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
Claim 14 is objected to because of the following informalities: the claim recites two articles “…conducting the a frequency...” It should be “the” based on claim 13. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 1-2,7 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a) (1) as being anticipated by Sen et al. (hereinafter Sen) US 2020/0344776 A1.
Regarding Claim 1, Sen teaches an apparatus comprising:
at least one processor;
and at least one memory for storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (Fig. 3 & ¶0006), cause the apparatus at least to perform:
obtaining information about a plurality of user equipments (UEs) to be scheduled for a communication in a communication network ([0038] "In an embodiment of the invention, TD scheduler 302 comprising load balancing andspatial orthogonality-based pruning of beams functionalities may provideeach FD scheduler a subset of terminal devices to be frequency-scheduled,",whereby the sum of terminals from all of the FD schedulers corresponds to the plurality of UEs to be scheduled, and it is implicit that the apparatus first obtains information about those UEs to be scheduled as it is selecting those UEs for scheduling),
generating two or more UE sublists by splitting the plurality of UEs and placing each of the plurality of UEs into at least one UE sublist ([0038] as above whereby the subset of terminals allocated for a FD scheduler corresponds to a UE sublist, and fig.3 for the 1, 2, n FD schedulers),
the splitting being based on a processing considering an interference parameter (see the spatial orthogonality-based pruning of beams in [0038] as above, and [0051] The beam separation criteria (i.e., a threshold value) may also be defined based on the amount of interference a beam causes to other beams in terms of beamforming gain taking into account sidelobes of the beam. A beam is considered non-orthogonal to another beam if the defined one or more threshold values for the angular separation and/or the amount of interference is exceeded.", and figs. 7-10 for the users allocated to each FD scheduler according to the beams producing less interference to the neighboring subcells),
dividing available communication resources of the communication network in accordance with the generated two or more UE sublists and allocating a part of the resources to each of the UE sub list ([038] "In an embodiment of the invention, TD scheduler 302 comprising load balancing and spatial orthogonality-based pruning of beams functionalities may provide each FD scheduler [..] and a set of resources, e.g., physical resource blocks (PRBs), to be frequency-scheduled" and [037] TD scheduler 302 may be configured to allocate orthogonal frequency resources to two or more FD schedulers 303, 304, 305.", meaning that each FD scheduler is allocated a part of the resources),
executing a parallelization of scheduling processing by generating one processing thread per each UE sublist, and conducting a scheduling processing for each UE sublist in the corresponding processing thread (fig.3 the parallel scheduling using each FD scheduler and [033] "The scheduling unit 301 further comprises a common time-domain (TD) scheduler 302 providing time-scheduling using at least one core of the TD scheduler 302 and two or more parallel frequency-domain (FD) schedulers 303, 304, 305 allowing for independent frequency-scheduling operations in each core of each FD scheduler 303, 304, 305").
Regarding claim 2, Sen further teaches the apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: conducting a pre-scheduling processing in which a specified number of UEs being eligible for scheduling in each communication slot is selected, wherein the information about the plurality of UEs is obtained as a result of the pre-scheduling processing (Figs. 7-10 & ¶0052-¶0056; selecting the UEs and the corresponding beams that are to be scheduled using TD and FD [pre-scheduling processing]).
Regarding Claim 7, Sen further teaches the apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: when each UE is placed into a UE sublist, checking if any of the two or more UE sublists comprises a higher number of UEs than the others of the two or more UE sublists, if at least one of the two or more UE sublists comprises a higher number of UEs, conducting a balancing processing for balancing a workload of each processing thread generated per each of the two or more UE sublists to each other (¶0061; ".. In the second alternative operation, the access node splits the workload of one or more heavily loaded FD schedulers (cores) across frequency domain to split parts of the workload and allocates one split part of the workload to the unused FD scheduler", for a workload balancing, the workload in each FD scheduler being implicitly based on a number of UEs to be scheduled in each FD scheduled. Also see Fig. 10 with the number of UEs in each subcell)
Claims 16-17 are substantially similar to the above claims, thus the same rationale applies.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 3,6,11,13-14 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sen in view of CN 102420645 hereinafter ZTE (IDS filed 12/2/2024 third entry under FOR).
