DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/20/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 1/20/2026 have been fully considered. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Zheng et al (US 2019/0116404).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-3, 5, 10, 16-18, 31-33 and 38-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krampl et al (US 2023/0208542) in view of Igarashi et al (US 2021/0399809) and Wu et al (US 2021/0194588) and Zheng et al (US 2019/0116404).
1). With regard to claim 1, Krampl et al discloses a method for optical communication (Figures 1a and 3a), comprising:
determining, at an optical line terminal (OLT 300), a channel characteristic of a channel from an optical network unit (ONU in Figures 1a and 3a) to the optical line terminal (Figure 1b: step 110, the ONU receives the preamble configuration message; Figure 3b: step 310 OLT transmits the preamble configuration message. [0022]: “each transmission channel having individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units. For example, the upstream in a PON is a TDM scheme of bursts of data from different ONUs. Each ONU to OLT path forms its own transmission channel (from the LDPC point of view). In order to differentiate bit-errors caused by the PMD receiver's settling phase (which shall not be subject to LDPC correction) and bit-errors caused by the ONU specific channel (which are subject to LDPC correction) a structured preamble, as introduced in the proposed concept, may be provided” [0022]; and “in addition to the first subsection of the preamble, which is used for clock data recovery, the preamble according to the proposed concept comprises at least one additional subsection, i.e., the second subsection, and an optional third subsection, which may be used for gathering information to be used for the forward error correction and/or for training the non-linear equalizer”, [0023]. [0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc., each ONU has a specific transmission path/channel or fiber length, having individual transmission properties, which is “taken into account”, and a “structured preamble” is provided for the ONU specific channel, and “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of ONUs due to “a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties”; and “Each ONU can be configured differently”; and for different data rates, e.g., 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s, different preamble patterns are used. That is, a channel characteristic of a channel from an ONU to the OLT is determined so to direct the ONU to use the configuration message to generate a “structured” preamble);
determining, based on the channel characteristic, a preamble property ([0024]-[0036] etc., signal pattern/sequence, “this predetermined signal sequence may be predefined by a standard, or it may be parametrized via the preamble configuration message”; and [0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc., “Each ONU can be configured differently. The configuration message is transmitted to each ONU individually”; “Between each ONU and the OLT, a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties. Therefore, the proposed concept may be applied to a plurality of ONUs, with the procedure being performed separately for each ONU. … . In some examples, the transmitter or the receiver may be configured to transmit separate preamble configuration messages to the plurality of optical networking units. For example, in a PON, the OLT may configure the preamble by an overhead channel message (i.e., the preamble configuration message) from the OLT to the individual ONUs. Each ONU can be configured differently” [0081]; and “Conventional PON systems up to 10 Gbit/s use hard decision FECs and thus may not require knowledge of the signal statistics. The preamble in upstream direction is used to lock symbol timing and to train digital and analog equalizers and adjust the decision thresholds for the hard decision receiver. For this case, it is convenient to use a simple pattern like 10101010. Hereby, conventional 10G PON allows the configuration of the preamble pattern by a bit pattern of e.g., 64 bit and the number of repetitions of the bit pattern. For 25G PON, e.g., IEEE 802.3ca, where an LDPC is used for forward error correction, the complete preamble pattern, consisting of 3 different 257-bit patterns, may be communicated to the transmitter, which results in a lot of overhead communication” [0087]) for a transmission from the optical network unit to the optical line terminal (Figure 1b, steps 120-160, the ONU determines a preamble property based on the preamble configuration message and generates preambles), the preamble property at least partially compensating for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic ([0049] and [0045], the preamble can be used for training the non-linear equalizer; then it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the transmitted signal experiences nonlinear effects, which incurs nonlinear distortion. Figure 3b, step 330 and 360, the preamble is used for training non-linear equalizer);
transmitting (Figure 1b: step 110, the ONU receives the preamble configuration message; Figure 3b: step 310 OLT transmits the preamble configuration message), to the optical network unit, preamble information, the preamble information being for generating a preamble having the preamble property ([0024]-[0036] etc., Figure 2); and
receiving (by the OLT, step 230 of Figure 3b), from the optical network unit, the preamble having the preamble property.
Krampl et al does not expressly states that the transmission distortion is caused by the channel characteristic, wherein the determining the channel characteristic includes determining, based on information received from the optical network unit at an activation stage of the optical network unit, the channel characteristic, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel.
