Detailed Notice
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted in on 01/27/2025 the
information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C.
119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. GR20220100787, filed on 09/26/2022.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to
determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is
requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the
specification.
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.
(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, 11, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rajendran et al. (“Injecting Reliable Radio Frequency Fingerprints Using Metasurface for the Internet of Things” hereafter Rajendran).
Regarding Rajendran disclose claim 1 an apparatus for wireless communications (see Rajendran section introduction: “MeRFFI are multiple well-intended constructive interferences on the transmitter’s emission, which do not impact the wireless communication. MeRFFI is intended to be used for stationary IoT devices that use wideband RF channels for communication”), comprising:
a memory comprising computer-executable instructions (see Rajendran section V: “After making sure the proof-of-concept software programmability of MeRFFI works, we conduct our experiments on a WiFi commercial off the shelf (COTS) testbed to test MeRFFI. Our COTS testbed utilizes laptops Lenovo ThinkPad E570 and Dell Latitude E6530 with Intel 5300ac NIC card”); and
a processor (see Rajendran section V: “After making sure the proof-of-concept software programmability of MeRFFI works, we conduct our experiments on a WiFi commercial off the shelf (COTS) testbed to test MeRFFI. Our COTS testbed utilizes laptops Lenovo ThinkPad E570 and Dell Latitude E6530 with Intel 5300ac NIC card
to replicate the different static IoT deployment scenarios”) configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to:
obtain, from a network entity, signaling indicating a configuration for a security signature for at least one reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (see Rajendran section IV part B: “MeRFFI is a software-controlled metasurface used for injecting the security signature. It is an Intelligent Reflectiv Surface (IRS), a.k.a Reconfigurable Reflect Array,” section IV: “during the enrollment phase, the legitimate node sends a known pilot signal to the server over the wireless channel. The attached MeRFFI device injects an RF security signature in this transmitted electromagnetic wave.”); and
configure the at least one RIS according to the security signature (see Rajendran section II part F: “Can a security signature be injected into the wireless physical layer by changing the existing hardware? To answer this question let us consider the injection of such a signature by making changes specifically in the passband of the transmitted signal…”).
Regarding claim 11 Rajendran disclose the apparatus of claim 1, Rajendran further discloses wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to:
randomly turn ON or OFF one or more elements of the at least one RIS, in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran Section IV part 2: “By changing the input voltage to the capacitor C2, the capacitance between the loading plane and reflecting plane changes. Since this control voltage (CV) is connected to all the unit cells, the total resonance of the meta-surface shifts to the desired frequency channel. Hence this voltage CV is the channel select voltage. The change in resonant frequency with variation in capacitance is shown in figure 7 (The graph shown is a Comsol simulation of MeRFFI, where the capacitance is changed by control voltages, the value displayed here is frequency vs. radar cross section [RCS(m2)]) The other varactors C1 on the top layer, however, have independent voltage connections. If MeRFFI has M number of elements, then an M line parallel but independent control voltage line is needed for controlling the varactors (SV1, SV2, . . . . .SVM). This M line control voltage is what can be used to inject RF-fingerprints into the wireless physical layer. The MeRFFI prototype has 4 unit elements as shown in Figure 6 and two such prototypes were used for signature injection. Hence MeRFFI prototype had an 8 line control input vector. The metasurface prototype has eight such elements in which an 8-line control voltage feed can be given for creating many such variations.”); and
select at least one of an amplitude value or a phase value of the one or more elements that are turned ON, in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran section IV part C: “The channel response received at the receiver as seen in equation 2 is a convolution of the MeRFFI’s transfer function (s) and the channel multipath (h) similar to the sum of the product of amplitude and phase responses caused by the individual path in the multipath, the fingerprint is also the sum of the effect caused by the individual unit elements in the reflect array [7]. In the frequency domain this injected channel response SH,… where SHj represents the j th frequency sample of the signature injected channel and it is a complex number that includes the amplitude |S||Hj | and the phase _ (φh j+θs) is shown as follows. Thus at the receiver we get the injected channel vector SH for s, CSI samples (here, the number of CSI samples j = s) From the received signal vector Y we extract SH. The fingerprint induced CSI of the IoT node to the authentication server has to be extracted.”).
