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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants’ communication filed on 12/29/2022. In virtue of this communication, claims 1-25 are currently pending in the instant application.
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 1-4, 8-9 and 11-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Benedict (US 2007/0216480 A1).
Regarding Claim 1 Benedict teaches the limitations "An apparatus comprising:
interface circuitry configured to receive a plurality of samples causing an output signal of a power amplifier; and (see abstract and fig. 1);
processing circuitry configured to: allocate at least one sample of the plurality of samples to a bin based on a characteristic of the at least one sample; and (see fig. 3a-3c and par. 0037 “The vertical axis in FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C indicates the number of samples and the horizontal axis indicates a bin number. The bin numbers may be associated with any desirable variable, such as a received radio frequency power. In the illustrated embodiment, the sample distribution 300 is depicted in FIG. 3A at a first (relatively early) stage in collecting and/or accessing samples including information indicative of an input and an output signal associated with an amplifier system.”);
determine whether a predistortion for samples allocated to the bin is to be updated based on a number of samples allocated to the bin" (see par. 0037 “the collection and/or access period may end when a predetermined number of samples have been collected or when some other criterion or threshold has been reached” and par. 0040 “By selecting the samples 315 that correspond to the target sample distribution 320, the number of samples 315 used to determine the response matrix may be reduced and an error associated with the linearization function for the amplifier may be equalized over the dynamic range associated with the target sample distribution 320.”). Note that the bin is interpreted based on par. 0022 of the instant application where it shows “The bin may, e.g., represent a value range of the characteristic and may be labelled by a bin value representative of the value range, e.g., a mean or median of the value range.” Therefore, the entire fig. 3a can be equated to the bin where the number of samples collected that fall within distribution threshold are used to determine whether to update predistortion.)
Claims 18-20 and 22 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above because the claims have similar limitations or have been addressed.
Regarding Claim 2 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the characteristic is related to a distortion of the output signal" (see fig. 1, par. 0005 and 0033 “The amplifier 105 is configured to amplify a signal 120 to form an amplified signal 125. The amplifier 105 may introduce one or more phase, amplitude, and/or frequency distortions into the amplified signal 125.”).
Regarding Claim 3 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allocate a block of at least two consecutive samples of the plurality of samples to the bin based on a characteristic of the block" (see par. 0058 “Samples are also selected for power differences intermediate the largest power differences. Accordingly, four samples are selected per power bin. The top-down view 1600 of the power distribution function of the selected samples shows that the selected samples are grouped into four approximately distinct sequences of samples.”).
Regarding Claim 4 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the characteristic is a mean power or a mean amplitude of the samples of the block" (see par. 0058 “Samples are also selected for power differences intermediate the largest power differences. Accordingly, four samples are selected per power bin. The top-down view 1600 of the power distribution function of the selected samples shows that the selected samples are grouped into four approximately distinct sequences of samples.”).
Regarding Claim 8 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is a vector processor" (see par. 0034 “In one exemplary embodiment of the Cross Correlator Predistorter approach, a response matrix (which may also be referred to as a correlation matrix) representative of a system of equations that determine the non-linear transfer function associated with the amplifier 105 may be determined using the samples. The response matrix may be inverted and/or solved used to solve a system of equations and thereby determine the non-linear transfer function associated with the amplifier 105.”).
Regarding Claim 9 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
process the plurality of samples; and determine, for each bin of a plurality of bins, whether a predistortion for samples allocated to said bin is to be updated based on a respective number of samples allocated to said bin" (see par. 0037 “the collection and/or access period may end when a predetermined number of samples have been collected or when some other criterion or threshold has been reached” and par. 0040 “By selecting the samples 315 that correspond to the target sample distribution 320, the number of samples 315 used to determine the response matrix may be reduced and an error associated with the linearization function for the amplifier may be equalized over the dynamic range associated with the target sample distribution 320.”).
Regarding Claim 11 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to, if it is determined that the predistortion is to be updated, select at least one sample of the plurality of samples allocated to the bin for updating the predistortion"
Regarding Claim 12 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to update the predistortion based on the selected sample allocated to the bin" (see fig. 6 and par. 0044 “A subset of the samples is selected (at 610) based upon a target sample distribution. The subset of the samples may then be used to determine (at 615) elements of a response matrix associated with the amplifier. The response matrix may be used to determine (at 620) a predistortion function and/or coefficient, e.g., by inverting the response matrix.”).
