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 .
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 01/09/2026.
In view of applicant’s amendment and arguments regarding objection to the drawings set forth in the previous office action, the objection is hereby withdrawn. In view of applicant’s amendment and arguments regarding objection to specification, the objection is hereby withdrawn.
In view of applicant’s amendment and arguments regarding rejection of claims 3 and 4 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) and (b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first and/or second paragraph, set forth in the previous Office Action, the rejection(s) is/are hereby withdrawn.
The applicant's arguments to the claims rejection are fully considered, however they are not deemed to be persuasive; for examiner response to the applicant’s arguments see “Response to Arguments” section below.
Response to Arguments
While arguing rejection of claim 1, and specifically with respect to the official notice taken by the Examiner with respect to general knowledge of using active resonators to build filters, on page 15 of the Remarks, the Applicant states the following:
“Without agreeing with that assertion, Applicant notes that the claim language specifically recites that the active resonators are "configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal." See As-Filed Specification, paragraph [0041], and claim 1. None of the cited references teach or suggest using active resonators for sensing a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal and Applicant traverses the Examiner's assertion of official notice.”
It appears that the Applicant has misinterpreted the language of their own claim 1, since nowhere in the claim does it say that it is the active resonators which are "configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal", as the Applicant alleges. In fact, this is what the claim says (underlining by the Examiner):
“a receiver comprising a plurality of active resonators, wherein the receiver is configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal…”
As may be seen, the claim is clear that it is the receiver which is “configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal”, not specifically “the active resonators”. These resonators are merely part of the receiver. That’s what the claim says. Therefore, the Applicant’s arguments are not commensurate with the actual claim language.
Turning to the primary reference of Elliott, the Examiner in the previous office action clearly explained that it discloses a “receiver configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal”. Please see below citing a portion of the previous office action with respect to this specific limitation:
[Elliott teaches] “a receiver (FIG 17 and paragraph 0177: receiver 1702)…” “…wherein the receiver is configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal (paragraph 0126: receiving data transmitted by wireless device clients. An example of broadly interpreted “a predetermined frequency band” is given in paragraph 0061 in which the device operates. Alternatively, with more narrow interpretation of “a predetermined frequency band” to be sensed, paragraph 0122: If there is one or more non-overlapping channels available, the wireless device will be operated using an available non-overlapping channel. The wireless device may periodically check (“sense”) to detect any changes in the shared wireless medium environment, such as an addition or removal of a WLAN. Since the functionality of the device corresponds to the functionality of the cognitive radio, as explained above, the data carrying signal to be received by the device corresponds to the claimed “a CR signal”, and a reception of a data carrying signal within the dynamically selected frequency channel corresponds to the claimed “sense” “for a CR signal”)…”
Elliott also teaches presence of an RF filter 1712 in the receiver (see FIG 17 and paragraph 0177). Elliott does not disclose its purpose and thus does not disclose presence of “a plurality of active resonators.”
For a teaching regarding plurality of resonators specifically tuned to sense multiple frequency bands, the Examiner used one of the secondary references to Thomsen, to fill in where Elliott is silent with respect to the RF filter 1712.
Finally, although Thomsen does not explicitly state that the filters are implemented using “active” resonators, col. 3 lines 45 – 49 state that all kinds of filters are possible, such as helical filters, multilayer filters, etc., without specifically limiting the filters to any particular implementation.
In this respect, in the previous office action, the Examiner took an official notice that implementing filters using active resonators was well known at the time the invention was effectively filed. Therefore, since Thomsen does not limit implementation of the filters to any particular, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize well known in the art active resonators to implement Thomsen’s channel filters 22, 23, 24 simply as design choice with predictable results since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
The Applicant continues their argument by specifically addressing this official notice by stating the following:
“If it is the Examiner's position that, at the time of filing, implementing filters using active resonators so that the filters are configured to sense a predetermined frequency band fo a CR signal was well known at the time of filing, Applicant respectfully requests that the Examiner provide documentary evidence, such as a prior art reference, to support this assertion. MPEP § 2144.03.”