Regarding claim 12 Rajendran disclose the apparatus of claim 1, Rajendran further discloses wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to:
randomly turn ON or OFF one or more other RISs in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran Section IV part 2: “By changing the input voltage to the capacitor C2, the capacitance between the loading plane and reflecting plane changes. Since this control voltage (CV) is connected to all the unit cells, the total resonance of the meta-surface shifts to the desired frequency channel. Hence this voltage CV is the channel select voltage. The change in resonant frequency with variation in capacitance is shown in figure 7 (The graph shown is a Comsol simulation of MeRFFI, where the capacitance is changed by control voltages, the value displayed here is frequency vs. radar cross section [RCS(m2)]) The other varactors C1 on the top layer, however, have independent voltage connections. If MeRFFI has M number of elements, then an M line parallel but independent control voltage line is needed for controlling the varactors (SV1, SV2, . . . . .SVM). This M line control voltage is what can be used to inject RF-fingerprints into the wireless physical layer. The MeRFFI prototype has 4 unit elements as shown in Figure 6 and two such prototypes were used for signature injection. Hence MeRFFI prototype had an 8 line control input vector. The metasurface prototype has eight such elements in which an 8-line control voltage feed can be given for creating many such variations.”); and
select at least one of an amplitude value or a phase value of one or more elements of the one or more other RISs that are turned ON, in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran section IV part C: “The channel response received at the receiver as seen in equation 2 is a convolution of the MeRFFI’s transfer function (s) and the channel multipath (h) similar to the sum of the product of amplitude and phase responses caused by the individual path in the multipath, the fingerprint is also the sum of the effect caused by the individual unit elements in the reflect array [7]. In the frequency domain this injected channel response SH,… where SHj represents the j th frequency sample of the signature injected channel and it is a complex number that includes the amplitude |S||Hj | and the phase _ (φh j+θs) is shown as follows. Thus at the receiver we get the injected channel vector SH for s, CSI samples (here, the number of CSI samples j = s) From the received signal vector Y we extract SH. The fingerprint induced CSI of the IoT node to the authentication server has to be extracted.”).
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.
Claims 2, 3-4, and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rajendran as applied to claim 1, in further view of FRANTZESKAKIS et al. (WO-2019154447-A1 hereafter FRANTZESKAKIS).
Regarding claim 2 Rajendran disclose the apparatus of claim 1, Rajendran do not explicitly teach however FRANTZESKAKIS teaches wherein the security signature is a random signature based on a first secret-key (See FRANTZESKAKIS par.0026: “CPM modulator 107 and a pseudo-random number generator 103 for generating a cipher sequence used for encrypting the information sequence. The pseudo-random number generator receives as input an encryption key that may be combined with a Time-of-Day (TOD) value for further improving security.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran of claim 1 with FRANTZESKAKIS teaching because FRANTZESKAKIS teaching of “A secret key, encryption or decryption, may be
a combination of a user defined key (known before the start of the transmission or reception) and a time-of-day (TOD) value.”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0040). The motivation to combine would have been prevent attacker for intercepting the communication.
Regarding claim 3 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS disclose the apparatus of claim 2, Rajendran do not explicitly teach however FRANTZESKAKIS further disclose wherein the first secret-key is agreed among at least two of the apparatus, the network entity, and a user equipment (UE) (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0026 : “The transmitted waveform is received by a CPM receiver 102 also receiving a decryption key associated to the transmitter encryption key. The CPM receiver 102 processes the received (RX) encrypted CPM waveform to produce the stream of received bits that is an estimate of the transmitted information bits. Since the CPM waveform is encrypted in a way recognizable by the 230 legitimate communication nodes the communication channel is characterized by convention as a privacy channel. The transmitter 101 comprises a channel coding unit 104,”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS of claim 2 with FRANTZESKAKIS teaching because of FRANTZESKAKIS teaching of “A secret key, encryption or decryption, may be a combination of a user defined key (known before the start of the transmission or reception) and a time-of-day (TOD) value.”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0040). The reason to combine would have been to deter communication interception.
Regarding claim 4 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS the apparatus of claim 2, Rajendran further discloses wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to select an RIS beamformer from a set of RIS beamformers, in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran section IV part B 2): “changing the input voltage to the capacitor C2, the capacitance between the loading plane and reflecting plane changes. Since this control voltage (CV) is connected to all the unit cells, the total resonance of the meta-surface shifts to the desired frequency channel. Hence this voltage CV is the channel select voltage. The change in resonant frequency with variation in capacitance is shown in figure 7 (The graph shown is a Comsol simulation of MeRFFI, where the capacitance is changed by control voltages, the value displayed here is frequency vs. radar cross section [RCS(m2)]) The other varactors C1 on the top layer, however, have independent voltage connections. If MeRFFI has M number of elements, then an M line parallel but independent control voltage line is needed for controlling the varactors (SV1, SV2, . . . . .SVM). This M line control voltage is what can be used to inject RF-fingerprints into the wireless physical layer. The MeRFFI prototype has 4 unit elements as shown in Figure 6 and two such prototypes were used for signature injection. Hence MeRFFI prototype had an 8 line control input vector. The metasurface prototype has eight such elements in which an 8- line control voltage feed can be given for creating many such variations.”).
