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 .
Prior arts cited in this office action:
Kummetz et al. (US 20120314797 A1, hereinafter “Kummetz”)
Shabtay et al. (US 20100234071 A1, hereinafter “Shabtay”)
Na et al. (US 20100157861 A1, hereinafter “Na”
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/08/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 12/08/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new ground of rejections set forth below.
Applicant’s Arguments/Remarks: Applicant argues that quite the contrary, Shabtay makes no mention of precoding so that multiple protocols can concurrently use the same frequency whatsoever. In contrast, Shabtay acknowledges that additional protocols require additional spectrum because they can't. and don't, utilize the same spectrum (emphasis added):
[0266] The shortage of available spectrum forces the operators to
deploy access networks at higher frequency bands. Signal propagation
properties, however, are worse at these higher frequency bands
Examiner’s Response: Examiner disagrees with applicant assertion above that the combination of the cited prior arts does not teach or suggest applicant invention as claimed especially as argued above. Applicant only picks out portion that support his rational without looking at the reference as a whole. Shabtay teaches the MAS operative to transmit and receive a plurality of spatial streams over a radio access network (RAN), a cellular transceiver radio coupled to the MAS operative to provide communications over the RAN and a processor operative to execute one or more algorithms to maximize cell edge spectral efficiency and performance by exploiting one or more properties of the MAS. In one embodiment, one approach to the cell edge/coverage problem uses techniques such as adaptive modulation and coding along with adaptive precoding in the transmitter of a spatial multiplexing multi-antenna cell. In addition, automatic repeat request (ARQ) and hybrid ARQ (H-ARQ) can also be utilized ([0076]). Spatial multiplexing is a transmission technique in MIMO communications that transmits independent and separately encoded data signals from each of multiple transmit antennas to improve communications performance. In spatial multiplexing, a high rate signal is split into multiple lower rate streams and each stream is transmitted from a different transmit antenna in the same frequency channel. If these signals arrive at the receiver antenna array with sufficiently different spatial signatures, the receiver can separate these streams, creating parallel channels free (Shabtay [0157]-[0158], figs. 1, 7, 26 and 30). As we can see and well known in the art, spatial multiplexing uses coding techniques to transmit different stream using different antennal on the same frequency at the same time. And Na reinforces the teachings of Shabtay here: The spatial channels differ in their spatial signatures, but are substantially the same in frequency and time (Na [0002]-[0003]). In this case for example each RAT can be considered a mobile or a base station or an access point (AP).
Therefore, examiner maintains that applicant invention is nor novel and not allowable over the cited prior arts.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kummetz et al. (US 20120314797 A1, hereinafter “Kummetz”), in view of Shabtay et al. (US 20100234071 A1, hereinafter “Shabtay”) and in view of Na et al. (US 20100157861 A1, hereinafter “Na”).
