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 Objections
Claims 17 and 19 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 17, “…and the plurality of access point elements;” in lines 2 – 3 should be corrected to “…and a plurality of access point elements;”. Appropriate correction is required.
In claim 19, “…and the plurality of access point elements;” in lines 3 – 4 should be corrected to “…and a plurality of access point elements;”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 17 – 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Thomas et al (“Hybrid Beamforming Design in Multi-Cell MU-MIMO Systems with Per-RF or Per-Antenna Power Constraints”, Eurecom, 2018 IEEE 88th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall)).
Re claim 17, Thomas teaches of a method comprising: estimating an effective channel (effective channel Hk,bkVbk, equation 1 of Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) between at least one user equipment (K users, Col 1, Page 2) and a plurality of access point elements (BS bi, Col 1, Page 2, Mc is the number of RF chains at the basestation, Col 1, Page 2); designing a short-term precoder for the effective channel (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3), the short-tern precoder being designed by solving a coverage maximization problem (WSR maximization, Col 2, Page 2 and equation 2) under a sum power constraint (SPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) and at least one per-antenna power constraint (PAPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Col 1, Page 3) (In contrast to the conventional (sum-)power constraint (SPC) on the base station (BS), this paper considers a more realistic scenario with additionally per-RF or per-antenna power constraints (PRFPC/PAPC), Col 1, Page 1), wherein the sum power constraint ensures that a total transmitted power by the plurality of access point elements remains below a first threshold (total Tx power constraints need to be satisfied,
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), and wherein the at least one per-antenna power constraint ensured that a transmitted power for each of at least one of the plurality of access point elements remains below a respective second threshold (equation 19, Page 3,
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; and using the short-term precoder (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2) for two-stage beamforming (Hybrid beamforming (HBF) is a two-stage architecture in which the BF is constructed by concatenation of a low-dimensional precoder (digital BF) and an analog BF, Col 1, Page 1).
Re claim 18, Thomas teaches of further comprising: formulating the coverage maximization problem under the sum power constraint and the at least one per-antenna power constraint as a convex problem (convex optimization, Page 3, Col 2 and E. Algorithm Convergence, Page 4).
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.
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.
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, 5 – 6, 12, 14 – 16 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas et al (“Hybrid Beamforming Design in Multi-Cell MU-MIMO Systems with Per-RF or Per-Antenna Power Constraints”, Eurecom, 2018 IEEE 88th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall)) in view of Shany et al (US 2011/0210892).
Re claim 1, Thomas teaches of estimating an effective channel (effective channel Hk,bkVbk, equation 1 of Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) between at least one user equipment (K users, Col 1, Page 2) and a plurality of access point elements (BS bi, Col 1, Page 2, Mc is the number of RF chains at the basestation, Col 1, Page 2); designing a short-term precoder for the effective channel (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3), the short-tern precoder being designed by solving a coverage maximization problem (WSR maximization, Col 2, Page 2 and equation 2) under a sum power constraint (SPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) and at least one per-antenna power constraint (PAPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Col 1, Page 3) (In contrast to the conventional (sum-)power constraint (SPC) on the base station (BS), this paper considers a more realistic scenario with additionally per-RF or per-antenna power constraints (PRFPC/PAPC), Col 1, Page 1), wherein the sum power constraint ensures that a total transmitted power by the plurality of access point elements remains below a first threshold (total Tx power constraints need to be satisfied,
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), and wherein the at least one per-antenna power constraint ensured that a transmitted power for each of at least one of the plurality of access point elements remains below a respective second threshold (equation 19, Page 3,
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; and using the short-term precoder (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2) for two-stage beamforming (Hybrid beamforming (HBF) is a two-stage architecture in which the BF is constructed by concatenation of a low-dimensional precoder (digital BF) and an analog BF, Col1, Page 1). However, Thomas does not specifically teach of an apparatus, comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code; the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform the operations.
Shany teaches of an apparatus (#110, Fig.1), comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code; the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform operations (Paragraph 0138).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the device comprise a processor and a memory configured to store program instructions to be executed by the processor for high-speed data access and reducing latency.
Re claim 2, Thomas teaches of wherein the operations further comprise: formulating the coverage maximization problem under the sum power constraint and the at least one per-antenna power constraint as a convex optimization problem (convex optimization, Page 3, Col 2 and E. Algorithm Convergence, Page 4).
