Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 6, line 1, recites “the FEC encoder” which is ambiguous since there are a plurality of FEC encoders on its dependency on claim 4 which recites “a first forward error correction (FEC) encoder” and “a second FEC encoder.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of application for patent in the United States.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8, 11, 12 and 20 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(b) as being anticipated by Kwon et al. (US 2009/0074010 A1).
Kwon teaches a generated data frame with a first portion header group including MCS field (Figures 4 and 8) for indicating the MCS applied to the payload which may include the second portion subframe header, where the MCS applied to the first portion header and second portion header are different (paragraph 0008).
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claims
1. A method (Kwon et al., US 2009/0074010 A1, paragraph 0008 and Figure 8) comprising:
generating a header comprising a first portion and a second portion (Header group with a PHY header and a MAC header is the first portion and subframe header in the payload in the second portion in paragraph 0008) ; and
transmitting a frame that comprises the header, wherein transmitting the frame comprises: transmitting the first portion of the header with a first modulation and coding scheme (Generated data frame where the header group with MCS which yields a data rate lower than that of an MCS applied to the payload in paragraph 0008) ; and
transmitting the second portion of the header with a second modulation and coding scheme that is different form the first modulation and coding scheme (PHY header with MCS 811 in Figure 8 and the generated data frame where the header group is the first portion with MCS which yields a data rate lower than that of an MCS applied to the payload with the subframe header second portion in paragraph 0008) , wherein the first portion of the header comprises a modulation and coding scheme indication field indicative of the second modulation and coding scheme ([i]f all the MCSs applied to the subframes are the same …, one MCS field…may be generated for all the subframes in paragraph 0040).
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame comprises a payload, and wherein transmitting the frame comprises transmitting the payload with the second modulation and coding scheme (Subframe headers included in the payload with the subframes, where the same MCS is applied to both in paragraph 0066) .
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the payload comprises a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) for the second portion of the header (FCS includes CRC code in Figure 1 and paragraph 0031) .
8. The method of claim 2, wherein the second portion of the header comprises a length field indicative of a length of the payload (Subframe header 420 included in the payload in Figure 4 includes subframe length 426) .
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame comprises a preamble, and wherein transmitting the frame comprises transmitting the preamble before transmitting the first portion of the header (Preamble in Figure 1 and paragraph 0028) .
12. The method of claim 1, wherein the modulation and coding scheme indication field comprises a plurality of bits (Figure 3, Modulation and Coding field 318a is 4 bits) .
20. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the second portion of the header comprises transmitting the second portion of the header after the first portion of the header (Header group in PHY mode 0 is transmitted before the subframe header 420 in Figure 4) .
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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 7, 13, 14 and 16 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2009/0074010 A1) .
Kwon does not teach a first length field for the length of the second header and a second length field for the length of the payload. However, Kwon does teach that it is a well known technique to provide a field to indicate a length within the frame body (paragraph 0029). Therefore, it 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 to provide the first length field and the second length field to indicate an associated length within the frame body for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt a well known technique to provide the predictable result of indicating the length of parts of the frame body.
Kwon teaches that the MAC header is part of the header group (i.e. first portion of the header). Kwon does not teach that the MAC header is part of the header group within the payload (i.e. second portion of the header). However, Kwon does teach that fields in the header group can be moved to the header within the payload such as the subframe header since the data rate of the header group is lower than the payload due to the applied different MCS (see paragraphs 0008-0009). Therefore, it 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 to move the MAC header from the header group to the payload for the same reason as moving the subframe header from the header group to the payload in order to provide a higher data rate from the applied MCS on the payload.
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claims
7. The method of claim 2, wherein the first portion of the header comprises a first length field indicative of a length of the second portion of the header, and a second length field indicative of a length of the payload (Kwon teaches a well known technique of providing a length field to indicate a length with the frame body (paragraph 0029) such that it 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 to provide the first and second length field in order to indicate lengths of various parts of the frame body) .
13. The method of claim 1, wherein the first portion of the header comprises a length field indicative of a length of the second portion of the header (Kwon teaches a well known technique of providing a length field to indicate a length with the frame body (paragraph 0029) such that it 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 to provide the first and second length field in order to indicate lengths of various parts of the frame body) .
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the length field comprises 3 bits or less (It 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 to provide a number of bits for the length field based on the maximum size of the associated part of the frame body since a skilled artisan would have been motivated to improve efficiency by not providing unnecessary bits) .
16. The method of claim 1, wherein the second portion of the header comprises a medium access control (MAC) header (It 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 to move the MAC header from the header group to the payload in order to provide a data rate higher than the header group as taught by Kwon in paragraphs 0008-0009) .
Claims 17 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2009/0074010 A1) in view of Applicant’s admitted prior art Table 1 and paragraph 0027 .
Kwon does not teach the header including a source identifier and a destination identifier. However, Applicant admits that Table 1 is a prior art proposal from ITU-T G.hnem standard in paragraph 0027 that provides header fields including Device ID of the source node and destination node. Therefore, it 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 to provide header fields to the subframe header in the payload of Kwon for the reason that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to adopt known header fields from the admitted prior art standard in order to conform to the standard.
