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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-19 and 27 received on 7/31/2024 have been examined, of which claims 1 and 27 are independent.
Double Patenting
Claims 1-19 and 27 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-19 and 27 of co-pending Application No. 18/834646 (reference application). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the present claims are anticipated by the reference claims with exception of limitations of receiving in the present claims correspond to limitations for transmitting in the reference claims, and vice versa. Accordingly, the present claims are considered obvious variants of the reference claims to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection because the patentably indistinct claims have not in fact been patented.
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims, the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 19 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song (US 2023004073) in view of Ramireddy et al. (US 20210099210)
Regarding claim 1, Song teaches a method of precoding matrix indicator, PMI, generation for channel state information, CSI, compression in a first radio transceiver device, RTD (fig 2, 5-6 illustrating flowchart for CSI acquisition and CSI compression in terminal 120; indication of codebook for compressing the CSI, step 640, fig 6), the method comprising:
receiving, from a second RTD, a reference signal (fig 5, para 75: in fig. 5, at block 510, the terminal device 120 receives, from the network device 110, CSI-RSs associated with first number of ports at the network device 110);
estimating CSI based on the received reference signal (para 77: at block 520, the terminal device 120 determines CSI based on the CSI-RSs);
generating a PMI to perform CSI compression (para 89: at block 630, compress the CSI based on channel propagation characteristics at the terminal device 120, based on the estimated channel, the terminal device 120 may figure out the significant components and aligns them with the pre-defined codebook such as DFT codebook, this scheme ensures that the terminal device 120 selects the compression matrix from the codebook to maximize the effective array gain during the reception, which is dynamic and depends on CSI), based on orthogonal matching pursuit, OMP, processing of the estimated CSI (para 46: the terminal device 120 may compress the CSI to remove the unnecessary redundancy by using, e.g., principal component analysis (PCA) or orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP)); and
generating a compressed CSI (para 78: at block 530, the terminal device 120 compresses the CSI based on capability of the terminal device 120) based on the generated PMI for transmission to the second RTD (para 91: at block 540, the terminal device 120 transmits the compressed CSI to the network device 110).
Song teaches the CSI compression using the OMP, and CSI compression using the compression matrix from the codebook and transmission of the indication of the codebook. The reference does not teach the compression matrix to be precoding matrix. Ramireddy is directed to CSI feedback reporting.
Ramireddy teaches wherein the PMI indicates a precoding matrix, selected from among a codebook of precoding matrices (para 9: the estimated channel at the UE is reported to the gNB implicitly where the CSI transmitted by the UE over the feedback channel includes the rank index (RI), the precoding matrix index (PMI) and the channel quality index (CQ) (and the CRI from Rel. 13) allowing, at the gNB, deciding the precoding matrix, the PMI and the RI are used to determine the precoding matrix from a predefined set of matrices Ω called ‘codebook’, the codebook, e.g., in accordance with LTE, may be a look-up table with matrices in each entry of the table, and the PMI and RI from the UE decide from which row and column of the table the precoder matrix to be used is obtained), based on orthogonal matching pursuit, OMP, processing of the estimated CSI (para 236: compressed channel matrix; fig 9-10; para 265: the optimization problem may be solved by standard algorithms such as orthogonal matching pursuit, as a result, the indices of the vectors in the transformation matrices selected from the codebooks and the transformed channel coefficients associated with each domain are known; here, the reference teaches CSI compression reported by PMI and CSI compression channel matrix is optimized by OMP processing). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine CSI compression and reporting as taught by Song with CSI reporting using PMI and optimization by OMP as taught by Ramireddy for the benefit of providing low feedback overhead approaches for explicit CSI reporting as taught by Ramireddy in para 201.