Regarding claim 13 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS disclose the apparatus of claim 3, Rajendran further teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to:
obtain a data signal from the network entity (see Rajendran section IV part B: “MeRFFI is a software-controlled metasurface used for injecting the security signature. It is an Intelligent Reflectiv Surface (IRS), a.k.a Reconfigurable Reflect Array,” section IV: “during the enrollment phase, the legitimate node sends a known pilot signal to the server over the wireless channel. The attached MeRFFI device injects an RF security signature in this transmitted electromagnetic wave.”); and
Rajendran do not explicitly teach however FRANTZESKAKIS teaches:
apply a time phase ramp to shift a frequency domain of the data signal to overlap or align with a frequency domain of another signal, and wherein the other signal is an artificial noise (AN) signal (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0028 : “the CPM transmitter 101A has processing units interconnected in a serial manner from 104 to 105 to 106_to 107. The channel coding unit 104 receives as input an information data sequence comprising a stream of transmit bits and produces an encoded sequence comprising a stream of encoded bits. The bit to symbol mapping unit 105 groups the encoded bits into groups of m bits, where m = T • R while R is the bit rate at the output
of the channel coding unit 104 and Tis the desired symbol period dictated by the frequency bandwidth requirements of the system. Each group of m bits is associated to a number of M = 2m frequency levels for transmitting the encoded bits. Let i be the value of the binary representation of a group of m bits, representing transmit symbol. The noise injection unit 106 receives as input a sequence of transmit symbols and produces as output a sequence of symbols contaminated by artificial noise controlled by
the sequence of pseudo-random numbers (PN sequence) generated by unit 103. This is achieved by letting the symbol alphabet change dynamically and by introducing more than M symbol values, by allowing idle states.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS of claim 3 with FRANTZESKAKIS teaching because of FRANTZESKAKIS teaching of, “the CPM transmitter 4018 may be controlled by the pseudorandom number generator 103, while the noise injection unit 106 comprises an attenuator intending to introduce an attenuation on the modulated waveform by reducing the signal power Ps so that the SNR becomes sufficiently low for the communications channel to be undetectable by an eavesdropper. The objective of this embodiment is to support very low data rates and use very low transmission power
based on spreading, while achieving a high level of security appropriate for a covert communications system.” (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0035).
Regarding claim 14 Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS disclose the apparatus of claim 13, Rajendran does not explicitly teach however FRANTZESKAKIS teaches wherein, at least one of:
the obtain the data signal comprises obtain the data signal from the network entity on a first subset of resource elements (REs) of a set of Res (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0028: “The channel coding unit 104 receives as input an information data sequence comprising a stream of transmit bits and produces an encoded sequence comprising a stream of encoded bits. The bit to symbol mapping unit 105 groups the encoded bits into groups of m bits, where m = T • R while R is the bit rate at the output of the channel coding unit 104 and Tis the desired symbol period dictated by the frequency bandwidth requirements of the system. Each group of m bits is associated to a number of M = 2m frequency levels for transmitting the encoded bits. Let i be the value of the binary representation of a group of m bits, representing transmit symbol.”);
the AN signal is obtained via a second subset of REs of the set of Res (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0028: “The noise injection unit 106 receives as input a sequence of transmit symbols and produces as output a sequence of symbols contaminated by artificial noise controlled by the sequence of pseudo-random numbers (PN sequence) generated by unit 103. This is achieved by letting the symbol alphabet change dynamically and by introducing more than M symbol values, by allowing idle states.”);
the AN signal is also based on the first secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0039: “the channel coding unit may comprise a FEC encoder applying a security FEC code, such as LDPC, or a protection FEC code against the channel distortion, while the noise injection unit 106 may comprise a bitwise operation, such as exclusive or (XOR), to noise contaminate the input data stream with the ciphering stream generated by the pseudo-random number generator 103, said ciphering stream has the form of a binary pseudo random number sequence (PN sequence). The noise contaminated sequence produced by unit 106 in response to the encoded sequence is fed to a bit-to-symbol mapping unit 105 and subsequently to a CPM modulator 107.”); or
at least one of the time phase ramp or a location of the data signal and the AN signal are agreed among the network entity, the UE, and the apparatus.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS of claim 13 with FRANTZESKAKIS teaching because of FRANTZESKAKIS teaching of, “the eavesdropper may observe a signal uniformly distributed over Mc points with a minimum free distance of 2/ Mc. Therefore, he suffers a 6d8 degradation even before getting the opportunity to attempt the decryption of the alphabet randomization.”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0032).
