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 .
Claims 1-18 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS statements filed to date have been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 4 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claims 4 and 13, the limitation “the plurality of reference signals” lacks an antecedent basis.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-8, 10, 13-17 are is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahmed et al., US 2021/0392657, (“Ahmed”), in view of applicant’s admitted prior art (“AAPA”), or alternatively, in view of Cao, US 2021/0044388, (“Cao”).
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Ahmed teaches “A method of operating a radio unit, RU, in a network node of a wireless communication system (Figs. 1 and 11), comprising:
receiving a data-associated control information (DACI) message that includes a section description associated with a plurality of downlink signals that include a plurality of user data downlink (UD-DL) messages, wherein the DACI message includes an indication of how to accumulate the plurality of UD-DL messages (paragraph no. 0345, “C-Plane messages are encapsulated using a two-layered header approach. The first layer has an eCPRI common header and corresponding fields used to indicate the message type, while the second layer is an application layer including necessary fields for control and synchronization. Within the application layer, a “section” defines the characteristics of U-plane data to be transferred or received from a beam with one pattern id.”; the disclosed C-Plane messages teaches the claimed “data-associated control information (DACI) message”; see paragraph no. 0346 and Table 1 for the different types of Section Types associated with the C-Plane messages; it appears that Section type 0 implicitly teaches the claimed “an indication of how to accumulate the plurality of UD-DL messages” since it indicates to RU that certain Resource Blocks or symbols will not be used (see also, paragraph no. 0312 which discloses subframe aggregation by the RRU) – however, see below for an explicit teaching);
receiving the plurality of downlink signals (Fig. 11, user data is received by the RU and paragraph no. 0338; see also, Fig. 14A, step 301); and
accumulating the plurality of UD-DL messages included in the plurality of downlink signals based on the section description” (paragraph no. 0312, “If data exists at the RRU 105 buffer, the RRU 105 can aggregate the dropped subframes and transmit them once subframes can be aggregated in a single MCOT (or in a transmission with duration less than the MCOT)”; see also, Table 1, section types 0 or 1 and paragraph no. 0345 and Fig. 14A, step 304 which shows PDSCH data buffering).
While Ahmed appears to implicitly teach “wherein the DACI message includes an indication of how to accumulate the plurality of UD-DL messages” of claim 1, the AAPA teaches this limitation explicitly, see paragraph no. 0004 of applicant’s specification which discloses different types of DACI messages and one of which provides for user data format and optional compression method. The optional compression method indicated in the DACI message would indicate to the RU the compression method used for user data which indicates how to accumulate the plurality of UD-DL messages. As an alternative grounds of rejection, Cao teaches this limitation explicitly, see paragraph no. 0128 which discloses that the second DCI carries buffer indication information for indicating the user equipment to buffer the downlink data. The DCI is analogous to the claimed “DACI message.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Ahmed by incorporating the teachings of either the AAPA or Cao to enable the CU to dictate to the RU how the user data is to be accumulated by the RU, thereby facilitating the processing of the user data at the RU prior to transmission to the UEs.
Regarding independent claim 10, this independent claim is a corresponding computer readable medium claim of the method claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to this independent claim and as further amplified below to highlight the minor differences between the claims.
Regarding further independent claim 10, a storage medium is implicit in the RRU of Fig. 1 of Ahmed.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claims 4 and 13, Ahmed teaches “multiplexing the plurality of reference symbols and the plurality of UD-DL messages” (paragraph nos. 0199, 0290; note that the AAPA also teaches these limitations – see paragraph no. 0005 of applicant’s specification)
Regarding claims 5, 14, Ahmed teaches “wherein accumulating the plurality of UD-DL messages comprises accumulating the plurality of downlink signals into an accumulated signal” (Fig. 14, step 304 and paragraph nos. 0312 and 0507).
Regarding claims 6, 15, Ahmed does not teach but the AAPA teaches “wherein the DACI message further includes an indication of beamforming information, and wherein the method further comprises processing the plurality of downlink signals to generate a beam vector based on the DACI message” (see paragraph no. 0004 of applicant’s specification).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Ahmed and either AAPA or Cao by incorporating the additional teachings of the AAPA to facilitate the beamforming operation of the RU.
Regarding claims 7, 16, Ahmed does not teach but the AAPA teaches “wherein accumulating the plurality of UD-DL messages comprises, for each UD-DL message included in the plurality of UD-DL messages, mapping the section description included in the DACI message to a corresponding section in the UD-DL message” (paragraph no. 0004 of the applicant’s specification).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Ahmed and either AAPA or Cao by incorporating the additional teachings of the AAPA to facilitate the processing of the user data operation at the RU.
Regarding claims 8, 17, Ahmed teaches “wherein the DACI message further includes an indication of which resource elements are omitted from one or more UD-DL messages included in the plurality of UD-DL messages” (Table 1, paragraph no. 0346 and Section Type 0).
Claim(s) 2, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ahmed and either the AAPA or Cao as applied to claims 1, 10 above, and further in view of Ahn et al., US 2017/0019913, (“Ahn”).
Ahmed does not teach but Ahn teaches “determining a priority associated with the section description” (paragraph no. 0104 discloses that a PDCCH may have a bit field to indicate a priority of PDSCH reception).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Ahmed and either AAPA or Cao by incorporating the teachings of Ahn to enable the RU to prioritize the different section types associated with the DACI message, thereby facilitating the transmission of user data to the UEs.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 9, 12, and 18 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.
Regarding claims 3 and 12, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the limitations recited therein.
Regarding claims 9 and 18, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the limitations recited therein.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WON TAE C. KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-1812. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/WON TAE C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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