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 Amendment/Arguments
In the reply filed 6/30/26, Applicant has amended claims 1-3, 8-10, 15-17 and 22-24. In view of the amendment, the objections and rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) have been overcome and are withdrawn.
With respect to the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, Applicant argues that the prior art does not teach the amended claim limitation: “wherein the at least one restriction is associated with the dynamic base station antenna port adaptation.” In response, it is noted that the restriction imposed by Matsumura is associated with CMR pairs for NCJT (¶¶ [0265]-[0269], [0309], [0320]-[0321]), which is also related to parameters of the dynamic port adaptation of Hu (¶¶ [0109]-[0112]). Further, Hu also discloses muting the entire multi TRP (mTRP) (¶ [0109]), which is also considered a restriction associated with dynamic port adaptation. Accordingly, the combination of the cited references is considered to disclose the amended claim limitations, and the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is maintained, as detailed below.
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, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17, 22 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2024/0306024 in view of Hu et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2024/0039673 (prior art note: the portions of the Hu et al. reference relied upon are supported by the 63/393,659 provisional application, filed 7/29/22, which serves as the effective filing date of the Hu et al. reference for purposes of this rejection).
Regarding claims 1, 8, 15 and 22, Matsumura discloses a method/apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus (20 – Figs. 37-38) comprising a memory 1002 and a processor 1001 coupled to the memory, the memory being a computer-readable medium (¶ [0426]), including instructions executable by the processor, the apparatus performing a method of: in a user equipment (UE) of a wireless communication network, the UE configurable to operate under one or more settings for: i) a plurality of active transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states (¶¶ [0130]-[0131]); ii) a COntrol REsource SET (CORESET) index pool with a plurality of CORESET indexes (¶¶ [0128], [0131]), iii) channel state information (CSI) enhancement including at least one of channel measurement resource (CMR) pairs for a non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT) measurement hypothesis, and CSI report enhancement (¶¶ [0115]-[0116]); or iv) codebooks for computing CSI for reduced base station antenna configurations: configuring the UE to operate under one or more of the settings with at least one restriction, where the restriction is associated with CMRs in beam pairs for NCJT multi TRP operation (¶¶ [0265]-[0269], [0309], [0320]-[0321]); and operating the UE under the configured settings (¶ [0117]).
Matsumura does not expressly disclose that the UE is configured to operate under dynamic base station port adaptation, where the restriction is associated with the dynamic base station port adaptation. Hu discloses a UE configured to operate under dynamic base station antenna port adaptation (¶ [0051]), which is associated with CMRs for NCJT multi TRP operation and includes muting the entire mTRP, which is considered a restriction associated with the dynamic port adaptation (¶¶ [0109]-[0112]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to employ a UE configured to operate under dynamic base station antenna port adaptation, as suggested by Hu, in the method/apparatus of Matsumura, to reduce power consumption (see Hu, ¶ [0051]).
Regarding claims 3, 10, 17 and 24, in the proposed combination, Matsumura discloses that operating under one or more settings with at least one restriction comprises: configuring the UE to operate with either of a plurality of active TCI states (¶¶ [0130]-[0131]) or a CORESET index pool with a plurality of CORESET indexes (¶¶ [0128], [0131]); and disable CMR pairs for an NCJT measurement hypothesis (¶ [0309]).
Claims 2, 9, 16 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumura et al. in view of Hu et al. as applied above, and further in view of Chen et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2024/0414731.
Regarding claims 2, 9, 16 and 23, Matsumura in combination with Hu disclose a method and apparatus configuring a UE operating under more settings for wireless communication, as described above, but do not expressly disclose that the UE is configured to disable a plurality of active TCI state and a CORESET index pool with a plurality of CORESET indexes.
Chen discloses that a TRP may be disabled (¶ [0069]), and that a CORESET pool and a TCI state set is in a correspondence with a disabled TRP (¶¶ [0059], [0064]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to provide restrictions corresponding to disabled TCI states and a CORESET pool, as suggested by Chen, in the method/apparatus of Matsumura and Hu, to provide energy saving in response to a dynamic change of load (see Chen, ¶ [0004]).
Claims 4-7, 11-14, 18-21 and 25-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun et al. in view of Hu et al. as applied above, and further in view of Matsumura et al. WIPO Pub. No. WO 2023/053385 (note: EPO App. Pub. No. EP 4 412 292 is an English language equivalent of the WIPO Publication and is referenced in this Office action).
Regarding claims 4, 11, 18 and 25, Matsumura in combination with Hu disclose a method and apparatus configuring a UE operating under one or more settings for wireless communication, as described above, but do not expressly disclose that configuring the UE to operate under one or more of the settings with one or more restrictions comprises: configuring the UE to operate under CSI enhancement with a common reduced codebook for single measurement hypothesis and NCJT measurement hypothesis.
Matsumura (EPO) discloses that a codebook subset restriction (CBSR) corresponding to the same measurement hypothesis (single-TRP measurement hypothesis/NCJT measurement hypothesis) are common (¶¶ [0094]-[0095]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to provide a common codebook for single-TRP and NCJT measurement hypotheses, as suggested by Matsumura (EPO), in the method/apparatus of Matsumura and Hu, so that the number of codebook subset restrictions is reduced (¶ [0095]).
Regarding claims 5, 12, 19 and 26, in the proposed combination, Matsumura (EPO) further discloses that one piece of CSI related to the best measurement result in measurement hypotheses for NCJT and single-TRP may be reported (¶ [0053]), where an index is fed back based on the estimated channel matrix for a CSI measurement/report (¶¶ [0065], [0074]]).
Regarding claims 6, 13, 20 and 27, Matsumura in combination with Hu disclose a method and apparatus configuring a UE operating under settings for wireless communication, as described above, but do not expressly disclose that configuring the UE to operate under one or more of the settings with one or more restrictions comprises: configuring the UE to operate under CSI enhancement with a one or more of reduced codebook pairs for deriving NCJT CSI.
Matsumura (EPO) discloses, with respect to an NCJT measurement corresponding to a CMR pair, the UE applies a codebook set restriction (CBSR) for deriving NCJT CSI measurement (¶ [0090]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to apply reduced codebook restrictions for deriving NCJT CSI, as suggested by Matsumura (EPO), in the method/apparatus of Matsumura and Hu, to provide additional energy saving for the communication system.
Regarding claims 7, 14, 21 and 28, in the proposed combination, Matsumura (EPO) further discloses that pairs of CMR for NCJT are configured, and the UE reports CSI related to the best measurement result and associated report parameters (¶¶ [0015], [0026], [0053]).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 David B. Lugo whose telephone number is 571-272-3043. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-6.
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/DAVID B LUGO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631
9/9/2026
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