Claims 5-6, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable
over Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS as applied to claim 2, in further view of MEDRA et al. (US-20220052764-A1 hereafter MEDRA).
Regarding claim 5 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS the apparatus of claim 2, Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS do not explicitly teach however MEDRA teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to select at least one of an amplitude value or a phase value of one or more elements of the at least one RIS, in accordance with the security signature (see MEDRA par.0164: “The DFT-based method transmits reference signals based on a DFT matrix to distinguish antenna elements and RIS surfaces during channel estimation. That is, according to the DFT-based method, the base station transmits reference signals based on the K-DFT matrix, and the RIS sets the phase of the reflective surfaces by applying the M total -DFT matrix. The DFT-based method requires a total reference signal transmission time of M total K. Specifically, the elements included in the mth column of the DFT matrix used in RIS are the phase values of the reflection surfaces of the RIS set at the mth transmission time. The elements included in the kth column of the DFT matrix used in the base station are the values of the kth reference signal transmitted by the base station. Reference signals can be transmitted so that all columns of the DFT matrices of the base station and RIS can be transmitted.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS of claim 2 with MEDRA teaching because MEDRA teaching of, “devices that use the RIS phase shifting ability to provide many degrees of freedom to enable data to be overlaid on transmitted signals. The data overlay is done while the RIS is still beamforming the signal towards the receiver(s). The phase shifting capabilities of the RIS elements can provide amplitude, phase, frequency, and polarization manipulations. These manipulations can help enhance the communication and provide the ability to overlay information.” (see MEDRA abstract).
Regarding claim 6 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS, and MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 5, Rajendran further teaches wherein at least one of:
the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to change at least one of the amplitude value or the phase value over a duration of at least one symbol, in accordance with the security signature;
the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to change at least one of the amplitude value or the phase value within a first duration of a symbol or a second duration between two symbols, in accordance with the security signature;
the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to change at least one of the amplitude value or the phase value each sample time, in accordance with the security signature (see Rajendran section : “MeRFFI is a software-controlled metasurface used for injecting the security signature. It is an Intelligent Reflective Surface (IRS), a.k.a Reconfigurable Reflect Array, which has many unit cell structures [7]. The typical IRS’s unit cells can change their resonant frequencies, which can be perceived as a change in its reflectance and phase. Our custom designed metasurface, MeRFFI, creates constructive reflections on the signals transmitted. These small perturbations appears as frequency peaks when observed from the channel state information at the receiver. To design this specific reflective surface, the unit element has two main requirements. Firstly, to bring the entire metasurface’s resonant frequency to the specific frequency channel where the transmission is taking place. Secondly, some finer modifications of resonances within this channel cause different electromagnetic variations in the wireless physical layer.”);
the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to change at least one of the amplitude value or the phase value every block of symbols, in accordance with the security signature; or
the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to change the phase value based on the first secret-key and change the amplitude value based on a second secret-key, wherein the second secret-key is different than the first secret-key.
