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
Response to Applicant’s Remarks
1a. Applicant’s arguments and remarks, filed on 2/6/2026 (hereinafter Remarks), are acknowledged, and have been fully considered.
1b. Regarding Applicant’s remark, the Examiner summarizes the Examiner’s comments correspond to Applicant’ remarks in the following tables for ease of discussion. The third column is the page number of Remarks where the Applicant’s remarks are taken from. All Applicant’ remarks and Examiner’s comments are labeled with numbers in the first column.
Row
Claim
Page
Applicant’s Remarks
Examiner’s Responses
R.1
1
7
Claim 1 includes the following limitation:
a xIFFT core coupled to receive the at least one cellular stream corresponding to the cellular signal, the xIFFT converts the at least one cellular stream to a set of at least one stream in a time domain;
The Examiner appreciates Applicant’s claim.
R.2
7
In the rejection, the Examiner argues that Afkhami discloses an xIFFT core that converts a cellular stream to at least one stream in a time domain. However, this assertion is incorrect. Afkhami does not even mention receiving or processing cellular signals.
Afkhami and Rofougaran may not agree with Applicant’s remarks.
Afkhami discloses receiving and processing wireless OFDM radio frequency signal, well known cellular signal in the industry:
[0028] FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a hybrid, dual channel transmitter 200 in accordance with one embodiment. In the depicted embodiment, the dual channel transmitter 200 may apply orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) encoding. OFDM may be characterized in one aspect as encoding binary information on multiple carrier frequencies. The dual channel transmitter 200 may be classified as “hybrid” because it includes a wireless (e.g., RF) interface and a wireline (e.g., PLC) interface that each transmit a respectively formatted transmission copy of an information signal.
Fig 3, Wireless Receiving Interface 330.
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200
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Further, Rofougaran discloses
[0008] …. the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of the plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system or a particular RF frequency for some systems) and communicate over that channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services).
Thus, Afkhami and Rofougaran fully disclose receiving or processing cellular signals.
R.3
7
Claim 12 includes the following limitation:
a first interface coupled to a wireline segment, the first interface receives a multi-stream signal from the wireline segment;
an analog-to-digital converter coupled to receive the multi-stream signal, the analog-to- digital converter converts to multi-stream signal to a first digital multi-stream signal;
The Examiner appreciates Applicant’s claim.
R.4
7
In the rejection, the Examiner argues Afkhami discloses the steps of receiving a multi- stream signal from a wireline and converting the multi-stream signal to a digital multi-stream signal. Afkhami does not teach this as it focuses on single bit stream signals.
Afkhami and Rofougaran may not agree with Applicant’s remarks.
Afkhami discloses multi channels (or multi streams) receiver coupled with analog-to-digital converter:
[0039] ….
the dual channel receiver 300 includes a wireless receive interface 330 that may comprise an antenna 302, an RF amplifier (RF amp) 304, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 306.
See: Fig 3, ADC 306.
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Thus, Afkhami and Rofougaran fully disclose Applicant’s Claims.
1c. Thus, Applicant’s claims have been disclosed by the cited prior art. The Examiner maintains the same ground of rejections. This office action is made final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
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 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.
2a. Claims 1-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Afkhami (US 20160337224 A1) in view of Rofougaran (US 20120184331 A1).
2b. Summary of the Cited Prior Art
Afkhami discloses a method for wireless and wireline dual medium communication.
Rofougaran discloses a method for wireless and wireline interface.
2c. Claim Analysis
Regarding Claim 1, Afkhami discloses:
An intermediate node comprising [(see Figs 2-5)]:
a first interface coupled to a BBU, the first interface receives a cellular signal
[(Afkhami discloses baseband processor and interfaces:
[0030] The baseband processor 202 may include an encoder 204, an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) unit 206, and a digital signal processor (DSP) 208. The encoder 204 may receive the stream of data bits in segments of bits in a periodic manner, such as every T.sub.sym seconds, where T.sub.sym is a symbol interval. The encoder 204 may encode the bit segments and sub-divide the encoded bit segments into a number of sub-segments. The encoder 204 may also perform quadrature amplitude modulation encoding of the sub-segments to map the sub-segments into complex-valued points in a constellation pattern. Each complex-valued point in the constellation pattern may represent discrete values of phase and amplitude. The encoder 204 may then pass a corresponding sequence of frequency-domain sub-symbols, PS.sub.0-PS.sub.N, as input to the IFFT unit 206. The IFFT unit 206 may perform an inverse fast Fourier transform on the sequence of sub-symbols to generate time-domain OFDM symbols constituted of in-phase and quadrature-shifted digital components.