Re claim 5, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1, as well as Shany teaches of wherein the operations further comprise: determining a per-antenna power adjustment matrix (
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, Paragraph 0043) satisfying the at least one per-antenna power constraint by equality for at least one antenna of a plurality of antennas (Paragraphs 0043 and 0103); and using the short-term precoder (b, Fig.3) and the per-antenna power adjustment matrix for the two-stage beamforming (two stage as taught by Thomas).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have determined a per-antenna power adjustment matrix satisfying the at least one per-antenna power constraint as well as other constraints.
Re claim 6, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1, as well as Shany teaches of wherein designing the short-term precoder comprises setting the short-term precoder as a maximum ratio transmission solution (MRC, Paragraphs 0010 – 0013).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have set the short-term precoder as a maximum ratio transmission solution so as to maximize the signal quality at the transmitter
Re claim 12, Thomas teaches of wherein the operations further comprise: determining a long-term precoder (analog BF Vc for base station, Col 1, Page 2); and using the short-term precoder and the long-term precoder for the two-stage beamforming (Hybrid beamforming (HBF) is a two-stage architecture in which the BF is constructed by concatenation of a low-dimensional precoder (digital BF) and an analog BF, Col1, Page 1).
Re claim 14, Thomas teaches of wherein the second threshold is based on an operating range of a power amplifier associated with the access point element (each RF chain is equipped with a power amplifier and its linear range of the PA combined with Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), Col 2, Page 1).
Re claim 15, Thomas teaches of wherein the plurality of access point elements comprises one or more of: a plurality of antennas, a plurality of panels (Mc is the number of RF chains, Col 1, Page 2 and each RF chain is connected to a subset of antennas, Col 1, Page 4), or a plurality of access points (BS bi, Col 1, Page 2),
Re claim 16, Thomas teaches of wherein the coverage maximization problem is under a per-antenna power constraint for each access point element (Nt, equation 19), wherein, for each access point element, the per-antenna power constraint ensured that a transmitted power for the access point element remains below a respective second threshold (equation 19, ai, i=1,…,Ntc).
Re claim 19, Thomas teaches of estimating an effective channel (effective channel Hk,bkVbk, equation 1 of Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) between at least one user equipment (K users, Col 1, Page 2) and a plurality of access point elements (BS bi, Col 1, Page 2, Mc is the number of RF chains at the basestation, Col 1, Page 2); designing a short-term precoder for the effective channel (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3), the short-tern precoder being designed by solving a coverage maximization problem (WSR maximization, Col 2, Page 2 and equation 2) under a sum power constraint (SPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Algorithm 2 in Page 3) and at least one per-antenna power constraint (PAPC, Col 2, Page 1 and Col 1, Page 3) (In contrast to the conventional (sum-)power constraint (SPC) on the base station (BS), this paper considers a more realistic scenario with additionally per-RF or per-antenna power constraints (PRFPC/PAPC), Col 1, Page 1), wherein the sum power constraint ensures that a total transmitted power by the plurality of access point elements remains below a first threshold (total Tx power constraints need to be satisfied,
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), and wherein the at least one per-antenna power constraint ensured that a transmitted power for each of at least one of the plurality of access point elements remains below a respective second threshold (equation 19, Page 3,
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; and using the short-term precoder (Mc ×dk digital BF is Gk, Col 1, Page 2) for two-stage beamforming (Hybrid beamforming (HBF) is a two-stage architecture in which the BF is constructed by concatenation of a low-dimensional precoder (digital BF) and an analog BF, Col1, Page 1). However, Thomas does not specifically teach of a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions that, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform the operations.
Shany teaches of a non-transitory computer readable medium (Paragraphs 0063 and 0138) comprising program instructions that, when executed by an apparatus (#110, Fig.1), cause the apparatus to perform the operations.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for the efficient execution of computer operations.
Claims 3 – 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas and Shany in view of Shahsavari et al (“On the Optimal Two-Antenna Static Beamforming With Per-Antenna Power Constraints”, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, Vol. 26, No. 9, September 2019)
Re claim 3, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1 except of wherein the operations further comprise: reformulating the coverage maximization problem by matrix lifting.
