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 Office Action is a response to communications dated 04/02/2024. Claims 1-30 are pending in the application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed 04/02/2024 and 02/12/2026 comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. They have been considered and placed in the application file.
Drawings
Figure 8 should be designated by a legend such as --Prior/Related Art-- because only that which is old is illustrated. See MPEP § 608.02(g). Corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The replacement sheet(s) should be labeled “Replacement Sheet” in the page header (as per 37 CFR 1.84(c)) so as not to obstruct any portion of the drawing figures. If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claims 26 and 29 are objected to because of the following informalities: As per claims 26 and 29, a semicolon at the end of the claims should be replaced with a period. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The factual inquiries 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 1-4 and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Hao (US 12,255,841) (hereinafter “Hao1”) in view of Hao et al. (US 12,047,995) (hereinafter “Hao2”) and further in view of Yuan et al. (US 2023/0040860) (hereinafter “Yuan”).
The applied reference has a common assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
Regarding claim 1, in accordance with Hao1 reference entirety, Hao1 teaches a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) (Abstract and thereinafter: “… a UE may transmit sounding reference signals (SRS) to a network entity … .”), the method comprising:
receiving an indication of uplink (UL) precoding information, wherein the UL precoding information includes a set of frequency domain (FD) bases and coefficients applied to one or more antenna ports (Abstract: “a UE … receive information indication at least one of a set of one or more frequency domain (FD) bases and linear combination coefficients … transmit a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with the subband precoding.” Or FIG. 13; steps 1302 to 1304 and col. 20, lines 51-58: “… receiving, from a network entity, information indicating at least one of a set of one or more frequency domain (FD) bases and linear combination coefficients … the UE transmits a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with the subband precoding”;
It appears that Hao1 fails to explicitly further disclose the claim limitations in the strike-words. Nevertheless, such limitations lack thereof from Hao1’s teaching are well-known in the art and taught by Hao2.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Hao2 teaches techniques for channel state information (CSI) reporting with frequency domain (FD) compression, comprising, among other things, the limitation of “determining a size of the FD bases based at least in part on an item selected from a list consisting of: a dedicated indication (M value indicative of), a frequency resource allocation of an UL channel, and an UL bandwidth part (BWP)” (Hao2; FIG. 10; steps 1010 to 1015 and col. 21, lines 20-27: “… the UE determines the plurality of FD bases for each layer based on the intermediate set, wherein the plurality of FD bases are characterized by an M value indicative of a number of bases in the plurality of FD bases and based on the CSI configuration.”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Hao2’s teaching into Hao1’s method to arrive the claim invention with a motivation to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in improving NR and LTE technology for mobile broadband access (Hao2; col. 2, lines 13-18).
Hao1 in view of Hao2 appear to further fail to explicitly teach the claim limitations of “receiving a grant of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein a frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH includes a plurality of FD units; and determining precoding matrices for the plurality of FD units based at least in part on entries of the set of FD bases, wherein the entries correspond to positions of the FD bases in a range of a frequency resource in which the FD bases apply.”
Nevertheless, such limitations lack thereof from Hao1 in view of Hao2’s teaching, as above discussed, are well-known in the art and taught by Yuan.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Yuan teaches wireless communications systems methods, comprising, among other things, the limitations of “receiving a grant of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein a frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH includes a plurality of FD units” (Yuan; Abstract: “… A user equipment (UE) may receive from a base station (BS), an uplink (UL) scheduling grant indicating subband precoding information and a resource allocation spanning a plurality of subbands.” Or FIG. 3; step 1310 and para [0111]: “… receiving by a UE from a BS, an UL scheduling grant indicating subband precoding information and resource allocation spanning a plurality of subbands”; and “determining precoding matrices for the plurality of FD units based at least in part on entries of the set of FD bases, wherein the entries correspond to positions of the FD bases in a range of a frequency resource in which the FD bases apply” (Yuan; Abstract: “… The UE may determine a plurality of subband precoders based on the subband precoding information. Each precoder of the plurality of subband precoders may be associated with a subband of the plurality of subbands.” Or FIG. 3; step 1320 and para [0112]: “… determining, by the UE, a plurality of subband precoders based on the subband precoding information, each precoder of the plurality of subband precoders being associated with a subband of the plurality of subbands.”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1 in view Hao2’s method to arrive the claim invention with a motivation to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in conventional wideband precoding (Yuan; para [0004]).
