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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/17/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 5 is objected to because of the following informalities: in the limitation “the assist information is information on another terminal device that generates the interference predetermined” it is difficult to understand what is “predetermined.” The Specification uses “predetermined” to qualify both the interference and the assist information – See [¶0078] (“The assist information to be transmitted at this timing corresponds to the information on a terminal device that causes predetermined interference,” i.e., the assist information is also predetermined because the interference is predetermined). Applicant could rewrite the claim to clarify whether “the assist information is predefined information” or “another terminal device that generates the interference in a predetermined manner.” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 12 is objected to because of the following informalities: the limitation “the assist information is information on a signal received by the terminal device of its own” should read [sic] “the assist information is information on a signal received by the terminal device on its own.” Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-13, 15 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Huang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0179380 (hereinafter Huang1).
Regarding Claim 1, Huang1 teaches in Fig. 8 a terminal device comprising: a control unit that in a communication system that performs in-band full duplex communication during downlink communication with a base station device (e.g., “FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a full duplex enabled base station communicating with two UEs labeled UE1 and UE2” – See [¶0067] whereby the Processing System 814 in Fig. 8 controls so that the “DL UE may be simultaneously transmitting an UL; and the UL UE may be simultaneously receiving a DL” – See [¶0072]), performs control1
to receive a reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency band (“in a cell activating full duplex a DL UE generally suffers from co-channel interference, or inter-UE interference, from a paired UL UE (i.e., a UE) transmitting a UL transmission on the same full duplex carrier” – See [¶0074] and Fig. 6, showing DL communication from the base station to UE1), and
to receive assist information that is information for canceling the interference (e.g., “a base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to measure inter-UE interference based on SRS reception from an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE). The victim UE may then add an SRS resource indicator (SRI) in a CSI report it transmits to the BS, to indicate the selection of a matched UL UE (aggressor UE) and its beam. In this way, the base station can suitably schedule the DL UE (victim UE) and the UL UE (aggressor UE), and determine their respective transport formats (e.g., transmission beams, MIMO schemes, MCS values, etc.)” – See [¶0078]; alternatively, “a base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to inform the victim UE of SRS resource usage by an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE), and the number of layers in the interfering UL transmission from the aggressor UE” – See [¶0079] e.g. “the base station may transmit an UL resource allocation to the UL (aggressor) UE(s), including the selected rank for the UL UE(s); and at block 914, the base station may transmit a DL resource allocation to the DL (victim) UE, including the selected transport format for the DL UE” – See [¶0117] and Fig 9, “in order to jointly determine an UL and DL transport format that achieves, for example, the largest DL-plus-UL throughput” – See [¶0118]).
Therefore, Claim 1 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 2, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein
the control unit further performs control to restore the reception signal that has received the interference on the basis of the assist information (“the UE may further determine the RI and PMI corresponding to a first rank value of the one or more rank values, based on one or more of a signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) or the CQI, projected to be achieved for a downlink transmission configured based on the RI and PMI, when the downlink transmission is received while the aggressor UE transmits an uplink transmission configured with the first rank value, in a network configured for full duplex” – See [¶0122]).
Therefore, Claim 2 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 3, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is information on a propagation channel with the another terminal device (“the base station may further transmit to the victim UE information indicating resource usage of the aggressor UE for its SRS transmission” – See [¶0103] so that “the victim UE may select one SRS resource and the SRS ports that it receives from among the multiple ports of this SRS resource the aggressor UE uses for SRS” – See [¶0109] and “calculate one or more interference matrices ( e.g., sub band interference matrices or wideband interference matrices) whose each element represents the interference strength from one aggressor UE's antenna or port to one victim UE's antenna or port, based on the one or more SRSs received from the aggressor UE” and “select the channel parameters corresponding to a given rank value such that a projected throughput of a DL channel received from the base station is maximized when the aggressor is configured to transmit its interfering UL transmission utilizing the corresponding rank” – See [¶0111] whereby “the indication of the maximum rank may be an information element that provides the number of quantization bits that a victim UE will use to represent the rank of the aggressor UE's interfering UL transmission, in the victim UE's report to the base station” – See [¶0102] i.e., assist information)
Therefore, Claim 3 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 4, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is information on beam forming of the another terminal device (“a base station configured for MU-MIMO may transmit to a victim UE a plurality of maximum ranks, each corresponding to a different respective identified UL UE's interfering UL transmission” – See [¶0106] in addition to “the aggressor UE SRS resource usage information” – See [¶0103] and “may configure an UL UE (i.e., the aggressor UE) to transmit SRS with the strongest available beamforming gain, from the base station's point of view at the first SRS resource block or port, and to transmit SRS with the second strongest available beamforming gain at the second SRS resource block or port” – See [¶0109]; furthermore, “[t]he interference further depends on the aggressor UE's UL Tx beamforming, if used. And, if the victim UE has more than one receive antenna and performs coherent antenna reception, the interference strength also depends on the spatial direction of the interference signal” – See [¶0074], then “victim UE may then add an SRS resource indicator (SRI) in a CSI report it transmits to the BS, to indicate the selection of a matched UL UE (aggressor UE) and its beam In this way, the base station can suitably schedule the DL UE (victim UE) and the UL UE (aggressor UE), and determine their respective transport formats ( e.g., transmission beams, MIMO schemes, MCS values, etc.)” – See [¶0078] and “the base station may transmit a DL resource allocation to the DL (victim) UE, including the selected transport format for the DL UE” – See [¶0117] and Fig 9).