Regarding claim 10 Rajendran in view of FRANTZESKAKIS, and MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 5, Rajendran do not explicitly teach however FRANTZESKAKIS teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to:
change the phase value based on the first secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0028: “A CPM transmitter 101 receives as input stream of transmitter (TX) bits and an encryption key and it produces an encrypted TX CPM waveform… The transmitter 101 comprises a channel coding unit 104, such as a security FEC encoder for reducing the security gap of the transmitted information sequence, a unit 105 for mapping the bit
stream onto a symbol sequence, a noise injection unit 106 for distorting the transmission signal in a controlled manner, a CPM modulator 107 and a pseudo-random number generator 103 for generating a cipher sequence used for encrypting the information sequence.” Examiner interpret that the transmitter is able to change the waveform (which is made of phase and amplitude) in this case it will change the phase base on the first secret key.); and
change the amplitude value based on a second secret-key, wherein the second secret-key is different than the first secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS par. 0027: “a CPM modulator 107 and a pseudo-random number generator 103 for generating a cipher sequence used for encrypting the information sequence. The pseudo-random number generator receives as input an encryption key that may be combined with a Time-of-Day (TOD) value for further improving security.” Examiner interpret that the change in amplitude in the waveform is performed by a second key in this case will the (pseudo-random number) which is different than the received encryption key.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine the
teachings of Rajendran in view FRANTZESKAKIS, and MEDRA of claim 5 with FRANTZESKAKIS teaching because of FRANTZESKAKIS teaching of, “The CPM modulator 107 may be a Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) modulator, or a Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK) modulator, or a Tamed Frequency Modulator (TFM), or a 2-level Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) modulator, or a multi-level FSK modulator employing a constant modulation factor, or employing multiple values of the modulation factor. Furthermore, it may employ any other CPM scheme, including the known in the art multi-amplitude CPM modulation. Also, the CPM modulator 107 may comprise a cascade of an encoder followed by a memory-less modulator”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0033) The reason to combine would have been to improve security.
Claims 16-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable
over FRANTZESKAKIS et al. (WO-2019154447-A1 hereafter FRANTZESKAKIS), in view of MEDRA et al. (US-20220052764-A1 hereafter MEDRA).
Regarding claim 16 FRANTZESKAKIS discloses an apparatus for wireless communications, comprising:
a memory comprising computer-executable instructions (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0045: “hardware (HW), using for example hardwired logic, or partly in SW and partly in HW and it can be embedded in a computer or in the wireless network infrastructure of a communications system.”); and
a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0045: “software (SW) form by using a programming language running on a programmable processor, or in hardware (HW)…”) and cause the apparatus to:
obtain, from a network entity, signaling indicating a secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS Fig. 1: “Key-transmitter – 101”, Claim 1: “a noise injection unit, for injecting artificial noise produced in response to an encryption key”);
obtain, from the network entity, an artificial noise (AN) signal(see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0026 “a noise injection unit 106 for distorting the transmission signal in a controlled manner..”); and
decode the obtained data signal and the obtained AN signal, in accordance with the secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS Fig 1.: “key-receiver - 102”, Claim 1: “receiver means comprises: a noise suppression unit, for removing the artificial noise introduced by the noise injection unit..”).
FRANTZESKAKIS do not explicitly teach obtain, from the network entity, a data signal via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS);
In this instance examiner notes the teaching of prior art reference MEDRA.
With regards to applicant’s claim limitation element of, obtain, from the network entity, a data signal via a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (see MEDRA par.0011: “receiving, by a user equipment (UE), first configuration information notifying the UE of attributes of a RIS used to modulate a signal transmitted by a transmitter in order for the RIS to overlay additional information on the signal. Additional steps involve receiving, by the UE, the signal that is redirected by the RIS and decoding the received signal to recover the signal transmitted by the transmitter and the additional information overlaid on the signal by the RIS.”);
Therefore It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined FRANTZESKAKIS teaching “a larger share for the CPM operation modes, it substantially improves communication security while achieving valuable power savings additionally without penalizing the bandwidth of the used frequency spectrum. This is achieved by introducing noise on the transmission signal in a controlled manner, so
that, in comparison to the legitimate receiver, a potential eavesdropper suffers a degraded channel quality. This may be achieved by scrambling the mapping of the symbols onto the modulation frequency levels and additionally by introducing idle modulation frequency levels in a time-dynamic manner. In the case of multi-antenna communications, the added noise may also exploit the directionality characteristics of the spatial channel.”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0014) with MEDRA teaching because MEDRA teaching of “the RIS overlay of data on top of data sent by a transmitter is performed dynamically and controlled by the network. In each scheduling slot, the base station determines which UEs are to be served, the scheduling resources for each UE to be served and attributes of a packet, including, but not limited to, the MCS, to be transmitted from the base station to each UE and from the RIS to the UE. Such attribute information, including information about beamforming, is shared dynamically by the base station with the UEs and with the RIS.”, (see MEDRA par.0125). The reason to combined would have been to have the network entity sending the data signal to the appropriate UE through a RIS.