Fig 2, Baseband 202; see also Figs 3-5)];
a xIFFT core coupled to receive the at least one cellular stream corresponding to the cellular signal, the xIFFT converts the at least one cellular stream to a set of at least one stream in a time domain
[(Afkhami discloses IFFT than function as xIFFT:
[0030] The baseband processor 202 may include an encoder 204, an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) unit 206, and a digital signal processor (DSP) 208. The encoder 204 may receive the stream of data bits in segments of bits in a periodic manner, such as every T.sub.sym seconds, where T.sub.sym is a symbol interval. The encoder 204 may encode the bit segments and sub-divide the encoded bit segments into a number of sub-segments. The encoder 204 may also perform quadrature amplitude modulation encoding of the sub-segments to map the sub-segments into complex-valued points in a constellation pattern. Each complex-valued point in the constellation pattern may represent discrete values of phase and amplitude. The encoder 204 may then pass a corresponding sequence of frequency-domain sub-symbols, PS.sub.0-PS.sub.N, as input to the IFFT unit 206. The IFFT unit 206 may perform an inverse fast Fourier transform on the sequence of sub-symbols to generate time-domain OFDM symbols constituted of in-phase and quadrature-shifted digital components.
Fig 2, IFFT UNIT 206; see also Figs 3-5)];
downlink intermediate node multi-stream processing logic coupled to the xIFFT core, the downlink intermediate node multi-stream processing logic multiplexes the at least one stream in the time domain into at least one multi-stream signal; and
[(Afkhami discloses DSP functions as intermediate node multi-stream processing logic:
[0031] The time-domain OFDM symbols generated by the IFFT unit 206 may be received by the DSP 208, which may perform spectral shaping on the OFDM symbols. In the depicted embodiment, the DSP 208 may include a guard interval controller 210. The guard interval controller 210 may insert a transmit guard interval of length T.sub.g as a prefix before each OFDM symbol. The transmit guard interval, which may also be referred to as a cyclic prefix, may be a repetition of part of the corresponding OFDM symbol.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)];
a digital-to-analog converter coupled to receive the at least one multi-stream signal, the digital-to-analog converter converts the at least one multi-stream signal into an at least one analog multi-stream signal that is transmitted on a wireline segment within a wireline-wireless architecture
[(Afkhami discloses DACs that transmit multi-stream signal into wireline
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals. Similarly, the DAC 214 may convert the quadrature-shifted (Q) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 218 to modulate an IF carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals. The in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals generated by mixers 216 and 218 are then combined in a signal combiner 220 to form a composite baseband IF signal.
[0031] ………… For example, a transmit guard interval used for wireless transmission may be shorter than a transmit guard interval used for wireline transmission. Furthermore, different length of transmit guard intervals may be selected for different wireline media, such as PLC media and coaxial cable.
Fig 2, DAC 212 and 214; see also Figs 3-5)].
Afkhami does not use the term wireline-wireless architecture.
However, Rofougaran discloses:
the digital-to-analog converter converts the at least one multi-stream signal into an at least one analog multi-stream signal that is transmitted on a wireline segment within a wireline-wireless architecture
[(Rofougaran discloses wireline-wireless architecture:
[0063] FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of another wireless communication environment that includes a communication device 30 communicating with one or more of the wireline non-real-time device 12, the wireline real-time device 14, the wireline non-real-time and/or real-time device 16, a wireless data device 32, a data base station 34, a voice base station 36, and a wireless voice device 38. The communication device 30, which may be a personal computer, laptop computer, personal entertainment device, cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, a game console, a game controller, and/or any other type of device that communicates data and/or voice signals, may be coupled to one or more of the wireline non-real-time device 12, the wireline real-time device 14, and the wireline non-real-time and/or real-time device 16 via the wireless connection 28.
Fig 2, Wireline Connection 28; see also Figs 1 and 3-5)].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to integrate Afkhami’s method for wireless and wireline dual medium communication with Rofougaran’s method for wireless and wireline interface with the motivation being to enhanced Data rates (Rofougaran, [0008]).
Regarding Claim 2, Afkhami discloses:
further comprising an ORAN IP core coupled to the xIFFT core, the ORAN IP core provides interoperability between the intermediate node and the BBU
[(Afkhami discloses encoder that function as ORAN IP core:
[0030] The baseband processor 202 may include an encoder 204, an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) unit 206, and a digital signal processor (DSP) 208. The encoder 204 may receive the stream of data bits in segments of bits in a periodic manner, such as every T.sub.sym seconds, where T.sub.sym is a symbol interval. The encoder 204 may encode the bit segments and sub-divide the encoded bit segments into a number of sub-segments. The encoder 204 may also perform quadrature amplitude modulation encoding of the sub-segments to map the sub-segments into complex-valued points in a constellation pattern. Each complex-valued point in the constellation pattern may represent discrete values of phase and amplitude. The encoder 204 may then pass a corresponding sequence of frequency-domain sub-symbols, PS.sub.0-PS.sub.N, as input to the IFFT unit 206. The IFFT unit 206 may perform an inverse fast Fourier transform on the sequence of sub-symbols to generate time-domain OFDM symbols constituted of in-phase and quadrature-shifted digital components.
