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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-6, 11, and 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohwatari et al. (US 2009/0280855) in view of Sampath et al. (US 2018/0167897).
Referring to Claim 1, Ohwatari teaches a method for performing mapping between one or more radio modules and one or more radiofrequency (RF) groups, wherein the one or more radio modules correspond to one or more antennas of an electronic device (see fig. 1 which shows modules 11 to go along with antennas #1-#M), respectively, and the method comprises:
separating the one or more radio modules into the one or more RF groups according to one or more messages, wherein the one or more messages comprise a previous transmitting (TX) power ratio, a TX power ratio margin, one or more weighting information, one or more TX performance indices, one or more receiving (RX) performance indices, one or more configurations, or one or more usage scenarios (see paragraph 13 which shows transmitters divided into groups according to transmit power which equates to TX power ratio, TX performance indices, and configurations);
determining at least one TX power limit corresponding to the at least one RF group for determining at least one TX power limit of at least one antenna among the one or more antennas (see paragraphs 103 and 104 which shows the process for determining power limits for the transmit antennas).
Ohwatari does not teach accumulating RF exposure of the one or more radio modules to at least one RF group among the one or more RF groups; and determining the power limit according to accumulated RF exposure of the at least one RF group. Sampath teaches accumulating RF exposure of the one or more radio modules to at least one RF group among the one or more RF groups; and determining the power limit according to accumulated RF exposure of the at least one RF group (see paragraph 40 which shows the process of determining a power limit according to RF exposure). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Sampath to the device of Ohwatari in order to more efficiently allocate power when using multiple antennas.
Claim 11 has similar limitations as claim 1.
Referring to Claims 4 and 14, Sampath also teaches the one or more messages comprising the one or more TX performance indices, comprising a modulation and coding scheme (see paragraph 68 and 69 which shows MCS, RB and target power further noting that the other limitations have no patentable weight since “at least one of” was used).
Referring to Claims 5 and 15, Sampath also teaches the one or more messages comprising the one or more RX performance indices, comprising a duty cycle of RX (see paragraph 40 which shows the second receiving apparatus using duty cycle and MCS further noting that the other limitations have no patentable weight since “at least one of” was used).
Referring to Claims 6 and 16, Sampath also teaches the one or more messages comprising the one or more configurations related to a maximum power reduction (MPR) (see paragraph 68 which shows MPR further noting that the other limitations have no patentable weight since “at least one of” was used).
Claim(s) 2, 3, 7-10, 12, 13, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohwatari and Sampath and further in view of Nadakuduti et al. (US 2023/0139016).
Referring to Claims 2 and 12, the combination of Ohwatari and Sampath does not teach separating the one or more radio modules into the one or more RF groups according to the antenna configuration. Nadakuduti teaches separating the one or more radio modules into the one or more RF groups according to the antenna configuration (see paragraph 100 which shows antenna groups according to antenna configuration). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Nadakuduti to the device of Ohwatari and Sampath in order to more accurately evaluate signals from all antenna elements.
Referring to Claims 3 and 13, Nadakuduti also teaches the antenna configuration related to a specific absorption rate to peak location separation ratio (SPLSR) (see paragraph 151 which shows SPLSR).
Referring to Claims 7 and 17, Nadakuduti also teaches determining at least one active body part from the one or more body parts according to the one or more messages; and accumulating the RF exposure to at least one active RF group corresponding to the at least one active body part, wherein the at least one active RF group is comprised in the one or more RF groups (see fig. 16 which shows accumulating RF exposure associated with parts on a human body). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Nadakuduti to the device of Ohwatari and Sampath in order to more accurately evaluate signals from all antenna elements.
Referring to Claims 8 and 18, Nadakuduti also teaches a first body part and a second body part (see fig. 12 which shows multiple body parts); and the step of determining the at least one active body part from the one or more body parts according to the one or more messages comprises:
in response to the first body part and the second body part being close to the electronic device, determining the first body part and the second body part as the at least one active body part (see fig. 16 which shows accumulating RF exposure associated with more than one parts on a human body).
Referring to Claims 9 and 19, Nadakuduti also teaches a first active RF group corresponding to the first body part, and a second active RF group corresponding to the second body part (see paragraph 180 which shows each body part having a different antenna or antenna group which transmits independently); and the step of accumulating the RF exposure to the at least one active RF group corresponding to the at least one active body part comprises:
simultaneously and separately accumulating the RF exposure to the first active RF group and the second active RF group (see paragraph 95 which shows simultaneous exposure and simultaneous transmission and paragraph 180 which shows each antenna group collecting exposure for different body parts).
Referring to Claims 10 and 20, Nadakuduti also teaches the one or more messages comprising the one or more usage scenarios comprising a phone call scenario (see paragraph 169 which shows two call scenarios further noting that the other limitations have no patentable weight since “at least one of” was used). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Nadakuduti to the device of Ohwatari and Sampath in order to more accurately evaluate signals from all antenna elements.
Conclusion
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/EUGENE YUN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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