Regarding claim 17 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 16, FRANTZESKAKIS further disclose wherein the obtaining of the data signal further comprises applying a time phase ramp to shift a frequency domain of the data signal to overlap or align with a frequency domain of the AN signal (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0037: “The CPM waveform is received by the CPM receiver 102 and a spreading unit 605, both residing at the node-8 602. The spreading unit 605 is capable of measuring certain critical channel parameters based on the received CPM waveform and produce transmit configuration information appropriate for the tuning of the transmitter at node-A. The configuration information is spread by the channel coding unit 104 comprised in the spreading unit and it is transmitted over the wireless channel to the node-A. The de-spreading unit 604 has this information de-spread by the channel decoding unit 111 comprised in 604. Subsequently, it feeds the recovered configuration information to the parameter adaptation unit 603 for fine-tuning the data transmission parameters. An exemplary parameter that can be tuned by the two-way communication process is the transmission power level. The transmission power level must be tuned to be high enough to allow a reliable reception by the legitimate receiver (node-8), but it should not be higher than necessary… Another exemplary parameter that can be tuned by the two-way communication process is the spatial signature of the channel. For example, this can be used for an accurate beamforming by a transmitter employing multiple antennas (transmitter antenna array) to transmit a signal to a receiver possibly employing multiple antennas (receiver antenna array) to receive the said signal. Therefore, the addition of artificial noise according to the method mentioned in paragraph 0005 of this Description can also be optimized without the need of more complex and time 415 consuming information exchange protocols between the two communicating sites”).
Regarding claim 18 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 17, FRANTZESKAKIS further discloses wherein at least one of:
the time phase ramp is based on the secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0029: “an alphabet generator producing a time varying CPM symbol alphabet, while introducing idle states in the generated output symbols. A symbol of M = 4 levels controlled by a random cyclic offset of eight possible values is shown. At each time instant, a symbol can take a value either from the set S0 ={-Mc+ 1, - Mc+ 5, ... , Mc - 3} of size M or the set S1 ={-Mc+ 3, - Mc+ 7, ... , Mc - 1} of size M, where Mc= 8 is the total number of distinct symbol values that can be produced. There is a finite set of alphabets comprising Mc different instantaneous alphabets, enumerated as ALPHABET- a, with a = 0,1, ... , Mc - 1, that can be used to map an incoming symbol index i, taking values in the range 0,1, ... , M - 1, to a symbol value Each instantaneous alphabet has M idle states, while the locations of these states depend on the alphabet selection. Therefore, a security code rate of M / Mc = 1/2 is implied, or equivalently, the symbol alphabet has a 50% overhead due to the idle states.”); or
the secret-key is agreed among at least two of the network entity, the apparatus, and a controller of the RIS.
Regarding claim 20 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 16, FRANTZESKAKIS further discloses wherein, at least one of:
the obtaining of the data signal further comprises obtaining the data signal from the network entity on a first sub set of resource elements (REs) of a set of REs;
the obtaining of the AN signal further comprises obtaining the AN signal from the network entity on a second subset of REs of the set of REs; or
the decoding comprises cancelling the obtained AN signal, in accordance with the secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS Claim 1 : “the receiver means comprises: a noise suppression unit, for removing the artificial noise introduced by the noise injection unit; a channel decoding unit for reversing the effect of the said channel coding unit…”).
Claims 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA as applied to claim 17, in further view of DEY et al. (US-20240429979-A1 hereafter DEY).
Regarding claim 21 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA disclose the apparatus of claim 17, FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA do not explicitly teach however DEY teaches wherein at least one of the time phase ramp or a location of the data signal and the AN signal is agreed among at least two of the network entity, the apparatus, and a controller of the RIS (see DEY par.0081: “The BS (102, 202) may also have the combined channel between the UE (104, 106, 204, 206), the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208), and the BS (102, 202). Using this information, the BS (102. 202) may estimate an optimum beamforming matrix which maximises a signal to noise ratio (SNR) at the UE(s) (104, 106, 204, 206). Also, the BS (102, 202) uses a feedback from the UE(s) (104, 106, 204, 206) which provides information of signal quality at the UE(s) (104, 106, 204, 206). Such feedback may be used to determine a beamforming matrix. The information regarding the beamforming matrix may be sent to the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208) using a control channel.”).