This is also incorrect since the Examiner has never stated that “implementing filters using active resonators so that the filters are configured to sense a predetermined frequency band fo a CR signal was well known at the time of filing”. What the Examiner did actually state was that implementing filters using active resonators was well known in the art. Nowhere does it say in the official notice that the active resonators are specifically “configured to sense a predetermined frequency band fo a CR signal”, as the Applicant tries to allege. It is when these active resonators of the official notice are used to build Thomsen’s channel filters 22, 23, 24 to implement Elliott’s RF filter 1712 in the sensing receiver, the whole structure meets the limitations of claim 1.
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Therefore, since the Applicant’s argument with regards to the official notice taken by the Examiner in the previous office action is not commensurate with the actual wording of the official notice and the asserted facts, this alleged traversal is inadequate and thus the Examiner is not obligated to provide any documentary evidence. Nevertheless, since the subject of the official notice was to assert the fact that building filters using active resonators was well known in the art, the Examiner provides the following reference in support (which was also used as one of the references in the rejection of claims 7 and 9 in the previous office action):
US 20090033440 (Masuda), paragraph 0105: It can be understood from FIG. 5 that the parallel resonant circuit shown in FIG. 1 can be used as a bandpass filter having an arbitrary resonant frequency in the extremely wide frequency band from about 2 GHz to about 14 GHz. Turning to FIG 1, paragraph 0087, it represents a diagram showing the configuration of a parallel resonant circuit formed on a semiconductor chip of a semiconductor integrated circuit. It includes a transconductance circuit 2 that generates output current responding to input voltage across a non-inversion input terminal + and an inversion input terminal -. Thus, FIG 1 represents an active resonator acting as a bandpass filter.
By citing Masuda, the Examiner provided a reference in support of the official notice asserted in the previous office action.
Therefore, this Applicant’s argument with respect to the official notice has been fully answered.
In the paragraph joining pages 15 and 16, the Applicant argues that Ray’s
“…combination with Elliott and Thomsen does not provide motivation to use a trained machine learning model specifically to correct phase noise in a CR signal received through active resonators. The claimed system integrates the active resonators with the trained machine learning model in a manner not disclosed or suggested by the cited references.”
This argument is not persuasive. The Examiner explained in the previous office action that recited by claim 1 “phase noise” is merely multipath effects. The Examiner has also shown that Ray discloses a method for training a neural network to filter a multipath corrupted signal. It is irrelevant whether the system includes active resonators, as the Applicant appears to argue, or not, for Ray’s method to work and be applicable to the system of Elliott. The Examiner also provided sufficient motivation to combine Ray’s method with the system of Elliott, such as resulting in better signal separation, more accurate parameter estimation, and more accurate signal classification in the presence of multipath.
Therefore, none of the Applicant’s arguments are found to be persuasive and the rejection of claims 1 – 14 is maintained.
Claim Objections
Claim 27 is objected to because of the following informalities: the claim has an extra comma at the beginning of the third line. Additionally, there is a period in the middle of the claim in line 5 after the word “frequency”. Periods may not be used elsewhere in the claims except for abbreviations. See Fressola v. Manbeck, 36 USPQ2d 1211 (D.D.C. 1995). Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1, 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190373639 (Elliott) in view of US 20160132768 (Ray) and US 6584304 (Thomsen).
Regarding claim 1, Elliott teaches “A cognitive radio (CR) based transceiver system (abstract: a wireless device transmits and/or receives signals using one or more frequencies and/or channels within shared wireless medium environments in which other wireless equipment is operating. Adapting its transmission operations to utilize frequencies or channels that do not interfere with other equipment. This falls under the definition of “cognitive radio” in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_radio) (as a radio that can be programmed and configured dynamically to use the best channels in its vicinity to avoid user interference and congestion. Such a radio automatically detects available channels, then accordingly changes its transmission or reception parameters to allow a greater number of concurrent wireless communications in a given band at one location. This process is a form of dynamic spectrum management.)), comprising:
a receiver (FIG 17 and paragraph 0177: receiver 1702)…” “…wherein the receiver is configured to sense a predetermined frequency band for a CR signal (paragraph 0126: receiving data transmitted by wireless device clients. An example of broadly interpreted “a predetermined frequency band” is given in paragraph 0061 in which the device operates. Alternatively, with more narrow interpretation of “a predetermined frequency band” to be sensed, paragraph 0122: If there is one or more non-overlapping channels available, the wireless device will be operated using an available non-overlapping channel. The wireless device may periodically check (“sense”) to detect any changes in the shared wireless medium environment, such as an addition or removal of a WLAN. Since the functionality of the device corresponds to the functionality of the cognitive radio, as explained above, the data carrying signal to be received by the device corresponds to the claimed “a CR signal”, and a reception of a data carrying signal within the dynamically selected frequency channel corresponds to the claimed “sense” “for a CR signal”)…”
“…a transmitter (FIG 17 and paragraph 0177: transmitter 1704) configured (i) to select a channel for CR signal transmission based on the predetermined frequency band (abstract: Adapting the transmission operations to utilize frequencies or channels that do not interfere with other equipment. Paragraph 0122: If there is one or more non-overlapping channels available, the wireless device will be operated using an available non-overlapping channel.), and (ii) to generate a carrier frequency for the selected channel (implicit for the operation of the transmitter. Also see FIG 17, local oscillator 1730 which is specifically used to “generate a carrier frequency for the selected channel” since transmission will be performed using the selected available non-overlapping channel)…”
Elliott does not teach that “the CR signal includes phase noise”. Elliott also does not teach “a trained machine learning model configured to correct the phase noise included in the CR signal.”
