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 § 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claims 1, 6-8, 10, 15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1).
Regarding claim 1, method claim 1 recites same limitations as in apparatus claim 15. Applicant is kindly advised to refer to rejection of claim 15.
Regarding claim 6, the modified Choi teaches previous claim. The modified Choi further teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the CSI quality is estimated from uplink reference signals received from served user equipment in the radio environment (Par. 74).
Regarding claim 7, the modified Choi teaches previous claim. The modified Choi further teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the current channel conditions are defined by at least one of: (equation 1 and Pars. 67-68, 126).
(NOTE: claim 8 depends on claim 7, claim 7 is giving an option “at least one of:” and the limitation “SNR” is selected, hence the limitation “Doppler shift” is not given patentable weight since they were not positively recited in claim 7.
(NOTE: claim 10 depends on claim 7, claim 7 is giving an option “at least one of:” and the limitation “SNR” is selected, hence the limitation “angular spread” is not given patentable weight since they were not positively recited in claim 7.
Regarding claim 15, Choi teaches a network node for channel state information, CSI, quality triggered determination of autoregressive, AR, model order for a channel prediction filter, the network node comprising processing circuitry, the processing circuitry being configured to cause the network node (Fig. 13, base station) to:
obtain “multiple received signals” (Fig. 3 and Par. 74, using channel estimation values of the UE at least two time points (e.g., a current time point n and a previous time point n−1) in a radio environment (Par. 66); and
in response thereto to: obtain an estimation of current channel conditions in the radio environment (Pars. 74, 76, estimate number of channel values);
determine the AR model order based on the estimation of current channel conditions (Pars. 78, 81-82); and
perform channel prediction of the radio environment using the channel prediction filter (Pars. 41, 79, channel estimation (prediction)),
wherein the channel prediction filter is defined by an AR model having the determined AR model order (Pars. 79-80).
Choi does not disclose the signals received indicate declining CSI quality and wherein the current channel conditions are defined by line-of-sight, LOS, or non-LOS, NLOS, classification.
However, this feature is very well-known and cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Padaki. Padaki teaches the multiple measurements collected in FoV and out-of-FoV in both LOS and NLOS scenarios (NLOS is i.e. indicate declining CSI quality) (Par. 134), wherein applying feature vector to the obtained measurements into data points and classify the data points into “LOS” or “NLOS” (Fig. 8 and Pars. 135, 151).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Padaki into Choi to accurately predict the actual CSI.
Regarding claim 20, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim 20 recites same limitations as in apparatus claim 15. Applicant is kindly advised to refer to rejection of claim 15.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Kangas et al. (US 20200412419 A1).
Regarding claim 2, the modified Choi does not disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein the channel prediction is based on reciprocity assisted transmission.
However, this feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Kangas (Par. 14).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Kangas into the modified Choi to effectively prediction the channel condition.
Claims 3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Katla et al. (US 20230353208 A1).
Regarding claim 3, the modified Choi does not disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein the indication of declining CSI quality is defined by at least one of: negative acknowledgement, NACK,
However, this feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Kangas (Pars. 103-109).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Katla into the modified Choi to compensate for any path loss and predict the actual CSI.
(NOTE: claim 5 depends on claim 3, claim 3 is giving an option “at least one of:” and the limitation “NACK” is selected, hence the limitation “RI and/or CQI” is/are note given patentable weight since they were not positively recited in claim 3.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Katla et al. (US 20230353208 A1) and further in further view of Awadin et al. (US 20220377790 A1).
Regarding claim 4, the modified Choi teaches previous claim.
The modified Choi does not teach the method according to claim 3, wherein the indication represents that number of received NACKs within a first time window is higher than a first threshold value, and/or the indication represents a rate at which the number of received NACKs increases within a second time window is higher than a second threshold value.
However, this feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Awadin (Par. 141).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Awadin into Choi to detect strong interference/noise.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Ashrafi (US 20180248592 A1).
Regarding claim 9, the modified Choi does not teach the method according to claim 7, wherein the AR model order is determined to be equal to zero when the SNR is lower than a sixth threshold value.
However, this feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Ashrafi. Ashrafi teaches zero order Bessel function when the SNR is below the threshold (Pars. 193, 199).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Ashrafi into the modified Choi to effectively measuring throughput capability.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Lord et al. (US 20210368338 A1).
Regarding claim 11, the modified Choi does not teach the method according to claim 1, wherein the AR model order is higher for NLOS classification of the radio environment than for LOS classification of the radio environment.
However, this feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Lord (Pars. 37, 62, 127).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Lord into the modified Choi to effectively measuring throughput capability.
Claims 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Ahmed-Ouameur et al. (US 20080130674 A1).
Regarding claim 12, the modified Choi teaches previous claim. The modified Choi further teaches applying Kalman filter for AR-order (Figs. 8-10 and Pars. 119-120).
However, the modified Choi does not teach the method according to claim 1, wherein the AR model further defines filter coefficients of the channel prediction filter, and wherein the method further comprises: determining the filter coefficients of the channel prediction filter as a function of the determined AR model order.
This feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Ahmed-Ouameur. Ahmed-Ouameur teaches an AR model order to compute the AR coefficients, wherein ARp (AR model order p) is used to design the filter coefficient (Pars. 70, 72, 95, 102-103).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Ahmed-Ouameur into the modified Choi to improve channel estimation accuracy.
Regarding claim 14, the modified Choi teaches previous claim. The modified Choi further teaches the method according to claim 12, wherein the method further comprises: applying Wiener filter-based channel extrapolation based on the determined AR model order and filter coefficients (Ahmed-Ouameur, Par. 102).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (US 20230198810 A1) in view of Padaki et al. (US 20220057471 A1) and in further view of Ahmed-Ouameur et al. (US 20080130674 A1) and further in further view of Yang et al. (US 20200403675 A1).
Regarding claim 13, the modified Choi teaches previous claim.
The modified Choi does not teach the method according to claim 12, wherein the filter coefficients are determined either as a function of historically received uplink reference signals from served user equipment in the radio environment or are selected from a filter bank of pre-configured channel prediction filters.
This feature cannot be considered new or novel in the presence of Yang. Yang teaches the filter coefficients is pre-configured (Par. 16).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above teaching as taught by Yang into the modified Choi to improve the estimation of the channel quality.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1, 15 and 20 have been considered but are moot in view of new ground(s) of rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Kang et al. US 20190253127 A1[0257] In particular, when the UE changes a position thereof, the UE rotates, or a radio channel environment is changed due to movement of a peripheral object of the UE (for example, when a line-of-sight (LoS) environment is changed to a non-LoS environment by blocking of the beam), an optimal DL/UL beam pair may be changed.
Ferrari et al. US 20200267681 A1[0073] In block 205, a plurality of channel measurements for at least one Wireless Access Point (WAP) may be obtained, wherein the channel comprises Line of Sight (LOS) and Non-LOS (NLOS) signals.
Barbu et al. US 20230266426 A1 [0042] movement of the UE and/or radio obstacles in the environment may cause transitions from LOS to NLOS conditions. [0057] So, the network element 402 may estimate radio conditions of the UE 100 at a certain future location and determine whether the UE 100 may obtain minority class signal samples on those estimated radio conditions. For example, if LOS is the minority class, and the network determines that during the observation window, based on UE 100 location prediction and radio condition estimation, the UE 100 is experiencing NLOS radio conditions.[0099] Untrustworthy measurements may comprise signal samples having SNR exceeding a threshold (e.g. SNR<SNR threshold), signal samples having RL exceeding a RL threshold, and/or signal samples having Doppler shift exceeding a threshold.
Albert et al. US 20220053345 A1 [[0142] If the CNE 135 determines that an LoS indicator is available, in block 1140, the CNE 135 partitions the data according to a LoS and nLoS. Additionally, the CNE 135 fits mixture models separately into the LoS and nLoS data in block 1145.
Kimn US 20160219475 A1 [0253] Alternatively or additionally, a method for channel sounding to explore wireless channels may be performed using a beamforming technique. The beamforming method for channel sounding is especially preferred when the full Channel State Information (CSI) cannot be obtained from the channel sounding signal. In higher frequency bands (such as >6 GHz), the transmit signal is attenuated dramatically due to reflection. The received signal quality may experience degradation if there is no light-of-sight (LOS) path in the higher frequency band. Therefore, in the higher frequency bands, using beamforming to explore LOS or non-LOS becomes an effective method to explore wireless channels.
Park et al. US 20230269032 A1 [0245] From a long-term perspective, in an environment where LOS is ensured, a UE may sufficiently predict RSRP, etc. based on satellite's orbit information. Yet, as described above, since NLOS according to surrounding geographic/terrain features has considerable performance degradation, the UE may report to a base station whether a corresponding channel is LOS or NLOS. For example, whether the channel is LOS or NLOS may be represented by 1-bit information and may be reported as a CSI. In this case, whether the channel is LOS or NLOS may mean whether LOS is secured in the channel or LOS is not secured (NLOS) in the channel. Whether the channel is LOS or NLOS may be added to an existing CSI and reported. In addition, according to an embodiment, the UE may report whether the channel is LOS or NLOS through a CSI, together with decoding information according to Proposal 1 described above.
Kim et al. US 20230421225 A1 [0077] An input 1 (201) may include at least one of information about CSI or an SRS. The information about the CSI may include a network environment ID. An AE suitable for compression and reconstruction of CSI data may vary according to a network environment. Accordingly, a plurality of AEs 210, 220, and 230 may be trained with different network environment labels. For example, a plurality of network environment labels may be classified based on at least one of a deployment scenario, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) level, obstruction state information (a line of sight (LOS)/non-line of sight (NLOS) state), UE mobility information, UE position information, or indoor/outdoor state information of the UE. The deployment scenario may be used as a channel model.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CINDY HUYEN TRANDAI whose telephone number is (571)270-1914. The examiner can normally be reached 8am -4:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wesley L. Kim can be reached at 571-272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Cindy Trandai/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
8/26/2026
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