Therefore It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined FRANTZESKAKIS in view of MEDRA teaching of claim 17 with DEY teaching because DEY teaching of, “The RIS (108) is generally required to operate in different frequency bands and response of meta-elements (110) may vary at different frequencies. For example, in case of a frequency division duplexed (FDD) network, a downlink (DL) from the BS (102) to the UE (104, 106) and an uplink (UL) from UE (104, 106) to the BS (102) are performed at different frequency bands. The BS (102) should have the information about an operating frequency range and a frequency response to configure the phase and amplitude factors to the meta-elements (110) efficiently. In case of smart repeaters (208), only the operating frequency ranges need to be known to the BS (202).”, (see DEY par.0064).
Claims 23-25, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable
Over FRANTZESKAKIS et al. (WO-2019154447-A1 hereafter FRANTZESKAKIS), in view of DEY et al. (US-20240429979-A1 hereafter DEY).
Regarding claim 23 FRANTZESKAKIS discloses an apparatus for wireless communications, comprising:
a memory comprising computer-executable instructions(see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0045: “hardware (HW), using for example hardwired logic, or partly in SW and partly in HW and it can be embedded in a computer or in the wireless network infrastructure of a communications system.”); and
a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0045: “software (SW) form by using a programming language running on a programmable processor, or in hardware (HW)…”)and cause the apparatus to:
generate an artificial noise (AN) signal, in accordance with the secret-key (see FRANTZESKAKIS claim 1: “a noise injection unit, for injecting artificial noise produced in response to an encryption key..”); and
output the AN signal for transmission to the UE (see FRANTZESKAKIS Fig. 1: “transmitter-101 -> receiver-102”, Fig. 9: “transmitter-900 -> receiver-901”).
FRANTZESKAKIS does not explicitly teach determine a secret-key shared among at least two of the apparatus, a user equipment (UE), and a controller of at least one reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS);
In this instance examiner notes the teaching of prior art reference DEY.
With regards to applicant’s claim limitation element of, determine a secret-key shared among at least two of the apparatus, a user equipment (UE), and a controller of at least one reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (see DEY Fig 1. And par.0066 : “The BS (102) determines the beamforming matrix using signal processing algorithm (a secret-key) to inform the RIS (108), and this information is used to set the phase shift/amplitude levels.”, par.0085: “a best beamforming matrix may be decided from the codebook based on location information and feedback from the UE (104, 106, 204, 206). For example, the BS (102, 202) may maintain a pre-determined lookup table mapping channel state information (CSI) and corresponding beamforming matrix. Thus, based on the CSI feedback received from the UE (104, 106, 204, 206), the BS (102, 202) may choose the best beamforming matrix and informs it to the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208).”);
Therefore It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined FRANTZESKAKIS teaching “a larger share for the CPM operation modes, it substantially improves communication security while achieving valuable power savings additionally without penalizing the bandwidth of the used frequency spectrum. This is achieved by introducing noise on the transmission signal in a controlled manner, so
that, in comparison to the legitimate receiver, a potential eavesdropper suffers a degraded channel quality. This may be achieved by scrambling the mapping of the symbols onto the modulation frequency levels and additionally by introducing idle modulation frequency levels in a time-dynamic manner. In the case of multi-antenna communications, the added noise may also exploit the directionality characteristics of the spatial channel.”, (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0014) with DEY teaching because of DEY teaching of, “the beamforming matrix may be updated at the smart repeaters by the BS (202) that provides beamforming matrices with different beam configurations that the smart repeater (208) uses to communicate with the UEs (204, 206). Based on a feedback received from the UE (204, 206), the BS (202) may determine a best beam which the smart repeater should use to communicate with the UE (204, 206).”, (see DEY par.0086).
Regarding claim 24 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of DEY disclose the apparatus of claim 23, FRANTZESKAKIS does not explicitly teach however DEY teaches wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to output a data signal for transmission to the UE via the at least one RIS (see DEY par.0070: “the control information may be exchanged between the BS and the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208) using a set of resources overlapping with the time-frequency resources used by the BS (102, 202) to communicate with the UE (104, 106, 204, 206). For example, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) can be used as a modulation technique where the control information for the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208) is transmitted at a lower power as compared to the control/data for the UE in the same time frequency resources or using other techniques such as multi-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO).”).
Therefore It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined FRANTZESKAKIS in view of DEY teaching of claim 23 with DEY teaching because of DEY teaching of, “the BS (102, 202) may decide the beamforming matrix based on available location of the UE(s) (104, 106, 204, 206) served by the BS (102, 202). A best suitable beam to serve the UE(s) (104, 106, 204, 206) is decided/calculated by the BS (102. 202) based on the location information and a corresponding beamforming matrix is configured at the RIS/smart repeater (108, 208).”, (see DEY par.0080).
