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 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 1, 20-25, 29-35, 37 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kant et al. U.S. Pat. No. 11,128,507 (cited by Applicant).
Regarding claim 1, Kant discloses a method for reduction of peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of transmission of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal from a transmitter, wherein the transmission comprises a number of MIMO layers (Fig. 3), the method comprising: determining a clipping signal for the MIMO signal (col. 5, ll. 48-50); and generating a PAPR reduced MIMO signal for transmission by combining the MIMO signal with a projection of the clipping signal onto a null space of an effective channel (col. 5, ll. 59-64), wherein the effective channel comprises a propagation channel between the transmitter and one or more receivers as affected by receiver combining matching transmitter precoding (col. 5, l. 50 to col. 6, l. 4; col. 8, ll. 4-10), the receivers have an amount of receiver antenna ports (col. 1, ll. 21-25), and a setting of the transmitter precoding is varied over frequency (col. 6, ll. 14-21).
Regarding claim 20, Kant discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program comprising program instructions, the computer program being loadable into a data processing unit and configured to cause execution of the method of claim 1 when the computer program is run by the data processing unit (Kant: Figs. 7-8; col. 3, ll. 61-63; claim 16).
Regarding claim 21, Kant discloses an apparatus for reduction of peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of transmission of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal from a transmitter, wherein the transmission comprises a number of layers (see Fig. 3), the apparatus comprising controlling circuitry (i.e. processor 120, also see col. 18 l. 63 to col. 19, l. 2) configured to cause the apparatus to perform a method comprising: determining a clipping signal for the MIMO signal (col. 5, ll. 48-50); and generating a PAPR reduced MIMO signal for transmission by combining the MIMO signal with a projection of the clipping signal onto a null space of an effective channel (col. 5, ll. 59-64), wherein the effective channel comprises a propagation channel between the transmitter and one or more receivers as affected by receiver combining matching transmitter precoding (col. 5, l. 50 to col. 6, l. 4; col. 8, ll. 4-10), the receivers having an amount of receiver antenna ports (col. 1, ll. 21-23), and a setting of the transmitter precoding is varied over frequency (col. 6, ll. 14-21).
Regarding claim 22, Kant discloses that the setting of the transmitter precoding being varied over frequency induces frequency selectivity of the effective channel (col. 6, ll. 14-21).
Regarding claim 23, Kant further discloses that the setting of the transmitter precoding is varied over frequency independently of a frequency profile of the propagation channel as the precoding varies of subcarrier frequencies (col. 9, ll. 48-50).
Regarding claim 24, Kant further discloses that a frequency interval between setting variations of the transmitter precoding is fixed, semi-established, or dynamically changing as the frequency selective precoding is based on pseudo-random, cyclic, or other orderly selection as a function of the subcarrier index/number (col. 9, ll. 48-50).
Regarding claim 25, the frequency interval between setting variations of the transmitter precoding is considered to be shorter than a threshold value arbitrarily set to be associated with a timeframe associated with feedback requests from a user equipment (col. 10, ll. 2-11).
Regarding claim 29, Kant discloses that the PAPR reduced MIMO signal is transmitted over the propagation channel using the setting of the transmitter precoding (Step S50 – Fig. 4; col. 6, ll. 26-30).
Regarding claim 30, Kant further discloses determining the setting of the transmitter precoding (col. 6, ll. 14-30; col. 9, l. 38 to col. 10, l. 11).
Regarding claim 31, Kant further discloses that a precoding basis spans a precoding space for the propagation channel (col. 5, ll. 21-25; col. 6, ll. 31-45; col. 9, ll. 38-45), the precoding basis comprising a plurality of precoding basis components (i.e. covariance matrices), and wherein the controlling circuitry is configured to cause determination of the setting of the transmitter precoding by causing the setting of the transmitter precoding to be a linear combination of the precoding basis components (col. 13, ll. 50-65).
Regarding claim 32, Kant further discloses that variation of the setting of the transmitter precoding comprises changing coefficient values (e.g. weights) for the linear combination of the precoding basis components (col. 14, ll. 6-9).
Regarding claim 33, the plurality of precoding basis components is larger than the number of layers and less than, or equal to, the amount of receiver antenna ports, as the matrices correspond to the number of antennas, where codebooks are defined for up to 8 layers and 32 (i.e. NTx) antenna ports (col. 12, ll. 20-22), and NTx distortion signals/matrices are employed (see Fig. 5, col. 5, ll. 48-55; col. 10, ll. 38-42).
Regarding claim 34, determining the setting of the transmitter precoding is performed by causing determination of the precoding basis (col. 14, ll. 6-15).
Regarding claim 35, the determination of the precoding basis is considered to correspond to a plurality of strongest paths of the propagation channel (col. 11, ll. 24-26).
Regarding claim 37, Kant further discloses that a sequence used for variation of the settings of the transmitter precoding over frequency comprises one or more of: a pre-defined sequence, a pseudo-random sequence generated based on a seed value, a sequence provided to a corresponding receiver and a sequence negotiated with a corresponding receiver, as the frequency selective precoding is based on pseudo-random or cyclic or other orderly selection of the distortion precoder for transmission of signals to the at least one receiver (col. 9, ll. 48-50).
Regarding claim 38, Kant further discloses that the controlling circuitry is configured to selectively apply the effective channel for null space projection only when the number of MMO layers for the transmission is lower than the amount of receiver antenna ports, as the precoding selection is determined contingent on UE beam information (col. 10, l. 6 to col. 11, l. 23).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 26-28 and 36 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Zach et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2023/0327933 disclose transmit precoding for peak to average power ratio reduction.
Laporte et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2023/0379202 disclose systems and methods related to a null-space for a MIMO transmitter system.
Ersbo et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2024/0113752 disclose precoded transmission of data where precoders are cyclically applied over a frequency interval.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David B. Lugo whose telephone number is 571-272-3043. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-6.
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/DAVID B LUGO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631
6/27/2026
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