Therefore, Claim 4 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 5, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is information on another terminal device that generates the interference predetermined (“To address inter-UE interference between cells, NR Rel-16 specifications introduce a feature called crosslink interference (CLI) handling” – See [¶0075] whereby because “the victim UE generates these layer-3 measurement results based on the results of long-term measurements ( e.g., over a duration of tens or even hundreds of slots)” . . .. the information transfer between victim and aggressor cells in CLI handling can only take a static or semi-static mode” and “the network can only configure a victim UE's SRS measurement in a static or semi-static pattern. Therefore, . . . CLI handling techniques may be suitable for long-term interference management, e.g., where a network allocates non-overlapping radio resources to an aggressor UE and a victim UE,” – See [¶0076] i.e., both the interference and the assist information are for long-term or “predetermined”).
Therefore, Claim 5 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 6, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is a parameter of a signal of the another terminal device (“a base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to inform the victim UE of SRS resource usage by an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE), and the number of layers in the interfering UL transmission from the aggressor UE” – See [¶0079] including also “channel state information (CSI) report configuration information to a victim user equipment (UE), including an indication of a maximum rank of an aggressor UE's uplink transmission” – See [¶0097] whereby “[t]he number of data streams or layers in a MIMO or MU-MIMO (generally referred to as MIMO) system corresponds to the rank of the transmission)” – See [¶0044] whereby the rank of the aggressor UE transmission is a parameter of a signal of the another terminal device).
Therefore, Claim 6 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 7, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is information on a radio resource for use by the another terminal device (“the base station may further transmit to the victim UE information indicating resource usage of the aggressor UE for its SRS transmission” – See [¶0103]).
Therefore, Claim 7 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 8, dependent from Claim 1, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit performs control to receive the assist information from the base station device that performs the downlink communication (the “base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to inform the victim UE of SRS resource usage by an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE), and the number of layers in the interfering UL transmission from the aggressor UE” and “the base station may determine the UL (aggressor) UE's transport format prior to determining the DL (victim) UE's transport format,” i.e., the assist information for mitigating/cancelling interference – See [¶0079] whereby “the transport format of a DL transmission to a victim UE impacts not only the DL channel gain, but also impacts the self-interference strength (i.e., the interference of the DL on the BS's UL reception),” – See [¶0080] i.e., the assist information from the base station device that performs the downlink communication).
Therefore, Claim 8 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 9, dependent from Claim 8, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the assist information is information on a signal of the uplink communication received by the base station device that performs the downlink communication (the “base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to inform the victim UE of SRS resource usage by an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE), and the number of layers in the interfering UL transmission from the aggressor UE” – See [¶0079] and the “victim UE may then transmit to a base station respective CSI report values (e.g., RI, CQI, and/or PMI) for each determined inter-UE interference rank” which “adds flexibility for a base station, in that the base station may select one of those combinations of interference rank/CSI by jointly considering the performance of the aggressor UE along with the interference to the victim UE” – See [¶0083] “in order to jointly determine an UL and DL transport format that achieves, for example, the largest DL-plus-UL throughput” – See [¶0118], therefore the assist information, e.g. the DL transport format for the victim UE, is information on a signal of the uplink communication received, e.g. the SRS from the aggressor UE, by the base station device that performs the downlink communication).