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claim
17. The method of claim 1, wherein the second portion of the header comprises a source identifier and a destination identifier (It 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 to adopt the known header fields from the admitted prior art standard in order to conform to the standards ) .
Claims 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 and 15 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2009/0074010 A1) in view of IEEE Std 802.15.3c-2009 .
Kwon does not teach the particular functions of the encoder of the transmitter. However, Kwon does teach complying with the IEEE 802.15.3 standard (paragraph 0003). Therefore, it 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 to provide the particular functions of the encoder in order to comply with the IEEE Std 802.15.3c-2009 .
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claims
4. The method of claim 2, further comprising: generating the first portion of the header using a first forward error correction (FEC) encoder; generating the second portion of the header using a second FEC encoder; and generating the payload by using the second FEC encoder (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies that the different MCSs can have different FEC types on Table 103-MCS dependent parameters, page 72. It 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 to comply with the IEEE Std for the reason that Kwon suggests to comply with the particular standard ).
5. The method of claim 4, wherein generating the first portion of the header further comprises using a repetition encoder (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies that the Frame header construction in Figure 175, page 87 includes a Spreader, where spreading is bit repetition in section 12.2.8.4 OOK/DAMI spreading on page 96) and channel interleaver (Block interleaving associated with tone interleaver in section 12.3.2.8 Tone interleaver, page 105 for the frame header encoding process in Figure 189, page 110. It 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 to comply with the IEEE Std for the reason that Kwon suggests to comply with the particular standard ) .
6. The method of claim 4, wherein the FEC encoder performs Reed-Solomon encoding (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies FEC type includes RS(255,239) on Table 103-MCS dependent parameters, page 72. It 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 to comply with the IEEE Std for the reason that Kwon suggests to comply with the particular standard).
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the payload includes padding, and wherein the length field is indicative of the length of the payload, excluding padding (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies stuff bits (i.e. padding) in case the encoded data bits is not an integer multiple of the length of the data portion in the subblock (12.2.2.7 Stuff bits on pages 81-82) .
10. The method of claim 2, further comprising generating the payload, wherein generating the payload comprises:
receiving a set of blocks ; performing a first encoding technique on the set of blocks to add a first set of error correction code to the set of blocks to produce a set of encoded blocks; performing a second encoding technique on the set of encoded blocks to add a second set of error correction code to the set of encoded blocks to produce a set of forward error correction (FEC) blocks; dividing the set of FEC blocks into a set of fragments; copying each fragment of the set of fragments a number of times to produce a set of repeated fragments; interleaving the set of repeated fragments to produce a set of interleaved fragments; and concatenating the set of interleaved fragments to produce an encoded payload block, wherein the payload is based on the encoded payload block (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies the set of subframes with fragmented payload with added error correction code FCS (Figure 10e-MAC frame body format for standard aggregation on page 15. The IEEE Std also specifies the use of FEC types associated with the particular MCS (Table 103-MCS dependent parameters on page 72), repetition coding (12.4.2.2 Repetition coding and spatial diversity on pages 121-122) and block interleaving (12.3.2.4.4 Bit interleaver on pages 101-102). Kwon teaches that the subpackets/subframes are aggregated (i.e. concatenated) in paragraph 0047. It 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 to comply with the IEEE Std for the reason that Kwon suggests to comply with the particular standard).
15. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame comprises orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols (IEEE Std 802.15.3c specifies the header and payload are ofdm in section 12.3.3.2 Frame header on page 109-110 and 12.3.3.5 PHY payload field on page 113. It 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 to comply with the IEEE Std for the reason that Kwon suggests to comply with the particular standard) .
Claim 19 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2009/0074010 A1) in view of Ulmer-Moll (US 2012/0307921 A1 with effective filing date of Dec. 22, 2009 based on the foreign priority) .
Kwon teaches wireless communication system using digital communications based on IEEE Std 802.15.3c. Kwon does not teach a wired system such as power line transmission. However, Ulmer-Moll teaches that wireless and wired systems such as power line transmission can be digital communication substitutes (paragraph 0004) and that such digital systems can use IEEE Std 802.15.3c (paragraph 0028) . Therefore, it 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 to substitute the wired power line transmission system for the wireless system in Kwon for the reason that Ulmer-Moll teaches that they are known substitutes in digital communication.
With respect to the claims, references to the prior art appear in parenthesis.
Claim
19. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the frame comprises transmitting the frame over an AC power line (It 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 to substitute the wired power line transmission system for the wireless system in Kwon for the reason that Ulmer-Moll teaches that they are known substitutes in digital communication (paragraphs 0004 and 0028)) .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 18 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELVIN C MARCELO whose telephone number is (571)272-3125. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6:00.
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MELVIN C. MARCELO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MELVIN C MARCELO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463 February 21, 2026