Looking into the Applicant’s disclosure to better understand the limitation “the CR signal includes phase noise”, paragraph 0036 explains that the phase noise is essentially multipath effects. FIG 16 and 17 with corresponding description in paragraphs 0049 – 0051 further reinforce this understanding that it is merely multipath propagation effect that is to be resolved. Therefore, these limitations are interpreted as the CR signal includes multipath propagation effects and the claimed device includes “a trained machine learning model” configured to correct the multipath propagation effects included in the CR signal.
In this respect, Ray in paragraph 0015 teaches that “multipath corrupted signals” refers to radio signals from one source that are received at a receiver by two or more paths. Multipath corruption generates significant complications when attempting to accurate locate signal sources and/or obtaining accurate outputs from signal processing techniques. Correspondingly, Ray teaches a method for training a neural network to filter a multipath corrupted signal. The method includes receiving, at the neural network, real or simulated multipath corrupted signal data, and training the neural network on the multipath corrupted signal data.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Ray trained neural network to filter a multipath corrupted signal, in the system of Elliott. Doing so would have resulted in better signal separation, more accurate parameter estimation, and more accurate signal classification in the presence of multipath.
Although Elliott teaches presence of an RF filter 1712 (see FIG 17 and paragraph 0177), Elliott does not disclose its purpose and thus does not disclose presence of “a plurality of active resonators.”
Thomsen in abstract, FIG 2 and corresponding description teaches a switchable wide band receiver for a multiband receiver for receiving signals within multiple receiving frequency bands, which are divided into channels; a wideband low noise amplifier (2) for amplifying the broadcast signals of all frequency bands and for outputting amplified output signals which are branched to multiple switches (11, 12, 13) of a switching device (10), wherein the number of switches (11, 12, 13) corresponds to a total number of receiving frequency bands; multiple filters (22, 23, 24) each connected to a respective switch (11, 12, 13), wherein each filter passes all signals within an associated receiving frequency band. In other words, Thomsen teaches “a receiver comprising a plurality of … resonators”, where resonators are implemented as filters 22 – 24.
Therefore, since Elliott does not disclose the purpose of the RF filter 1712 connected to the output of the low noise amplifier 1710 in FIG 17, and the device is to operate on multiple channels, one at the time, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Thomsen structure of a channel select filter, in the system of Elliott as RF filter 1712 simply as design choice with predictable results, the results being the capability of specifically selecting operating channel while using a minimum number of different components, thus lowering the production costs and facilitating a miniaturization of the device (see Thomsen, col. 2 lines 3 – 5).
Although Thomsen does not explicitly state that the filters are implemented using “active” resonators, col. 3 lines 45 – 49 state that all kinds of filters are possible, such as helical filters, multilayer filters, etc., without specifically limiting the filters to any particular implementation.
In the previous office action, the Examiner took an official notice that implementing filters using active resonators was well known at the time the invention was effectively filed. As the Examiner explained in section Response to Arguments above, Applicant’s traverse of the official notice is not adequate, therefore, the common knowledge or well-known in the art statement is taken to be admitted prior art. See Ahlert, 424 F.2d at 1091, 165 USPQ at 420. Therefore, since Thomsen does not limit implementation of the filters to any particular, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize well known in the art active resonators to implement Thomsen’s channel filters 22, 23, 24 simply as design choice with predictable results since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Additional explanations may be found in section Response to Arguments above which is incorporated herein by reference.