Therefore, Claim 9 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 10, dependent from Claim 1, further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit performs control to receive the assist information from a second other terminal device that is a terminal device different from the another terminal device that performs the uplink communication (“CLI handling provides an approach for a UE in one cell to measure interference from UEs in other cells” wherein the “SRS configurations can be coordinated between the aggressor and victim cells via a backhaul connection between the respective base stations Accordingly, the network configures DL UEs to measure the strength of SRS signals from UL UEs in neighboring cells” – See [¶0075] whereby “two paired UEs are located in two different cells” and “to coordinate the SRS resource configuration across UEs in different cells and enable such inter-cell SRS measurements, the cells' base stations communicate with one another through a backhaul connection” to transmit assist information from the aggressor’s cell to the victim’s cell2 – See [¶0076] and a person of ordinary skills in the art would understand that a UE configured in dual connection could receive the assist information from the secondary base station).
Therefore, Claim 10 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 11, dependent from Claim 10, Huang1 further teaches the terminal device according to claim 10, wherein the assist information is information on a signal transmitted by the another terminal device (“to coordinate the SRS resource configuration across UEs in different cells and enable such inter-cell SRS measurements, the cells' base stations communicate with one another through a backhaul connection” – See [¶0076], therefore the victim UE receives, from its/main base station or from the secondary base station, assist information on the SRS signals transmitted by the another terminal device).
Therefore, Claim 11 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 12, dependent from Claim 10, further teaches the terminal device according to claim 10, wherein the assist information is information on a signal received by the terminal device on its own (“The interference further depends on the aggressor UE's UL Tx beamforming, if used. And, if the victim UE has more than one receive antenna and performs coherent antenna reception, the interference strength also depends on the spatial direction of the interference signal” – See [¶0074] e.g., “a base station may further be configured for MU-MIMO. And thus, a victim UE may be configured with multiple maximum rank values corresponding to the respective UL UEs” and “may select a CSI for transmission in a CSI report based on the combined inter-UE interference from the selected simultaneously-transmitting UL MU-MIMO UEs”; finally “the base station may choose to utilize the victim UE's reported rank values for the simultaneously-transmitting UL MU-MIMO UEs, and the reported CSI for determining a transport format for a DL to the victim UE” – See [¶0116] i.e., the assist information/transport format is information on a signal received by the terminal device on its own).
Therefore, Claim 12 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 13, dependent from Claim 1, further teaches the terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit receives the assist information corresponding to the another terminal device that performs the uplink communication with other base station device different from the base station device that performs the downlink communication (“CLI handling provides an approach for a UE in one cell to measure interference from UEs in other cells” wherein the “SRS configurations can be coordinated between the aggressor and victim cells via a backhaul connection between the respective base stations Accordingly, the network configures DL UEs to measure the strength of SRS signals from UL UEs in neighboring cells” – See [¶0075], i.e., the aggressor performs UL with other base station device, and the “network allocates non-overlapping radio resources to an aggressor UE and a victim UE” – See [¶0076] e.g. the assist information contains different subbands when “the victim UE may calculate one or more interference matrices ( e.g., subband interference matrices or wideband interference matrices) whose each element represents the interference strength from one aggressor UE's antenna or port to one victim UE's antenna or port, based on the one or more SRSs received from the aggressor UE.)” and “calculate a different interference matrix for each of a plurality of interference rank values, up to and including all possible interference rank values up to the maximum rank of the aggressor UE's interfering UL transmission” – See [¶0111] and “The base station may further base its selection of a rank value on a known relationship between UL performance and a number of UL spatial multiplex layers” – See [¶0114], e.g., “the base station may select a rank for the UL UE based on the inter-UE interference rank values received from the victim UE, and may select a transport format (e.g., including a rank) for the DL UE based on the corresponding CSI report values received from the victim UE, such that the selected values can achieve the largest DL-plus-UL throughput” – See [¶0115])
Therefore, Claim 13 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 15, Huang1 teaches a communication method comprising:
in a communication system that performs in-band full duplex communication (“The apparatus, devices, and/or components illustrated in FIGS. 1-9 may be configured to perform one or more of the methods, features, or steps described” – See [¶0131] which “relate to interference handling in a wireless communication network configured for full duplex” experiencing “co-channel interference, also referred to as interuser equipment (inter-UE) interference.” – See [¶0006]),
during downlink communication with a base station device receiving a reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency band (“A UE (victim UE) receiving a downlink in a full duplex network suffers from inter-UE interference from an aggressor UE transmitting an uplink over the same resources” – See [¶0006]); and
receiving assist information that is information for canceling the interference (“a base station may transmit an instruction to a DL UE (i.e., a victim UE) in full duplex mode to inform the victim UE of SRS resource usage by an UL UE (i.e., an aggressor UE), and the number of layers in the interfering UL transmission from the aggressor UE” – See [¶0079] and “the victim UE may transmit a CSI report to a base station, containing the inter-UE interference rank value(s) and corresponding CSI(s) determined” – See [¶0112] and Fig. 9 and further receive “transport format for the DL UE, which can maintain a given DL over UL throughput ratio” – See [¶0115] i.e., is used for interference cancellation, whereby “determining a transport format for a DL resource assignment for a victim UE [is] based on a set of channel parameters (e.g., CSI report) received from the victim UE” – See [¶0088] and “may include information about one or more of a TB size (TBS), a modulation and coding scheme (MCS), antenna mapping, transmission beam selection, MIMO schemes, etc” – See [¶0065] suitable for interference cancellation).
