DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claim Objections
2. Claims 12, 14, 16 and 19 are objected to because of the following informalities. The following underlined acronyms, i.e., ‘RIS’, ‘QCL’, ‘CRI’, ‘SSB RI’ and ‘QCL’ needs to be written in full. Appropriate correction is required.
Allowable Subject Matter
3. Claims 6 and 16 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. 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.
5. Claims 1-4, 7, 12-14, 18, 19, 21, 33 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Publication No.: US 2022/0014935 A1 to Haija et al. (Haija) as disclosed in the IDS.
As to Claims 1 and 21, Haija discloses measurement and reporting device for performing the method according to claim 1, applied to a first node device, comprising:
a memory (Fig. 3C, ‘RIS 182’),
a transceiver (‘Fig. 3C, ‘Interface 290’), and
a processor (Fig. 3C, ‘Processing unit 280’);
the memory is used to store a computer program; the transceiver is used to send and receive data under the control of the processor; the processor is used to read the computer program in the memory and perform the following operations:
obtaining first information (‘according to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method involving receiving, by a RIS, first configuration information to configure the RIS to redirect different frequency components of a reference signal in different directions. The method further involves receiving a reference signal from a transmitter and redirecting the received reference signal based on the first configuration information to a receiver’, ¶ 0015; see also Fig. 7), wherein the first node device is used for transmission with a terminal and/or a network side device (Fig. 7, ‘The base station 702 sends 710 configuration information to the RIS 704. The configuration information notifies the RIS 704 that the base station 702 will be transmitting a reference signal, in this example CSI-RS, in the direction of the RIS 704 that the RIS 704 will redirect to the UE 706’, ¶ 0148);
performing measurement and reporting according to the first information (‘transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005; see also Fig. 7, ¶ 0158);
wherein the first information includes at least one of first measurement and reporting configuration information, first measurement resource configuration information, or first predefined information (‘transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005; see also, ¶ 0103).
As to Claim 2, Haija further discloses transmitting beam sweeping
process of the network side device; receiving beam sweeping process of a second node device; transmitting beam sweeping process of the second node device; or, adjustment matrix training process of the second node device; wherein the second node device is used to forward a signal sent by the network side device for the terminal, or used to forward a signal sent by the terminal for the network side device (‘the base station can also configure the UE by providing the UE, via a RRC configuration message, with an identification of frequencies that will be transmitted by the base station and redirected by the RIS. The UE, while performing beam sweeping, perform measurements, such as RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ, and/or SNR, of the received signals at the frequencies identified by the base station’, ¶ 0119).
As to Claim 3, Haija further discloses obtaining first measurement resource configuration information according to a first predefined rule or the first measurement and reporting configuration information (‘according to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method involving receiving, by a RIS, first configuration information to configure the RIS to redirect different frequency components of a reference signal in different directions. The method further involves receiving a reference signal from a transmitter and redirecting the received reference signal based on the first configuration information to a receiver’, ¶ 0015).
As to Claim 4, Haija further discloses measuring, by the first node device, a first measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement resource configuration information, and reporting a measurement result (‘according to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method involving receiving, by a RIS, first configuration information to configure the RIS to redirect different frequency components of a reference signal in different directions. The method further involves receiving a reference signal from a transmitter and redirecting the received reference signal based on the first configuration information to a receiver’, ¶ 0015).
As to Claim 7, Haija further discloses determining a first reporting resource according to an indication of the network side device or a second predefined rule; and performing the measurement report on the first reporting resource (‘the base station can also configure the UE by providing the UE, via a radio resource control (RRC) configuration message, with an identification of frequencies that will be transmitted by the base station and redirected by the RIS. The UE, while beam sweeping, performs measurements of the signals at the identified frequencies’, ¶ 0103).
As to Claim 12, Haija further discloses wherein the first node device includes a control node, the control node is used to adjust or control the second node device, and the second node device includes an RIS node or a relay node (Fig. 5B, ‘a RIS including a plurality of configurable elements can redirect the transmitted signals to multiple directions by appropriate selection of the frequencies of the transmitted signals. Selection of the frequency components to be used in the channel estimation may be carried out at a base station, or more generally elsewhere within the network, by sending commands to a controller of the RIS. For example, the base station or network may provide the RIS controller with information pertaining to frequencies of reference signals that may be used for channel estimation, the AoA at the RIS from a base station transmitting the signal based on positional information between the base station and RIS, a desired AoD from the RIS or a difference between these two values, which would allow the RIS controller to determine how to configure some or all of the elements of the RIS’, ¶ 0099).
