Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a final action for application number 18/743,043 in response to an amendment 08/18/2026; the original application was filed on 08/18/2026.
Claims 1, 5-7, 9-12, 14, 17-23 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claims 1, 7 and 14 are independent claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments with respect to claims 1, 5-7, 9-12, 14, 17-23 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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.
Claims 1, 5-7, 9-12, 14, 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abedini et al. (US 2021/0126694 A1) in view of Liu et al. (US 2021/0028832 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 7 and 14, a beam management method, comprising:
receiving, by a relay device, a first reference signal from a network device, [one or more sets of reference signals 726, 736 may be communicated between the base station 702 and the relay device 706, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 123)],
forwarding, by the relay device, the first reference signal to a terminal device, [The relay device 806 may receive each of the set of reference signals 838 from the base station 802 at an RX antenna and may forward each of the reference signals 838 as an analog signal at a corresponding TX antenna. As relayed on the access link 812, the UE 804 may receive one or more reference signals of the set of reference signals 838, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 207)], over a plurality of beams for beam measurement, [The UE 804 may receive one or more reference signals of the set of reference signals 838 via at least one RX beam of a set of RX beams, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 207)],
receiving, by the relay device from the terminal device, a beam measurement result of the first reference signal over the plurality of first beams, [the UE 804 may transmit the third set of measurements 842, that is received by the base station 802, over the access link 812. In one aspect, the UE 804 may transmit the third set of measurements 842 to the base station 802 through the relay device 806 in the mmW/near-mmW network, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 210)].
and performing, by the relay device, transmission of a second signal with the terminal device by using the at least one second beam, [During the next one of the intervals 610a-f, the base station 702 and the relay device 706 may communicate, via the next beam pair associated with the next one of the intervals 610a-f, the control information 742 on the corresponding next narrowband BWP 604b and the data/control information 744 on the concurrent next wideband portion 606b, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 163)],
Abedini et al. fails to explicitly teach that obtaining, by the relay device, at least one second beam by performing interpolation on the plurality of first beams based on the a beam measurement result of the first reference signal over the plurality of first beams, thereby the at least one second beam including at least one beam different from any beam in the plurality of first beams,
Liu et al. teaches that the user device, for example, the user device 102, may estimate a base station signal transmission angle at the location of the user device 102 by using the receiving quality for each downlink transmission beam by means of an interpolation method, (Liu et al., Paragraph 83),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Abedini et al. by obtaining, by the relay device, at least one second beam by performing interpolation on the plurality of first beams based on the a beam measurement result of the first reference signal over the plurality of first beams, thereby the at least one second beam including at least one beam different from any beam in the plurality of first beams, (Liu et al., Paragraph 83), in order for the channel environment is complex, a more accurate a can be estimated by performing linear interpolation such as polynomial interpolation, or performing nonlinear interpolation, etc., (Nilsson et al., Paragraph 87).
Regarding claims 9 and 17, the method further comprising: sending, by the network device, first configuration information to the relay device, wherein the first configuration information comprises information about the plurality of first beams, wherein the first configuration information comprises: an index of a beam or a beam set; and beam weight generation information, [a control node may perform beam management (e.g., including beam training) by configuring each of the beam pair links via which a first wireless device communicates with a relay device on a backhaul link, via which the first wireless device communicates with a relay device on an access link, and/or via which the first wireless device communicates with a second wireless device through the relay device on the access link, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 9)].
Regarding claims 5, 10 and 18, the method the method further comprising: sending, by the relay device, first information to the network device, wherein the first information is for determining a beam set, beams in the beam set are for communication between the terminal device and the relay device, and the beam set comprises plurality of first beams, [Based on at least one set of measurements 730, 732, the base station 702 may configure 738 at least one subset of a set of candidate beam pairs. Each of the set of candidate beam pairs may be configured to be applied during an associated one of the intervals 610a-f on the correspondingly activated one of the narrowband BWPs 604a-f, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 148)].
Regarding claims 6, 11 and 19, the method wherein the beams in the beam set comprise a plurality of types of beams, wherein different types of beams are for forwarding different channels or services, [In FIG. 1, a base station 101 in a cell is configured with a massive MIMO system that communicates with different user devices 102, 103 and 104, through conjugate transposed beamforming, e.g. transmission beams 105, 106 and 107, (Liu et al., Paragraph 38)].
Regarding claim 12, the method of claim 10, wherein the first information comprises at least one of the following:
quantity information of beams/beam sets;
quasi co-location information of the beams/the beam sets;
coverage range information of the beams/the beam sets;
a relative relationship between the beams or the beam sets, [base station 702 may rank or order beam pairs of the set of candidate beam pairs according to the comparisons between some or all of the measurements of one of the sets of measurements 730, 732, and therefore, ranking or ordering measurements of one of the sets of measurements 730, 732 may reflect the relative relationships between strengths and/or qualities of candidate beam pairs, (Abedini et al., Paragraph 150)].
antenna array information;
or weight generation information.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 20-23 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.
Conclusion
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 Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Avellino, can be reached on 571-272-3905.
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/SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
