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 .
Claim Status
This office action is in response to the communication(s) filed on 08/08/2025.
Claim(s) 10-14 is/are currently presenting for examination.
Claim(s) 10, and 12-14 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim(s) 10-14 is/are rejected.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 10-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over EP_3955503_A1_Go in view of US_20210112498_A1_Duan.
Regarding claim 10, Go teaches a terminal (Go figure 13, paragraph 264, “Furthermore, operations of a base station/UE (e.g., the operations related to the transmission of an SRS based on at least one of Proposal 1 /Proposal 2/Proposal 3/Proposal 4/Proposal 5) according to the aforementioned embodiment may be stored in a memory (e.g., 104,204 in FIG. 13)…”) comprising: a receiver that receives a configuration for sounding reference signal (SRS) ports and a configuration of a comb (Go figure 9, step S910, paragraph 267, “The UE may receive an SRS configuration from a base station, etc. (S910)…”, paragraph 93, “….the transmission comb (TC) number, K_ TC(Krc), may be included in the higher layer parameter, SRSTransmissionComb”, and paragraph 228); and a processor that controls, based on the configuration of the comb, a frequency-domain resource start position of each of SRSs transmitted from the SRS ports (Go figure, paragraph 104, “Further, SRS is frequency-hopped using the hopping pattern in every subframe where cell-specific and/or UE-specific SRS is transmitted, and the start position and hopping equation in the frequency domain of SRS hopping may be interpreted via Equation 6 below”), wherein a frequency-domain resource start position of an SRS transmitted using an odd- numbered SRS port among the SRS ports is different from a frequency- domain resource start position of an SRS transmitted using an even-numbered SRS port among the SRS ports (Go paragraph 104, equation 6, the calculation for Fb(NSRS) will be different when Nb is even or odd), but does not teach the SRS ports including more than four SRS ports, receives a configuration indicating more than four sounding reference signal (SRS) ports.
Duan from the same or similar fields of endeavor teaches: the SRS ports including more than four SRS ports, receives a configuration indicating more than four sounding reference signal (SRS) ports (Duan figure 7, paragraph 78, “the number of RX antenna ports or the number of TX chains reported to the first device may be based at least in part on a power saving configuration… a UE reporting more than 4 TX chains with switching capabilities may be configured to transmit SRS resources having more than 4 ports”, paragraph 90, “…the number of SRS ports included in each SRS resource may be expanded (>4) to support UEs having more than 4 TX chains…”, also read 121, 128).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Duan into Go, since Go suggests a technique for a UE receiving SRS configuration, and Duan suggests the beneficial way of a UE reporting more than 4 TX chains with switching capabilities may be configured to transmit SRS resources having more than 4 ports so that/thus provide greater flexibility in the allocation of UL and DL resources, which may lead to improvements in the speed or throughput of communications (Duan paragraph 42) in the analogous art of communication.
Regarding claim 11, Go and Duan teach the terminal according to claim 10, and Duan further teaches further comprising a transmitter that transmits the SRSs using the more than four SRS ports, by applying a cyclic shift value calculated using a same formula as a formula that is used to calculate a cyclic shift value when four or less SRS ports are used (Duan paragraph 13-15, equation for calculating the cyclic shift ai).
Regarding claim 12, Go and Duan teach the limitations ae set forth in claim 10.
Regarding claim 13, Go and Duan teach the limitations ae set forth in claim 10.
Regarding claim 14, Go and Duan teach the limitations ae set forth in claim 10.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The reference US_20230050730_A1_Wang, teaches a user equipment (UE) may use different SRS ports, different antenna ports, different numbers and sizes of SRS resources, different periodicities, different offsets, different transmission comb values, different number of symbols, different power control parameters, and/or different transmission comb offset values for SRS transmissions on different frequency subbands of the frequency hopping pattern to ensure that sounding operations cover all antennas of the UE, cover the entire frequency range of interest, and provide sufficiently dense SRS transmissions from which a base station can determine the best channel for DL transmissions while also using a minimum amount of SRS resources and consuming minimal power in the UE (Wang figures 6A, 6B).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WEIBIN HUANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3695. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:30AM - 6:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached at (571)272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/W.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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