Therefore, Claim 15 is anticipated by Huang1.
Regarding Claim 22, Huang1 teaches in Figs. 1-2 a communication system comprising:
a base station device (e.g., the RAN 104 in Fig. 1) ; and
a terminal device (e.g., the Scheduled Entity/UE 106 in Fig. 1) including a control unit (e.g., the Processing System 814 in Fig. 8 inside the Scheduled Entity 800)
that in a communication system that performs in-band full duplex communication (e.g., in Fig. 2, “[t]he air interface in the radio access network 200 may utilize one or more duplexing algorithms” including “[f]ull duplex [wherein] both endpoints can simultaneously communicate with one another using the same radio resources” and on “a wireless link, a full duplex carrier generally relies on physical isolation of a transmitter and receiver, and suitable interference cancellation technologies” – See [¶0066] and “FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a full duplex enabled base station communicating with two UEs labeled UE1 and UE2” – See [¶0067])
during downlink communication with the base station device (“the base station transfers DL data to UE1 at the same time, and over the same resources, as UE2 transfers UL data to the base station” – See id.), performs control to execute the same actions as recited in Claim 1 using the same language. Because Claim 1 is anticipated by Huang1, Claim 22 is also anticipated by Huang1.
In sum, Claims 1-13, 15 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C §102(a)(2) as anticipated by Huang1.
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 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 14, 16-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang1 as applied to claim 13 above, and further in view of Abotabl et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0300652 (hereinafter Abotabl).
Regarding Claim 14, dependent from Claim 13, although Huang1 teaches that the terminal device according to claim 13, wherein the control unit receives the assist information corresponding to the another terminal device “may be implemented within systems employing IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth, and/or other suitable systems” – See [¶0129], Huang1 does not teach that a different radio access technique is applied (only) to the another terminal device.
Abotabl, like Huang1, teaches “communications device . . . determining information associated with a set of scheduled uplink transmissions on a set of symbols by a second UE; and transmitting the information to a first UE” – See [¶0006] with the first UE “determining information associated with a set of scheduled uplink transmissions on a set of symbols by a second UE; performing one or more measurements associated with one or more of the set of scheduled uplink transmissions” and “mitigating interference associated with the at least one DL signal based on the one or more measurements” – See [¶0005].
Abotabl further teaches UEs with multiple radio access technologies and dual-connectivity ( “a multi-carrier system, such as 5G, one of the carrier frequencies is referred to as the "primary carrier" or "anchor carrier" or "primary serving cell" or "PCell," and the remaining carrier frequencies are referred to as "secondary carriers" or "secondary serving cells" or "SCells"” wherein “secondary carrier is a carrier operating on a second frequency (e.g., FR2) that may be configured once the RRC connection is established between the UE 104 and the anchor carrier and that may be used to provide additional radio resources” and “the secondary carrier may be a carrier in an unlicensed frequency” – See [¶0053]; similarly “referring to FIG. 1, one of the frequencies utilized by the macro cell base stations 102 may be an anchor carrier ( or "PCell") and other frequencies utilized by the macro cell base stations 102 and/or the mmW base station 180 may be secondary carriers ("SCells")” – See [¶0054]; finally a UE may be configured with dual connection because “a UE 164 that may communicate with a macro cell base station 102 over a communication link 120 and/or the mmWbase station 180 over a mmW communication link 184. For example, the macro cell base station 102 may support a PCell and one or more SCells for the UE 164 and the mmW base station 180 may support one or more SCells for the UE 164” – See [¶0055]).