Regarding claim 1:
Kummetz teaches a multiuser-multiple antenna system (“MU-MAS”) (Kummetz fig.1 where Kummetz teaches a plurality of user equipment (radio heads or remote units or transceivers)); comprising:
a plurality of user equipment (UE) devices (Kummetz fig.1 where Kummetz teaches a plurality of user equipment (radio heads or remote units or transceivers));
a MU-MAS baseband processor (Kummetz fig.1 wherein the system process baseband signal);
one or a plurality radio access networks (RANs) comprising a plurality of distributed points (APs) coupled to the MU-MAS baseband processor and configure to implement a plurality of wireless protocol stacks each associated with a corresponding to one of a plurality of wireless communication protocols including: a Global System for Mobile Communications (“GSM”) protocol stack; a Third Generation (3G) wireless protocol stack; an Evolved High Speed Packet Access (“HSPA+”) protocol stack; a Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) protocol stack; an LTE Advanced (“LTE-A”) protocol stack; and a Wi-Fi protocol stack; wherein the LTE protocol stack includes an LTE control-plane or user-plane protocol stack (Kummetz [0040]-[0043], figs. 2 element 14 that includes 102 and 104, figs. 3-5, where Kummetz discloses a master unit having interface for receiving and transmitting communication signals to and from a plurality of base stations or other remote access point units, or transceivers);
wherein each UE device is configured to communicate using its own protocol stack comprising a physical (PHY) layer, a medium-access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, each UE device to communicate with a gateway through an IP layer and with a network through an application layer, wherein the MU-MAS baseband processor is configured to precode baseband signals of the plurality of wireless protocol stacks to generate MU-MAS precoding information to establish links with the UE device (Kummetz [0006], [0024], [0082], figs. 2-6, where Kummetz teaches wherein the user equipments can communicate using a plurality of different wireless protocols. In other words, each device has its own protocol stack, MAC layer Physical layer, etc.);
wherein the plurality of the distributed APs are configured to combine data streams from each of the plurality of protocol stacks with the MU- MAS precoding information to produce a corresponding plurality of precoded baseband waveforms, each distributed AP of the plurality of distributed APs comprising an analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog (ADC/DAC) unit, an RF chain, and an antenna configured to modulate the plurality of precoded baseband waveforms (Kummetz [0025]-[0026], [0039], [0043], [0052], [0061]-[0062], figs. 8-10, where Kummetz teaches the master unit includes combiners (framers/de-framers) for combining received communication signal from a plurality of based stations that can be using different wireless protocols and communicate the combine resulting signal to a plurality of transceivers or expansion links, the remote unit or extension unit further comprises analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog unit, an RF chain, and an antenna to modulate the plurality of precoded baseband waveforms );
Kummetz fails to explicitly teach the precoding to precode baseband waveforms onto a same frequency as used simultaneously by the-other distributed Aps to produce a plurality of precoded waveforms, and means for modulating waveforms using the RF chain onto the same (common) frequency band (spectrum).
However, Shabtay discloses a radio access communication device that can maintain communication with more than one wireless communications system at the same time and may comprise any desired RAT including, for example, WiMAX, UWB, GSM, wUSB, Bluetooth, WLAN, 3GPP (UMTS, WCDMA, HSPA, HSUPA, HSDPA, HSPA+, LTE), 3GPP2 (CDMA2000, EVDO, EVDV), DVB and others. Note that the mechanism is not intended to be limited by the type or number of radio access communication devices (RACDs) in the MS (Shabtay [0036], [0059]-[0061]). Shabtay further teaches in spatial multiplexing, a high rate signal is split into multiple lower rate streams and each stream is transmitted from a different transmit antenna in the same frequency channel. If these signals arrive at the receiver antenna array with sufficiently different spatial signatures, the receiver can separate these streams, creating parallel channels free (Shabtay [0157]). In other word spatial multiplexing uses same frequency and at the same time for multiple users.
Na further teaches Spatially multiplexing in wireless communication systems involves multiple source devices simultaneously transmitting different signals in a common frequency channel to the same destination device. For example, multiple wireless mobile stations may be configured to simultaneously transmit, in the same channel, signals to a wireless base station. The wireless base station has multiple antennas on which it can receive the multiple transmissions from the multiple mobile stations. Spatial multiplexing takes advantage of the fact that there are multiple "spatial channels" between the source devices and the destination device. The spatial channels differ in their spatial signatures, but are substantially the same in frequency and time (Na [0002]-[0003], [0013]).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Kummetz, Shabtay and Na as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the current application to include protocol stacks to generate and transmit a plurality of transmission streams with different protocols using the same frequency band at the same time where each protocol stack transmitted uses the whole band (spread spectrum, Spatial multiplexing, and overlay technique well known in software define radio), in order to provide stream of data based on the type of communication protocol expected to a plurality of electronic devices where each device can efficiently receive message tailored to it while minimizing interference to other users sharing the same spectrum.
Conclusion
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/WEDNEL CADEAU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632 February 4, 2026