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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/27/2025 has been considered and placed on record.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 6 recites the limitation " wherein each column of the uplink PIM signal subspace matrix is a PIM eigenvector determined from one of the singular value decomposition and a heuristic decomposition of the uplink PIM covariance matrix." in lines 2-3 (emphasis added). There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim since the highlighted phrase was not mentioned previously.
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, 10 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LAPORTE et al. (US 2022/0149889 A1, hereinafter, “Laporte”, provided in the 02/27/2025 IDS) in view of STEPHENNE et al (US 2020/0382188 A1, hereinafter, “Stephenne”, provided in the 02/27/2025 IDS).
The applied reference ( LAPORTE et al. (US 2022/0149889 A1, hereinafter, “Laporte”) has a common Applicant/Assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
Consider claim 11, Laporte teaches a network node (see at least figure 1-3) comprising processing circuitry (see at least figure 2 (48)) configured to: determine an uplink passive intermodulation, PIM, covariance matrix (see at least paras. 15, 17, 63 and figure 3 (s100)); determine an uplink PIM signal subspace matrix based at least in part on an eigen- decomposition of the uplink PIM covariance matrix (see at least paras. 16, 37, 65-66, and 72, and equation 3, Laporte teaches determining an uplink PIM subspace (∑PIM) based on eigen-decomposed PIM matrix (Uplink PIM)) the uplink PIM signal subspace matrix spanning an uplink PIM signal subspace (see at least equation 3); and determine a residual uplink signal vector on a spatial projection of a total received uplink signal vector onto the uplink PIM signal subspace (see at least equation 4 and paras. 99-103, Laporte teaches residual uplink signal vector of the total uplink signal projected on the uplink PIM subspace)
Laporte teaches determine a residual uplink signal vector on a spatial projection of a total received uplink signal vector onto the uplink PIM signal subspace (see above), however, did not particularly teach residual uplink vector at least partially compensated for PIM based at least in part on a spatial projection of a total received uplink signal vector onto the uplink PIM signal subspace. Stephenne teaches said technique (see at least paras. 15-16, 140, 179, equation 24 and figure 5, Stephenne teaches residual uplink vector having noise plus interference (thus compensated for PIM) based on spatial projection of total received uplink signal vector onto uplink PIM subspace (fig. 5)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application to modify the invention of Laporte and teach residual uplink vector at least partially compensated for PIM based at least in part on a spatial projection of a total received uplink signal vector onto the uplink PIM signal subspace, as taught by Stephenne, thereby, efficiently able to communicated wireless signals.
Consider claim 1: all the limitations of apparatus claim 11 are included in the method claim 1, therefore, claim 1 is subjected to the same rejection applied to claim 11.
Consider claim 10, Laporte in view of Stephenne teaches wherein determining the uplink PIM signal subspace matrix is performed in a radio unit of the network node (see at least figures 1, 5, abstract, paras. 31-33 in Laporte).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 21-28 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art(s) cited by the Examiner and/or the Applicant fails, singularly or in combination, to teach or suggest the following limitations in independent claim 21:
“
determining an uplink passive intermodulation, PIM, covariance matrix;
determining an uplink PIM signal subspace matrix based at least in part on identifying diagonal elements of the uplink PIM covariance matrix having a power exceeding a first threshold; and
when a number of identified diagonal elements falls below a second threshold, then determining a residual uplink signal vector by attenuating elements of the total received uplink signal vector corresponding to the identified diagonal elements.
”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2018/0081047 A1 teaches a method for determining the distance to source of a passive intermodulation (PIM) product for a distributed base station.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FITWI Y HAILEGIORGIS whose telephone number is (571)270-1881. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10AM-6PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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FITWI Y. HAILEGIORGIS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2632
/FITWI Y HAILEGIORGIS/Examiner, Art Unit 2632
