Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 01, 2026
Application No. 18/758,877

PRECODING INDICATION MANNER DETERMINING METHOD AND APPARATUS

Non-Final OA §102
Filed
Jun 28, 2024
Priority
Dec 31, 2021 — CN 202111672970.2 +1 more
Examiner
BHATTACHARYA, SAM
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
93%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
0m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 93% — above average
93%
Career Allowance Rate
977 granted / 1049 resolved
+33.1% vs TC avg
Moderate +6% lift
Without
With
+6.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Fast prosecutor
1y 10m
Avg Prosecution
13 currently pending
Career history
1053
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
5.8%
-34.2% vs TC avg
§103
34.5%
-5.5% vs TC avg
§102
39.5%
-0.5% vs TC avg
§112
9.1%
-30.9% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 1049 resolved cases

Office Action

§102
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 (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 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. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by EP3794897 (hereinafter, ‘897). Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, ‘897 discloses a method for determining precoding indication manner and a communication apparatus including at least one processor and one or more memories or a non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by at the at least one processor (paragraph 147: “the UE may transmit uplink data according to the indicated MCS using the number of layers and precoding indicated in the beam based on the transmitted SRI.”), the method performed by a communication apparatus and comprising: receiving first information from a radio access network (RAN) device, wherein the first information indicates an uplink precoding indication manner (paragraph 177: “;, the first cell may be a macro cell, and the MIB or the SIB may include at least one of information indicating whether the initial connection using another cell in downlink and uplink is supported, a list of an uplink cell capable of performing the above operation in the corresponding cell, transmission power information of a corresponding uplink connectable cell, frequency information of the uplink connectable cell, uplink configuration, SSB-related information such as SSB position and period, and configuration information for RACH transmission. Next, the UE measures the SSB on the basis of the identified information, and identifies pass losses to select a cell having a low path loss as the uplink cell.”) obtaining the uplink precoding indication manner of the communication apparatus based on the first information (paragraph 180: “the UE receives uplink transmission scheduling information from the first cell in operation 2160. The scheduling information may be DCI, and the DCI may include an indicator indicating one of the UL TCI configurations and an indicator indicating SRI, SRSI, power and TA information.”); and determining uplink precoding in the uplink precoding indication manner (paragraph 152: “The UL TCI configuration may include TxConfig described above for the dynamic change of the uplink transmission technique. The UE may transmit uplink data on the basis of the indicated TxConfig”). Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, ‘897 discloses that the first information comprises first downlink control information (DCI), the first DCI carries 2-bit information, and the 2-bit information indicates the uplink precoding indication manner used by the communication apparatus (paragraph 84). Regarding claims 3, 10 and 17, ‘897 discloses that the first DCI comprises a preset field, and the preset field indicates a quantity of uplink data flows of the communication apparatus; or the first DCI comprises a transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI) field, and the TPMI field indicates a quantity of uplink data flows of the communication apparatus (see Table 19). Regarding claims 4, 11 and 18, ‘897 discloses that the first DCI further carries a scheduled uplink bandwidth and a quantity of uplink data flows that are used by the communication apparatus (paragraph 110: “the RSRP may measure the strength of the related reference signal transmitted to the UE as a linear average of a downlink reference signal transmitted in the channel bandwidth”). Regarding claims 5, 12 and 19, ‘897 discloses that the first DCI further carries first indication information indicating an index of a codebook used by the communication apparatus (paragraph 147: “When the base station transmits the SRI, the number of transmission layers, transmission PMI (TPMI) information, an MCS index, and the like to the UE in the codebook-based transmission based on the RRC field, the UE may transmit uplink data according to the indicated MCS using the number of layers and precoding indicated in the beam based on the transmitted SRI.”). Regarding claims 6, 13 and 20, ‘897 discloses that the uplink precoding indication manner of the communication apparatus is a wideband precise indication manner, the method further comprises: receiving M second signals sent by the RAN device, wherein the M second signals are signals obtained by performing downlink channel processing on M first signals, the M first signals are obtained by the RAN device by processing channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) by using first precoding on M subbands in a scheduled uplink bandwidth, and M is an integer greater than 0; determining M equivalent channel matrices based on the M second signals and the CSI-RSs, wherein each one of the M equivalent channel matrices is equal to a product of a downlink channel matrix and the first precoding; and determining an average value of the M equivalent channel matrices as the uplink precoding of the communication apparatus (paragraph 76: “periodic channel state information of the NR may not support the above-described subband reporting (subband CQI or subband PMI). In the case of the PUCCH used in the periodic CSI reporting, the amount of reporting that can be transmitted is limited. Accordingly, in the LTE, the UE itself can select and report channel status information for some subbands in consideration of the limited amount of transmittable reporting.”). Regarding claims 7 and 14, ‘897 discloses that the M subbands are subbands with a largest signal-to-noise ratio in a plurality of subbands in the scheduled uplink bandwidth (paragraph 76). Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Chen (US 2021/0320770) discloses an uplink pre-coding method that includes acquiring, by a network-side device, a sounding reference signal (SRS). Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAM BHATTACHARYA whose telephone number is (571)272-7917. The examiner can normally be reached weekdays, 9-5:30. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D. Anderson can be reached at (571) 272-4177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /SAM BHATTACHARYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jun 28, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 01, 2024
Response after Non-Final Action
Aug 26, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
93%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+6.2%)
1y 10m (~0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 1049 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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