Regarding the transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic, however, it is commonly known that the nonlinearity in fiber can incur the signal distortion; and chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion and polarization rotation etc. also introduce transmission distortion. E.g., Igarashi et al discloses a system/method, in which preambles contain training code sequence (Figure 10), and “The equalizer 31 performs adaptive equalization processing on the digital signal output by the ADC 22 and outputs a reception signal 31out in which waveform distortion occurring during propagation, such as chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and polarization rotation, for example, has been compensated for” ([0090] and [0032]); that is, different types of distortion need to be compensated. Another prior art, Wu et al, also discloses that a preamble is used to train equalizer, “an equalization parameter used by the data receive end to perform equalization processing on data may need to be updated with the channel. In this application, an equalization parameter corresponding to an identifier of each ONU may be obtained and stored in advance through training. The equalization parameter may reflect an impact of the channel between the OLT and the ONU on transmission data. Herein, a process of training and storing may include following steps: 1. The OLT receives a first message sent by the ONU, where the first message includes a third preamble and a registration request. 2. The OLT determines an equalization parameter based on the received third preamble. 3. The OLT stores a correspondence between an identifier of the ONU and the determined equalization parameter” ([0028]-[0031]), and “the ONU may send the first message to the OLT, where the first message includes the registration request, and the registration request is used by the ONU to register with the OLT. Herein, the registration request may be REGISTER REQ. After the ONU is registered with the OLT, the OLT may perceive that the ONU is included in the PON system and may receive the data sent by the ONU. Optionally, the OLT may periodically open a window. During the window opening, the ONU is allowed to register with the OLT. Herein, the ONU registered with the OLT during window opening may be a newly deployed ONU in the PON system. Optionally, a manner in which the ONU determines the third preamble includes, but is not limited to, the following two manners: (1) The ONU stores a parameter such as a code type of the third preamble and encoding frequency of the third preamble in advance, and determines the third preamble based on the prestored parameter. (2) The OLT configures, for the ONU, a parameter such as a code type and encoding frequency of the third preamble, and sends the configured parameter to the ONU. The ONU determines the third preamble based on the received parameter” ([0155]-[0170]); and “[t]he equalizer 204 may be mainly configured to compensate an optical device for an insufficient bandwidth that affects high-rate data, and compensate for signal distortion caused by factors such as inter-code interference and channel fading that affect the data on a transmission channel (that is, an optical fiber), to correctly recover data sent to a peer end” ([0075]); that is, Wu et al teaches to use preambles to compensate for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic (inter-code interference and channel fading etc.).
Krampl et al discloses “each transmission channel having individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units” and a “structured preamble” is needed, and a transmission system with different data rate needs to be considered for the preamble patterns etc.; Igarashi et al discloses that the waveform distortion occurring during propagation, such as chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and polarization rotation, needs to be compensated for; and Wu et al discloses “Optical modules of different ONUs may support different bandwidths. Distances between different ONUs and the OLT may be different. When the electrical domain equalization technology is used, operating parameters of the electrical-domain equalizer on an OLT side may also be different” ([0005]); therefore, the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al teaches/suggests that the channel characteristic needs to be determined so to determine the preamble property or “structured preamble” for a transmission from the ONU to OLT for training an equalizer etc. for quickly and properly determining working parameters of the equalizer and then to compensate for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic and to decode transmitted data.
Regarding determining the channel characteristic based on information received from the optical network unit at an activation stage of the optical network unit, first, according to applicant’s disclosure, the channel characteristic can be any channel characteristic related to signal transmission from an ONU to OLT.
Second, Krampl et al teaches/discloses ([0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc.) that different channel (one ONU to OLT) has a different preamble, and a “structured preamble”, which is based on “individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units”, is assigned to individual ONU; and “a given environment” needs to be considered; “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of optical networking units due to “a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties”; and “Each ONU can be configured differently”; and for different data rates, e.g., 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s, different preamble patterns are used. Therefore, it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the characteristic information of the channel is obtained by the OLT so that “individual transmission properties that may be taken into account”, and a “structured preamble” is assigned to individual ONU, and “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of ONUs, and “Each ONU can be configured differently”.