Abotabl, like Huang1 teaches inter-UE interference (“an inter-UE interference scenario 900, in accordance with aspects of the disclosure. In FIG. 9, UE 1 receives DL signal(s) from BS 304, and UE 2 transmits UL signal(s) to BS 304 the respective DL and UL signals are on the same sub-band, then UE 2's UL signal(s) may cause inter-UE interference on UE 1's reception of the DL signal(s). In this context, UE 2 may be characterized as an 'aggressor' UE and UE 1 may be characterized as a 'victim' UE” – See [¶0118]) whereby the victim UE receives assist information for interference cancellation (“conveying information, to a first UE (e.g., a victim UE), associated with a set of scheduled uplink transmissions on a set of symbols by a second UE (e.g., an aggressor UE). In some aspects, the first UE may use the information to train itself to recognize interference caused by the second UE” which “may provide various technical advantages, such as facilitating interference mitigation ( or cancellation) of interference caused by the second UE's UL signal(s) at the first UE's decoding of DL signal(s)” – See [¶0120]) and the assist information may be received from a base station, directly from the other device or determined on its own (“the information may be received from an external component (e.g., gNB, the second UE itself, etc.” or “determined independently at the first UE based on an energy sensing operation (e.g., energy in a direction towards the second UE may be sensed to determine whether a transmission from the second UE did, in fact, occur)” – See [¶0122]).
Abotabl further teaches the control unit of a first UE receives the assist information corresponding to the another terminal device to which a different radio access technique is applied (“one of the UEs 104 connected to one of the base stations 102 ( e.g., through which UE 190 may indirectly obtain cellular connectivity) and a D2D P2P link 194 with WLAN STA 152 connected to the WLAN AP 150 (through which UE 190 may indirectly obtain WLAN-based Internet connectivity)” – See [¶0062], therefore the other UE 190 has an additional, different radio access technology; furthermore, a “base station may operate according to one of several RATs in communication with UEs depending on the network in which it is deployed, and may be alternatively referred to as an access point (AP), a network node, a NodeB, an evolved NodeB (eNB), a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), a New Radio (NR) Node B (also referred to as a gNB or gNodeB), etc” – See [¶0032] and a “network entity 306 may be implemented as a core network component . . . may be configured to communicate with the UE 302 via the base station 304 or independently from the base station 304 (e.g., over a non-cellular communication link, such as WiFi)” – See [¶0094]).
Thus, Huang1 and Abotabl each discloses a scenario of inter-UE interference wherein the devices are configured for in-band full-duplex transmission and wherein the first device receives assist information to mitigate/cancel interference from another device. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have understood that the other device in Huang1 may be a UE configured with multiple radio access technologies connecting through WiFi/WLAN/unlicensed spectrum to a base station equipped as an access point and connected to the same core network as the base station of the victim UE, as taught in Abotabl, because both devices support multiple radio access technologies. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution through techniques known in the art. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of allowing the first UE to receive assist information from multiple sources, including the other device and on its own, as taught in Abotabl.
Therefore, Claim 14 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 16, Huang1 teaches a base station device including a control unit (e.g., the Scheduling Entity 700 in Fig. 7) that during downlink communication with a terminal device, performs control to transmit assist information to the terminal device – See, e.g., Fig. 9. While Huang1 teaches a reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency band (“FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a full duplex enabled base station communicating with two UEs labeled UE1 and UE2” – See [¶0067]) Huang1 does not teach the assist information being information for restoring the reception signal having received interference.
However, Abotabl teaches techniques for signal restoration from inter-device interference with assist information on the UL schedule of the aggressor UE (“Inter-UE interference cancellation in a full-duplex network may take many forms such as digital interference cancellation, Rx/Tx nulling, and spatial nulling. Most if not all of these techniques require some information about the Tx signal of the 'aggressor' UE” – See [¶0119]).
Abotabl further teaches in Fig. 10 a technique based on the assist information being information for restoring the reception signal having received interference (the victim UE “determines information associated with a set of scheduled uplink transmissions on a set of symbols by a second UE . . . received from an external component (e.g., gNB . . .)” – See [¶0122] i.e., the assist information, and “performs one or more measurements associated with one or more of the set of scheduled uplink transmissions during a first subset of the set of symbols where no downlink (DL) signals are received by the first UE . . . to train the first UE on the interference signature of the scheduled uplink transmission” – See [¶0123] e.g., “the first UE (i.e., victim UE) may estimate a clean version of the baseband signal of the interference from the second UE (i.e., aggressor UE) by utilizing one of the repetitions of the PUSCH of the aggressor UE” and “and later assist in interference mitigation in the slot or symbol where the victim UE is receiving the DL signal” – See [¶0130] i.e., the UE restores the DL signal having received interference e.g., as shown in Fig. 12, wherein “the UL signal (i.e., PUSCH) from the second UE in symbols 1, 3 and 4 (e.g., where no DL signal is targeted to the first UE) may be measured and then used to cancel interference caused by the same UL signal in symbol 2 where the DL signal is targeted to the first UE” – See [¶0131]).
