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 .
Priority
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e).
Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 11, 19, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al (USPN 20240259158) in view of Lim et al (USPN 20210336820).
Regarding claim 19, Wang discloses
a user equipment (UE) for transmitting a sounding reference signal (SRS), the UE comprising: (UE, FIG. 8 #802, comprising [0171-0180]
a transceiver configured to: (combined transmit/receive circuitry (FIG. 8 #818, 820, operable to
receive, from a base station (BS), a configuration for a transmission comb-specific SRS sequence (receive RRC containing “transmissioncomb” configuring comb-specific SRS sequence [0018-0020, 0024-0036]
at least one processor operably coupled to the transceiver, the at least one processor configured to generate an SRS based on the configuration (processor, FIG. 8 #814 #812, coupled to processor, to generate SRS sequence based on “transmissioncomb” indicated in RRC [0018-0020], Equations 1-21
wherein the transceiver is further configured to: transmit, to the BS, the SRS (transceiver transmitting SRS to base station [0095-0100], FIG. 11
receive, from the BS, an uplink grant including an indication of precoder based on the SRS, wherein the SRS is measured to select the precoder (gNB measuring SRS and indicate one or several SRIs/SRS resource indicators which UE can select from [0101, 0102]
Wang does not expressly disclose “receive, from the BS, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration”
Lim discloses receive, from the BS, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration (SRS request field in DCI [0141, 0142, 0171]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “receive, from the BS, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration” as taught by Lim into Wang’s system with the motivation to allow base station to measure quality (Wang, paragraph [0003, 0004, 0145])
Claim 1 is rejected based on similar ground(s) provided in rejection of claim 19.
Regarding claim 20, Wang discloses
a base station (BS) for receiving a sounding reference signal (SRS), the BS comprising: (base station, FIG. 8 #802, comprising [0180]
a processor configured to generate a configuration (processor, FIG. 8 #834 832 [0017, 0018, 0175, 0180], FIGs. 2A, 2B
a transceiver operably coupled to the processor, the transceiver configured to: transmit, to a user equipment (UE), a configuration for a transmission comb-specific SRS sequence (combined transmit/receive circuitry, FIG. 8 #838 840, operable to transmit RRC containing “transmissioncomb” configuring comb-specific SRS sequence [0018-0020, 0024-0036]
receive, from the UE, the SRS (transceiver receiving SRS from UE [0095-0100], FIG. 11
transmit, to the UE, an uplink grant including an indication of precoder based on the SRS, wherein the SRS is measured to select the precoder (gNB measuring SRS and indicate one or several SRIs/SRS resource indicators which UE can select from [0101, 0102]
Wang does not expressly disclose “transmit, to the UE, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration”
Lim discloses transmit, to the UE, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration (SRS request field in DCI [0141, 0142, 0171]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “transmit, to the UE, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration” as taught by Lim into Wang’s system with the motivation to allow base station to measure quality (Wang, paragraph [0003, 0004, 0145])
Regarding claim 2, Wang discloses “wherein the configuration includes a number of SRS ports” number of SRS ports [0018, 0024], “SRS transmission comb indexes” transmissioncomb [0018, 0019], “and one or more sets of parameters n.sub.ID.sup.λ.sup.p.sup.,SRS specific for each transmission comb” comb offset # [0034-0035], Table 3
Regarding claim 11, Wang discloses “wherein the transmission comb-specific SRS sequence is determined by multiple radio resource control (RRC) configuration parameters that are independently configured for each transmission comb” multiple independently-configured RRC parameters per comb [0026-0034]
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Lim as applied to claim 1, and in further view of Choi et al (USPN 20200092055).
Regarding claim 12, combined system of Wang and Lim does not expressly disclose “wherein the transmission comb-specific SRS sequence is determined by a single SRS parameter and a transmission comb offset”
Choi discloses calculating a first root value for generation of an SRS sequence using a terminal-specific SRS identifier, and calculating a second root value for generation of an SRS sequence based on the calculated first root value and a root offset value [0118, 0121], Abstract
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “wherein the transmission comb-specific SRS sequence is determined by a single SRS parameter and a transmission comb offset” as taught by Choi into combined system of Wang and Lim with the motivation to implement SRS generation as described to improve flexible utilization of uplink resources (Choi, paragraph [0021, 0022])
Claims 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Lim as applied to claim 1, and in further view of Khoshnevisan et al (USPN 20230318768).
Regarding claim 15, combined system of Wang and Lim does not expressly disclose “wherein the transmission comb-specific SRS sequence depends on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol index in a slot”
Khoshnevisan discloses group/sequence hopping “pseudo-randomly selected in every OFDM symbol of SRS resource [0103, 0104]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “receive, from the BS, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration” as taught by Lim into Wang’s system with the motivation to allow base station to measure quality (Wang, paragraph [0003, 0004, 0145])
Regarding claim 16, combined system of Wang and Lim does not expressly disclose “wherein the transmission comb-specific SRS sequence depends on a slot index”
Khoshnevisan discloses sequency index v may pseudo-randomly selected in every OFDM symbol of SRS resource and in every slot occupied by the resource [0104]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “receive, from the BS, an indication to transmit an SRS based on the configuration” as taught by Lim into Wang’s system with the motivation to allow base station to measure quality (Wang, paragraph [0003, 0004, 0145])
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Lim as applied to claim 1, and in further view of Choi et al (USPN 20190109732), hereafter Choi’732.
Regarding claim 18, combined system of Wang and Lim does not expressly disclose “wherein multiple comb-specific transmission parameters are configured by a radio resource control (RRC), and an actual set of parameters is indicated by downlink control information (DCI)”
Choi’732 discloses TC/transmission comb, TC offset are part of RRC configured sequency parameter set and DCI dynamically indicates which set is actually applied [0182, 0186-0188, 0196-0197]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement “wherein multiple comb-specific transmission parameters are configured by a radio resource control (RRC), and an actual set of parameters is indicated by downlink control information (DCI)” as taught by Choi’732 into combined system of Wang and Lim with the motivation to enable UE to transmit SRS sequence parameter interlocked with a frequency hopping pattern among SRS sequency parameters (Choi’732, paragraph [0011])
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10, 13, 14, 17 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yoo et al (USPN 20190158236) FIG. 5
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/THAI NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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