Third, for a common or standard Passive Optical Network (PON), during a discovery phase or at an activation stage of an optical network unit, the ONU sends a registration request (or REGISTER_REQ) to an OLT so to register the ONU; and a REGISTER_REQ message can contain ONU’s MAC address to identify the specific ONU, an ONU’s local timestamp, information related to the ONU's bandwidth requirements, or capabilities etc. That is, the REGISTER_REQ contains “characteristic of the optical network unit”; and an identifier and timestamp are “channel-relevant information”. And, OLT can determine the transmission or channel characteristics based on the REGISTER_REQ message, e.g., the OLT can determine the round-trip time and equalization parameters etc. Therefore, for a common or standard Passive Optical Network (PON), an OLT receives information (REGISTER_REQ) from the ONU at an activation stage of the ONU, the channel characteristic, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel. E.g., Zheng et al discloses a PON system, and during the registration phase ([0014] etc., “when the ONU performs registration and gets online”, [0087], [0128] and [0296] etc., “Step 301 to step 312 are steps performed in a process in which the ONU performs registration and gets online”), an ONU sends a registration request message, REGISTER_REG, to OLT (Figures 2-6 and 9 etc.), and the registration request message can include capability information of the ONU (Abstract, [0092] etc.), an ONU serial number message (Serial_Number_ONU), and/or a ranging response message (ranging is related to distance between the OLT and the ONU) ([0026]), MAC address, a random delay time, a vendor-specific serial number (VSSN) ([0162], “in Serial_Number_ONU, a DA is the MAC control multicast address, an SA is an ONU MAC address, and content may further include an unassigned ONUID, a random delay time, and a vendor-specific serial number (VSSN)”, and [0302]). That is, a REGISTER_REQ contains channel characteristic information of the channel from an ONU to an OLT.
Fourth, as discussed above, Wu et al discloses a PON system, in which a preamble is used to train equalizer. Wu et al discloses that a newly added ONU sends registration request, REGISTER REQ, to the OLT ([0157]-[0161], “the registration request is used by the ONU to register with the OLT” and “the ONU registered with the OLT during window opening may be a newly deployed ONU in the PON system”). And, Wu et al discloses “In the methods shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 12, when the ONU sends the uplink burst data to the OLT, the uplink burst data includes an identifier of the ONU. In the method shown in FIG. 13, after determining the equalization parameter, the OLT needs to correspond the determined equalization parameter to the identifier of the ONU.” ([0172]. Also refer to [0129], [0141] and [0165] “the equalization parameter determined based on the third preamble corresponds to the transmission channel between the OLT and the ONU, and the equalization parameter may reflect a characteristic of the transmission channel”), and “(2) The ONU identifier is sent by the ONU to the OLT. Further, in this application, if the identifier of the ONU is a specific identifier of the ONU, the ONU may obtain the identifier, and may send the identifier to the OLT. Optionally, the specific identifier of the ONU includes, but is not limited to, the following several types: a VSSN of the ONU and a MAC address.” ([0177]-[0179]. VSSN: vendor-specific serial number). That is, Wu et al teaches/suggests: determining the channel characteristic includes determining, based on information received from the optical network unit at an activation stage of the optical network unit, the channel characteristic, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al with Krampl et al so that a channel characteristic information of a channel is sent from an ONU to an OLT at an activation stage, and the channel characteristic of the channel from an ONU to the OLT is determined and used to determine a preamble property, and then the transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic can be quickly and properly compensated.
2). With regard to claim 2, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein transmitting the preamble information comprises:
transmitting, to the optical network unit, a configuration parameter for generating the preamble (Krampl: Figure 1b: step 110, the ONU receives the preamble configuration message; Figure 3b: step 310 OLT transmits the preamble configuration message. [0029]-[0031], “the preamble configuration message may define parameters for the generation of the preamble, in particular parameters for the predetermined/pseudorandom sequence being used for the second subsection, and optionally for the optional third subsection”), wherein the configuration parameter is determined based on the preamble property by the optical line terminal (refer claim 1 rejection).
3). With regard to claim 3, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein transmitting the preamble information comprises:
transmitting, to the optical network unit, an indication indicating the preamble (Krampl: [0083], “the preamble configuration message may communicate the number of sections in the preamble, e.g. two or three subsections. For each preamble section, it may contain the type (repeating pattern or pseudorandom). In other words, the preamble configuration message may comprise information on a number of subsections of the preamble, and information on a signal pattern being used for the respective subsection”), wherein the preamble is determined based on the preamble property by the optical line terminal.
4). With regard to claim 5, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the information comprises at least one of a serial number (Wu: refer claim 4 rejection, also Abstract and Table 1 etc.) and a ranging result of the optical network unit (Wu: ranging is a standard procedure for PON; and in [0063], Wu discloses that ranging is performed, “The OLT 101 is connected to the ONU 102 through the ODN to implement functions such as control, management, and ranging on the ONU 102”. Zheng: [0026] etc.).
