DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on 08/05/2024. Claims 1-20 have been examined.
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
Acknowledgement is made of applicant's claim for provisional application No. 63/369,771 filed on 07/29/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 08/05/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 7-10 and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Abu (US 2024/0259834).
Regarding claim 1, Abu discloses a method of beam discovery, comprising: receiving reference signals at a user equipment (UE) from a plurality of multi-armed beams of a base station (BS) (Abu, paragraphs 3 and 9 discloses user equipments (UEs) wirelessly communicate with a base station (BS) to send data to the base station and/or receive data from the base station… an identification of nearby UEs with fixed or quasi-fixed locations; information gathered from device-to-device (D2D) discovery occurring during beam-sweeping between the receiver and nearby UEs with fixed or quasi-fixed locations using either wide beam or narrow beam reference signals; in addition paragraph 94 discloses one or more wide beams (i.e. multi-armed beams) can be used to find a coarse location of the target UE 410),
each multi-armed beam including a plurality of BS narrow beams that each include an identifier and are configured to transmit signals at different angular sectors (Abu, paragraphs 15 and 159 discloses an identification of locations of the one or more nearby UE and an identifier for each of the one or more nearby UE… the BS 910, or the network, once having received feedback information from the target UE 920, determines 985 an angular range of narrow beams for narrow-beam beam sweeping to be used for acquisition between the BS 910 and the target UE 920),
measuring a signal quality of each of the plurality of multi-armed beams; determining a signal quality of each BS narrow beam based on at least the measured signal quality of the plurality of multi-armed beams and the respective BS narrow beam identifiers (Abu, paragraphs 43, 98 and 103 discloses “beam sweeping overhead involves a number of beam pairs (a transmitter beam and a receiver beam forming a beam pair) that are searched in order to find one or more beam pairs that have preferred characteristics (e.g., best signal strength (quality)) for data communication between the transmitter and receiver… target UE can identify which of the 1 degree beams has a best signal strength and feed back that information to the AP 420 and a preferred beam pair between the target UE 410 and AP 420 can be identified… the measurements performed by the UE0 520 may include measuring one or more of received signal received power (RSRP), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based on the received reference signals. In some embodiments, the measurements may be compared to a threshold value. If the measurement is equal to or greater than the threshold value it may be considered to have a reference signal strength suitable to feedback to the BS 510”),
and transmitting a reporting signal including at least an index of the signal quality corresponding to the BS narrow beams (Abu, paragraphs 133 and 135 discloses the reference signals each have an index that is associated with a particular directionality of a reference signal beam. The indices associated with the reference signals may be provided to the target UE 920 as part of the RRC or DL channel signal configuration information… the target UE 920 may feedback an index of one or more reference signals with a measurement that meets and/or exceeds a specific threshold of the measurement. For example, when the SNR is equal to or greater than a specific value that is indicative of a good communication signal strength between the BS 910 and target UE 920).
Regarding claim 2, Abu discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the reference signals are measurement reference signals that include the identifiers of the plurality of BS narrow beams (Abu, paragraphs 15 and 159 discloses an identification of locations of the one or more nearby UE and an identifier for each of the one or more nearby UE… the BS 910, or the network, once having received feedback information from the target UE 920, determines 985 an angular range of narrow beams for narrow-beam beam sweeping to be used for acquisition between the BS 910 and the target UE 920).
Regarding claim 3, Abu discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of multi-armed beams is configured according to a predefined error-correcting code (Abu, paragraph 103 discloses the measurements performed by the UE0 520 may include measuring one or more of received signal received power (RSRP), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based on the received reference signals. In some embodiments, the measurements may be compared to a threshold value. If the measurement is equal to or greater than the threshold value it may be considered to have a reference signal strength suitable to feedback to the BS 510”).
Regarding claim 7, Abu discloses the method of claim 1, further comprises: receiving additional reference signals including at least an index of the signal quality corresponding to a plurality of UE narrow beams (Abu, paragraphs 133 and 135 discloses the reference signals each have an index that is associated with a particular directionality of a reference signal beam. The indices associated with the reference signals may be provided to the target UE 920 as part of the RRC or DL channel signal configuration information… the target UE 920 may feedback an index of one or more reference signals with a measurement that meets and/or exceeds a specific threshold of the measurement. For example, when the SNR is equal to or greater than a specific value that is indicative of a good communication signal strength between the BS 910 and target UE 920).
With regard to claim 8, claim 8 lists all the same elements and features to claim 1 as outlined above. Therefore, the same rationale that was utilized in claim 1 applies equally as well to claim 8.
Regarding claim 9, Abu discloses the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the reference signals are measurement reference signals that include the identifiers of the plurality of BS narrow beams (Abu, paragraphs 15 and 159 discloses an identification of locations of the one or more nearby UE and an identifier for each of the one or more nearby UE… the BS 910, or the network, once having received feedback information from the target UE 920, determines 985 an angular range of narrow beams for narrow-beam beam sweeping to be used for acquisition between the BS 910 and the target UE 920).
Regarding claim 10, Abu discloses the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the plurality of multi-armed beams is configured according to a predefined error-correcting code (Abu, paragraph 103 discloses the measurements performed by the UE0 520 may include measuring one or more of received signal received power (RSRP), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based on the received reference signals. In some embodiments, the measurements may be compared to a threshold value. If the measurement is equal to or greater than the threshold value it may be considered to have a reference signal strength suitable to feedback to the BS 510”).
Regarding claim 14, Abu discloses the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the circuitry is further configured to: receive additional reference signals including at least an index of a best UE narrow beam (Abu, paragraphs 133 and 135 discloses the reference signals each have an index that is associated with a particular directionality of a reference signal beam. The indices associated with the reference signals may be provided to the target UE 920 as part of the RRC or DL channel signal configuration information… the target UE 920 may feedback an index of one or more reference signals with a measurement that meets and/or exceeds a specific threshold of the measurement. For example, when the SNR is equal to or greater than a specific value that is indicative of a good communication signal strength between the BS 910 and target UE 920).
With regard to claim 15, claim 15 lists all the same elements and features to claim 1 as outlined above. Therefore, the same rationale that was utilized in claim 1 applies equally as well to claim 15. In addition, paragraph 22 discloses a processor and a computer-readable medium having stored thereon processor executable instructions.
Regarding claim 16, Abu discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the reference signals are measurement reference signals (MRS) that include the identifiers of the plurality of BS narrow beams (Abu, paragraphs 15 and 159 discloses an identification of locations of the one or more nearby UE and an identifier for each of the one or more nearby UE… the BS 910, or the network, once having received feedback information from the target UE 920, determines 985 an angular range of narrow beams for narrow-beam beam sweeping to be used for acquisition between the BS 910 and the target UE 920).
Regarding claim 17, Abu discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the plurality of multi-armed beams is configured according to a predefined error-correcting code (Abu, paragraph 103 discloses the measurements performed by the UE0 520 may include measuring one or more of received signal received power (RSRP), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based on the received reference signals. In some embodiments, the measurements may be compared to a threshold value. If the measurement is equal to or greater than the threshold value it may be considered to have a reference signal strength suitable to feedback to the BS 510”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 11-13 and 18-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE whose telephone number is (571)272-6189. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9-5PM EST.
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/JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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