DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to communications filed on July 24, 2024. Claims 16-27 are pending in the application.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 7/24/2024 has been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(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.
Claims 16, 18, 20-22, and 24-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Vitthaladevuni et al. (US 2023/0007530).
Regarding Claim 16, Vitthaladevuni teaches a method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, from a network, at least one channel state information (CSI)-reference signal (RS) (“reference signal (RS) measurements 1005 performed at the UE 1004” – See [0078]; “The RS may include … channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS) for channel estimation at the UE” – See [0191]; See also Fig. 3A; The UE receives, from the base station, a plurality of CSI-RS); and
transmitting, to the network, at least one CSI report based on the at least one CSI-RS (“The UE 1004 may then transmit a reporting message 1022 including, or at least indicating, the encoded measurements” – See [0082]; The UE transmits, to the base station, a CSI report based on the measured CSI-RSs),
wherein the at least one CSI report includes first CSI including a quantization result of compressed CSI, and second CSI including quantization reference information related to the first CSI (“The measurement data portions 403, 405, 407, 409, 411 on each of 20 MHz subbands of the 100 MHz bandwidth may be provided to a respective encoder, such as encoders 402, 404, 406, 408, 410” – See [0048]; “Each encoder generates a compressed version of a measurement (also referred to as a “compressed measurement”) on a 20 MHz channel provided to the encoder” – See [0049]; “As shown, the output of the encoder 402 (e.g., compressed measurement 582) may be provided to a quantizer 502. The output of the encoder 402 and the output of the encoder 404 (e.g., compressed measurement 584) may be provided to a differential circuit 520 configured to generate a differential measurement based on a difference between the compressed measurements 584, 582 generated by encoders 404, 402, as shown” – See [0061]; “the quantizers 504, 506, 508, 510 that receive differential measurements may perform a more coarse quantization as compared to quantizer 502 which does not receive a differential measurement (e.g., rather directly receives the compressed measurement generated by encoder 402)” – See [0062]; The CSI report includes a first CSI (e.g., differential value of the compressed and quantized output from quantizer 506) and second CSI including quantization reference information related to the first CSI (e.g., reference value of the compressed and quantized output from quantizer 502 which is a reference/representative CSI related to the first CSI)).
Regarding Claim 18, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that a first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based and a second CSI-RS resource on which the second CSI is based are same, or wherein a first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based and a second CSI-RS resource on which the second CSI is based are different (See Fig. 3A; The plurality of CSI-RS are received on different REs/resources).
Regarding Claim 20, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that a report configuration for the second CSI is associated with the first CSI (“the BS 1002 may send a configuration message 1008 to the UE 1004, the configuration message 1008 indicating whether to use differential encoding” – See [0079]; The report configuration specifies differential encoding to be performed with respect to the second CSI and associated first CSI).
Regarding Claim 21, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that a report configuration for the second CSI is associated with the first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based (“the BS 1002 may send a configuration message 1008 to the UE 1004, the configuration message 1008 indicating whether to use differential encoding” – See [0079]; The report configuration specifies differential encoding to be performed with respect to the second CSI and associated first CSI-RS resource).
Regarding Claim 22, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that the first CSI and the second CSI are included in a same CSI report, or wherein the first CSI and the second CSI are included in different CSI reports (“the wireless node may generate at least one message (e.g., reporting message 1022, or compressed output 452) indicative of the measurement data based on the compressed measurements” – See [0087]; The reporting message 1022 includes the encoded first and second CSI in a single/same report).
Regarding Claim 24, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that the quantization reference information corresponds to a maximum value, a minimum value, or an average value of the compressed CSI (“The reference measurement X(t,0) may be differentially encoded based on a reference measurement X(0,0) during a reference time interval 0 (e.g., time interval 703) and the reference subband 0 (e.g., subband 603)” – See [0073]; The quantization reference information corresponds to a measurement value for subband 0, where zero is the minimum value of the subband index).
Regarding Claim 25, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni further teaches that the compressed CSI is obtained based on a neural network (NN) (“Certain aspects of the present disclosure are directed to techniques for implementing the same neural network model that can be implemented for compression of measurements” – See [0024]; The compressed CSI is obtained based on a neural network model).
Claim 26 is rejected based on reasoning similar to Claim 16.
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 17, 23, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vitthaladevuni et al. (US 2023/0007530) in view of Echigo et al. (US 2025/0158765).
Regarding Claim 17, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni does not explicitly teach that the second CSI includes at least one of reference signal received power (RSRP), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), or channel quality indicator (CQI).
However, Echigo teaches that the second CSI includes at least one of reference signal received power (RSRP), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), or channel quality indicator (CQI) (“the UE may report a plurality of CSI instances or CSI reports for a plurality of time instances (for example, the above-described existing pieces of CSI (L1-RSRP, L1-SINR, or the like)) in the same slot (for example, by one piece of UCI or one CSI feedback)” – See [0264]; “The measurement section 123 may measure a received power (for example, Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP)), a received quality (for example, Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ), a Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR), a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)), a signal strength (for example, Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)), channel information (for example, CSI), and so on” – See [0322]; The CSI includes RSRP, SINR, and so on).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Vitthaladevuni such that the second CSI includes at least one of reference signal received power (RSRP), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), or channel quality indicator (CQI) since these metrics are well-known in the art for being used to indicate CSI (See Echigo, [0037]).
Regarding Claim 23, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni does not explicitly teach that at least one of a range of a value of the quantization result, a minimum unit of quantization, or a number of bits indicating the quantization result is included in at least one of the first CSI or the second CSI.
