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 .
Title Objection
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MODERATOR (HUAWEI): "Moderator Summary for Rel. 17 NR FeMIMO maintenance: CSI Enhancement (Round 1)", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2207878, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX; FRANCE, vol. RAN WG1, no. Toulouse, France; 20220822 - 20220826 28 August 2022 (2022-08-28) (from IDS filed by Applicant on 3/28/25) in view of Rahman US 20240421889
1. An apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment, UE (NPL: implicitly disclosed, see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "for this issue, the latest UE capability does provide a great flexibility"), comprising:
[[one or more memories; and one or more processors, coupled to the one or more memories,]] individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to:
receive one or more channel state information, CSI, reference signals, CSI-RSs, at greater than 32 ports (NPL: Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "(Hybrid CS) Component 2: List of {max number of ports per resource, max number of resources, max number of total ports} for each codebook combination: {2,4,8,12,16,24,32}, {1 to 64}, {4 to 256}"), wherein each CSI-RS of the one or more CSI-RSs is from a group of channel measurement resources, CMRs, that includes two or more CMRs specified for the group of CMRs (NPL: Issue #2, p. 4, vivo contribution: "If the UE is configured with a CSI-ReportConfig [...] the corresponding NZP-CSI-RS-ResourceSet for channel measurement is configured with ≥ 2 resources, two Resource Groups with K₁ ≥ 1 resources in Group 1, K₂≥ 1 resources in Group 2, K₁ + K₂ = Kₛ, and Resource Pairs: - each resource can contain, subject to UE capability, at most 32 CSI-RS ports. For two Resource Groups with K₁ resources (i=1,2), if max{K₁, K₂} = 2, each resource in NZP-CSI-RS-ResourceSet shall contain at most 16 CSI-RS ports. If 2 < max{ 1, 2} < 8, each resource in NZP-CSI-RS-ResourceSet shall contain at most 8 CSI-RS ports."); and transmit a CSI report associated with measurements of the one or more CSI-RSs received via the group of CMRs (NPL: Issue #2, p. 4, vivo contribution: "If the UE is configured with a CSI- ReportConfig").
NPL merely disclose the term “one or more memories; and one or more processors”
Rahman further teaches the term one or more memories; and one or more processors (Rahman: fig. 2-3 unit 230 & 224)
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into NPL’s invention in order to determine the CSI report based on a codebook associated with P_CSIRS CSI-RS ports aggregated across the K NZP CSI-RS resources, as taught by Rahman.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each CMR of the group of CMRs is mapped to a range of port indices, and different CMRs of the group of CMRs are mapped to different port indices (NPL: see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "max number of total ports {4 to 256}”; Rahman: table 2 [0190, 0259] S={64, 96, 128}).
3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the range of port indices includes up to 32 port indices (NPL: see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "max number of total ports {4 to 256}”; Rahman: table 2 [0190, 0259] S={64, 96, 128}).
4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs includes two CMRs specified for the group of CMRs in accordance with the one or more CSI-RSs that each use up to 64 ports (NPL: see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "max number of total ports {4 to 256}”; Rahman: table 2 [0190, 0259] S={64, 96, 128}).
5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs includes three CMRs specified for the group of CMRs in accordance with the one or more CSI-RSs that each use up to 96 ports (NPL: see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "max number of total ports {4 to 256}”; Rahman: table 2 [0190, 0259] S={64, 96, 128}).
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs includes four CMRs specified for the group of CMRs in accordance with the one or more CSI-RSs that each use up to 128 ports (NPL: implicitly disclosed, see Issue #2, p. 3, [Mod] contribution: "for this issue, the latest UE capability does provide a great flexibility"; Rahman: table 2 [0190, 0259] S={64, 96, 128}).
Claim(s) 7-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MODERATOR (HUAWEI): “NPL” in view of Rahman US 20240421889 further in view of MATSUMURA WO 2025099865
7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs is specified in stored configuration information (MATSUMURA: Rel. 17 - By RRC signaling, the CSI-ReportConfig for Rel. 17 non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT) CSI configures the CMR and the CSI reporting mode (csi-ReportMode))
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into NPL’s invention in order to indicates, by RRC signaling, the N (N=1,2) CMR pairs actually used for NCJT measurement by indicating one CMR from each CMR group, as taught by MATSUMURA.
8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to receive an indication that specifies the CMRs in the group of CMRs (Rahman: table 2 [052-0160] The value of N.sub.g can be configured, e.g., via higher layer RRC parameter; MATSUMURA: Rel. 17 - By RRC signaling, the CSI-ReportConfig for Rel. 17 non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT) CSI configures the CMR and the CSI reporting mode (csi-ReportMode)).
9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the indication includes a radio resource control message (Rahman: table 2 [052-0160] The value of N.sub.g can be configured, e.g., via higher layer RRC parameter; MATSUMURA: Rel. 17 - By RRC signaling, the CSI-ReportConfig for Rel. 17 non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT) CSI configures the CMR and the CSI reporting mode (csi-ReportMode)).
10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs is mapped to an interference measurement resource (IMR) (Rahman: table 2 [0155] (one-to-one mapping) and (many-to-one mapping); MATSUMURA: Option 4-2, 4-4: Only one IMR is configured for all multiple CMRs).
11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the group of CMRs and the IMR are included in a CMR-IMR bundle (Rahman: table 2 [0155] (one-to-one mapping) and (many-to-one mapping); MATSUMURA: Option 4-2, 4-4: Only one IMR is configured for all multiple CMRs).
12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the CMR-IMR bundle is specified in stored configuration information (Rahman: table 2 [0155] (one-to-one mapping) and (many-to-one mapping); MATSUMURA: Option 4-2, 4-4: Only one IMR is configured for all multiple CMRs).
13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively configured to cause the UE to receive an indication that specifies the CMR-IMR bundle (Rahman: table 2 [0155] (one-to-one mapping) and (many-to-one mapping); MATSUMURA: Option 4-2, 4-4: Only one IMR is configured for all multiple CMRs).
14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the group of CMRs is bundled with multiple IMRs, and wherein a quantity of the group of CMRs is greater than a quantity of the multiple IMRs (Rahman: table 2 [0155] (one-to-one mapping) and (many-to-one mapping); MATSUMURA: Option 4-5: Multiple CMRs and multiple IMRs are mapped one-to-one).
15. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the group of CMRs collectively includes a number of ports that is equal to the number of CSI-RS ports (Rahman: [0152] When K=1, there is one CMR comprising P_CSIRS CSI-RS antenna ports; MATSUMURA: In Rel. 17: two CMR groups corresponding to each of the two TRPs are configured).
Regarding claims 16-20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-15, where the difference used is a “apparatus” with a processor and a memory (Rahman: fig. 2-3 unit 230 & 224) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims arid interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sulaiman Nooristany whose telephone number is (571) 270-1929. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9 to 5. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski, can be reached on (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/SULAIMAN NOORISTANY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
Prosecution Insights