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 .
2. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. Claims 1-3 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zegrar et al US 2023/0421212 A1 (cited by applicant) in view of Zaev US 20230370134 A1.
5. Consider claim 9. Zegrar (fig 1) teaches a beamforming device performed by a wireless device including at least one of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (120), the beamforming device comprising: one or more transceivers including the RIS (para 0006); one or more processors (320) configured to control the one or more transceivers (para 0149); and one or more memories (310 in fig 3B) connected to the one or more processors and storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the processors to perform operations; wherein the operations comprise: acquiring a channel estimation value (Heff in 0048); and determining reflection coefficients (para 0053) for the RIS based on the channel estimation value (0055). Zegar fails to teach forming the RIS elements into groups and fails to teach wherein a reflection coefficient for one of the RIS groups is different from a reflection coefficient for another of the RIS groups. However, Zaev teaches such (from 0053…Control circuitry 52 on IRS 50 may configure the reflective response of antenna elements 48 on a per-element or per-group-of-elements basis (e.g., where each antenna element has a respective programmed phase and amplitude response or the antenna elements in different sets/groups of antenna elements are each programmed to share the same respective phase and amplitude response across the set/group but with different phase and amplitude responses between sets/groups…). It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute the grouping technique taught by Zaev in Zegrar et al in order for the system to operate more efficiently. Method claim 1 is rejected for the same reason as apparatus claim 9 since the recited elements would perform the claimed steps.
6. Regarding claims 2 and 10. Zaev teaches wherein each of the RIS groups includes one or more RIS elements (from 0053…control circuitry 52 on IRS 50 may configure the reflective response of antenna elements 48 on a per-element or per-group-of-elements basis…), and wherein a reflection coefficient of the RIS group is calculated differently based on phase variation values of the one or more RIS elements (from 0069…the configuration of antenna elements 48 on IRS 50 (FIG. 1) may be characterized by a matrix Λ, which includes reflection coefficients or phase shift coefficients (e.g., beamforming coefficients) for the antenna elements….).
7. Regarding claim 3. Zaev teaches (from 0053…control circuitry 52 on IRS 50 may configure the reflective response of antenna elements 48 on a per-element or per-group-of-elements basis (e.g., where each antenna element has a respective programmed phase and amplitude response …) wherein the phase variation values are set differently for each of the one or more RIS elements included in an identical RIS group.
7. Claims 4-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zegrar et al US 2023/0421212 A1 (cited by applicant) in view of Zaev US 20230370134 A1 further in view of Seung Joon Lee, “IRS element grouping with element-wise reflection coefficients” IEEE Wireless Communications, pages 1-5, 10/16/23 (cited by applicant). Note, this is listed on the applicants filed 1449 as a letter/publication so it is considered prior art as a publication unless clarified by the applicant.
8. Regarding claim 4 the combination of Zegrar et al in view of Zaev fail to teach wherein the RIS groups include a first RIS group and a second RIS group, wherein phase variation value patterns of RIS elements included in the first RIS group and phase variation value patterns of RIS elements included in the second RIS group are set to be different from each other, and wherein the phase variation value patterns are configured to maximize a minimum value of a signal beam gain according to a channel direction angle as much as possible. However, Lee teaches such (see paragraph 3 in the introduction I). It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to include patterns in the different groups taught by Zaev to reduce the overhead associated with channel estimation.
9. Regarding Claim 5. Lee teaches (see 1) on page 3) wherein the phase variation values are determined based on an order of a plurality of RIS groups, and wherein, among the phase variation values, phase variation values for the second RIS group are greater than phase variation values for the first RIS group.
10. Regarding claim 6. Lee teaches (see 1) on page 3) wherein an increase rate of the phase variation value, increasing based on the order of the plurality of RIS groups, is set differently (see abstract on page 1) for each of the RIS groups.
11. Regarding claim 7. Lee teaches (see 2) on page 3) wherein the phase variation values, increasing based on the order of the plurality of RIS groups, increase in a quadratic manner.
12. Regarding claim 8. Lee teaches (see Table 1 and corresponding algorithm) wherein the phase variation values are derived through an iterative optimization algorithm.
13. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Elshafie et al US 12445171 B2 teaches determining a beamformer to apply to groups of two or more elements of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS). The beamformer is applied to the groups of elements of the RIS to facilitate communications at the operating frequency by re-radiating radio signals via the elements of the RIS. For example, by grouping RIS elements in different manners and applying a beamformer (e.g., precoding weights) to the group as if the group were a single RIS element, the RIS can be reconfigured to behave differently to suit various operating frequencies of the radio signals.
Prasad et al US20250112710 A1 teaches a network node may transmit, to a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) controller associated with an RIS, a configuration for applying an RIS pattern. The network node may receive, from a network element, a measurement report indicating received observations of pilot signals reflected by the RIS in accordance with the RIS pattern. The network node may transmit, to the RIS controller and based at least in part on the measurement report, an indication of one or more of an updated codebook or a phase drift associated with a calibration of the RIS.
Yang et al US 20230361818 A1 teaches a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted communication system using the mode switching method for reducing training overheads includes three modes of the RIS element selection/grouping mode that uses instantaneous channel state information and the mode that is designed by using statistical channel state information, which are comprehensively considered. Therefore, when there is a large number of RIS elements, overheads of channel estimation and training are reduced, and data transmission quality is improved. When the transmission solution using the instantaneous channel state information fails due to channel estimation, a feedback latency, or the like, the statistical channel state information can be used for transmission, to ensure good transmission performance. The RIS is fully used, and by comparing the obtained parameter with the pre-simulated threshold, the optimal transmission solution is selected, to improve a reachable rate of the system.
Conclusion
14. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CURTIS A KUNTZ whose telephone number is (571)272-7499. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th from 530am to 330pm and Fri from 530am to 10am.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D Anderson, can be reached at telephone number 5712724177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CURTIS A KUNTZ/Primary examiner, Art Unit 2646