5). With regard to claim 10, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
training, by using the preamble received, an equalizer of the optical line terminal (both Krampl et al and Wu et al teach to train an equalizer of the OLT, refer claim1 rejection).
6). With regard to claim 16, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the preamble is a non-pseudo random binary sequence (Krampl: [0030] and [0047], “an alternating sequence of 1s and 0s (or of signal high and signal low values), such as 10101010 (with N repetitions)” is not an PRBS).
7). With regard to claim 17, Krampl et al discloses a method for optical communication (Figures 1a and 3a), comprising:
receiving (step 110 in Figure 1b), at an optical network unit (ONU in Figures 1a and 3a) and from an optical line terminal (OLT 300), preamble information (“preamble configuration message” in Figure 1b), the preamble information being for generating a preamble (Figure 1b, step 120-150, preamble is generated based on the preamble configuration message) having a preamble property ([0024]-[0036] etc., signal pattern/sequence, “this predetermined signal sequence may be predefined by a standard, or it may be parametrized via the preamble configuration message”; and [0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc., “Each ONU can be configured differently. The configuration message is transmitted to each ONU individually”; Between each ONU and the OLT, a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties. Therefore, the proposed concept may be applied to a plurality of ONUs, with the procedure being performed separately for each ONU. … . In some examples, the transmitter or the receiver may be configured to transmit separate preamble configuration messages to the plurality of optical networking units. For example, in a PON, the OLT may configure the preamble by an overhead channel message (i.e., the preamble configuration message) from the OLT to the individual ONUs. Each ONU can be configured differently” [0081]; and “Conventional PON systems up to 10 Gbit/s use hard decision FECs and thus may not require knowledge of the signal statistics. The preamble in upstream direction is used to lock symbol timing and to train digital and analog equalizers and adjust the decision thresholds for the hard decision receiver. For this case, it is convenient to use a simple pattern like 10101010. Hereby, conventional 10G PON allows the configuration of the preamble pattern by a bit pattern of e.g., 64 bit and the number of repetitions of the bit pattern. For 25G PON, e.g., IEEE 802.3ca, where an LDPC is used for forward error correction, the complete preamble pattern, consisting of 3 different 257-bit patterns, may be communicated to the transmitter, which results in a lot of overhead communication” [0087])), the preamble property being determined based on a channel characteristic of a channel from the optical network unit to the optical line terminal (Figure 1b: step 110, the ONU receives the preamble configuration message; Figure 3b: step 310 OLT transmits the preamble configuration message. [0022]: “each transmission channel having individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units. For example, the upstream in a PON is a TDM scheme of bursts of data from different ONUs. Each ONU to OLT path forms its own transmission channel (from the LDPC point of view). In order to differentiate bit-errors caused by the PMD receiver's settling phase (which shall not be subject to LDPC correction) and bit-errors caused by the ONU specific channel (which are subject to LDPC correction) a structured preamble, as introduced in the proposed concept, may be provided” [0022]; and “in addition to the first subsection of the preamble, which is used for clock data recovery, the preamble according to the proposed concept comprises at least one additional subsection, i.e., the second subsection, and an optional third subsection, which may be used for gathering information to be used for the forward error correction and/or for training the non-linear equalizer” [0023]. [0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc., each ONU has a specific transmission path/channel or fiber length, having individual transmission properties, which is “taken into account”, and a “structured preamble” is provided for the ONU specific channel, and “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of ONUs due to “a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties”; and “Each ONU can be configured differently”; and for different data rates, e.g., 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s, different preamble patterns are used. That is, a channel characteristic of a channel from an ONU to the OLT is determined so to direct the ONU to use the configuration message to generate a “structured” preamble), the preamble property at least partially compensating for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic ([0049] and [0045], the preamble can be used for training the non-linear equalizer; then it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the transmitted signal experiences nonlinear effects, which incurs nonlinear distortion. Figure 3b, step 330 and 360, the preamble is used for training non-linear equalizer);
generating, based on the preamble information, the preamble for a transmission from the optical network unit to the optical line terminal (Figure 1b, step 120-150, preamble is generated based on the preamble configuration message);
transmitting, to the optical line terminal, the preamble having the preamble property (step 160 of Figure 1b).
Krampl et al does not expressly states that the transmission distortion is caused by the channel characteristic; and transmitting, to the optical line terminal, information for determining the channel characteristic at an activation stage of the optical network unit, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel.