Regarding claim 3, Sen further teaches the apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: using, for the processing considering the interference parameter used for generating the two or more UE sublists, or a processing based on a beam-to-beam interference parameter (¶0038 & ¶0051; spatial orthogonality based pruning of beams [beam to beam interference parameter]).
Sen does not expressly teach “…a processing based on a correlation matrix…”
ZTE teaches “…a processing based on a correlation matrix…” (¶0023; for MU-MIMO precoding in the ZF precoding mode, the MU-MIMO user pairing principle is the correlation between the precoding vectors fed back by two users is less than the set threshold [correlation matrix]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed limitation to incorporate the teachings of ZTE into the system of Sen in order to drastic reduction of multi-user interference and pilot sounding overhead (common knowledge). By filtering out unviable or highly correlated beam paths early, the network drastically speeds up real-time beam management and maximizes spatial multiplexing efficiency. Id.
Regarding Claim 6, Sen in view of ZTE teaches the apparatus according to claim 3, Sen further teaches wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: when using, for the processing considering the interference parameter used for generating the two or more UE sublists, a processing based on a beam-to-beam interference parameter, obtaining a predetermined interference parameter defining statically a beam-to-beam interference related to an antenna array network used for communication of the UEs, and placing a UE in a corresponding one of the two or more UE sublists on the basis of a comparison of the obtained predetermined interference parameter for each UE (¶0051; The beam separation criteria (i.e., a threshold value)" corresponding to the interference parameter defining statically a beam to beam interference, and [0029] "FIG. 2 illustrates the access node 101 as illustrated also in FIG. 1 and the beams 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208 producible by its MIMO antenna array" for the antenna array, whereby the UEs placed in each FD scheduler are in spatially orthogonal beams between the subcells).
Regarding Claim 11, Sen in view of ZTE teaches the apparatus according to claim 1, Sen further teaches wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: when dividing the available communication resources of the communication network in accordance with the generated two or more UE sublists, determining the part of the resources to be allocated to each of the UE sublist by considering at least one of the following: an accumulated amount of data to be transmitted to the UEs in each UE sublist, presence of traffic having a guaranteed bitrate and traffic having not a guaranteed bitrate, wherein traffic having a guaranteed bitrate is prioritized in resource allocation, or a determination result of a current buffer size of active UEs, wherein required resources for newly arrived data are estimated (this limitation is obvious from Sen and ZTE because dividing the communication resources depending on the accumulated data to be transmitted to the UEs / GBR / NonGBR traffic).
Regarding Claim 13, Sen in view of ZTE teaches the apparatus according to claim 1, Sen further teaches wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: conducting, in each generated processing thread per each UE sublist, the following: a time division scheduling processing, a multi-user pairing processing in which the UEs contained in one UE sublist are paired on the basis of the interference parameter, a signal processing related to antenna relay network properties, a zero-forcing processing, a beam forming processing, a frequency division multiplexing processing, or a resource block group allocation (obvious from the cited paragraphs in claim 1 where you see the frequency division multiplexing of each FD scheduler).
Regarding Claim 14, Sen in view of ZTE teaches the apparatus according to claim 13, ZTE further teaches wherein the multi-user pairing processing is conducted before conducting the a frequency division multiplexing processing (¶039; "In user selection and pairing, according to the MU-MIMO user pairing principle,
the PMI information fed back by the receiver is used to select users with low
channel correlation and preprocess the transmission information of different
users.")).
Claim 18 is substantially similar to the above claims, thus the same rationale applies.
Claims NOT Rejected Over the Prior Art
Claims 4-5, 8-10, 12, 15 and 19-20 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. Prior art rejections have not been provided for claims 4-5, 8-10, 12, 15 and 19-20 as the claims include a combination of subject matter not disclosed by the prior art of record.
Conclusion
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MAHRAN ABU ROUMI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2455
/MAHRAN Y ABU ROUMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
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