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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application (202210471316.3) filed in China on 04/28/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 07/25/2024, 07/30/2025 and 12/01/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are considered by the examiner.
This Office action is in response to the preliminary amendment filed on 07/25/2024. Claims 19-20 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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.
Claims 1-4, 8-13 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YANG et al. (US 2024/0406902 A1), in view of YERRAMALLI et al. (US 2024/0080793 A1).
As to claims 1 and 10, YANG discloses the invention as claimed, including a signaling sending method, applied to a first communication node and comprising:
sending a first signaling to a second communication node, wherein the first signaling is configured to instruct the second communication node to report channel state information (CSI) and timestamp information on at least one timestamp (¶0024, “transmitting the PDC report includes RRC signaling…operations, features, means, or instructions for identifying the reference signal resource for performing the one or more RTT measurements based on the RRC signaling, the reference signal resource including a channel state information reference signal or a positioning reference signal”; ¶0043; ¶0275, “identifying the reference signal resource for performing the one or more RTT measurements based at least in part on the RRC signaling, the reference signal resource comprising a CSI-RS or a PRS”; ¶0291, “wherein the indication of the configuration for transmitting the PDC report comprises RRC signaling, the method further comprising: identifying the reference signal resource for performing the one or more RTT measurements based at least in part on the RRC signaling, the reference signal resource comprising a CSI-RS or a PRS”).
Although YANG discloses receiving the CSI reported by the second communication node (¶0064, “the UE may transmit PDC reporting on periodic resources (e.g., positioning reference signal (PRS) or channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) resources)”), YANG does not specifically disclose receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node.
However, YERRAMALLI discloses receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node (¶0248, “FIG. 9 is a diagram 900 showing exemplary timings of RTT measurement signals exchanged between a base station 902 (e.g., any of the base stations described herein) and a UE 904 (e.g., any of the UEs described herein), according to aspects of the disclosure. In the example of FIG. 9, the base station 902 sends an RTT measurement signal 910 (e.g., PRS, NRS, CRS, CSI-RS, etc.) to the UE 904 at time t1. The RTT measurement signal 910 has some propagation delay TProp as it travels from the base station 902 to the UE 904. At time t2 (the ToA of the RTT measurement signal 910 at the UE 904), the UE 904 receives/measures the RTT measurement signal 910. After some UE processing time, the UE 904 transmits an RTT response signal 920 at time t3. After the propagation delay TProp, the base station 902 receives/measures the RTT response signal 920 from the UE 904 at time t4 (the ToA of the RTT response signal 920 at the base station 902)”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of YANG to include receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node, as taught by YERRAMALLI because it would improve data transmission reliability and location tracking (YERRAMALLI; ¶0265; ¶0278).
As to claim 2, YANG discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the CSI comprises at least one of the following: reference signal received power (RSRP), channel state information-reference signal resource indicator (CRI), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), a received signal of a reference signal, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (¶0096, “The single receive configuration may be aligned in a beam direction determined based on listening according to different receive configuration directions (e.g., a beam direction determined to have a highest signal strength, highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or otherwise acceptable signal quality based on listening according to multiple beam directions)”; ¶0121).
As to claim 3, YANG discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the timestamp information comprises at least one of the following: slot index or slot number, subframe index or subframe number, symbol index or symbol number (¶0080, “Each frame may include multiple consecutively numbered subframes or slots, and each subframe or slot may have the same duration. In some examples, a frame may be divided (e.g., in the time domain) into subframes, and each subframe may be further divided into a number of slots”).