Regarding the transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic, however, it is commonly known that the nonlinearity in fiber can incur the signal distortion; and chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion and polarization rotation etc. also introduce transmission distortion. E.g., Igarashi et al discloses a system/method, in which preambles contain training code sequence (Figure 10), and “The equalizer 31 performs adaptive equalization processing on the digital signal output by the ADC 22 and outputs a reception signal 31out in which waveform distortion occurring during propagation, such as chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and polarization rotation, for example, has been compensated for” ([0090] and [0032]); that is, different types of distortion need to be compensated. Another prior art, Wu et al, also discloses that a preamble is used to train equalizer, “an equalization parameter used by the data receive end to perform equalization processing on data may need to be updated with the channel. In this application, an equalization parameter corresponding to an identifier of each ONU may be obtained and stored in advance through training. The equalization parameter may reflect an impact of the channel between the OLT and the ONU on transmission data. Herein, a process of training and storing may include following steps: 1. The OLT receives a first message sent by the ONU, where the first message includes a third preamble and a registration request. 2. The OLT determines an equalization parameter based on the received third preamble. 3. The OLT stores a correspondence between an identifier of the ONU and the determined equalization parameter” ([0028]-[0031]), and “the ONU may send the first message to the OLT, where the first message includes the registration request, and the registration request is used by the ONU to register with the OLT. Herein, the registration request may be REGISTER REQ. After the ONU is registered with the OLT, the OLT may perceive that the ONU is included in the PON system and may receive the data sent by the ONU. Optionally, the OLT may periodically open a window. During the window opening, the ONU is allowed to register with the OLT. Herein, the ONU registered with the OLT during window opening may be a newly deployed ONU in the PON system. Optionally, a manner in which the ONU determines the third preamble includes, but is not limited to, the following two manners: (1) The ONU stores a parameter such as a code type of the third preamble and encoding frequency of the third preamble in advance, and determines the third preamble based on the prestored parameter. (2) The OLT configures, for the ONU, a parameter such as a code type and encoding frequency of the third preamble, and sends the configured parameter to the ONU. The ONU determines the third preamble based on the received parameter” ([0155]-[0170]); and “[t]he equalizer 204 may be mainly configured to compensate an optical device for an insufficient bandwidth that affects high-rate data, and compensate for signal distortion caused by factors such as inter-code interference and channel fading that affect the data on a transmission channel (that is, an optical fiber), to correctly recover data sent to a peer end” ([0075]); that is, Wu et al teaches to use preambles to compensate for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic (inter-code interference and channel fading etc.).
Krampl et al discloses “each transmission channel having individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units” and a “structured preamble” is needed, and a transmission system with different data rate needs to be considered for the preamble patterns etc. Wu et al discloses “Optical modules of different ONUs may support different bandwidths. Distances between different ONUs and the OLT may be different. When the electrical domain equalization technology is used, operating parameters of the electrical-domain equalizer on an OLT side may also be different” ([0005]); therefore, the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al teaches/suggests that the channel characteristic needs to be determined so to determine the preamble property or “structured preamble” for a transmission from the ONU to OLT for training an equalizer etc. for quickly and properly determining working parameters of the equalizer and then to compensate for transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic and to decode transmitted data.
Regarding transmitting information including channel characteristic information of the channel to the OLT for determining the channel characteristic at an activation stage of the optical network unit, first, according to applicant’s disclosure, the channel characteristic can be any channel characteristic related to signal transmission from an ONU to OLT.
Second, Krampl et al teaches/discloses ([0022], [0066], [0081] and [0087] etc.) that different channel (one ONU to OLT) has a different preamble, and a “structured preamble”, which is based on “individual transmission properties that may be taken into account for transmissions between the central unit and the distributed units”, is assigned to individual ONU; and “a given environment” needs to be considered; “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of optical networking units due to “a separate transmission path exists, with different channel properties”; and “Each ONU can be configured differently”; and for different data rates, e.g., 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s, different preamble patterns are used. Therefore, it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the characteristic information of the channel is obtained by the OLT so that “individual transmission properties that may be taken into account”, and a “structured preamble” is assigned to individual ONU, and “separate preamble configuration messages” are sent to the plurality of ONUs, and “Each ONU can be configured differently”.