Fig 2, Encoder 204; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 3, Afkhami discloses:
further comprising a control signal generator coupled to the ORAN IP core and the xIFFT core, the control signal generator receives at least one of a first control information from the xIFFT core and a second control information from the ORAN IP core, the control signal generator generates a control signal based at least partially on the at least one of the first and second control information
[(Afkhami discloses DSP functions as a control signal generator:
[0031] The time-domain OFDM symbols generated by the IFFT unit 206 may be received by the DSP 208, which may perform spectral shaping on the OFDM symbols. In the depicted embodiment, the DSP 208 may include a guard interval controller 210. The guard interval controller 210 may insert a transmit guard interval of length T.sub.g as a prefix before each OFDM symbol. The transmit guard interval, which may also be referred to as a cyclic prefix, may be a repetition of part of the corresponding OFDM symbol.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 4, Afkhami does not discloses about buffer.
However, Rofougaran discloses:
comprising at least one buffer coupled to the xIFFT core, the at least one buffer receives and stores the set of at least one stream in the time domain received from the xIFFT core
[(see:
0240] The demultiplexer 564, which may be a demultiplexer, deinterleaving circuit, switching circuit and/or any other circuit that separates two multiplexed signals from the same transmission line, separates the I and Q components from the serial stream of multiplexed I and Q data. In this embodiment, the demultiplexer 564 is proximal on the IC to the baseband processing module while the receive buffer 558 and the multiplexer 562 is proximal on the IC to the RF section.
Fig 5, Fig 31)].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to integrate Afkhami’s method for wireless and wireline dual medium communication with Rofougaran’s method for wireless and wireline interface with the motivation being to enhanced Data rates (Rofougaran, [0008]).
Regarding Claim 5, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the downlink intermediate node multi-streaming processing logic comprises a multiplexer coupled to receive the set of at least one stream in the time domain and the control signal, the multiplexer generates a multi-stream signal comprising the set of at least one stream in the time domain and at least a portion of the control signal
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 6, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the downlink intermediate node multi-stream processing logic further comprises one or more of upsample logic, a low-pass filter, an IF mixer up-converter, and a real-part extractor
[(see:
[0033] The composite baseband IF signal may be received by a wireless interface in the form of a RF front-end unit 222, In addition to other components, the RF front-end unit 222 may include an RF mixer 224, an RF amplifier 226, and an antenna 228. The RF mixer 224 receives and uses the composite baseband IF signal to modulate a transmit carrier signal having a frequency, f.sub.tc, to generate an RF OFDM-modulated carrier signal that can be transmitted via the antenna 228 on a wireless channel.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 7, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the downlink intermediate node multi-stream processing logic comprises a single multiplexing path
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 8, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the single multiplexing path interleaves the set of at least one stream in the time domain and the at least a portion of the control signal on a data block-by-data block basis
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 9, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the single multiplexing path interleaves the set of at least one stream in the time domain and the at least a portion of the control signal on a multi-data-block-by-multi-data-block bases, the multi-block having a block length greater than one
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 10, Afkhami discloses:
wherein the downlink intermediate node multi-stream processing comprises a plurality of multiplexing paths
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claim 11, Afkhami discloses:
wherein each of the plurality of multiplexing paths interleaves the set of at least one stream in the time domain with the at least a portion of the control signal
[(see:
[0002] Telecommunication networks enable computers and other electronic data processing devices to exchange information across communication channels. A channel may be a physical transmission medium such as a wireline, or may be a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as an RF channel. A channel may be utilized to carry an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from one or more network transmitters to one or more network receivers. Channels have various transmission characteristics including transmission capacity as may be measured by bandwidth
[0032] The baseband processor 202 may pass in-phase (I) and quadrature-shifted (Q) digital components of the time-domain symbols in two separate paths to a pair of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 212 and 214, respectively. The DAC 212 may convert the in-phase (I) components of the time-domain OFDM symbols into analog signals which are used by a mixer 216 to modulate an intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal and a corresponding quadrature-shifted IF signal each having a carrier frequency, f.sub.c to generate in-phase and quadrature-shifted IF OFDM passband signals.
Fig 2, DSP 208; see also Figs 3-5)].
Regarding Claims 12-23, the claims disclose similar features as of Claims 1, 2, 2, 7, 12, 4, 5, 10, 5, 3, 3 and 11, and are rejected accordingly.
Further, Claims 12-13 disclose the same operations of Claims 1-11, but are operated by a receiver.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung-Jen Liu whose telephone number is 571-270-7643. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kwang B. Yao can be reached on 571-272-3182. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUNG LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2473