Regarding claim 2, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Hao1 in view of Hao2 and further in view of Yuan also renders obvious the claim limitation of “wherein the precoding matrices include a plurality of vectors corresponding to a plurality of sub-bands of the UL channel, each vector of the plurality of vectors providing amplitude and phase quantization data for the one or more antenna ports” (Yuan; para [0055]: “… The UE 115 may use the subband precoding information and the resource allocation information to estimate an UL channel between the BS 105 and the UE 115 … The precoding process may include weighting signal phases and/or amplitudes at antenna elements of the UE 115 … .”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1 in view Hao2’s method to arrive the claim invention for the same rationales as above discussed.
Regarding claim 3, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Hao1 in view of Hao2 and further in view of Yuan also renders obvious the claim limitation of “wherein the frequency resource allocation of the UL channel corresponds to the frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH” (Yuan; para [0056]: “… resource allocation spanning a plurality of subbands … The UE 115 may construct a precoder based on the plurality of subband precoders and generate an UL communication signal (e.g., PUSCH signal) based on the plurality of subband precoders.”, and “wherein the size of the FD bases is equal to a number of FD units in the frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH” (Yuan; col. 15, lines 6-20, determine the size of the intermediate set is discussed and lines 32-34, the two-part report is communicated via PUSCH utilizing two parts of UCI is also discussed) and “wherein the entries of the set of FD bases within the precoding matrices are based at least in part on an order of the FD units in the frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH” (Yuan; para [0107]: “… The UL resource allocation 1004 may include a plurality of subbands … first precoder … second precoder … third precoder … fourth precoder … .” And para [0109]: “… be scheduled in PUSCH … number of UL transmissions in PUSCH using the number of subband precoders … .”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1 in view Hao2’s method to arrive the claim invention for the same rationales as above discussed.
Regarding claim 4, in addition to features recited in base claim 3 (see rationales discussed above), Hao1 in view of Hao2 and further in view of Yuan also renders obvious the claim limitation of “wherein the order of the FD units is based on an index that is counted from a common resource block or is counted from a first resource block of the frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH” (Yuan; para [0081]: “… UL bandwidth part 502 may be a subset of continuous physical resource block (PRBs) … .”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1 in view Hao2’s method to arrive the claim invention for the same rationales as above discussed.
Regarding claim 17, in addition to features recited in base claim 1 (see rationales discussed above), Hao1 in view of Hao2 and further in view of Yuan also renders obvious the claim limitation of “wherein each FD unit comprises one or more resource blocks, wherein each FD unit size is equal to a size of a resource block group or is equal to a scaled size of a resource block group” (Hao1; col. 21, lines 25-42: “FD unit may be expressed as … FD unit may be an UL subband or an UL physical resource group (PRG) or RB or a subcarrier.”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1 in view Hao2’s method to arrive the claim invention for the same rationales as above discussed.
As per claims 18-19, the claims appear to call for a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon program code and having similar limitations as those in method claims 1-2. Thus, they are deemed obvious over Hao1 in view of Hao2 and further in view of Yuan for the same rationales as above discussed.
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
Claims 25 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Hao1 in view of Yuan.
The applied reference has a common assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
Regarding claim 25, in accordance with Hao1 reference entirety, Hao1 teaches a user equipment UE comprising: (the UE performing the method of figures 13 and 15)
means for receiving, from a network entity, information indicating a plurality of frequency domain FD bases and linear combination coefficients (col. 20, lines 51-58: "Operations 1300 begin, at 1302, by receiving, from a network entity, information indicating at least one of a set of one or more frequency domain (FD) bases and linear combination coefficients ... subband precoding");
means for receiving a grant of a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH, (the grant disclosed in col. 29, lines 40-46; although disclosed in the context of wideband PUSCH precoding, it is implicit that it also applies to the subband precoding case), wherein a frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH includes a plurality of FD units (from the disclosure of subband precoding; see also col. 21, lines 25-42); and
means for determining subband precoding based at least in part on linear combinations of the FD bases, wherein the subband precoding maps PUSCH layers to antenna ports of the UE, including determining a precoding matrix for each FD unit based on a respective entry of the FD bases, wherein the respective entry is determined based on a position of a corresponding FD basis within a range of a frequency resource of the plurality of FD bases (figure 16; a respective entry of the FD bases, that is tH[0]/fH[1] is used for FD unit 0/1; clearly, the respective entry is determined based on a FD unit to which it corresponds - that is, entry 0 is determined for FD unit 0 and entry 1 is determined for FD unit 1; for mapping to layers see also figures 17 A-D and figure 18A); and
means for transmitting the PUSCH with the subband preceding. (col. 20, lines 51-59: "... the UE transmits a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with the subband precoding and figures 13 and 15).
