DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 11/20/2025. Claims 1 and through 20 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant's arguments filed 11/20/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argued that Conroy does describe the Zeroing out of certain I/Q samples in a received RF signal.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Claim language recites “setting a different number of I/Q samples in the L-SIG field control bits to zero values. A different number of I/Q is not the same as a certain number of I/Q.
Applicant argued that although Conroy mentions blanking I/Q samples, it does so for an entirely different reason than that of the present claim.
In response to applicant's argument, the fact that the inventor has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious. See Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1985).
Applicant argued that at a high-level, the present claim provides an RF receiver configured to mitigate interference in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. When transmitting messages using the V2X protocol, messages include header information describing the message being transmitted. Other devices, receiving that header information, can use the information describing the message being transmitted to avoid interference.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., […an RF receiver configured to mitigate interference in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. When transmitting messages using the V2X protocol…]) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 9, 12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martinez et al. (US 2020/0015111 A1) in view of Conroy et al. (US 2010/0285769 A1).
For claim 1 Martinez teaches a radio frequency (RF) receiver (Fig. 2 “receiver 210”), comprising:
an antenna configured to receive a received RF signal (Fig. 2 “receiver 218”), the received RF signal including a first RF signal encoding a first orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol of a first long-term evolution (LTE) V2X data packet (paragraph 28 “V2X” communication via 802.11p”, paragraph 56 802.11p OFDM”); and
a signal processing system electrically connected to the antenna and being configured to receive the received RF signal (Fig. 2 “RX processor 222 and controller processor 220”), the signal processing system being configured to perform steps including:
determining legacy long training field (L-LTF) symbol using the received RF signal paragraph 64 “The receiver side divides the signal into blocks of samples and separates the data field from the preamble (e.g., L-STF, L-LTF, and SIG) fields”),
calculating a channel estimation using the L-LTF symbol (paragraph 56 “legacy long training field (L-LTF) that provides channel estimation pilot for decoding subsequent WiFi based symbols (e.g., 802.11p OFDM symbols and which can
be 16 usec), and a signal field (SIG) symbol that conveys the MCS (e.g., which can be 8 usec)”),
determining legacy signal (L-SIG) field control bits from the received RF signal, the L-SIG field control bits including a plurality of IQ samples (paragraph 64 “The receiver side divides the signal into blocks of samples and separates the data field from the preamble (e.g., L-STF, L-LTF, and SIG) fields”, paragraph 65 “the receiver side provides time-domain in-phase/quadrature (IQ) samples from a transmitted message as received by the antenna from RF signal”, paragraph 66 “I/Q SIG samples are decoded using the channel estimation”),
generating a plurality of candidate L-SIG decoding using the IQ samples and the channel estimation (Fig. 3 “SIG decoding 350 is generated by being fed by SIG samples and channel estimation 346”), wherein each candidate L-SIG decoding of the plurality of L-SIG decoding is generated by setting a different number of IQ samples in the L-SIG field control bits to zero values (Fig. 3 “SIG decoding 350 is generated by being fed by SIG samples and channel estimation 346”) ,
identifying a first L-SIG decoding of the plurality of candidate L- SIG decoding (Fig. 3 “SIG decoding 350 is generated by being fed by SIG samples and channel estimation 346”), and
decoding a data field from the received RF signal using the first L-SIG decoding (Fig. 3 “data samples and decoded bits 366” and paragraph 64 “transmits the
samples for data de-interleaving and de-mapping, and then to the decoder circuit for decoding the data bits”).
Martinez does not explicitly teach setting a different number of IQ samples in the L-SIG field control bits to zero values, although this limitation is a design choice.
However, Conroy teaches When blanked, the I/Q samples passed to the signal processing circuit 226 (which may, e.g., include one or more correlator(s)) may be forced to zero or to some other small value in order to prevent external interference from perturbing digital automatic gain control (AGC) (Conroy: paragraph 103”).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings Conroy in the V2X communication system in order to prevent external interference from perturbing digital automatic gain control (AGC) (Conroy: paragraph 103”).
For claim 9 Martinez in view of Conroy teaches a method (as discussed in claim 1), comprising:
receiving a received RF signal, the received RF signal including a first RF signal encoding a first orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol of a first long-term evolution (LTE) V2X data packet (as discussed in claim 1);
determining legacy long training field (L-LTF) symbol using the received RF signal (as discussed in claim 1);
calculating a channel estimation using the L-LTF symbol (as discussed in claim 1);
determining legacy signal (L-SIG) field control bits from the received RF signal, the L-SIG field control bits including a plurality of IQ samples (as discussed in claim 1);
generating a plurality of candidate L-SIG decoding using the IQ samples and the channel estimation, wherein each candidate L-SIG decoding of the plurality of L-SIG decoding is generated by setting a different number of IQ samples in the L-SIG field control bits to zero values (as discussed in claim 1);
identifying a first L-SIG decoding of the plurality of candidate L-SIG decoding (as discussed in claim 1); and decoding a data field from the received RF signal using the first L-SIG decoding (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 12 Martinez in view of Conroy teaches a radio frequency (RF) receiver (as discussed in claim 1), comprising:
an antenna configured to receive a received RF signal, the received signal including a first RF signal encoding a first orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol of a first long-term evolution (LTE) V2X data packet (as discussed in claim 1); and
a signal processing system electrically connected to the antenna and being configured to receive the received RF signal, the signal processing system being configured to perform steps including (as discussed in claim 1):
determining legacy long training field (L-LTF) symbol using the received RF signal,
calculating a channel estimation using the L-LTF symbol (as discussed in claim 1),
determining legacy signal (L-SIG) field bits from the received RF signal, the L-SIG field bits including a plurality of IQ samples (as discussed in claim 1),
setting a number of IQ samples in the L-SIG field bits to zero values (as discussed in claim 1),
wherein the number of IQ samples is determined using the channel estimation (as discussed in claim 1),
generating an L-SIG decoding using the L-SIG field bits and the channel estimation (as discussed in claim 1), and
decoding a data field from the received RF signal using the L-SIG decoding (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 5 Martinez in view of Conroy teaches the RF receiver, wherein the received RF signal includes a second RF signal encoding a second OFDM symbol of a second LTE V2X data packet transmitted by a second remote transmitter (as discussed in claim 1 a design requirement that includes a second RF encoding”).
For claim 18 Martinez in view of Conroy teaches the RF receiver, wherein the received RF signal includes a second RF signal encoding a second OFDM symbol of a second LTE V2X data packet transmitted by a second remote transmitter (as discussed in claim 1 a design requirement that includes a second RF encoding”).
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Newman et al. (US 2022/0385522 A1).
7. 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.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached at (571) 270 - 1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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