Because the UEs in Abotabl can be substituted in for the UEs in Huang1 while the base station remains the same3, Claim 16 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 17, dependent from Claim 16, Abotabl further teaches the base station device according to claim 16, wherein the control unit performs control to acquire a transmission opportunity in the IEEE 802.11 standard (“the base station 304 each also include, at least in some cases, one or more short-range wireless transceivers . . . with other network nodes, such as other UEs, access points, base stations, etc., via at least one designated RAT ( e.g., WiFi, . . .) over a wireless communication medium of interest . . . configured for transmitting and encoding signals 328 and 368 ( e.g., messages, indications, information, and so on), respectively, and, conversely, for receiving and decoding signals 328 and 368 (e.g., messages, indications, information, pilots, and so on), respectively, in accordance with the designated RAT” – See [¶0074] and the “network . . . may be configured to communicate with the UE 302 via the base station 304 or independently from the base station 304 (e.g., over a non-cellular communication
link, such as WiFi)” – See [¶0094]) and transmit the assist information (“Various frame structures may be used to support downlink and uplink transmissions between network nodes (e.g., base stations and UEs)” further explaining LTE and NR cases but “Other wireless communications technologies may have different frame structures and/or different channels” – See [¶0095] i.e., including IEEE 802.11 wireless protocol frames).
Therefore, Claim 17 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 18, dependent from Claim 16, Huang1 in view of Abotabl teaches that the claimed devices support the IEEE 802.11 standard (as explained in Regarding Claim 17 supra, whereby Claim 17 is also dependent from Claim 16), and Huang1 teaches the base station device performs control to receive the assist information as a response signal to a signal transmitted to another base station device (“to coordinate the SRS resource configuration across UEs in different cells and enable such inter-cell SRS measurements, the cells' base stations communicate with one another through a backhaul connection” – See [¶0076]). Although the combination does not explicitly teach that the base station performs this exchange after acquiring a transmission opportunity in the IEEE 802.11 standard, the limitation is obvious when the base stations (and the UEs) are Wi-fi enabled as explained in Abotabl:[¶0074] and shown in Fig. 1 of Abotabl, i.e., it is possible that the backhaul disclosed in Huang1 uses IEEE 802.11 protocol and the base stations must perform LBT to access the medium, as a person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate.
Therefore, Claim 18 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 19, dependent from Claim 16, Abotabl further teaches the base station device according to claim 16, wherein the control unit further performs
control of measurement of interference between the terminal device and the another terminal device (e.g., “the information includes beam information associated with the PUSCH repetitions” and “assuming that the victim UE knows the channel from the aggressor UE to the victim UE, the gNB . . . may indicate to the victim UE the beams of each PUSCH instance” so “victim UE may then pick the best instance to estimate the baseband signal to later assist in the inter-UE interference cancellation where the interference will probably come from a different beam” – See [¶0134]; in addition, when “the information indicates that each PUSCH repetition transmitted conditionally based upon a positive or negative acknowledgment (ACK/NACK) . . . the ACK/NACK indication is received via a group common downlink control information (DCI)” then at the first UE “the one or more measurements are performed for the particular PUSCH repetition based on the ACK/NACK indication ( e.g., if ACKed, the first UE knows that the second UE will not transmit on the particular PUSCH repetition and the interference signature measurement for that particular PUSCH repetition at 1020 can thereby be skipped, or if NACKed, the first UE knows that the second UE will transmit on the particular PUSCH repetition and the interference signature measurement at 1020 for that particular PUSCH repetition at 1020 can thereby be performed” – See [¶0135]),
and generation of the assist information (e.g., the beam indication or the ACK/NACK indication supra).
Therefore, Claim 19 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 20, dependent from Claim 19, Huang1 further teaches the base station device according to claim 19, wherein the control unit further performs control
to select the measurement of interference between the terminal device and the another terminal device and the generation of the assist information on the basis of a predetermined condition (e.g., “for CLI handling, two paired UEs are located in two different cells,” i.e., the predetermined condition, “the network can only configure a victim UE's SRS measurement in a static or semi-static pattern” – See [¶0076])
Therefore, Claim 20 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Regarding Claim 21, Huang1 in view of Abotabl teaches a communication method comprising the limitations and steps recited in Claim 16 using the same language. Because Claim 16 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl, Claim 21 is also obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
In sum, Claims 14, 16-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in the alternative over Huang1 and further in view of Guo et al., U.S. patent Application Publication No. 2018/0152949 (hereinafter Guo).