As to claim 4, YERRAMALLI discloses wherein the first signaling is further configured to instruct the second communication node to report RSRP of a fixed CRI or RSRP of a fixed transmit beam or RSRP of a fixed transmit and receive beam pair (¶0156, “This results in a stronger received signal strength (e.g., reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), etc.) of the RF signals received from that direction”; ¶0228, “L1 and L2 signaling has been contemplated for use in association with PRS-based reporting. For example, L1 and L2 signaling is currently used in some systems to transport CSI reports (e.g., reporting of Channel Quality Indications (CQIs), Precoding Matrix Indicators (PMIs), Layer Indicators (Lis), L1-RSRP, etc.). CSI reports may comprise a set of fields in a pre-defined order (e.g., defined by the relevant standard)”; ¶0237, “a base station 602 uses beamforming to transmit RF signals, the beams of interest for data communication between the base station 602 and the UE 604 will be the beams carrying RF signals that arrive at UE 604 with the highest signal strength (as indicated by, e.g., the Received Signal Received Power (RSRP) or SINR in the presence of a directional interfering signal), whereas the beams of interest for position estimation will be the beams carrying RF signals that excite the shortest path or LOS path”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of YANG to include wherein the first signaling is further configured to instruct the second communication node to report RSRP of a fixed CRI or RSRP of a fixed transmit beam or RSRP of a fixed transmit and receive beam pair, as taught by YERRAMALLI because it would reduce signaling overhead and faster beam management during communication (YERRAMALLI; ¶0154; ¶0211).
As to claim 8, YANG discloses the method of claim 1, wherein for a time domain beam prediction, an attribute of an aperiodic CSI-RS resource set, an attribute of a periodic CSI-RS resource set, and an attribute of a semi-persistent CSI-RS resource set are defined at a hierarchy of a resource subset (¶0082; ¶0110, “devices may signal a combination of PRS and CSI-RS for RTT measurements and PDC reporting. Such PDC reporting may be periodic, aperiodic, or semi-persistent”; ¶0114; ¶0120, “RRC parameters such as an RRC parameter indicating a reference signal resource configuration ID (e.g., RS-ResourceConfigId in PDC-ReportConfig) may indicate an existing CSI-RS resource for PDC reporting. The PDC reporting configuration may further indicate a reporting configuration type (e.g., reportConfigType) which may be periodic, semi-persistent, or aperiodic”).
As to claim 9, YANG discloses the method of claim 8, wherein a configuration parameter in the resource subset comprises at least one of the following: repetition number or repetition factor, offset, or bitmap (¶0034, "the first field of the DCI and the second field of the DCI each include a separate bitmap for conveying the first indication and the second indication”; ¶0120, “the PDC reporting configuration may indicate a reporting periodicity and offset (e.g., PDC-ReportPeriodicityAndOffset, which may indicate times in which the PDC should be reported for periodic and semi-persistent reporting types”).
As to claims 11-13, they are rejected for the same reasons set forth in claims 2-4 above, respectively.
As to claims 17-18, they are rejected for the same reasons set forth in claims 8-9 above.
As to claim 19, it is rejected for the same reasons set forth in claim 1 above. In addition,
YANG discloses a communication node, comprising a processor that is configured to, when executing a computer program, implement (Figs. 11; Fig. 15; ¶0170-¶0171; ¶212; ¶0215-¶0216).
As to claim 20, YANG discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed by a processor, implements the signaling sending method of claim 1 (Figs. 11; Fig. 15; ¶0170-¶0171; ¶212; ¶0215-¶0216).
Claims 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YANG et al. (US 2024/0406902 A1), YERRAMALLI et al. (US 2024/0080793 A1), further in view of ZHANG et al. (US 2019/0394757 A1).
As to claims 5 and 14, YANG does not specifically disclose before receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node, further comprising: sending a second signaling to the second communication node, wherein the second signaling is configured to indicate that a receive beam of the second communication node remains unchanged.
However, ZHANG discloses before receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node, further comprising: sending a second signaling to the second communication node, wherein the second signaling is configured to indicate that a receive beam of the second communication node remains unchanged (¶0219, “first mode allows that, on one PUCCH, the transmitting beams of the terminal are unchanged, and the receiving beams of the base station are also unchanged”; ¶0253, “Implementation one: after the terminal obtains an uplink transmitting beam according to a receiving beam of the downlink reference signal in a first time unit, the uplink transmitting beam is kept being unchanged”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of YANG to include before receiving the CSI and the timestamp information reported by the second communication node, further comprising: sending a second signaling to the second communication node, wherein the second signaling is configured to indicate that a receive beam of the second communication node remains unchanged, as taught by ZHANG because it would reduce signaling overhead and latency achieved by eliminating the need to re-evaluate beam alignment (ZHANG; ¶0219; ¶0253).
