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 .
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Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/23/2024, 11/20/2024, and 12/29/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-13, 16, 17, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narasimha et al. (US 20100165829) in view of Sorrentino et al. (US 20110228878).
Regarding claim 1, Narasimha discloses a method for sending data, applied to a terminal device, the method comprising:
performing first phase rotation on modulated data to obtain time domain rotated data (applying a phase rotation on the time-domain data samples before applying the FFT operation. FIG. 7A illustrates a graph of example PAPR performance of original and phase-rotated BPSK-modulated signals; [0069, 0073]);
performing frequency domain transform on the time domain rotated data to obtain frequency domain data (manipulated time-domain data samples may be transformed to a frequency domain by applying the FFT operation; [0067]); and
sending the time domain data (parallel outputs of the IFFT may be converted into a serial stream in order to generate a baseband transmission stream; [0068]).
Narasimha does not expressly disclose performing second phase rotation on the frequency domain data to obtain frequency domain rotated data; and performing time domain transform on the frequency domain rotated data to obtain time domain data.
In an analogous art, Sorrentino discloses performing second phase rotation on the frequency domain data to obtain frequency domain rotated data; and performing time domain transform on the frequency domain rotated data to obtain time domain data (Inverse Discrete Fourier Transformation (IDFT) transforms the incoming signal form the frequency domain (subcarrier) to the time domain. linear phase rotation block 600 applied in the frequency domain (between each DFT and the IDFT) at the transmitter side introduces efficiently time shifts in the time domain; [0061, 0085]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino, particularly Sorrentino discloses wherein the modulated data comprises a first channel of modulated data (modulators 120 take as an input the sequence of the coded bits providing from the Channel Coding block 100 and maps them to a sequence of symbols; [0010]), and
the performing of the first phase rotation on the modulated data to obtain the time domain rotated data comprises: obtaining a first data length of the first channel of modulated data; determining a first phase factor based on the first data length; and performing phase rotation on the modulated data based on the first phase factor to obtain the time domain rotated data (Due to the different lengths of the DFT/IDFT blocks, the PAPR is not equally distributed on all the baseband samples of the signal. Some samples suffer from higher PAPR while others have lower PAPR, and this happens with periodicity of M/K samples (where K is the DFT length and M is the IDFT length in the transmitter). PAPR reduction is achieved by applying a predefined phase rotation to each of the DFT precoders outputs of the DFT'S-OFDM transmitters. Each output of the DFT is a complex number, i.e., a number characterized by a real and an imaginary part. It is well known that a complex number may be alternatively represented by its absolute value and phase; [0048-0049]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino, particularly Sorrentino discloses wherein the modulated data comprises a first channel of modulated data and a second channel of modulated data (modulators 120 take as an input the sequence of the coded bits providing from the Channel Coding block 100 and maps them to a sequence of symbols; [0010]), and
the performing of the first phase rotation on the modulated data to obtain the time domain rotated data comprises: obtaining a first data length of the first channel of modulated data, and obtaining a second data length of the second channel of modulated data; determining a first phase factor based on the first data length, and determining a second phase factor based on the second data length; performing phase rotation on the first channel of modulated data based on the first phase factor, to obtain a first channel of time domain rotated data; and performing phase rotation on the second channel of modulated data based on the second phase factor, to obtain a second channel of time domain rotated data (Due to the different lengths of the DFT/IDFT blocks, the PAPR is not equally distributed on all the baseband samples of the signal. Some samples suffer from higher PAPR while others have lower PAPR, and this happens with periodicity of M/K samples (where K is the DFT length and M is the IDFT length in the transmitter). PAPR reduction is achieved by applying a predefined phase rotation to each of the DFT precoders outputs of the DFT'S-OFDM transmitters. Each output of the DFT is a complex number, i.e., a number characterized by a real and an imaginary part. It is well known that a complex number may be alternatively represented by its absolute value and phase; [0048-0049]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino, particularly Sorrentino discloses wherein the frequency domain data comprises a first channel of frequency domain data and a second channel of frequency domain data (X.sub.n,s(z) is the z:th sample of the signal providing from the s:th DFT relative to the n:th carrier, X.sub.n,s.sup.R(z) is the corresponding rotated signal, .theta..sub.n,s is a constant phase offset term, .phi..sub.n,s is a phase rotation-speed term, M is the length of the IFFT in the transmitter, j= {square root over (-1)} is the imaginary unit and exp( ) is the exponential function; [0058]), and