As to Claims 13 and 33, Haija discloses a measurement and reporting device for performing the method according to claim 13, applied to a terminal, comprising:
a memory (Fig. 3A, ‘memory 208’),
a transceiver (Fig. 3A, ‘transceiver 202’), and
a processor (Fig. 3A, ‘memory 208’); wherein the memory is used to store a computer program; the transceiver is used to send and receive data under the control of the processor; the processor is used to read the computer program in the memory and perform the following operations:
obtaining first information (Fig. 4A, ‘there is provided a method involving transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005);
performing measurement and reporting on a first link or a second link according to the first information (‘the base station can also configure the UE by providing the UE, via a radio resource control (RRC) configuration message, with an identification of frequencies that will be transmitted by the base station and redirected by the RIS. The UE, while beam sweeping, performs measurements of the signals at the identified frequencies. Examples of types of measurement that might be performed by the UE are measuring a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal strength indicator (RSSI), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The UE then feeds back an identifier that corresponds to reference signal with a strongest measurement’, ¶ 0103);
wherein the first information includes at least one of second measurement and reporting configuration information, second measurement resource configuration information, or second predefined information; the first link is a transmission link between a network side device and the terminal, and the second link is a transmission link between the terminal and a first node device, the first node device is used for transmission with the terminal and/or the network side device (Fig. 4A, ‘there is provided a method involving transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005).
As to Claim 14, Haija further discloses obtaining second measurement resource configuration information according to a third predefined rule or the second measurement and reporting configuration information; and/or, wherein the second measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter, and the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate QCL information of the second measurement resource corresponding to the second measurement resource configuration information; the performing, by the terminal, beam measurement and reporting on the first link or the second link according to the first information, includes: measuring, by the terminal, the second measurement resource for the first link or the second link according to the indication parameter (‘note that if the UE feeds back measurements of only one reference signal, the UE already knows on which beam (e.g. AoA at the UE) it will receive the transmission data from the base station. However, if the UE feeds back the measurements of multiple references signals, the base station, after selecting one or more of the fed back measurements to estimate the channel, may need to send back the indices of the selected reference signal used for estimation such that the UE knows on which beam (AoA(s) at the UE) to receive the transmission data from the BS’, ¶ 0106).
As to Claims 18 and 38, Haija discloses a measurement and reporting device for performing the method according to claim 18, applied to a network side device, comprising:
a memory (Fig. 3B, ‘memory 258’),
a transceiver (Fig. 3B, ‘antenna 256’), and
a processor (Fig. 3B, ‘processing unit 250’); wherein the memory is used to store a computer program; the transceiver is used to send and receive data under the control of the processor; the processor is used to read the computer program in the memory and perform the following operations:
sending first information (Fig. 4A, ‘there is provided a method involving transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005), wherein the first information is used to indicate a first node device to perform measurement and reporting and/or to indicate a terminal to perform measurement and reporting for a first link or a second link (‘the base station can also configure the UE by providing the UE, via a radio resource control (RRC) configuration message, with an identification of frequencies that will be transmitted by the base station and redirected by the RIS. The UE, while beam sweeping, performs measurements of the signals at the identified frequencies. Examples of types of measurement that might be performed by the UE are measuring a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal strength indicator (RSSI), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The UE then feeds back an identifier that corresponds to reference signal with a strongest measurement’, ¶ 0103),
wherein the first node device is used to perform transmission with the terminal and/or the network side device, the first link is a transmission link between the network side device and the terminal, and the second link is a transmission link between the terminal and the first node device (Fig. 4A, ‘there is provided a method involving transmitting first configuration information to a user equipment (UE), the first configuration information identifying both a reference signal and a carrier frequency of the reference signal, the reference signal and carrier frequency being used to determine channel information about a channel between a base station and the UE via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)’, ¶ 0005).
As to Claim 19, Haija further discloses wherein the first information includes at least one of the following: first measurement and reporting configuration information, first measurement resource configuration information and/or first predefined information; or, second measurement and reporting configuration information, second measurement resource configuration information and/or second predefined information; wherein the first measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter; the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate QCL information of a first measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement resource configuration information: or, the second measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter, and the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate QCL information of a second measurement resource corresponding to the second measurement resource configuration information (‘note that if the UE feeds back measurements of only one reference signal, the UE already knows on which beam (e.g. AoA at the UE) it will receive the transmission data from the base station. However, if the UE feeds back the measurements of multiple references signals, the base station, after selecting one or more of the fed back measurements to estimate the channel, may need to send back the indices of the selected reference signal used for estimation such that the UE knows on which beam (AoA(s) at the UE) to receive the transmission data from the BS’, ¶ 0106).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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.
