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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/25/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Claims 1 and 2 were rejected in the non-final Office action (NFOA) as being anticipated hy Haque1. See NFOA at 3-5. A limitation that was previously recited in claim 2 has been added to claim 1. This limitation reads: wherein the energy harvesting information indicates whether the base station supports energy harvesting. While the broadest reasonable interpretation of previous claim 2 did not include this limitation2, the NFOA stated that this language was met by the Haque disclosure. NFOA at 4.
The applicant traverses this, and argues that the claimed energy harvesting information is “a discrete piece of information whose function is to indicate whether the base station supports energy harvesting.” Remarks at 15. The applicant further states that the energy harvesting information is a “distinct piece of configuration information … whose specific purpose is to indicate support or non-support of energy harvesting by the base station.” Id. at 16. The examiner disagrees that the BRI of amended claim 1 is as narrow as the applicant’s remarks suggest.
The claim does not require the energy harvesting information to specify whether the base station supports energy harvesting. Instead, the claim only recites that it indicates this. To “indicate” can be defined as to “serve as a sign of” or to “imply.”3 In addition, neither the claims to the base station nor the claims to the UE recite that anything is actually done with, or on the basis of, this energy harvesting information. The BRI of the claim therefore includes that the energy harvesting information merely serves as a sign, or implies, that the base station supports energy harvesting.
The specification supports this interpretation. The specification describes that the “energy harvesting information may indicate (e.g., be indicative of) whether base station 105 supports energy harvesting.” Spec4. ¶ 117. The specification also states that the “energy harvesting information may include or indicate whether the base station supports energy harvesting.” Id. ¶ 171 (emphasis added). The POSITA would understand this latter sentence to describe two alternative embodiments: one in which the energy harvesting information includes information describing whether the base station supports energy harvesting, and another embodiment where it indicates this. Based on these passages, the POSITA would conclude that the energy harvesting information that is recited in claim 1 is not limited to strictly being a discrete item of information “whose specific purpose is to indicate support or non-support of energy harvesting” as the applicant argues.
As described above, the BRI of the claim only requires the energy harvesting information to serve as a sign, or imply, that the base station supports energy harvesting. Haque anticipates this claim scope for reasons that were given in the previous rejection of claim 2. See NFAO at 2.
In case it is argued that this interpretation is broader than is reasonable, new grounds of rejection are presented below. Because of the change in claim scope, these new grounds are necessitated by the recent amendment. This action is therefore made final.
The § 112(b) rejection of claims 12 and 19 has been overcome.
The assertion of official notice that was given in the rejection of claims 7, 9-12, and 19 was not traversed, rendering the asserted facts admitted prior art. See MPEP 2144.03(C).
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 1-2, 13, 20-21, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haque, US 20220070766 in view of Priyanto, US 20240349194 (support for the relied-upon passages in Priyanto is found in its foreign priority application. See e.g. pg. 18 of EP 21192679.5).
Claim 1: Haque discloses a method of wireless communication performed by a base station, the method comprising:
generating configuration information associated with a cell selection procedure for a user equipment (UE), the cell selection procedure associated with a passive device or a semi-passive device of the UE, the configuration information includes energy harvesting information and reference signal (RS) configuration information (The base station generates and transmits control signaling to configure and/or indicate transmission characteristics associated with ZE (zero energy, or passive) cell measurement and selection. ¶108. The transmission characteristics describe ZE reference signal (RS) waveforms, thus include RS configuration information. ¶¶ 106-107. Energy harvesting information is also known to the UE based on transmission characteristics associated with the ZE RS waveform. ¶152. Because all “transmission characteristics may be signaled” to the UE, this energy harvesting information is also sent to the UE as configuration information from the base station. ¶108.);
wherein the energy harvesting information indicates whether the base station supports energy harvesting (¶152 – configuration information (see rejection of claim 1) describing energy harvesting information is an indication that energy harvesting is supported. See the “Response to Arguments” section above for a discussion of why Haque meets the BRI of this claim language); and
transmitting, to the UE, the configuration information (¶108).
In case it is argued that Haque does not meet the BRI of the claim language wherein the energy harvesting information indicates whether the base station supports energy harvesting, this is rendered obvious by a combination of Haque and Priyanto.
Priyanto discloses a gNB sending energy harvesting configuration information to a UE, which includes information describing whether the gNB is able to support UEs requiring an energy harvesting operation (see ¶ 102).
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Haque with these teachings in Priyanto. Priyanto would have suggested having Haque’s base station deliver energy harvesting information that describes whether the base station supports energy harvesting, because this would assist the UE in locating a base station that supports energy harvesting.
