilities for each of a set of layers corresponding to the set of candidate ranks (see rejection above for claims 7, 23 for separate probability. Satisfies “or” criteria).
Regarding claim 18, KIM, in view of Yu, teaches the methods, as outlined in the rejection of claim 16.
Yu further teaches, comprising: obtaining the PMI using a precoding matrix indicator (PI) decoder which takes the fractional RI value and first and second indications as input (Yu Fig. 2, step (9)-(11), [81] teaches obtaining PMI by sorting and searching, therefore, implying a PMI decoder).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 8, 11, 17, 19, 24 and 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. Claims 12-15 and 28 are subjected to the same object because of their dependency on the above objected claims 11 and 27.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
XIA; Liang, US 20160249244 A1 - INFORMATION NOTIFICATION, INFORMATION REPORTING, AND DATA RECEIVING METHODS AND DEVICES.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475