7. Claims 8-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haija as disclosed in the IDS, in view of Publication No.: US 2013/0294535 A1 to Taoka et al. (Taoka).
As to Claim 8, Haija further discloses reporting relevant information of the adjustment matrix of the first node device (‘in some discussions in this disclosure, RIS devices may be referred as a set of configurable elements arranged in a linear array or a planar array. Nevertheless, the analysis and discussions are extendable to other two or three dimensional arrangements (e.g., circular array). A linear array is a vector of N configurable elements and a planar array is a matrix of N×M configurable elements. These configurable elements have the ability to redirect a wave/signal that is incident on the linear or planar array by changing the phase of the wave/signal. The control circuit that enables control of the linear or planar array may be connected to a communications network that base stations and UEs communicating with each other are part of. For example, the network that controls the base station may also provide configuration information to the linear or planar array’, ¶ 0044);
wherein the adjustment matrix is used to perform receiving and/or sending processing on the first node device (‘Fig. 6A shows a simulation of the normalized gain for a channel with a linear array between the transmitter and receiver, where the linear array reflects a beam including four different frequency elements in different assumed directions based on the portions of the array being configured differently, but the reflected beams are overlapping, i.e. each beam covers part of the phase range of one or more adjacent beams’, ¶ 0121).
Haija does not expressly disclose wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information.
However, Taoka discloses wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information (‘according to this method, to the base station apparatus are transmitted a plurality of precoding matrixes defined in a codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission and adjustment coefficients to adjust the plurality of precoding matrixes as the channel information, it is thereby possible to transmit the channel information in response to the actual channel state to the base station apparatus as feedback with higher accuracy as compared with the case of transmitting one precoding weight defined in the codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission, and it is thus possible to perform feedback of the channel information suitable for MU-MIMO transmission’, ¶ 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information’ as disclosed by Taoka into Haija so as to effectively implement codebook that defines codebook suitable for SU-MIMO in wireless communication system, Taoka ¶ 0014.
As to Claim 9, Haija further discloses first indication information for indicating the control node to report the relevant information of the adjustment matrix; and the reporting the relevant information of the adjustment matrix of the first node device, includes: reporting the relevant information of the adjustment matrix according to the first indication information (‘in some discussions in this disclosure, RIS devices may be referred as a set of configurable elements arranged in a linear array or a planar array. Nevertheless, the analysis and discussions are extendable to other two or three dimensional arrangements (e.g., circular array). A linear array is a vector of N configurable elements and a planar array is a matrix of N×M configurable elements. These configurable elements have the ability to redirect a wave/signal that is incident on the linear or planar array by changing the phase of the wave/signal. The control circuit that enables control of the linear or planar array may be connected to a communications network that base stations and UEs communicating with each other are part of. For example, the network that controls the base station may also provide configuration information to the linear or planar array’, ¶ 0044).
As to Claim 10, Haija does not expressly disclose obtaining relevant information of the adjustment matrix indicated by the network side device; wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information, and the adjustment matrix is used to perform receiving and/or sending processing on the first node device; the adjustment matrix of the first node device according to the relevant information of the adjustment matrix; wherein the codebook includes at least one of the following: codebook of matrix WTØWR; codebook of matrix WTWØ; codebook of matrix WRØ; codebook of matrix WT; codebook of matrix Ø;
codebook of matrix WR; codebook of matrix WTØ; or codebook of matrix ØWR; wherein WT is used by the first node device to perform transmission processing on the signal sent to the terminal; WR is used by the first node device to perform receiving process on the signal sent by the network side device, and Ø is used for phase control.