Claim 2: Haque-Priyanto discloses that the UE includes the passive device or the semi-passive device (Haque ¶106); the configuration information includes a UE identifier of the UE, a physical cell ID (PCI) associated with the base station, a repetition indicator, a beam configuration, or a combination thereof (Haque ¶144 and Fig. 11), the RS configuration information indicates a periodicity of a cell selection reference signal, a number of backscatter reference signals, a time window parameter, or a combination thereof (Haque ¶112 – a transmission schedule is “known” to the UE (i.e., is sent as configuration information: see ¶108) and includes at least one of these elements), or a combination thereof (Due to the “or a combination thereof” in the final line of claim 2, only one of the four semicolon-separated clauses in this claim is required to be included in the claim’s BRI. See the “claim interpretation” heading above. Each clause is addressed here in the interest of compact prosecution.).
Claim 13: see rejection of claim 1. Haque discloses a base station comprising: a memory storing processor-readable code; and at least one processor coupled to the memory, the at least one processor configured to execute the processor-readable code to cause the at least one processor to perform the method of claim 1 (this is implicit in the above-cited portions of Haque).
Claim 20: Haque-Priyanto discloses a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:
receiving, from a first base station, first configuration information associated with a cell selection procedure, the cell selection procedure associated with a passive device or a semi-passive device, the first configuration information includes first energy harvesting information, first reference signal (RS) configuration information, or a combination thereof (Haque ¶¶106-108 and 152), and
wherein the first energy harvesting information indicates whether the first base station supports energy harvesting (Priyanto ¶ 102),
performing the cell selection procedure based on the first configuration information (Haque ¶¶124-126).
Claim 21: Haque-Priyanto discloses determining, based on the first configuration information, a periodicity of a cell selection reference signal, a time window parameter, a repetition indicator, or a combination thereof (Haque ¶112).
Claim 27: see rejection of claim 20. Haque-Priyanto further discloses a memory storing processor-readable code; and at least one processor coupled to the memory, the at least one processor configured to execute the processor-readable code to cause the at least one processor to perform the method of claim 20 (implicit in the above-cited passages).
Claims 3, 5-12, 14-19, 22-26, and 28-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haque-Priyanto in view of Elkotby, US 20220225402.
Claims 3 and 14: Haque-Priyanto fails to disclose transmitting a first reference signal; and receiving, from the UE, a backscatter waveform associated with the first reference signal.
Elkotby discloses a base station transmitting a first reference signal; and receiving, from the UE, a backscatter waveform associated with the first reference signal (¶184).
It would have been obvious to a skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Haque-Priyanto with teachings in Elkotby, the rationale being to enable the network to efficiently determine the passive devices within range of a BS, and to enable efficient cell selection based on this information. See Elkotby ¶¶ 183-184.
Claims 5 and 15: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses transmitting, based on the received backscatter waveform, a second reference signal to the UE (Fig. 18 and its description – second reference signals (control signaling) are sent by BS2 in response to received backscatter waveforms from the UE), the second reference signal includes a UE ID of the UE (Elkotby ¶¶ 177 and 182-184, from which the POSITA would understand that the control signals and second reference signals that are sent to the UE contain the EH WTRU ID.).
Claim 6: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses that the configuration information includes the energy harvesting information and the RS configuration information (Haque ¶¶ 106-108 and 152).
Claim 7: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination does not disclose that transmitting the second reference signal includes transmitting a negative-acknowledgment (NACK). However, official notice is taken that this was well known and widely practiced in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore it would have been obvious to the POSITA to modify Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby to include this in order to inform the WTRU that its backscatter waveform was not successfully received at the base station.
Claims 8 and 16: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses after transmission of the second reference signal, monitoring for a second backscatter waveform; receiving the second backscatter waveform associated with the second reference signal; and determining whether the second backscatter waveform includes an indication of the PCI, a cell service request, or a combination thereof (Elkotby Fig. 18 and its description. See also ¶184 which describes the content of the backscattered message, which the POSITA would understand to include the cell ID).
Claim 9: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination fails to disclose measuring a characteristic associated with the backscatter waveform, the characteristic includes an error rate, a reference signal received power (RSRP), a received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), a number of backscatter reference signals associated with the backscatter waveform, or a combination thereof. However, official notice is taken that this was well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore it would have been obvious to modify Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby to include this, the rationale being to provide improved decision making by enabling the base station to determine the quality of waveforms received from the UEs.