However, Echigo teaches that at least one of a range of a value of the quantization result, a minimum unit of quantization, or a number of bits indicating the quantization result is included in at least one of the first CSI or the second CSI (“2B-1 may denote quantization level, and B may denote the number of quantized bits” – See [0139]; “The UE may determine a quantization level/sampling interval, based on a particular rule/UE capability” – See [0140]; “For example, the UE may report information related to the determined quantization level/sampling interval by using CSI part 1 of a CSI report” – See [0141]; The CSI includes a quantization level (range of a value of the quantization result/minimum unit) corresponding to the reported CSI, wherein the quantization level further implicitly indicates a number of bits of the quantization result).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Vitthaladevuni such that at least one of a range of a value of the quantization result, a minimum unit of quantization, or a number of bits indicating the quantization result is included in at least one of the first CSI or the second CSI. Motivation for doing so would be to allow the UE to notify the base station/network of the quantization parameters that are used in the case that the UE determines the quantization parameters based on a UE capability (See Echigo, [0140]).
Regarding Claim 27, Vitthaladevuni teaches a base station in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising: at least one transceiver; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one transceiver (“communications device 1300 may be a base station” – See [0102]; “Communications device 1300 includes a processing system 1302 coupled to a transceiver 1308 (e.g., a transmitter and/or a receiver). Transceiver 1308 is configured to transmit (or send) and receive signals for the communications device 1300 via an antenna 1310, such as the various signals as described herein” – See [0103]), wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
transmit, to a terminal, through the at least one transceiver, at least one channel state information (CSI)-reference signal (RS) (“reference signal (RS) measurements 1005 performed at the UE 1004” – See [0185]; “The RS may include … channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS) for channel estimation at the UE” – See [0191]; See also Fig. 3A; The base station transmits, to the UE, a plurality of CSI-RS); and
receive, from the terminal, through the at least one transceiver, at least one CSI report based on the at least one CSI-RS (“The UE 1004 may then transmit a reporting message 1022 including, or at least indicating, the encoded measurements” – See [0082]; The base station receives, from the UE, a CSI report based on the measured CSI-RSs),
wherein the at least one CSI report includes first CSI including a quantization result of compressed CSI, and second CSI including quantization reference information related to the first CSI (“The measurement data portions 403, 405, 407, 409, 411 on each of 20 MHz subbands of the 100 MHz bandwidth may be provided to a respective encoder, such as encoders 402, 404, 406, 408, 410” – See [0048]; “Each encoder generates a compressed version of a measurement (also referred to as a “compressed measurement”) on a 20 MHz channel provided to the encoder” – See [0049]; “As shown, the output of the encoder 402 (e.g., compressed measurement 582) may be provided to a quantizer 502. The output of the encoder 402 and the output of the encoder 404 (e.g., compressed measurement 584) may be provided to a differential circuit 520 configured to generate a differential measurement based on a difference between the compressed measurements 584, 582 generated by encoders 404, 402, as shown” – See [0061]; “the quantizers 504, 506, 508, 510 that receive differential measurements may perform a more coarse quantization as compared to quantizer 502 which does not receive a differential measurement (e.g., rather directly receives the compressed measurement generated by encoder 402)” – See [0062]; The CSI report includes a first CSI (e.g., differential value of the compressed and quantized output from quantizer 506) and second CSI including quantization reference information related to the first CSI (e.g., reference value of the compressed and quantized output from quantizer 502 which is a reference/representative CSI related to the first CSI)).
Vitthaladevuni does not explicitly teach that the compressed CSI is obtained through a de-quantization based on the quantization reference information.
However, Echigo teaches that the compressed CSI is obtained through a de-quantization based on the quantization reference information (“The base station performs corresponding inverse quantization on the bit in the received CSI feedback and obtains reconstructed input information output in response to input of the value/bit after the inverse quantization to a corresponding decoder” – See [0137]; See also Fig. 10; At the UE side, the CSI is compressed using the AI model encoder and then quantized. The base station receives the quantized CSI from the UE and performs inverse quantization (de-quantization) to obtain the compressed CSI).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Vitthaladevuni such that the compressed CSI is obtained through a de-quantization based on the quantization reference information. Motivation for doing so would be to obtain reconstructed CSI information (See Echigo, [0137]).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vitthaladevuni et al. (US 2023/0007530) in view of Wu et al. (US 2020/0244317).
Regarding Claim 19, Vitthaladevuni teaches the method of Claim 16. Vitthaladevuni does not explicitly teach that the second CSI-RS resource on which the second CSI is based corresponds to a quasi co-location (QCL) reference resource of the first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based.
However, Wu teaches that the second CSI-RS resource on which the second CSI is based corresponds to a quasi co-location (QCL) reference resource of the first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based (“The UE 20A determines, based at least in part on the channel measurements, a QCL of the first CSI-RS port and the second CSI-RS port” – See [0069]; The second CSI-RS resource corresponds to the CQL relationship with the first CSI-RS resource).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Vitthaladevuni such that the second CSI-RS resource on which the second CSI is based corresponds to a quasi co-location (QCL) reference resource of the first CSI-RS resource on which the first CSI is based. Motivation for doing so would be to support an increased density of TRPs/UEs while maintaining system performance (See Wu, [0039]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Scott M Sciacca whose telephone number is (571)270-1919. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday, 7:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. EST.
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/SCOTT M SCIACCA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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