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
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.
2. Claims 1, 3, 5, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang et al. "Joint Transmit Beamforming and Phase Shift Design for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted MIMO Systems," in IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 354-368, June 2021, hereinafter, Wang.
Regarding claim 1:
Wang discloses a transceiver device (Fig. 1), comprising:
a multi-antenna feeder array (Figs. 1, 2, array at the BS) comprising a plurality of active antennas configured to transmit electromagnetic radiation based on a data stream pre-coded with a pre-coder (Section II A, first paragraph; pp 356; UPA of the BS is claimed multi-antenna feeder array; section VI B, pp 363, 364; paragraphs above equation (66); data stream u is precoded with active beamforming design; see Section I, second paragraph, pp 354 for electromagnetic radiation); and
a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (Figs. 1, 2, RIS), wherein the RIS comprises a plurality of passive antennas (Section I, second paragraph pp 354; RIS passively reflects, i.e. plurality of passive antennas), wherein each passive antenna is configured to receive the electromagnetic radiation from the multi-antenna feeder array and to re-transmit the received electromagnetic radiation with a respective adjustable phase shift (Section I, second paragraph pp 354; RIS passively reflects (i.e. re-tranmits) incident signal (i.e. receive electromagnetic radiation ) by adjusting phase (claimed adjustable phase shift)) wherein the transmission from the plurality of active antennas of the multi-antenna feeder array to the plurality of passive antennas of the RIS is defined by a transmission matrix, and wherein the multi-antenna feeder array is configured to generate the pre-coder based on one or more generalized eigenvectors of the transmission matrix (Section V A; pp 361, 362; including algorithm 2; CH is claimed transmission matrix, since the transmit beamforming is performed (i.e. precoding is generated) along the most dominant eigenvector of CH).
Regarding claim 3:
Wang further discloses the transceiver device, wherein the multi- antenna feeder array is configured to generate the pre-coder based on the generalized eigenvector of the transmission matrix having the a largest generalized eigenvalue ( Section V A; pp 361, 362; the most dominant eigenvector corresponds to the most dominant (i.e. largest) eigenvalue).
Regarding claim 5:
Wang further discloses the transceiver, wherein the plurality of passive antennas of the RIS are arranged on a planar surface or curved surface (Figs. 1, 2, RIS surface can only comprise either a planar or a curved surface).
Regarding claim 9:
Wang further discloses the transceiver, wherein a number of the plurality of passive antennas is substantially larger than a number of the plurality of active antennas (Section VI, first paragraph, pp 363).
Regarding claim 10:
Claim 10 is rejected as being anticipated by Wang based on a rationale similar to the one used to reject claim 1 above.
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.
3. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Sun et al. (US 20240396590 A1), hereinafter, Sun.
Regarding claim 4:
Wang further discloses the transceiver device but fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the distance between the RIS and the multi-antenna feeder array is smaller than a Rayleigh distance between the RIS and the multi-antenna feeder array.
However, Sun discloses relationship between a device (feeder array) and an intelligent reflective surface (claimed RIS) is greater than the Rayleigh distance for far-field communications (Paragraph [0262]), Sun further discloses RIS capable of near-filed communication (Paragraph [0054]). For the case where the network device is in near-field communication with the RIS, distance between the RIS and the array of the network device is smaller than a Rayleigh distance between the RIS and array of the network device.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date that the distance between Wang’s multi- antenna feeder array and RIS is smaller than a Rayleigh distance between the RIS and array of the network device based on Sun’s teachings, thereby resulting in claimed invention. It would have been obvious so as to determine the number of antenna elements needed by each array (Paragraph [0259]).
4. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Cheng et al. (US 20180006706 A1), hereinafter, Cheng.
Regarding claim 6:
Wang further discloses the transceiver device but fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the multi- antenna feeder array further comprises a baseband processor for pre-coding the data stream with the pre-coder.
However. Cheng discloses transceiver device of claim 1, wherein the multi- antenna array (Fig. 2, units 220, 230, 240 together is multi-antenna array) comprises a baseband processor for pre-coding the data stream with the pre-coder (Paragraph [0029]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date for Wang’s multi- antenna feeder array comprise a baseband processor for pre-coding the data stream with the pre-coder as disclosed by Cheng. It would have been obvious so as to perform effective precoding.
5. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Li et al. (US 12542582 B2), hereinafter, Li.
Regarding claim 8:
Wang further discloses the transceiver device but fails to explicitly disclose the transceiver device, wherein the RIS is configured to control the respective adjustable phase shift such that the electromagnetic radiation re-transmitted by the plurality of passive antennas coherently interferes in a desired target direction.
However, Li discloses RIS that is configured to control the respective adjustable phase shift such that the electromagnetic radiation re-transmitted by the plurality of passive antennas coherently interferes in a desired target direction (Column 11, lines 40-60; array elements of the RIS are adjusted using phase compensation sub-codebook so that the beams of each sub-array converge on the target device i.e. control the respective adjustable phase shift such that the electromagnetic radiation re-transmitted by the plurality of passive antennas coherently interferes in a desired target direction).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date for Wang’s RIS configured to control the respective adjustable phase shift such that the electromagnetic radiation re-transmitted by the plurality of passive antennas coherently interferes in a desired target direction as disclosed by Li. It would have been obvious so as to provide higher gain to the target (Column 11, line 61- column 12, line 2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 7 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VINEETA S PANWALKAR whose telephone number is (571)272-8561. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David C. Payne can be reached at 571-272-3024. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/VINEETA S PANWALKAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
Prosecution Insights