Regarding Claim 16, Huang1 teaches a base station device including a control unit (e.g., the Scheduling Entity 700 in Fig. 7) that during downlink communication with a terminal device, performs control to transmit assist information to the terminal device – See, e.g., Fig. 9. While Huang1 teaches a reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency band (“FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a full duplex enabled base station communicating with two UEs labeled UE1 and UE2” – See [¶0067]) Huang1 does not teach the assist information being information for restoring the reception signal having received interference.
Guo, like Huang1, addresses the inter-device interference problem in full-duplex transmission scenarios (“the intra-frequency full-duplex technology in the prior art, if a base station has an intra-frequency full-duplex capability, the base station can send a downlink signal to the UE 2 relatively close to the UE 1 while receiving an uplink signal sent by the UE l. In this case, the uplink signal sent by the UE 1 causes interference to receiving of the downlink signal by the UE 2” – See [¶0006], e.g., “The first base station receives the uplink signal sent by the first UE, and the first base station sends the downlink signal to the second UE” – See [¶0209]).
Guo, like Huang1 teaches the assist information comprising resource allocation for the interfering UL transmission (“The ICCI includes information about a configuration used for sending an uplink signal by the first UE” – See [¶0133]) and further teaches the assist information being information for restoring the reception signal having received interference (“The second UE receives the downlink signal and an interference signal mixed in the downlink signal, and then the second UE reconstructs, according to configuration information included in the ICCI, the interference caused to the second UE when the first UE sends the uplink signal, to obtain the interference signal. The second UE removes the interference signal from the downlink signal mixed with the interference signal, to obtain an original downlink signal sent by a base station to which the second UE belongs” – See [¶0209]).
Thus, Huang1 and Guo each discloses a scenario of inter-UE interference wherein the devices are configured for in-band full-duplex transmission and wherein the victim device receives assist information to mitigate/cancel interference from another device. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have understood that the other device in Huang1 may receive interference cancellation
control information (ICCI) being information for restoring the reception signal having received interference as the second UE in Guo, because both devices receive assist information regarding the schedule of interfering UL transmissions. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution through techniques known in the art. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of allowing the victim UE to restore the DL received signal as taught in Guo.
Therefore, Claim 16 is obvious, in the alternative, over Huang1 in view of Guo.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable, in the alternative, over Huang1 in view of Abotabl as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Kamlani, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0366692 (hereinafter Kamlani).
In the alternative that Huang1 in view of Abotabl teaching a IEEE 802.11 capable base station according to claim 16 acquiring a transmission opportunity in the IEEE 802.11 standard, as explained supra, does not teach that the control unit of the base station device further performs control to receive the assist information as a response signal to a signal transmitted to another base station device, Kamlani teaches this limitation.
Kamlani, like Huang1 in view of Abotabl teaches inter-device interference on in-band full-duplex operation (“channel that shows other co-channel RF activity” – See [¶0062]) and assist information based on devices measurements of interference (“the device may use spectrum management techniques such as defined in the 802.llh standard. For example, period measurement reports may be requested and received (328). Based on these reports, a determination may be made about whether or not to perform a band shift (330), e.g., operate in 5 GHz mode only” – See [¶0043] whereby “periodic measurement reports may be generated based on RF measurements taken during action frames (e.g., management transmission frames) or during quiet periods in which no device is transmitting on the medium” – See [¶0044])
the assist information being information for restoring a reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency (“The measurement reports gathered from measurements made using action frames and during quiet period are input to the training sequence module which creates a model that can be used to build a site table that lists locations and channel characteristics between location pairs” – See [¶0047] and “If RF Interference is detected (Wi-Fi and Non-Wi-Fi), a wireless device may be controlled (402) to move to another AP (404) or shift away from the band ( 408) occupying that same frequency spectrum” – See [¶0067]).
Kamlani further teaches the control unit of the base station device (e.g., an AP as shown in Fig. 1 of Abotabl) further performs control to receive the assist information as a response signal to a signal transmitted to another base station device (“FIG. 5A depicts a deployment example in which a wireless local area network 502 forms a hotspot having WAP 102 as the router that provides internet connectivity to wireless devices 506 coupled to the WLAN 502. The interference controlling device 504 is in communication with the wireless devices 506 using connectivity from the WLAN 502” – See [¶0069], i.e., the WAP as the base station communicates using a WAN protocol such as IEEE 802.11 with the Interference Controlling Device, e.g., another base station such as a SoftAP, whereby “the SoftAP receives capabilities of other devices in the network” and may operate “in the Access Point mode,” i.e., as a base station – See [¶0041] that collects “received signal strength indication (RSSI) measurements” for “input to a training sequence module that learns the RF characteristics of the system in which the SoftAP is operating” – See [¶0042]).