Regarding claim 12, Elliott teaches “wherein the transmitter (FIG 17 and paragraph 0177: transmitter 1704) comprises an oscillator (paragraph 0177: a local oscillator 1730), a modulator (implemented in a mixer 1732 which modulates the carrier signal from the local oscillator 1730 by the data signal I/Q), a power amplifier (PA) (a power amplifier (PA) 1734), and an antenna (antenna(s) 1708); and the oscillator, the modulator, the power amplifier (PA), and the antenna are electrically coupled in series (may clearly be seen from FIG 17: there is a series electrical coupling from the local oscillator 1730 to mixer 1732 (“modulator”) to the power amplifier 1734 to the antenna 1708).”
Regarding claim 14, Elliott in combination with Ray teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the trained machine learning model was trained with a plurality of samples…” “…of a received RF signal (Ray, paragraph 0005: a method for training a neural network to filter a multipath corrupted signal includes receiving, at the neural network, real multipath corrupted signal data (“a plurality of samples of…” “…of a received RF signal”), and training the neural network on the multipath corrupted signal data); and the trained machine learning model comprises a timing error function that includes each of the plurality of samples…” “…of the received RF signal multiplied by a weight associated with that sample (paragraph 0038: let A be a complex matrix of weights from a complex input sample vector x (“each of the plurality of samples…” “…of the received RF signal”) to hidden layer 106 with n hidden nodes 108. Then, the output of hidden nodes 108 is the real valued z=t(Ax). (Ax) in this formula represents multiplication of the weights A by the individual inputs x, such as individual samples X1, X2, etc. as shown in FIG 1 (“plurality of samples … multiplied by a weight associated with that sample”). Let b be the complex row vector of weights from hidden layer 106 to the single output node 112 such that y=t(bz) is the final real output which produces a time delay of pulse 302 (“a timing error function”). Taking z from the formula z=t(Ax) and substituting it in the formula y=t(bz) yields y=t(bt(Ax)) which directly corresponds to “a timing error function that includes each of the plurality of samples…” “…of the received RF signal multiplied by a weight associated with that sample”).”
Ray does not explicitly disclose usage of “an envelope” of the received signal for the training. However, “an envelope” represents simply a varying amplitude of the signal. In Ray, the processing takes into account both amplitude and phase - see paragraphs 0016 with respect to the ability to handle complex-valued signals and paragraph 0036 with respect to a sampled complex IF version of the signal. Therefore, the varying amplitude of the signal to be used in training of the neural network in Ray corresponds to “an envelope” of instant claim. Further, although Ray uses IF version of the signal, together with its amplitude and phase, Ray does not specifically limit the signal to be used for training to be only the IF version. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize a complex RF signal or only its amplitude (“an envelope”) as an input signal for neural network training simply as design choice with predictable results. Using an envelope only would have significantly simplified the algorithm, thus reducing processing requirements and possible time in training the network.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190373639 (Elliott) in view of US 20160132768 (Ray) and US 6584304 (Thomsen) as applied to claim 12 above, and further in view of US 12084708 (Branch).
Regarding claim 13, Elliott does not teach “wherein the oscillator comprises at least one active resonator electrically coupled in parallel with a high-bandwidth inverting amplifier.”
Elliott does not disclose the structure of the local oscillator 1730, thus prompting a person of ordinary skill in the art to search for other references.
In this respect, Branch teaches “the oscillator (col. 8 line 8: FIG. 1B provides an exemplary oscillator circuit) comprises at least one active resonator (col. 8 line 9: an active resonator Y1) electrically coupled in parallel with a high-bandwidth inverting amplifier (col. 8 lines 9 – 10: an amplifier U1 including an amplifier input and an amplifier output which is “inverting” with respect to the signal appearing at its negative (“—”) input. With respect to the requirement that it is “a high-bandwidth” it is not clear what it means with respect to an amplifier. Therefore, it is simply interpreted as “wide bandwidth”. Although Branch does not provide any disclosure with respect to the bandwidth of the amplifier U1, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize an amplifier with sufficiently wide bandwidth to prevent any variation of gain of the amplifier depending on the frequency being utilized. Lastly, with respect to the requirement that the active resonator is “electrically coupled in parallel” with the amplifier, this may clearly be seen if FIG 1B is redrawn in the following manner, where parallel coupling is accomplished through the ground:
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).”