Regarding Claim 13 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to apply the updated predistortion to at least one sample of the plurality of samples allocated to the bin and subsequent to the selected sample"
Regarding Claim 14 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the predistortion is a digital predistortion" (see abstract “The method further includes determining a predistortion function based on the transfer function and applying the predistortion function to the input signal of the amplifier.”).
Regarding Claim 15 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising memory configured to store data indicating the updated predistortion" (see par. 0044 “the predistortion function and/or coefficients may be stored in a lookup table for later use.”).
Regarding Claim 16 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the memory is configured to store the data in a look-up-table" (see par. 0044 “the predistortion function and/or coefficients may be stored in a lookup table for later use.”).
Regarding Claim 17 Benedict teaches the limitations "The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising a semiconductor die, wherein the semiconductor die comprises the processing circuitry and the memory" (see par. 0032 “For example, the amplifier 105 may be a radiofrequency amplifier that may be used in a wireless communication device such as a base station, a router, a cellular telephone, a personal data assistant, a smart phone, a text messaging device, a wireless card, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, and the like.” Semiconductor dies are included in chips in cellular phones, smart phones etc.).
Regarding Claim 19 Benedict teaches the limitations "The transmitter of claim 18, further comprising at least one antenna configured to radiate a radio frequency transmit signal based on the output signal" (see par. 0045 “ Faster estimations of the response matrix may also allow the amplifier system 100 to produce a transmitted spectrum with better spectral properties, which may introduce less nonlinear in-band distortion and/or spurious emissions in neighboring frequency bands.” (i.e. antenna to transmit spectrum).
Regarding Claim 21 Benedict teaches the limitations "The base station of claim 20, further comprising a baseband processing circuitry con-figured to generate digital transmit data indicating the plurality of samples" (see par. 0008 “a method is provided for selecting samples for digital amplifier predistortion estimation. The method may include accessing a plurality of samples. Each sample includes information associated with an input signal and a corresponding output signal of the amplifier. The plurality of samples includes at least one first sample acquired at a first time and at least one second sample acquired at a second time displaced from the first time by at least one selected time interval. The method may also include selecting a subset of the plurality of samples based on a sample distribution and determining a transfer function associated with the amplifier based on the subset of the plurality of samples.” (i.e. inherent baseband processing in the smartphone with digital amplifier transmitting spectrum).
Regarding Claim 23 Benedict teaches the limitations "The method of claim 22, further comprising: arranging multiple consecutive samples of the plurality of samples into a block; and binning the block based on a characteristic of the block"
Regarding Claim 24 Benedict teaches the limitations "The method of claim 22, further comprising: determining whether the number of samples allocated to the bin exceeds a predefined threshold; and if it is determined that the number of samples allocated to the bin exceeds the predefined threshold, determining that the predistortion is to be updated"
Regarding Claim 25 Benedict teaches the limitations "The method of claim 24, wherein determining whether the number of samples exceeds the predefined threshold comprises determining a modulus of a division of the number of samples by the predefined threshold" (see par. 0058 “Samples are also selected for power differences intermediate the largest power differences. Accordingly, four samples are selected per power bin. The top-down view 1600 of the power distribution function of the selected samples shows that the selected samples are grouped into four approximately distinct sequences of samples.”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7, 10 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. Benedict shows the threshold such as a target distribution (see fig. 3a-3c and par. 0037, however, when the sample number exceeds this threshold, the samples are discarded (see par. 0053 “…the distribution may be used to set one or more thresholds associated with the number of samples in a given bin. Samples in each of the bins may then be collected until the number of samples in the bin exceeds the threshold value determined using the distribution. Subsequent samples that are associated with these bins may then be discarded.” ) but this is not used as a decision when to update the predistortion. Therefore claim 4 and 10 are objected to.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID BILODEAU whose telephone number is (571)270-3192. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00am-4:00pm Eastern Standard Time. 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, Wesley Kim can be reached at (571) 272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/David Bilodeau/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648