Thus, Huang1 in view of Abotabl and Kamlani each discloses a scenario of inter-device interference wherein the devices are configured for in-band full-duplex transmission and wherein a base station communicates with another base station to gather assist information for a victim device to restore reception signal of the downlink communication having received interference from a transmission signal of another terminal device that performs uplink communication in the same frequency. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have understood that the victim’s base station in Huang1 in view of Abotabl could be substituted in for the WAP/router in Kamlani receive the assist information as a response signal to a request transmitted to the Interference Controlling Device/SoftAP because APs in the IEEE 802.11 standard are for their STA devices like base stations for UEs in 3GPP wireless networks. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution through techniques known in the art. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of allowing the victim’s base station in Huang1 in view of Abotabl to assist an interference-victim device based on assist information from another AP/base station with better signal restoration assist information, as taught in Kamlani.
Therefore, Claim 18 is obvious over Huang1 in view of Abotabl and further in view of Kamlani.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Noh et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.US-2020/0084769-Al discloses method for transmitting feedback information by a first user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system supporting a full duplex radio (FDR) scheme includes measuring, based on information on a second UE received from a base station (BS), an inter-device interference (IDI) related to the second UE; and transmitting, to the BS, feedback information related to the IDI;
Huang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US- 20230179380 A1 discloses wireless user equipment (UE) configured to receive a downlink in a network configured for full duplex communication and measures interference of a signal from the aggressor UE;
Yu et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US-20200008230-A1 discloses full-duplex assisted communications;
Roberts et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.US-20230118089 A1 discloses system and method for mitigating self-interference in mmWave systems;
Zhang et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US-20220216976-A1 discloses a method, a base station (BS), a user equipment (UE) and a system thereof for channel switching. The method includes: receiving, from the UE, information indicating that the UE has a full-duplex communication capability; transmitting, to the UE, control signaling notifying the UE to activate the full-duplex communication capability; and scheduling full-duplex transmission for the UE after the UE completes initialization of a self-interference cancellation module, wherein, the base station further configures a full-duplex mode timer and notifies the UE of configuration of the full-duplex mode timer;
Lee et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US-20170048741-A discloses capability of performing the FDR operation between a user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS); receiving, by the UE, Inter-Device-Interference (IDI) measurement configuration information from the BS; performing, by the UE, an IDI measurement based on the received IDI measurement configuration information; reporting, by the UE, a result of the IDI measurement to the BS; and receiving, by the UE, a control message notifying that the UE is included in a group related to the FDR operation from the BS;
Xia et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US-20210281386-A1 discloses a user equipment, base station and wireless communication method related to interference report in full duplex operation;
Yamada et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 10575311 B2 discloses A base station device, a terminal device, and a communication method are provided, and the terminal efficiently learns information of an interference signal and reduces interference in a reception process to enhance throughput and enhance communication opportunity of each terminal device by feedback from the terminal (the MUST method);
Nguyen et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0397529 discloses inter-UE small cell may operate in a licensed and/or an unlicensed frequency spectrum and may employ NR and use the same unlicensed frequency spectrum (e.g., 5 GHZ, or the like) as used by a Wi-Fi AP;
Huang et al, WIPO Patent Application Publication No. WO 2021212472 A1 discloses techniques for a user equipment (UE) to report a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource set indicator (SRSI) to a base station (BS) in a full-duplex wireless communications system while considering UE-to-UE interference and for the BS to configure the UE to provide the SRSI to the BS;
Noh et al., WIPO Patent Application Publication No. WO-2016195427-A1 discloses interference measurement-based grouping method and apparatus for a full-duplex wireless communication system.
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/L.G.G./Examiner, Art Unit 2478
/JOSEPH E AVELLINO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2478
1 To be sure, the Specification is silent as to a specific logic or algorithm driving the control unit when it “performs control” to receive or to transmit, therefore claim interpretation is based on the plain meaning of a transceiver receiving and transmitting signals/information, as understood by a person of ordinary skills in the art. MPEP § 2111.01(I).
2 This example in Huang1 corresponds to FIG.6 of the present disclosure.
3 A person of ordinary skills in the art would appreciate that there is no distinction between the base station in Huang1 transmitting to the victim UE the schedule for SRS transmissions of the aggressor UE and the base station in Abotabl transmitting the schedule for PUSCH repetitions of the aggressor UE because both SRS and PUSCH are UL transmissions in pre-allocated resources.
Prosecution Insights