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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 21 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 1, its second recitation of “a source device” already has antecedent basis.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 21-22, 29, 31-32 and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park (US 2023/0107283) in view of Li (US 2024/0250747).
Regarding claims 21 and 31, Park describes a method performed by a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU)/WTRU (fig. 15 UE), comprising:
[a processor and a memory, the processor configured to:] (fig. 26, handheld device/UE with control unit 120 (processor) & memory unit 130)
detecting a reflected transmission from a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), wherein the reflected SSB transmission is associated with an index (fig. 15 & para. 242, UE receives from BS the Large Intelligent Surface (LIS/RIS) information for reflective transmission, comprising LIS ID & IDS beam index, para. 231-235);
determining a source device of the reflected transmission based on the index (para. 242 & 244, UE generates initial access signal using LIS information according to received LIS information comprising base station ID (source device), para. 232);
performing a random access procedure with a source device via the RIS based on the index (fig. 15 & para. 273, in initial access period, UE transmits to BS using RACH (part of random access procedure) using the acquired LIS (reflective transmission) information).
Park describes S-SSB (para. 110-118), thus failing to further explicitly describe:
reflected synchronization signal block (SSB) transmission.
Li also describes transmission of reference signals via meta surface (RIS) (title & fig. 1), further describing:
reflected synchronization signal block (SSB) transmission (para. 53 & 58, reference signal being SSB is sent by network node 200 to UE 120a,120b to use during initial access via meta surface 130).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the reflected transmission in Park be a reflected SSB transmission as in Li.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that it is typical (standard use) to use SSB in providing reference signal to UE for initial access procedure (Li para. 53).
Regarding claims 22 and 32, Park and Li combined describe:
wherein the SSB transmission is associated with a SSB burst transmission comprising a plurality of SSB transmissions, and wherein each of the plurality of SSB transmissions is associated with the index (Li, para. 95, (plural/burst of) SSBs are transmitted using the same beam, where 1 respective SSB index is then transmitted in each SSB beam, para. 43).
Regarding claims 29 and 39, Park and Li combined describe:
wherein the index associated with the reflected SSB is an SSB index (Li, para. 95, (plural/burst of) SSBs are transmitted using the same beam, where 1 respective SSB index is then transmitted in each SSB beam, para. 43).
Claims 23-25 and 33-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park and Li as applied to claim 22 above, and further in view of Nam (US 2023/0093595).
Regarding claims 23 and 33, Park and Li combined fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein the plurality of SSB transmissions comprises SSB transmissions that are reflected by the RIS and SSB transmissions that are not reflected by the RIS
Nam also describes SSB transmission from base station to the UE via an RIS (fig. 4), further describing:
wherein the plurality of SSB transmissions comprises SSB transmissions that are reflected by the RIS and SSB transmissions that are not reflected by the RIS (para. 7, base station may send first SSB via RIS and a second SSB via direct transmission to the UE).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the SSB transmissions in Park and Li to be comprised of reflected RIS and non-reflected SSB transmissions as in Nam.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this yields further improvements in LTE, NR, and other radio access technologies (Nam, para. 4).
Regarding claims 24 and 34, Park, Li and Nam combined describe:
wherein at least a subset of the plurality of SSB transmissions of the SSB burst transmission are reflected by the RIS at a plurality of different spatial states (Nam para. 7 in view of para. 72, base station 110 sends first SSBs reflected by the RIS 305 using first beam (spatial) state which is different than the beam state of direct (non-reflected RIS) beam to the UE).
Regarding claims 25 and 35, Park, Li and Nam combined describe:
wherein a spatial state of the RIS is maintained constant during the SSB burst transmission (Nam para. 7 in view of para. 72, first beam (spatial) state used by base station 110 to sends first SSBs (burst transmission) to the UE exists throughout the transmission (maintained constant)).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 26-28, 30, 36-38 and 40 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.
Regarding claims 26 and 36, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the SSB burst transmission comprises the reflected SSB transmission and a plurality of legacy SSB transmissions, wherein the plurality of legacy SSB transmissions are not reflected by the RIS, and wherein the SSB burst transmission is transmitted according to a legacy SSB transmission pattern.
The closest prior art found, Ly (US 12,603,688) describing use of legacy SSBs for legacy channel training procedures (col. 16 lines 14-20), in combination with Park describing UE to smoothly perform legacy initial access within the LIS-based shadow area (para. 15 & 33), and Li, fail to render the above additional features plus all of rest of its parental claim limitations as a whole obvious.
Regarding claims 27 and 37, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein determining that the reflected SSB transmission was reflected by the RIS comprises determining that the index associated with the reflected SSB transmission is not quasi collocated (QCL) with a candidate SSB index associated with the reflected SSB transmission.
Regarding claims 28 and 38, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the index associated with the reflected SSB transmission is a candidate SSB index, and wherein determining that the reflected SSB transmission was reflected by the RIS comprises determining that the index associated with the reflected SSB transmission is not quasi collocated (QCL) with a burst set index associated with the reflected SSB transmission.
For claims 27-28 and 37-38, the closest prior art, Haghighat (US 2024/0413868) describing method to perform channel separation of transmissions associated with a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (title) with QCL parameter values (fig. 14-15 & para. 21-22), in combination with Park and Li, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Regarding claims 30 and 40, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
detecting a second reflected SSB transmission from the reflected RIS, the second reflected SSB transmission being associated with a different spatial beam, than the reflected SSB transmission, and wherein the reflected SSB transmission is associated with a first SSB transmission burst from the source device and the second reflected SSB is associated with a second SSB burst transmission from the source device, and wherein the second reflected SSB transmission is associated with the same index as the reflected SSB transmission, and wherein a number of candidate SSB indices is greater than a number of SSB indices.
The closest prior art, Haghighat (US 2024/0413868) describing method to
perform channel separation of transmissions wherein there is a second reflection properties for the RIS (abstract), in combination with Park and Li, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Sahraei (US 2025/0247133) describing backwards compatible 1-shot initial access where UE receiving the downlink signal from the base station via a configurable reflective device. The UE may identify a raster index associated with the frequency, the raster index corresponding to one of receiving the downlink signal from the base station or receiving the downlink signal from the base station via the configurable reflective device (abstract), Sahraei (US 2025/0038791) describing reconfigurable intelligent surface receiving, from a network entity, a synchronization signal block associated with a synchronization signal block index, reflecting the synchronization signal block as a set of multiple instances of the synchronization signal block via a corresponding set of multiple downlink transmit beams, receiving a random access message from a user equipment (UE) during a random access occasion that corresponds with the synchronization signal block index and on an uplink receive beam that corresponds with one of the set of multiple downlink transmit beams (abstract), Lee (US 2023/0097583) describing communication using intelligent reflecting surface where UE obtains cell information and performs synchronization in response to an SSB received from the BS, transmitting an SSB beam index to the BS, and transmitting a receive beam index to the BS in response to a receive beam reporting request from the BS (title & para. 27), Sahraei (US 2026/0163609) describing RIS where each of the 1+ reference signals includes a respective synchronization signal block signal associated with a respective synchronization signal block index (para. 11), Nam (2023/0086052) describing efficient RIS assisted communication, Nam (US 2023/0291461) describing RIS assisted SSB transmission & initial access (title), Dai (US 11,546,194) describing RIS link identification (title), and Zhu (US 2022/0407222) describing initialization & operation of intelligent reflecting surface where the index of SSB.sub.i ∈custom-character uniquely maps to the transmitted spatial filter at the gNB (para. 73).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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