Shahsavari teaches of reformulating the coverage maximization problem by matrix lifting (semi-definite relaxation, Page 2, the "lifted" matrix 𝐗=𝐰𝐰𝐻 is relaxed from a rank-one constraint to a positive semidefinite constraint).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to convexify non-convex optimization problem for effectively designing optimal beamformers.
Re claim 4, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1 except of wherein the operations further comprise: reformulating the coverage maximization problem by relaxing at least one rank-one constraint.
Shahsavari teaches of reformulating the coverage maximization problem by relaxing at least one rank-one constraint (Rank(X)=1, Page 2).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have relaxed at least one rank-one constraint so as to transform the non-convex optimization problem into a convex one.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas and Shany in view of Shany et al (US 2012/0063336) (Shany(2)).
Re claim 7, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1 as well as Shany teaches of estimating a signal-to-noise ratio (Paragraph 0045). However, Thomas and Shany do not specifically teach of selecting a modulation-coding scheme based on the estimated signal-to-noise ratio.
Shany(2) teaches of estimating a signal-to-noise ratio (goodness measure, Paragraph 0061); and selecting a modulation-coding scheme based on the estimated signal-to-noise ratio (#710, Fig.7 and Paragraphs 0023 and 0123).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have used the estimated signal-to-noise ratio to efficiently select a modulation-coding scheme.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas, Shany and Shany(2) in view of Zhang et al (“Deep Learning Enabled Optimization of Downlink Beamforming Under Per-Antenna Power Constraints: Algorithms and Experimental Demonstration”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, Vol. 19, No. 6, June 2020).
Re claim 9, Thomas, Shany and Shany(2) teach all the limitations of claim 7, except of wherein estimating the signal-to-noise ratio comprises: using a deep neural network to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio, wherein the deep neural network takes one or more of the following as input: a location of a user equipment, an estimation of the effective channel, a first signal-to-noise ratio value and a corresponding power distribution for a first baseline which uses maximum ratio transmission as short-term precoder and linear scaling to satisfy the at least one per-antenna power constraint, or a second signal-to-noise ratio value for a second baseline which uses maximum ratio transmission as the short-term precoder and linear scaling to only satisfy the sum power constraint.
Zhang teaches of estimating the signal-to-noise ratio comprises: using a deep neural network to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio (Fig.2, Page 3739, Col 2, Page 3744, and Figures 4 – 5), wherein the deep neural network takes one or more of the following as input: a location of a user equipment, an estimation of the effective channel (equation 29), a first signal-to-noise ratio value and a corresponding power distribution for a first baseline which uses maximum ratio transmission as short-term precoder and linear scaling to satisfy the at least one per-antenna power constraint, or a second signal-to-noise ratio value for a second baseline which uses maximum ratio transmission as the short-term precoder and linear scaling to only satisfy the sum power constraint.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have used a deep neural network having as input an estimation of the effective channel to dramatically improve the computational efficiency of estimating the signal-to-noise ratio.
Claims 10 – 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas and Shany in view of Zhang.
Re claims 10 – 11, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1, except of wherein the coverage maximization problem is to maximize a minimum signal-to-noise ratio over a plurality of user equipments.
Zhang teaches of wherein the coverage maximization problem is to maximize a minimum signal-to-noise ratio over a plurality of user equipments (Col 2, Page 3740 and Col 1, Page 3741).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the coverage maximization problem maximize a minimum signal-to-noise ratio over a plurality of user equipments to guarantee the best possible performance.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas and Shany in view of Nguyen et al (“An Efficient Precoder Design for Multiuser MIMO Cognitive Radio Networks with Interference Constraints”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol.66, Iss.5, May 2017).
Re claim 13, Thomas and Shany teach all the limitations of claim 1, except of wherein the first threshold is based on a maximum tolerated amount of interference generated by the plurality of access point elements.
Nguyen teaches of a first threshold is based on a maximum tolerated amount of interference generated by the plurality of access point elements (equation 3d, Page 3993 and Appendix).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the first threshold be based on a maximum tolerated amount of interference generated by the plurality of access point elements for enhancing the channel capacity of MIMO networks.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is 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
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/ARISTOCRATIS FOTAKIS/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633