Third, for a common or standard Passive Optical Network (PON), during a discovery phase or at an activation stage of an optical network unit, the ONU sends a registration request (or REGISTER_REQ) to an OLT so to register the ONU; and a REGISTER_REQ message can contain ONU’s MAC address to identify the specific ONU, an ONU’s local timestamp, information related to the ONU's bandwidth requirements, or capabilities etc. That is, the REGISTER_REQ contains “characteristic of the optical network unit”; and an identifier and timestamp are “channel-relevant information”. And, OLT can determine the transmission or channel characteristics based on the REGISTER_REQ message, e.g., the OLT can determine the round-trip time and equalization parameters etc. Therefore, for a common or standard Passive Optical Network (PON), an OLT receives information (REGISTER_REQ) from the ONU at an activation stage of the ONU, the channel characteristic, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel. E.g., Zheng et al discloses a PON system, and during the registration phase ([0014] etc., “when the ONU performs registration and gets online”, [0087], [0128] and [0296] etc., “Step 301 to step 312 are steps performed in a process in which the ONU performs registration and gets online”), an ONU sends a registration request message, REGISTER_REG, to OLT (Figures 2-6 and 9 etc.), and the registration request message can include capability information of the ONU (Abstract, [0092] etc.), an ONU serial number message (Serial_Number_ONU), and/or a ranging response message (ranging is related to distance between the OLT and the ONU) ([0026]), MAC address, a random delay time, a vendor-specific serial number (VSSN) ([0162], “in Serial_Number_ONU, a DA is the MAC control multicast address, an SA is an ONU MAC address, and content may further include an unassigned ONUID, a random delay time, and a vendor-specific serial number (VSSN)”, and [0302]). That is, a REGISTER_REQ contains channel characteristic information of the channel from an ONU to an OLT.
Fourth, as discussed above, Wu et al discloses a PON system, in which a preamble is used to train equalizer. Wu et al discloses that a newly added ONU sends registration request, REGISTER REQ, to the OLT ([0157]-[0161], “the registration request is used by the ONU to register with the OLT” and “the ONU registered with the OLT during window opening may be a newly deployed ONU in the PON system”). And, Wu et al discloses “In the methods shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 12, when the ONU sends the uplink burst data to the OLT, the uplink burst data includes an identifier of the ONU. In the method shown in FIG. 13, after determining the equalization parameter, the OLT needs to correspond the determined equalization parameter to the identifier of the ONU.” ([0172]. Also refer to [0129], [0141] and [0165] “the equalization parameter determined based on the third preamble corresponds to the transmission channel between the OLT and the ONU, and the equalization parameter may reflect a characteristic of the transmission channel”), and “(2) The ONU identifier is sent by the ONU to the OLT. Further, in this application, if the identifier of the ONU is a specific identifier of the ONU, the ONU may obtain the identifier, and may send the identifier to the OLT. Optionally, the specific identifier of the ONU includes, but is not limited to, the following several types: a VSSN of the ONU and a MAC address.” ([0177]-[0179]. VSSN: vendor-specific serial number). That is, Wu et al teaches/suggests: transmitting, to the optical line terminal, information for determining the channel characteristic at an activation stage of the optical network unit, the information including channel characteristic information of the channel.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al with Krampl et al so that a channel characteristic information of a channel is sent from an ONU to an OLT at an activation stage, and the channel characteristic of the channel from an ONU to the OLT is determined and used to determine a preamble property, and then the transmission distortion caused by the channel characteristic can be quickly and properly compensated.
8). With regard to claim 18, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the preamble information comprises a configuration parameter for generating the preamble (Krampl: Figure 1b: step 110, the ONU receives the preamble configuration message; Figure 3b: step 310 OLT transmits the preamble configuration message. [0029]-[0031], “the preamble configuration message may define parameters for the generation of the preamble, in particular parameters for the predetermined/pseudorandom sequence being used for the second subsection, and optionally for the optional third subsection”).
9). With regard to claim 31, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the preamble is a non- pseudo random binary sequence (Krampl: [0030] and [0047], “an alternating sequence of 1s and 0s (or of signal high and signal low values), such as 10101010 (with N repetitions)” is not an PRBS).
10). With regard to claim 32, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses a device (Krampl: OLT, Figures 1a and 3a) for optical communication, comprising:
a processor (Krampl: [0054], [0063] and [0088]; “if the receiver or transmitter is configured to perform an action, the respective action may be performed by the respective circuitry of means of the respective receiver or transmitter, or by the corresponding method or computer program”); and
a transceiver (Krampl: 35 in Figure 3a) communicatively coupled to the processor,
the processor being configured to cause the device to perform the method of claim 1 (Krampl: [0054], [0063], [0088], [0177] and [0201]).