For argument’s sake, let’s say Hao1 fails to explicitly teach the claim limitation of “means for receiving a grant of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein a frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH includes a plurality of FD units.” Nevertheless, such limitation lacks thereof from Hao1 is well-known in the art and taught by Yuan.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Yuan teaches wireless communications systems methods, comprising, among other things, the limitations of “receiving a grant of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein a frequency resource allocation of the PUSCH includes a plurality of FD units” (Yuan; Abstract: “… A user equipment (UE) may receive from a base station (BS), an uplink (UL) scheduling grant indicating subband precoding information and a resource allocation spanning a plurality of subbands.” Or FIG. 3; step 1310 and para [0111]: “… receiving by a UE from a BS, an UL scheduling grant indicating subband precoding information and resource allocation spanning a plurality of subbands”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Yuan’s teaching into Hao1’s method to arrive the claim invention with a motivation to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in conventional wideband precoding (Yuan; para [0004]).
As per claim 28, the claim appears to call for a user equipment (UE) having limitations variously and essentially similar to UE of claim 25. Thus, Hao1 in view of Yuan also renders obvious the claim limitations for the same rationales applied to claim 25 as above discussed.
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
Claims 26 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Hao1 in view of Yuan and further in view of Hao2.
The applied reference has a common assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
Regarding claim 26, in addition to features recited in base claim 25, Hao1 in view of Yuan appears to fail to further render obvious the claim limitation of “means for determining a size of the FD bases based at least in part on an item selected from a list consisting of: a dedicated indication, a frequency resource allocation of an UL channel, and an UL bandwidth part (BWP).” Nevertheless, such limitation lacks thereof from Hao1 in view of Yuan is well-known in the art and taught by Hao2.
In an analogous art in the same field of endeavor, Hao2 teaches techniques for channel state information (CSI) reporting with frequency domain (FD) compression, comprising, among other things, the limitation of “determining a size of the FD bases based at least in part on an item selected from a list consisting of: a dedicated indication (M value indicative of), a frequency resource allocation of an UL channel, and an UL bandwidth part (BWP)” (Hao2; FIG. 10; steps 1010 to 1015 and col. 21, lines 20-27: “… the UE determines the plurality of FD bases for each layer based on the intermediate set, wherein the plurality of FD bases are characterized by an M value indicative of a number of bases in the plurality of FD bases and based on the CSI configuration.”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate/combine/implement Hao2’s teaching into Hao1 in view of Yuan’s method to arrive the claim invention with a motivation to overcome the shortfalls of existing art in improving NR and LTE technology for mobile broadband access (Hao2; col. 2, lines 13-18).
As per claim 29, the claim appears to call for a UE having limitation variously and essentially similar to those in claim 26. Thus, Hao1 in view of Yuan and further in view of Hao2 renders obvious the claim limitations for the same rationales applied to claim 26 as above discussed.
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-16, 20-24, 27, and 30 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record, considered individually or in combination, appears to fail to fairly show or suggest a claim invention of base claims 1, 18, 25, and 28 and further limits with novel and unobvious limitations of the dependent claims 5-16, 20-24, 27 and 30 in the present condition, and structurally and functionally interconnected in a manner as claimed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hao et al. (US 2023/0208588).
Li et al. (US 2022/0386338).
Samsung, Summary of CSI enhancement for MU-MIMO support, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #95 Spokane, USA, R1-1813002, 9 pages, November 12th-16th, 2018.
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Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only: (1) Central Fax which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; (3) EFS WEB; or (4) the service window on the Alexandria campus. EFS web is the recommended way to submit the form since this allows the form to be entered into the file wrapper within the same day (system dependent). Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.03.
/FRANK DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474 April 7, 2026
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