Regarding claim 27, Song teaches a radio transceiver device, RTD (terminal device 120, fig 1, 2, 10; para 118: the device 1000 may be provided to implement the terminal device 120), configured to generate a precoding matrix indicator, PMI, for channel state information, CSI, compression (fig 2, 5-6 illustrating flowchart for CSI acquisition and CSI compression in terminal 120; indication of codebook for compressing the CSI, step 640, fig 6), the RTD comprising processing circuitry and a memory containing instructions executable by the processing circuitry (fig 10; para 122: the processor 1010 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 1030 into the RAM 1022), whereby the RTD (terminal device 120, fig 1, 2, 10) is operable to:
receive, from another RTD, a reference signal (fig 5, para 75: in fig. 5, at block 510, the terminal device 120 receives, from the network device 110, CSI-RSs associated with first number of ports at the network device 110);
estimate CSI based on the received reference signal (para 77: at block 520, the terminal device 120 determines CSI based on the CSI-RSs);
generate a PMI to perform CSI compression (para 89: at block 630, compress the CSI based on channel propagation characteristics at the terminal device 120, based on the estimated channel, the terminal device 120 may figure out the significant components and aligns them with the pre-defined codebook such as DFT codebook, this scheme ensures that the terminal device 120 selects the compression matrix from the codebook to maximize the effective array gain during the reception, which is dynamic and depends on CSI), based on orthogonal matching pursuit, OMP, processing of the estimated CSI (para 46: the terminal device 120 may compress the CSI to remove the unnecessary redundancy by using, e.g., principal component analysis (PCA) or orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP)); and
generate a compressed CSI (para 78: at block 530, the terminal device 120 compresses the CSI based on capability of the terminal device 120) based on the generated PMI for transmission to the other RTD (para 91: at block 540, the terminal device 120 transmits the compressed CSI to the network device 110).
Song teaches the CSI compression using the OMP, and CSI compression using the compression matrix from the codebook and transmission of the indication of the codebook. The reference does not teach the compression matrix to be precoding matrix. Ramireddy is directed to CSI feedback reporting.
Ramireddy teaches wherein the PMI indicates a precoding matrix, selected from among a codebook of precoding matrices (para 9: the estimated channel at the UE is reported to the gNB implicitly where the CSI transmitted by the UE over the feedback channel includes the rank index (RI), the precoding matrix index (PMI) and the channel quality index (CQ) (and the CRI from Rel. 13) allowing, at the gNB, deciding the precoding matrix, the PMI and the RI are used to determine the precoding matrix from a predefined set of matrices Ω called ‘codebook’, the codebook, e.g., in accordance with LTE, may be a look-up table with matrices in each entry of the table, and the PMI and RI from the UE decide from which row and column of the table the precoder matrix to be used is obtained), based on orthogonal matching pursuit, OMP, processing of the estimated CSI (para 236: compressed channel matrix; fig 9-10; para 265: the optimization problem may be solved by standard algorithms such as orthogonal matching pursuit, as a result, the indices of the vectors in the transformation matrices selected from the codebooks and the transformed channel coefficients associated with each domain are known; here, the reference teaches CSI compression reported by PMI and CSI compression channel matrix is optimized by OMP processing). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine CSI compression and reporting as taught by Song with CSI reporting using PMI and optimization by OMP as taught by Ramireddy for the benefit of providing low feedback overhead approaches for explicit CSI reporting as taught by Ramireddy in para 201.
Regarding claim 19, Song fails to teach, but Ramireddy teaches determining PMI coefficients of the generated PMI upon completion of the OMP processing (para 265: the optimization problem may be solved by standard algorithms such as orthogonal matching pursuit, as a result, the indices of the vectors in the transformation matrices selected from the codebooks and the transformed channel coefficients associated with each domain are known; here, the transformed channel coefficients are considered for PMI coefficients). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine CSI compression and reporting as taught by Song with CSI reporting using PMI and optimization by OMP as taught by Ramireddy for the benefit of providing low feedback overhead approaches for explicit CSI reporting as taught by Ramireddy in para 201.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-18 would be allowable if rewritten or amended or made to overcome the non-statutory double patenting rejections as set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RINA C PANCHOLI whose telephone number is (571)272-2679. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-4pm.
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/RINA C PANCHOLI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477 6/24/2026
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