11). With regard to claim 33, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses a device (Krampl: ONU, Figures 1a and 3a) for optical communication, comprising:
a processor (Krampl: 14 in Figure 1b; and [0015], [0021], [0042]-[0044]); and
a transceiver (Krampl: [0040] etc., “the preamble may be provided to a transmitter for the optical network, e.g., to a transmitter component of the ONU. Alternatively, the preamble generation apparatus may be part of a transmitter component of the ONU. Some examples relate to a transmitter for the optical network, such as the ONU or a transmitter component of the ONU comprising the preamble generation apparatus, which is configured to transmit a data burst comprising the preamble”; [0041]-[0044]) communicatively coupled to the processor (Krampl: [0040]-[0044]),
the processor being configured to cause the device to perform the method of any of claim 17 (Krampl: [0015], [0021], [0042]-[0044] and [0177] and [0201]).
12). With regard to claim 38, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the information includes at least one of a hardware version (Wu: [0100] and [0179], a vendor-specific serial number, VSSN. Zheng: [0162] and [0171]), a modulation format, a modulator bandwidth, or calibration data of the optical network unit (Zheng: [0005], “Optical modules of different ONUs may support different bandwidths. Distances between different ONUs and the OLT may be different. When the electrical domain equalization technology is used, operating parameters of the electrical-domain equalizer on an OLT side may also be different”).
13). With regard to claim 39, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. And the combination of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al further discloses wherein the information includes at least one of a hardware version (Wu: [0100] and [0179], a vendor-specific serial number, VSSN. Zheng: [0162] and [0171]), a modulation format, a modulator bandwidth, or calibration data of the optical network unit (Zheng: [0005], “Optical modules of different ONUs may support different bandwidths. Distances between different ONUs and the OLT may be different. When the electrical domain equalization technology is used, operating parameters of the electrical-domain equalizer on an OLT side may also be different”).
Claims 9 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al as applied to claims 1 and 17 above, and further in view of Okamoto et al (US 2017/0070296).
Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claims 1 and 17 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose wherein the preamble property comprises at least one of a symbol transition probability and a spectral shaping configuration associated with the preamble.
However, Krampl et al discloses that different bit patterns can be used for the preamble ([0046], [0028] and [0050] etc.; “repeated” pattern, predetermine signal sequence or pseudorandom signal sequence). A pseudorandom binary sequence sequences (PRBS) have a specific transition probability associated with them. That is, the PRBS has a type of “symbol transition probability”; since Krampl et al discloses that different signal patterns/sequences can be used, it is obvious to one skilled in the art that other bit signal patterns/sequences of “symbol transition probability” can be used in the system/method of combined Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al.
Another prior art, Okamoto et al, discloses that a preamble can be associated with a spectral shaping ([0035] and [0114], “the training signal determination unit determines the signal sequence by performing clipping on an initial sequence for generation of the training signal sequence using a frequency filter which simulates a shape of a frequency spectrum of the training signal sequence satisfying the required condition.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Okamoto et al to the system/method of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al so that a preamble is generated based on one more desired system condition, and reliability is enhanced.
Claims 11, 19-20 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al (Wu ’588) and Zheng et al as applied to claims 1 and 17 above, and further in view of Wu et al (US 2023/0123881. Hereinafter Wu ‘881).
1). With regard to claim 11, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 1 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting, to the optical network unit, a first indication, to indicate the optical network unit to transmit the preamble to the optical line terminal.
However, Wu ‘881 discloses a training sequence determining method and a related device (Figures 1-10 etc.), and “the OLT indicates whether the ONU needs to send the training sequence. The following provides a further description with reference to an embodiment”, as shown in Figure 8, step 803, “the second message is used to indicate that the ONU needs to send a first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. Specifically, the second message includes a bandwidth mapping (bandwidth mapping, BWmap) table. The bandwidth mapping table in this application includes a training indicator field, which may indicate that the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. For example, the training indicator field includes 1 bit. When the bit is 1, the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. When the bit is 0, the ONU sends a data frame in another format to the OLT. The following provides a detailed description with reference to a specific structure of the bandwidth mapping table”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Wu ‘881 to the system/method of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al so that an indicator is transmitted to the ONU to indicate whether the ONU needs to transmit the preamble to the OLT, and the use of bandwidth is optimized.
2). With regard to claim 19, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claims 17 and 18 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose wherein generating the preamble based on the preamble information comprises: determining, based on a filter coefficient as the configuration parameter, a filter for generating the preamble; and filtering, by using the filter, an original preamble sequence, to generate the preamble.