Claim 10: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination fails to disclose performing a comparison based on a value of the measured characteristic and a threshold; and wherein the second reference signal is transmitted based on a result of the comparison. However, official notice is taken that this was well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore it would have been obvious to modify Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby to include this, the rationale being to enable selection of a UE’s serving cell to be based on the quality of the signal received at the base station, thereby improving network performance.
Claim 11: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination fails to disclose transmitting a measurement report to a network entity, the measurement report including measurement information associated with the measured characteristic, the UE ID, the PCI, or a combination thereof; and receiving, from the network entity, coordination information indicating one or more UEs to be served, a pre-coding, a beam configuration, a load, or a combination thereof. However, official notice is taken that this was well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore it would have been obvious to modify Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby to include this, the rationale being to enable cell selection to be coordinated by a remote network entity, thereby reducing load requirements on the base station and the UE.
Claim 12 and 19: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination fails to disclose the base station receiving, from a network entity, a mode indication, the mode indication associated with a joint coherent transmission (JCT) mode, a non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT), a dynamic point selection (DPS) mode. The claim does not recite what this “mode indication” is used for, or that any method steps are performed based on this information. The content of the mode indication is therefore the equivalent of printed matter and does not limit claim scope, as it merely describes nonfunctional data and does not “require steps to be performed.” See MPEP §§ 2111.04(I) and 2111.05. Therefore the BRI of claim 12 only requires that the base station receive information from a network entity, which is taught in Haque (see Fig. 1C and its description). Assuming this claim language is to limit the claim’s BRI, official notice is taken that this was well known in the art before the invention was effectively filed. Therefore it would have been obvious to modify Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby to include this in order to provide greater network flexibility.
Claims 17 and 18: see rejection of claims 9-12 above.
Claim 22: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination described above discloses receiving, from the first base station, a first reference signal; generating a first backscatter waveform based on the first reference signal; transmitting the first backscatter waveform; and monitoring for a second reference signal from the first base station during a first monitoring time window (Elkotby Fig. 18 and its description).
Claims 23 and 28: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses determining whether to drop the first reference signal prior to generating the first backscatter waveform based on the first reference signal, wherein determining whether to drop the first reference signal is based on a detected power condition at the UE, a measured characteristic of the first reference signal, or a combination thereof (Elkotby ¶184 – only if the reference signal strength exceeds a threshold is the backscatter sent to the BS. Otherwise it is dropped).
Claims 24 and 29: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses receiving the second reference signal, the second reference signal includes a physical cell ID (PCI) associated with the first base station, a UE ID of the UE, a cell serve indication, or a combination thereof (Fig. 18 and its description. See also Elkotby ¶¶ 177 and 182-184, from which the POSITA would understand that the control signals and second reference signals that are received from the BS include at least the EH WTRU ID), generating a second backscatter waveform based on the second reference signal, the second backscatter waveform including an indication of the PCI of the first base station, a cell service request, or a combination thereof; and transmitting the second backscatter waveform (Elkotby Fig. 18 and its description. See also ¶184 which describes the content of the backscattered message, which the POSITA would understand to include the cell ID).
Claim 25: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses receiving, from a second base station, second configuration information associated with the cell selection procedure, the second configuration information includes second energy harvesting information, second RS configuration information, or a combination thereof; and performing the cell selection procedure based on the second configuration information, wherein performing the cell selection procedure includes: receiving, from the second base station, a third reference signal; generating a third backscatter waveform based on the third reference signal; transmitting the third backscatter waveform; and monitoring for a fourth reference signal from the second base station during a second monitoring time window (Each of these steps is implicitly required in the contention-based cell selection that is depicted in Elkotby Fig. 18.).
Claim 26: the Haque-Priyanto-Elkotby combination discloses receiving the second reference signal including a first cell serve indication associated with the first base station; receiving the fourth reference signal including a second cell serve indication associated with the second base station; and selecting one of the first base station or the second base station, the one of the first base station or the second base station selected randomly, based on the first configuration information, based on the second configuration information, based on a first received cell serve indication, based on a first characteristic of the second reference signal, based on a second characteristic of the fourth reference signal, or a combination thereof (Each of these steps is implicitly required in the contention-based cell selection that is depicted in Elkotby Fig. 18.).
Claim 30: see rejection of claims 25-26.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is 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
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT J HANCE whose telephone number is (571)270-5319. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11:00am-7:00pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Fuelling can be reached at (571) 270-1367. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ROBERT J HANCE/ Reexamination Specialist, Art Unit 3992
1 US 20220070766
2 See the “Claim Interpretation” heading on pg. 2 of the NFOA, as well as the rejection of claim 2
3 “indicate.” American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. (2011).
4 US 20250175895
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