However, Taoka discloses obtaining relevant information of the adjustment matrix indicated by the network side device; wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information, and the adjustment matrix is used to perform receiving and/or sending processing on the first node device (‘according to this method, to the base station apparatus are transmitted a plurality of precoding matrixes defined in a codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission and adjustment coefficients to adjust the plurality of precoding matrixes as the channel information, it is thereby possible to transmit the channel information in response to the actual channel state to the base station apparatus as feedback with higher accuracy as compared with the case of transmitting one precoding weight defined in the codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission, and it is thus possible to perform feedback of the channel information suitable for MU-MIMO transmission’, ¶ 0014); the adjustment matrix of the first node device according to the relevant information of the adjustment matrix; wherein the codebook includes at least one of the following: codebook of matrix WTØWR; codebook of matrix WTWØ; codebook of matrix WRØ; codebook of matrix WT; codebook of matrix Ø; codebook of matrix WR;
codebook of matrix WTØ; or codebook of matrix ØWR; wherein WT is used by the first node device to perform transmission processing on the signal sent to the terminal; WR is used by the first node device to perform receiving process on the signal sent by the network side device, and Ø is used for phase control (‘according to this method, to the base station apparatus are transmitted a plurality of precoding matrixes defined in a codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission and adjustment coefficients to adjust the plurality of precoding matrixes as the channel information, it is thereby possible to transmit the channel information in response to the actual channel state to the base station apparatus as feedback with higher accuracy as compared with the case of transmitting one precoding weight defined in the codebook suitable for SU-MIMO transmission, and it is thus possible to perform feedback of the channel information suitable for MU-MIMO transmission. In precoding in downlink MIMO transmission of the MIMO system as shown in Fig. 1, each of the mobile station apparatuses UE#1 and UE#2 measures a channel variation amount using a reception signal from a reception antenna RX1 or RX2, and based on the measured channel variation amount, selects a PMI corresponding to phase/amplitude control amounts (precoding weights (precoding matrix)) that maximize a reception SINR of transmission data respectively from the transmission antennas TX1 and TX2 of the base station apparatus eNode B’, ¶s 0014 and 0024).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘obtaining relevant information of the adjustment matrix indicated by the network side device; wherein the relevant information of the adjustment matrix includes at least one of codebook or precoding information, and the adjustment matrix is used to perform receiving and/or sending processing on the first node device; the adjustment matrix of the first node device according to the relevant information of the adjustment matrix; wherein the codebook includes at least one of the following: codebook of matrix WTØWR; codebook of matrix WTWØ; codebook of matrix WRØ; codebook of matrix WT; codebook of matrix Ø; codebook of matrix WR; codebook of matrix WTØ; or codebook of matrix ØWR; wherein WT is used by the first node device to perform transmission processing on the signal sent to the terminal; WR is used by the first node device to perform receiving process on the signal sent by the network side device, and Ø is used for phase control’ as disclosed by Taoka into Haija so as to effectively implement codebook that defines codebook suitable for SU-MIMO in wireless communication system, Taoka ¶ 0014.
8. Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haija as disclosed in the IDS, in view of Publication No.: US 2022/0264348 A1 to Manolakos et al. (Manolakos).
As to Claim 5, Haija does not expressly disclose wherein the first measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter; the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate quasi-co-located QCL information of the first measurement resource; the measuring, by the first node device, a first measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement resource configuration information, includes: measuring the first measurement resource according to the indication parameter.
However, Manolakos discloses wherein the first measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter (‘in some examples, base stations may dynamically signal, to UEs, selection of QCL TypeD references for the channel measurement and the interference measurement. UEs may perform the channel measurement based on a first resource setting for the channel measurement and the first set of QCL parameters, and perform the interference measurement based on a second resource setting for the interference measurement and the second set of QCL parameters’, ¶ 0064);
the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate quasi-co-located QCL information of the first measurement resource; the measuring, by the first node device, a first measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement resource configuration information, includes: measuring the first measurement resource according to the indication parameter (‘the report component 820 may receive, from a base station 105, a report configuration including a first set of QCL parameters for channel measurement and a second set of QCL parameters for interference measurement, where at least one QCL reference associated with a first QCL parameter of the first set is different than a QCL reference associated with a second QCL parameter of the second set and transmit, to the base station 105, a generated report based on a channel measurement and an interference measurement’, ¶ 0151).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the first measurement resource configuration information includes at least one indication parameter; the at least one indication parameter is used to indicate quasi-co-located QCL information of the first measurement resource; the measuring, by the first node device, a first measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement resource configuration information, includes: measuring the first measurement resource according to the indication parameter’ as disclosed by Manolakos into Haija so as to effectively manage channel and interference measurement in wireless communication system, Manolakos ¶ 0005.
9. Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haija as disclosed in the IDS, in view of Publication No.: US 2022/0109479 A1 to Liu et al. (Liu).
As to Claim 17, Haija does not expressly disclose the measurement and reporting configuration information further includes: reception filter information of the terminal.
However, Liu discloses reception filter information of the terminal (‘as an example, the device applies a reception filter to an incoming message to receive the message. Applying a reception filter to an incoming message involves applying the reception filter as the receiving combiner for receiving the message, for example. To illustrate the use of the reception filter for receiving the message, consider a situation with the individual channel representations and the obtained one channel representation have dimension of n×p, where n is the number of receiving ports at the device for receiving and p is number of transmit ports/layers/streams of the RS/message to receive’, ¶ 0183).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘reception filter information of the terminal’ as disclosed by Liu into Haija so as to effectively mitigate overhead in wireless communication system, Liu ¶ 0208.
Conclusion
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GBEMILEKE J ONAMUTI whose telephone number is (571)270-5619. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
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/GBEMILEKE J ONAMUTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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