However, first, Krampl et al discloses that the ONU generates the preamble based on the preamble information from the OLT; then it is obvious that the ONU processes the preamble information and uses the parameters in the preamble information to generate the preamble. Second, Wu ‘881 discloses a training sequence determining method and a related device (Figures 1-10 etc.), and in the OLT side, “when the equalizer is implemented by a filter, the working parameter of the equalizer may be understood as a filtering coefficient of the filter. The equalizer evaluates a channel characteristic with reference to the training sequence and a recursion algorithm, to correct the filtering coefficient to compensate for channel impairment” ([0074]); then in a similar manner, a filter can be implemented in the ONU to generate a preamble based on evaluated channel characteristic so to get a more suitable preamble for training an equalizer and compensating distortion. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Wu ‘881 with Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al so that a filter is implemented in the ONU, and filter coefficient is determined based on parameters in the preamble information and evaluated channel characteristic, and then the filter will output an enhanced/processed preamble that can be more suited for training an equalizer and compensating distortion.
3). With regard to claim 20, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose wherein the preamble information comprises an indication indicating the preamble.
However, first, as disclosed by Krampl et al and shown in Figure 1b, the ONU sends a preamble to the OLT after receiving the preamble information. Then, it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the preamble information comprises an indication indicating the preamble to be sent to the OLT.
Second, Wu ‘881 discloses a training sequence determining method and a related device (Figures 1-10 etc.), and “the OLT indicates whether the ONU needs to send the training sequence. The following provides a further description with reference to an embodiment”, as shown in Figure 8, step 803, “the second message is used to indicate that the ONU needs to send a first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. Specifically, the second message includes a bandwidth mapping (bandwidth mapping, BWmap) table. The bandwidth mapping table in this application includes a training indicator field, which may indicate that the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. For example, the training indicator field includes 1 bit. When the bit is 1, the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. When the bit is 0, the ONU sends a data frame in another format to the OLT. The following provides a detailed description with reference to a specific structure of the bandwidth mapping table”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Wu ‘881 to the system/method of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al so that an indicator is transmitted to the ONU to indicate whether the ONU needs to transmit the preamble to the OLT, and the use of bandwidth is optimized.
4). With regard to claim 26, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose wherein transmitting the preamble to the optical line terminal comprises: in response to receiving, from the optical line terminal, a first indication to transmit the preamble, transmitting the preamble to the optical line terminal.
However, first, as disclosed by Krampl et al and shown in Figure 1b, the ONU sends a preamble to the OLT after receiving the preamble information. Then, it is obvious to one skilled in the art that the preamble information comprises “first indication” for transmitting the preamble.
Second, Wu ‘881 discloses a training sequence determining method and a related device (Figures 1-10 etc.), and “the OLT indicates whether the ONU needs to send the training sequence. The following provides a further description with reference to an embodiment”, as shown in Figure 8, step 803, “the second message is used to indicate that the ONU needs to send a first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. Specifically, the second message includes a bandwidth mapping (bandwidth mapping, BWmap) table. The bandwidth mapping table in this application includes a training indicator field, which may indicate that the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. For example, the training indicator field includes 1 bit. When the bit is 1, the ONU needs to send the first data frame including the target training sequence to the OLT. When the bit is 0, the ONU sends a data frame in another format to the OLT. The following provides a detailed description with reference to a specific structure of the bandwidth mapping table”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Wu ‘881 to the system/method of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu ’588 and Zheng et al so that an indicator is transmitted to the ONU to indicate whether the ONU needs to transmit the preamble to the OLT, and the use of bandwidth is optimized.
Claims 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of Khotimsky et al (US 2022/0149969)
Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al disclose all of the subject matter as applied to claim 17 above. But, Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al do not expressly disclose the method of claim 17, further comprising: in response to receiving the preamble information from the optical line terminal, transmitting, to the optical line terminal, an acknowledgement of the preamble information.
However, in the optical communication, especially in the passive optical network (PON), it is common that a receiving side sends an acknowledgement to the transmission side when a specific message is received. E.g., Khotimsky et al discloses a PON system (Figure 1), and “ONU 140-x may transmit an acknowledgement of receipt of OAM message” ([0052]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Khotimsky et al to the system/method of Krampl et al and Igarashi et al and Wu et al and Zheng et al so that the ONU sends an acknowledgement of the preamble information to the OLT, and the function and reliability of the system/method is enhanced.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20190089463 (ID and bandwidth included in the registration request)
US 20200350992 (timestamp included in the registration request)
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/LI LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2634 March 3, 2026