the performing of the second phase rotation on the frequency domain data to obtain frequency domain rotated data comprises: determining a third phase factor based on a first data length of the first channel of frequency domain data, and determining a fourth phase factor based on a second data length of the second channel of frequency domain data (By signal processing arguments it is possible to prove that the effect of the phase rotation term in equation (3) is a circular time-shift on the signal generated by the n-th DFT precoder at the output of the IDFT modulator. It can be shown that the length of the shift is equal to .phi..sub.n samples. Besides the time-shift, the signal results also in a phase shift equal to .theta..sub.n radians; [0078]);
performing phase rotation on the first channel of frequency domain data based on the third phase factor, to obtain a first channel of frequency domain rotated data; and performing phase rotation on the second channel of frequency domain data based on the fourth phase factor, to obtain a second channel of frequency domain rotated data (it is possible to prove that the effect of the phase rotation term in equation (1) is a circular time-shift on the signal generated by the n-th DFT precoder at the output of the IDFT modulator. It can be shown that the length of the shift is equal to .phi..sub.n samples. Besides the time-shift, the phase rotated signal results also in a phase shift equal to .theta..sub.n radians; [0089]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino, particularly Sorrentino discloses wherein the performing of the time domain transform on the frequency domain rotated data to obtain the time domain data comprises: performing addition and combination on the first channel of frequency domain rotated data and the second channel of frequency domain rotated data to obtain combined frequency domain rotated data, wherein a data length of the combined frequency domain rotated data is the same as the first data length (The transmitter of FIG. 3 corresponds to the transmitter of FIG. 1a with the addition of the phase rotation block 300. A subsequent spatial processing block combines the phase rotated signals generated by each DFT and delivers them to an antenna specific IDFT and PA. It can be shown that the probability that the signals after the IDFT will be combined constructively and generate a power spike is reduced by applying the proposed phase rotation which results in circular time shifts. This is proved by numerical simulations which show a significant reduction of the PAPR as illustrated in FIG. 5; [0073]); and
performing a time domain transform on the combined frequency domain rotated data to obtain the time domain data (linear phase rotation block 600 applied in the frequency domain (between each DFT and the IDFT) at the transmitter side introduces efficiently time shifts in the time domain. A corresponding phase correction 700 is applied at the receiver. In the following, more details are provided about how the phase term is introduced at the transmitter and receiver in conjunction with FIGS. 6 and 7. FIG. 6 corresponds to FIG. 1b with the addition of the phase rotation block; [0085]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino, particularly Narasimha discloses wherein the performing of the time domain transform on the frequency domain rotated data to obtain the time domain data comprises: combining the first channel of frequency domain rotated data and the second channel of frequency domain rotated data to obtain combined frequency domain rotated data, wherein a data length of the combined frequency domain rotated data is greater than the first data length (FIG. 17 illustrates a graph of example PAPR performance of QPSK-modulated signal when time-domain phase rotation and bandwidth expansion in frequency domain are applied. Plot 1710 represents the generic SC-FDMA transmission from FIG. 3. Plot 1720 represents the case when only the time-domain phase rotation is applied, and plots 1730 and 1750 represent cases when only bandwidth expansion is applied in the frequency domain with the expansion parameter .alpha. of 0.15 and 0.22, respectively. It can be observed that PAPR gain is larger if the bandwidth is expanded by greater percentage. Plots 1740 and 1760 represent cases when both the time-domain phase rotation and bandwidth expansion are applied for the expansion parameter .alpha. of 0.15 and 0.22, respectively. It can be observed that the largest PAPR gain may be achieved in the case when phase rotation in time domain is combined with the bandwidth expansion of 22% (i.e., plot 1760); [0098]);
performing frequency domain filtering on the combined frequency domain rotated data to obtain filtered data; and performing time domain transform on the filtered data to obtain the time domain data (It can be observed the PAPR gain of about 5 dB for the CCDF of 0.1% compared to the conventional SC-FDMA transmission if the oversampling is combined with the bandwidth shrinking, where 2K samples of the main lobe are retained and no RRC filtering is applied (i.e. plot 1916 vs. plot 1918 in FIG. 19A). The additional PAPR gain of about 1 dB (the total PAPR gain of about 6 dB) may be achieved if the RRC filtering is also applied (i.e., plot 1926 vs. plot 1928 in FIG. 19B); [0103]).