Therefore, since Elliott does not disclose the structure of the local oscillator 1730, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Branch oscillator structure using active resonator, in the system of Elliott simply as design choice with predictable results and since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claims 2 – 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190373639 (Elliott) in view of US 20160132768 (Ray) and US 6584304 (Thomsen) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 7660567 (Gehring).
Regarding claim 2, Elliott teaches “wherein the receiver comprises a low noise amplifier (LNA) (par. 0177: receiver 1702 includes a low-noise amplifier (LNA) 1710)…”
Elliott does not teach that the LNA is “electrically coupled in parallel with both an automatic gain control (AGC) and a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) circuit, and the RSSI circuit comprises a plurality of limiting amplifiers.”
Gehring in Fig. 1 and col. 1 lines 49 – 58 teaches “a low noise amplifier (LNA) (a low noise amplifier (LNA) 110) electrically coupled in parallel with both an automatic gain control (AGC) (an automatic gain control (AGC) module 170) and a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) circuit (a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) circuit 160), and the RSSI circuit comprises a plurality of limiting amplifiers (a chain of limiting gain amplifiers (i.e., limiters) 140).”
With respect to LNA 110 being “coupled in parallel” with the AGC 170 and RSSI 160, this is simply a matter of presentation on a piece of paper, just like it is presented in the Applicant’s own FIG 1. In fact, from the technical point of view, the Applicant’s FIG 1 clearly shows that the gain control circuitry 112 is not “coupled in parallel” with a low noise amplifier 108, but is simply connected to the output of the low noise amplifier 108 and controls its gain based on the level of the output signal from the low noise amplifier. In view of this, Gehring’s system operates in similar manner, by indirectly evaluating the level of the output signal from the low noise amplifier 110 and controlling the gain of the LNA 110 based on that.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Gehring automatic gain control circuit based on evaluation of the received signal level, in the system of Elliott. Doing so would have allowed to accurately and timely set the controls of the variable gain blocks, such as low noise amplifier, based on the strength of the received signal (see Gehring, col. 2 lines 1 – 7).
Regarding claim 3, Elliott in combination with Gehring teaches “wherein the RSSI circuit is configured to determine a power level of the CR signal (Gehring, col. 2 lines 13 – 17: proper operation of the AGC depends on the availability of an accurate and nearly-instantaneous indication of the strength (“power level”) of the received signal. Such indication, referred to as a received signal strength indication (RSSI) value, is provided by the RSSI circuit. When combined with the system of Elliott, the RSSI circuit would have measured the strength of “the CR signal”); and the RSSI circuit is configured to continuously detect instability in the CR signal (Gehring, col. 2 lines 13 – 17: nearly-instantaneous indication of the strength of the received signal. Nearly-instantaneous means that any variation (“instability”) in the signal will be immediately detected.).”
Regarding claim 4, Elliott in combination with Gehring teaches “wherein the RSSI circuit is configured to control a gain of the LNA (Gehring, col. 4 lines 22 – 24: the RSSI value can be used for determining if the AGC module should reduce the gain of the receiver), and the RSSI circuit is further configured to prevent saturation of an output in a received path for the AGC (Gehring, col. 2 lines 4 – 7: If the gain controls are set inappropriately (which is set based on the signal from the RSSI circuit), the receiver malfunction due to node saturation. Therefore, the disclosed AGC circuit prevent saturation “of an output in a received path for the AGC”).”
Claims 7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190373639 (Elliott) in view of US 20160132768 (Ray) and US 6584304 (Thomsen) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20090033440 (Masuda).
Regarding claim 7, Elliott in combination with Thomsen teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the plurality of active resonators is electrically coupled in series to an output of the LNA (in the system of Elliott, as shown in FIG 17, RF filter 1712 is electrically connected in series to the output of the low noise amplifier. When combined with the channel select filter of Thomsen, and when the individual channel filters of Thomsen are implemented using active resonators, as explained in the rejection of claim 1 above, the condition of this limitation will be fulfilled)…”
Elliott and Thomsen do not teach “each active resonator of the plurality of active resonators comprises a programmable resonant frequency, and each active resonator of the plurality of active resonators is associated with a quality factor.”