Claims 6-7 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YANG et al. (US 2024/0406902 A1), YERRAMALLI et al. (US 2024/0080793 A1), further in view of BAI et al. (US 2024/0340990 A1).
As to claims 6-7 and 15-16, YANG does not specifically disclose for a semi-persistent CSI-RS resource or semi-persistent CSI report, further comprising: sending a third signaling to the second communication node, wherein the third signaling is configured to indicate at least one of an activation cycle or a deactivation cycle in one beam prediction process; wherein the third signaling is indicated in one of following manners: in response to the activation cycle and the deactivation cycle being consecutive, the third signaling comprises at least one of an activation cycle number M or a deactivation cycle number N, wherein N and M are each a positive integer; in response to the activation cycle and the deactivation cycle being non-consecutive, the third signaling is indicated by a bitmap; or in response to a CSI-RS being an aperiodic CSI-RS, the third signaling comprises configuring at least one of a bitmap of CSI-RS resources, a repetition number of the CSI-RS resources, a bitmap of CSI-RS resource sets, or a repetition number of the CSI-RS resource sets.
However, BAI disclose for a semi-persistent CSI-RS resource or semi-persistent CSI report, further comprising: sending a third signaling to the second communication node, wherein the third signaling is configured to indicate at least one of an activation cycle or a deactivation cycle in one beam prediction process; wherein the third signaling is indicated in one of following manners: in response to the activation cycle and the deactivation cycle being consecutive, the third signaling comprises at least one of an activation cycle number M or a deactivation cycle number N, wherein N and M are each a positive integer; in response to the activation cycle and the deactivation cycle being non-consecutive, the third signaling is indicated by a bitmap; or in response to a CSI-RS being an aperiodic CSI-RS, the third signaling comprises configuring at least one of a bitmap of CSI-RS resources, a repetition number of the CSI-RS resources, a bitmap of CSI-RS resource sets, or a repetition number of the CSI-RS resource sets (¶0069, “To enable the UE 120 to perform receive (Rx) beam sweeping, the base station 110 may use a transmit beam to transmit (for example, with repetitions) each CSI-RS at multiple times within the same reference signal (RS) resource set so that the UE 120 can sweep through receive beams in multiple transmission instances”; ¶0071; ¶0074, “A semi-persistent measurement report, once activated by signaling (for example, dynamic signaling) is transmitted periodically on a configured resource until deactivated by signaling (for example, dynamic signaling). An aperiodic measurement report is transmitted after being triggered. A periodic measurement report can be associated with a periodic CSI-RS (P-CSI-RS). A semi-persistent report can be associated with a P-CSI-RS or a semi-persistent CSI-RS (SP-CSI-RS). An aperiodic report can be associated with a P-CSI-RS, an SP-CSI-RS, or an aperiodic CSI-RS (AP-CSI-RS). A periodic measurement report can be activated in RRC, or, using the techniques described herein, an indication to update a beam. A semi-persistent measurement report can be activated by a MAC-CE or DCI, depending on the channel”; ¶0085, “the configuration information may indicate whether the action is periodic, aperiodic, or semi-persistent. For example, the configuration information may indicate whether a P3 or P2 CSI-RS beam management is performed periodically (for example, using a configured resource associated with a periodicity), aperiodically (for example, when triggered), or semi-persistently (for example, using a configured resource that is activated or deactivated by dynamic signaling)”; ¶0109; ¶0112; ¶0114; ¶0127). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of YANG to include the limitations above, as taught by BAI because it would improve coordination and overall signaling efficiency in the network (BAI; ¶00004-¶0005; ¶0064).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
MANOLAKOS et al. (US 2024/0061068), LI et al. (US 2022/0377831), WANG et al. (US 2025/0260448) disclose method and system for variance indication for reference signal for positioning measurement occasions.
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/JUNGWON CHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454 June 9, 2026
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