Regarding claim 10, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 1.
Regarding claim 11, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 5.
Regarding claim 12, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 7.
Regarding claim 13, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 4.
Regarding claim 16, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 1.
Regarding claim 17, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 2.
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 4.
Regarding claim 20, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 5.
Claim(s) 3, 14, 15, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narasimha et al. (US 20100165829) in view of Sorrentino et al. (US 20110228878) and in view of Piirainen et al. (US 20080240311).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Narasimha and Sorrentino does not expressly disclose wherein the performing of the second phase rotation on the frequency domain data to obtain the frequency domain rotated data comprises: obtaining a phase factor corresponding to the frequency domain data, and obtaining a phase factor corresponding to conjugate data of the frequency domain data; and performing phase rotation on the frequency domain data and the conjugate data based on the phase factor corresponding to the frequency domain data and the phase factor corresponding to the conjugate data, to obtain the frequency domain rotated data.
In an analogous art, Piirainen discloses wherein the performing of the second phase rotation on the frequency domain data to obtain the frequency domain rotated data comprises: obtaining a phase factor corresponding to the frequency domain data, and obtaining a phase factor corresponding to conjugate data of the frequency domain data; and performing phase rotation on the frequency domain data and the conjugate data based on the phase factor corresponding to the frequency domain data and the phase factor corresponding to the conjugate data, to obtain the frequency domain rotated data (frequency error correction may be carried out by weighting samples of the received data sequence with the frequency error correction factors (phase rotation values) received from the frequency error estimation unit 214 or 215, thereby negating the phase rotation in the data sequence caused by the frequency error to. The weighting may be a multiplication operation in which each sample of the data sequence is multiplied by a phase rotation value to compensate for the frequency error appearing in the radio channel. In case the frequency error correction units 210 and 211 receive the frequency error estimates from the frequency error estimation units 214 and 215, the frequency error correction units 210 and 211 may calculate the frequency error correction factors from the received frequency error estimates by calculating complex conjugates of the received frequency error estimates; [0026]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Piirainen into the system of Narasimha and Sorrentino in order to efficiently correct the frequency offset error from equalized data sequence in time domain (Piirainen; [0015]).
Regarding claim 14, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 3.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Narasimha, Piirainen, and Sorrentino, particularly Sorrentino discloses wherein the modulated data comprises a first channel of modulated data, and the performing of the first phase rotation on the second time domain data to obtain modulated data comprises:
determining a first phase factor based on a first data length of the first channel of modulated data, and performing phase rotation on the second time domain data based on the first phase factor to obtain the first channel of modulated data. (Due to the different lengths of the DFT/IDFT blocks, the PAPR is not equally distributed on all the baseband samples of the signal. Some samples suffer from higher PAPR while others have lower PAPR, and this happens with periodicity of M/K samples (where K is the DFT length and M is the IDFT length in the transmitter). PAPR reduction is achieved by applying a predefined phase rotation to each of the DFT precoders outputs of the DFT'S-OFDM transmitters. Each output of the DFT is a complex number, i.e., a number characterized by a real and an imaginary part. It is well known that a complex number may be alternatively represented by its absolute value and phase; [0048-0049]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Sorrentino into the system of Narasimha and Piirainen in order to enable design of OFDM systems with smaller power margins, thus reducing peak to average power ratio (PAPR) (Sorrentino; [0015]).
Regarding claim 18, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 3.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 9 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 6, if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, would comprise a combination of elements which is not taught by the prior art of record. The same remarks apply to claims 9 mutatis mutandis.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Wild et al. (US 20160211999), “RECEIVER AND RECEIVER METHOD FOR A FILTERED MULTICARRIER SIGNAL.”
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/OUSSAMA ROUDANI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413