Masuda in FIG 1 and paragraph 0087 teaches an active parallel resonant circuit which “comprises a programmable resonant frequency (paragraph 0089: By changing the capacitances CR, CL of the variable capacitors 1 and 3, the resonant frequency, resonance impedance, and resonance band can be variably controlled.), and each active resonator … is associated with a quality factor (inherent feature, also see FIG 3 and 5).”
Therefore, since Thomsen in col. 3 lines 45 – 49 states that all kinds of filters are possible without specifically limiting it to any particular structure, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Masuda active parallel resonant circuit as each of the plurality of Thomsen’s channel filters simply as design choice with predictable results (such as providing a wide-area RF signal processing circuit having a small chip occupied area and low power consumption as well as reduction in a large deviation of the resonance impedance only by a change in the resonant frequency – see Masuda, paragraph 0025).
Regarding claim 9, Elliott in combination with Thomsen teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the programmable resonant frequencies of each of the plurality of active resonators is the same, and the quality factor associated with each active resonator is unique.”
Indeed, the claim does not further specify how the feature of having the same programmable resonant frequencies and unique quality factor for each of the plurality of active resonators is used. Therefore, within the concept of broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim is interpreted as merely the requirement that each of the plurality of active resonators is simply to be capable of having the same programmable resonant frequencies and unique quality factor.
With this in mind, Masuda, paragraph 0058: By controlling at least one of the capacitance of the first capacitor and the capacitance of the second capacitor, parallel resonant frequency of the parallel-resonant circuit can be set to desired frequency (refer to FIG. 3). Also see FIG 5 showing capability of varying the resonance frequency between 2 and 12 GHz. FIG 3A clearly shows varying Q of the circuit depending on CL.
Therefore, when each of the Thomsen’s channel select filters in the system of Elliott is implemented as Masuda’s active parallel resonant circuit having identical parameters, each of “the plurality of active resonators” would have the capability of having the same “programmable resonant frequencies” between 2 and 12 GHz shown in Thomsen’s FIG 3 and 5, while varying components, such as CL, would provide the capability of having unique “quality factor associated with each active resonator” when CL is different between the resonators, thus meeting the limitation of the claim.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190373639 (Elliott) in view of US 20160132768 (Ray) and US 6584304 (Thomsen) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 6311049 (Yoshizawa).
Regarding claim 10, Elliott in combination with Thomsen does not teach “wherein the receiver further comprises:
a plurality of rectifiers electrically coupled in series to the plurality of active resonators; and summation circuitry, electrically coupled in series to the plurality of rectifiers, and configured to: sum outputs of the plurality of rectifiers, and provide the summed outputs to the trained machine learning model.”
However, this type of processing is well known in the art. For example, Yoshizawa teaches “a plurality of rectifiers (FIG 5, rectifiers 112a – 112d acting as signal detectors) electrically coupled in series to the plurality of…” “…resonators (each of the rectifiers is “coupled in series” with bandpass filters 104 and 109, where at least filter 109 is an active filter (see col. 3 line 25); and
summation circuitry, electrically coupled in series to the plurality of rectifiers, and configured to: sum outputs of the plurality of rectifiers (col. 2 lines 11 – 12: The outputs of detectors 112a – 112d are summed by an adder 113).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize well known in the art evidenced by Yoshizawa processing of the received signal by rectifying and summing, in the system of Elliott. Doing so would have allowed to detect the level of the amplitude of the received signal.
When the circuit of Yoshizawa is combined with the system of Elliott and Thomsen, the position of the plurality of rectifiers would be after and in series with the channel selection filter comprising “plurality of active resonators”, as the claim requires.
In Yoshizawa, FIG 5, the signal from the adder 113, after additional processing, is the actual output signal of the system. When combined with the system of Elliott, Thomsen and Ray, in which a neural network is trained on the output signal to filter a multipath corrupted signal, it is thus this output signal that would be provided to the neural network either to train the network or to actually correct the multipath distortion, as the claim requires.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is 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.
Since claim 8, indicated as allowable but objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, has additionally been rewritten in independent form as a new claim 27 including the limitations of claims 1 and 7, claim 27 is allowed.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 GENNADIY TSVEY whose telephone number is (571)270-3198. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5:30.
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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648