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 § 102
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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) 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28 and 31 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) or (a)(2) as being anticipated by Yao et al. (U.S. 2024/0137089), hereinafter Yao.
With respect to Claim 16, Yao teaches a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (figure 1, #102 BS, #104 UE), the UE comprising:
a transceiver (figure 2, #212 BS, #230 UE); and
a controller coupled to the transceiver (figure 2, #214 BS, #236 UE), and configured to:
transmit, to a base station, first capability information indicating whether the UE supports 8 antenna ports and a first maximum number of layers supported by the UE, receive, from the base station, first information configuring a second maximum number of layers for a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (¶ 0053, “That is, the UE can first report its panel or multi-panel capabilities to the network. In response to receiving such indication, the network configures or indicates at least one port parameter and configures, indicates, or otherwise communicates the same to the UE based on UE's capability as reported,” ¶ 0063, “the at least one port parameter includes one or more of (1) at least one maximum number of ports, (2) at least one coherent information, e.g., the coherence (non-coherent, partial-coherent, or full-coherent) of these ports), (3) at least one maximum rank value, (4) a maximum total rank value, or (5) a number of port groups” and ¶ 0067, “In some examples, the number of layers for the uplink transmission is the same as a rank of one of the at least one port group.”),
wherein the second maximum number of layers is larger than four and smaller than or equal to eight, receive, in case that the UE supports a coherent transmission, from the base station, second information configuring a codebook type for the PUSCH, wherein the codebook type is based on four antenna port groups, each of the four antenna port groups including two antenna ports (¶ 0046, “the UE determines at least one uplink codebook parameter. In some arrangements, the network sends the at least one uplink codebook parameter to the UE at 715, and determining the at least one uplink codebook parameter at 720 includes the UE receiving the at least one uplink codebook parameter from the network” and “¶ 0085 – 0093, “b. Rank=2, the number of patterns is 4, including port combinations of {0, 4}, {1, 5}, {2, 6}, and {3, 7},” and
transmit, to the base station, the PUSCH using a precoding matrix based on a codebook corresponding to the codebook type (¶ 0028, “One or more SRS resources are configured in an SRS resource set with a usage of beam management, antenna switching, codebook, or non-codebook to UE by network (e.g., by at least one gNB) via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling for codebook-based PUSCH transmission or non-codebook-based PUSCH transmission, respectively.”)
With respect to Claim 19, Yao teaches the UE of claim 16, Yao teaches wherein the controller is further configured to: transmit, to the base station, second capability information including information on a coherent supported by the UE (¶ 0053, “That is, the UE can first report its panel or multi-panel capabilities to the network. In response to receiving such indication, the network configures or indicates at least one port parameter and configures, indicates, or otherwise communicates the same to the UE based on UE's capability as reported,” and ¶ 0063, “the at least one port parameter includes one or more of (1) at least one maximum number of ports, (2) at least one coherent information, e.g., the coherence (non-coherent, partial-coherent, or full-coherent) of these ports), (3) at least one maximum rank value, (4) a maximum total rank value, or (5) a number of port groups.”), and
receive, from the base station, third information configuring at least one of information on a precoder subset for an uplink transmission, information on a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource set, or information on an indicator indicating whether a codebook-based PUSCH or a non-codebook-based PUSCH is supported (¶ 0028, “An uplink transmission (e.g., a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmission) is scheduled based on Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) transmission. One or more SRS resources are configured in an SRS resource set with a usage of beam management, antenna switching, codebook, or non-codebook to UE by network (e.g., by at least one gNB) via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling for codebook-based PUSCH transmission or non-codebook-based PUSCH transmission,”)
With respect to Claims 20 and 23, the claims are the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claims 16 and 19, and are rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 24 and 27, the claims are the method performed by the user equipment that corresponds with the terminal in claims 16 and 19, and are rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 28 and 31, the claims are the method of the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claims 16 and 19, and are rejected accordingly.
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 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.
Claim(s) 17, 21, 25, 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. (U.S. 2024/0137089), hereinafter Yao, in view of Zhang et al. (US 2023/0035992), hereinafter Zhang.
With respect to Claim 17, Yao teaches the method of Claim 16, however, Yao fails to explicitly teach wherein the controller is further configured to: in case that the UE is scheduled with two codewords and is configured with one phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) port,
receive, from the base station, first downlink control information (DCI) including first association information, and wherein the first association information indicates that the one PTRS port is associated with a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port for a codeword with a higher modulation coding scheme (MCS) value among the two codewords or for a codeword 0 if MCS values of the two codewords are same.
Zhang teaches wherein the controller is further configured to: in case that the UE is scheduled with two codewords and is configured with one phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) port,
receive, from the base station, first downlink control information (DCI) including first association information, and wherein the first association information indicates that the one PTRS port is associated with a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port for a codeword with a higher modulation coding scheme (MCS) value among the two codewords or for a codeword 0 if MCS values of the two codewords are same (¶ 0068, “For example, if PTRS port 1 is mapped to codeword 1 and PTRS port 2 is mapped to codeword 2, then the lowest/highest MCS associated with codeword 1 and 2 may be used to determine the common PTRS time domain density.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yao with the invention of Zhang in order to allow multiple mappings to codewords within the codebook based on MCS schemes as higher schemes allow for higher throughput and system capacity
With respect to Claim 21, the claim is the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claim 17, and is rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 25, the claim is the method performed by the user equipment that corresponds with the terminal in claim 17, and is rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 29, the claim is the method of the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claim 17, and is rejected accordingly.
Claim(s) 18, 22, 26 and 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. (U.S. 2024/0137089), hereinafter Yao, in view of Mei et al. (U.S. 2024/0106604), hereinafter Mei.
With respect to Claim 18, Yao teaches the UE of claim 16, Yao fails to explicitly teach wherein the controller is further configured to:in case that the UE is configured with two phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) ports, receive, from the base station, second downlink control information (DCI) including second association information, wherein the second association information indicates an association between a PTRS port and a demodulation reference signal demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port corresponding to at least one of a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource indicator (SRI) or a number of layers, and wherein two most significant bits (MSBs) of the second association information is for a PTRS port 0 and two least significant bits (LSBs) of the second association information is for a PTRS port 1
Mei teaches wherein the controller is further configured to:in case that the UE is configured with two phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) ports, receive, from the base station, second downlink control information (DCI) including second association information, wherein the second association information indicates an association between a PTRS port and a demodulation reference signal demodulation reference signal (DMRS) port corresponding to at least one of a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource indicator (SRI) or a number of layers, and wherein two most significant bits (MSBs) of the second association information is for a PTRS port 0 and two least significant bits (LSBs) of the second association information is for a PTRS port 1 (¶ 0041, “For example, the two bits in the PTRS-DMRS port association can be used to indicate the PTRS and DMRS port association of the SRS resource set with more actual PTRS ports. If the SRS ports S0 and S1 are indicated in the first SRI field associated with the first SRS resource set #0, the PTRS-DMRS port association can be indicated as ‘00’ according to the indicated SRS resource or port of SRS resource set #0.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yao with the invention of Mei in order to use Phase Tracking Reference Signals with DMRS ports in Yao as it would allow Yao to apply the antenna configurations within the 3GPP system to various receive and transmit operations.
With respect to Claim 22, the claim is the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claim 18, and is rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 26, the claim is the method performed by the user equipment that corresponds with the terminal in claim 18, and is rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claims 30, the claim is the method of the base station that is communicating with the corresponding terminal in claim 18, and is rejected accordingly.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELA NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5660. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9AM - 5PM.
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/ANGELA NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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