Regarding claim 25 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of DEY disclose the apparatus of claim 24, FRANTZESKAKIS further teaches wherein, at least one of:
the output of the data signal further comprises outputting the data signal on a first subset of resource elements (REs) of a set of Res (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0028 : “the CPM transmitter 101A has processing units interconnected in a serial manner from 104 to 105 to 106_to 107. The channel coding unit 104 receives as input an information data sequence comprising a stream of transmit bits and produces an encoded sequence comprising a stream of encoded bits. The bit to symbol mapping unit 105 groups the encoded bits into groups of m bits, where m = T • R while R is the bit rate at the output of the channel coding unit 104 and Tis the desired symbol period dictated by the frequency bandwidth requirements of the system. Each group of m bits is associated to a number of M = 2m frequency levels for transmitting the encoded bits. Let i be the value of the binary representation of a group of m bits, representing transmit symbol. The noise injection unit 106 receives as input a sequence of transmit symbols and produces as output a sequence of symbols contaminated by artificial noise controlled by the sequence of pseudo-random numbers (PN sequence) generated by unit 103. This is achieved by letting the symbol alphabet change dynamically and by introducing more than M symbol values, by allowing idle states.”);
the output of the AN signal comprises outputting the AN signal on a second subset of REs of the set of Res;
the output of the AN signal comprises outputting the AN signal orthogonal to a direction of the UE;
the output of the AN signal comprises outputting the AN signal in a same direction as other AN signals; or
the output of the AN signal comprises outputting the AN signal on one or more non-used resource elements (REs).
Regarding claim 27 FRANTZESKAKIS in view of DEY disclose the apparatus of claim 25, FRANTZESKAKIS further teaches wherein the second subset of REs is the same as the first subset of Res (see FRANTZESKAKIS par.0029 : “an alphabet generator producing a time varying CPM symbol alphabet, while introducing idle states in the generated output symbols. A symbol of M = 4 levels controlled by a random cyclic offset of eight possible values is shown. At each time instant, a symbol can take a value either from the set S0 ={-Mc+ 1, - Mc+ 5, ... , Mc - 3} of size M or the set S1 ={-Mc+ 3, - Mc+ 7, ... , Mc - 1} of size M, where Mc= 8 is the total number of distinct symbol values that can be produced. There is a finite set of alphabets comprising Mc different instantaneous alphabets, enumerated as ALPHABET- a, with a = 0,1, ... , Mc - 1, that can be used to map an incoming symbol index i, taking values in the range 0,1, ... , M - 1, to a symbol value… Each instantaneous alphabet has M idle states, while the locations of these states depend on the alphabet selection. Therefore, a security code rate of M / Mc = 1/2 is implied, or equivalently, the symbol alphabet has a 50% overhead due to the idle states. The introduction of the idle states is equivalent to contaminating the symbol sequence with controlled noise, or still, it is equivalent to injecting artificial noise. The pseudorandom number a generated by 103 may have a uniform distribution in the set of values 0,1, ... , Mc - 1 and it controls a multiplexer 609 selecting one of the Mc alphabets at each time instant.”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
applicant's disclosure:
Kim et al. (US-20260012226-A1) a base station in a wireless communication system may include transmitting configuration information related to channel measurement to a user equipment (UE), transmitting reference signals for the channel measurement, and receiving channel information that is generated by using the reference signals. The reference signals may be reflected in a portion of reflecting surfaces included in a reflecting intelligent surface (RIS) and then received by the UE, and the configuration information may include information indicating, among the reflecting surfaces, a number or location of at least one off-reflecting surface.
BAYESTEH et al. (US-20210302561-A1) the network transmits, and the first node receives, signaling to configure one or more aspects of the reference signal, and/or information about the reflectors, such as their location and tags. For example, the first node may receive signaling to configure or instruct one or more of: reference signal bandwidth; reference signal waveform; reference signal length; reference signal sequence; signature sequence design and length for tags; or lookup table mapping tags to corresponding locations. A tag signature is a specific example of a tag introduced previously. The tag signatures may be simple ON/OFF signatures or complex signatures (like Zadoff Chu (ZC), pseudo-noise (PN), etc.).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUILIO MUNGUIA whose telephone number is (571)270-5277. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30AM - 5:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Eleni A Shiferaw can be reached at (571) 272-3867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DUILIO MUNGUIA/Examiner, Art Unit 2497 /ELENI A SHIFERAW/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2497
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