DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 05/29/2026.
In view of applicant’s amendment and arguments regarding objection to specification, the objection is hereby withdrawn.
The applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of new ground(s) of rejections necessitated by the applicant’s amendment.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 8, 10, 11 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230163794 (Meir).
Regarding claims 1 and 26, Kwun teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication (FIG 1 and par. 0036: UE 130), the apparatus comprising:
memory storing computer executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the memory and configured to execute the computer executable code (inherent for the user equipment UE 130) to cause the apparatus to:
receive signaling indicating a subset of one or more transmit antennas of a network entity selected for transmitting a data transmission (FIG 3 with corresponding description. Par. 0044: the transmitter may include a plurality of antennas. Par. 0045: At step 320, the transmitter may select antennas for use in the data transmission. Par. 0046: At operation 330, the transmitter may send the receiver the information on the subset of the antennas selected at operation 210. The information on the subset of the selected antennas may be transmitted in the form of a bitmap. Par. 0047: The receiver may acquire the information on the subset of the antennas to be selected by the transmitter for data transmission at operation 330. Par. 0053: Referring to FIG. 4, the receiver may receive transmit antenna information from the transmitter at operation 410. The receiver may receive the information on the selected antennas from the transmitter at operation 410. The selected antenna information may be transmitted in the form of a bitmap. At step 410, the receiver may receive the information on the subset of the antennas for use in data transmission of the transmitter. Par. 0058: The transmitter includes total 5 antennas. The transmitter selects two antennas for data transmission. Two antennas are turned on to transmit data (i.e. all selected antennas));
receive the data transmission (Par. 0054: The receiver may receive signals transmitted by the transmitter at operation 420.); and
perform…” “…processing of the data transmission based on the subset of one or more transmit antennas (Par. 0056: At operation 440, the receivers estimates the data transmitted through antenna mapping from the signal received based on the information on the transmit antenna estimated at operation 430 and demodulates the received signal. As further explained in paragraphs 0054 – 0055, The transmitter turns on some antennas of the selected antenna subset to transmit data. At operation 430, the receiver may estimate the antennas of the transmitter that are turned on at operation 420 to transmit data. The antennas may be estimated based on the signal characteristics. Since this estimation is based on specific selected antennas subset, it is thus “based on the subset of one or more transmit antennas”).”
Kwun does not disclose that the post processing includes “digital post distortion (DPoD)” processing.
Meir teaches a communication system in which a base station maps transmitter antennas to one of a set of multiple antenna groups based on a power amplifier response of one or more transmitter antennas, determines a power amplifier model for one or more antenna groups based on the power amplifier response of the one or more transmitter antennas, and transmits an indication of the power amplifier model for one or more antenna groups to a UE. (All this in abstract).
Particularly, as disclosed in FIG 3 and paragraphs 0113 – 0118, at 310, base station 105-b may map each transmitter antenna to one of several antenna groups based on similarity between respective power amplifier responses. At 315, base station 105-b may determine a power amplifier model for each group of antennas. At 320, base station 105-b may transmit an indication of the respective power amplifier models of each antenna group to a UE 115-b. At 330, UE 115-b may select and implement a selected power amplifier model based on explicit signaling from base station 105-b.
In other words, the user equipment receives explicit signaling from the base station on a specific power amplifier model, for example, a first amplifier model, corresponding to a specific antenna group. Therefore, by explicitly signaling a specific power amplifier model, the base station thus indirectly notifies the UE of a specific antenna group corresponding to the this power amplifier model, antennas of which will be used for subsequent transmission. Thus, in Meir, indication of a specific power amplifier model serves as an indication of “a subset of one or more transmit antennas of a network entity selected for transmitting a data transmission” corresponding to this model.
Meir further teaches “receive the data transmission (paragraph 0119: At 335, UE 115-b and base station 105-b may communicate with each other based on the implemented power amplifier model.); and perform digital post distortion (DPoD) processing of the data transmission based on the subset of one or more selected transmit antennas (paragraph 0120: At 340, UE 115-b may apply digital post distortion processing to communications from base station 105-b based on the implemented power amplifier model. However, as was explained above, the implemented power amplifier model corresponds to transmission using corresponding “the subset of one or more selected transmit antennas”).”
Going back to Kwun, par. 0040 states that the antenna selection may follow a predetermined rule which may be shared between the transmitter and the receiver, without elaborating much on what kind of rule is to be used, thus leaving it to the discretion of a person of ordinary skill reading his disclosure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to optionally utilize disclosed by Meir usage of power amplifier model similarity in selection of antenna subsets and transmission, by the base station to the user equipment, an indication of the used power amplifier model for the selected antenna subset for the user equipment to implement digital post distortion processing, in the system of Kwun. Doing so would have provided an example of antenna selection rule and allowed to compensate for power amplifier characteristics, such as non-linearity (e.g., non-linearity remaining after digital predistortion) (see Meir, paragraph 0045), as well as improving the system efficiency in association with a device performing digital post distortion processing and the resulting in decreasing system latency, increasing device performance, increasing the reliability of digital post distortion processing, and thus improving quality of service and user experience (see Meir, paragraph 0046).
In the system of combined Kwun and Meir’s disclosures, the base station would not only transmit signaling indicating a subset of one or more transmit antennas selected for transmitting a data transmission, but would also indicate corresponding power amplifier model(s) to implement for the digital post distortion processing in the user equipment.
Regarding claim 8, Kwun teaches “wherein the signaling indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas comprises one or more indexes of the subset of one or more transmit antennas (paragraph 0070: The receiver 720 may estimate the data determined according to the index of the antenna used by the transmitter 710. Paragraph 0089: the antennas indicated by indices 10, 15, and 30 may be the group of candidate transmit antennas. By performing post-processing on the received signal after filtering, the receiver may select the group of candidate transmit antennas indicated by the indices of the antennas used in transmission. Also paragraphs 0090 – 0093).”
Regarding claim 10, Kwun in combination with Meir teaches “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the apparatus to…” “…receive signaling indicating selected transmit antennas (for explanation please see rejection of claim 1 above.).”
Kwun and Meir do not teach that this is done “periodically”.
However, Kwun teaches user equipment communicating with the base station (see FIG 1 and paragraph 0036). Additionally, Meir is clear in paragraph 0054 that a UE 115 may include a personal electronic device such as a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet computer, a laptop computer, or a personal computer. Such personal electronic devices as cellular phones and others are known to be mobile in that they can move around from time to time.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that Kwun’s user equipment shown in FIG 1 or mobile device 115 shown in the middle of Meir’s FIG 1 receiving communication 125 from a particular set of antennas of the base station 105 may move around from time to time and at a different moment in time may find itself in a different area served by a different set of base station antennas. Antennas used to communicate with the device 115 initially may not be suitable for continuing communication when the device 115 is in a different area served by the base station 105, which would result in a selection of a different set of antennas, as is well-known in the art. However, a different set of antennas may have different power amplifier model associated with it which would require a different processing for the DPoD thus necessitating transmission of indication that a different power amplifier model is to be utilized by the device 115. Similar consideration would apply for the system of Kwun as well.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to periodically update the user equipment on the power amplifier model to be used for DPoD by sending appropriate signaling, from time to time, or “periodically”. Doing so would have allowed the user equipment to use the correct power amplifier model corresponding to the set of antennas on the base station used to communicate with the user equipment. Furthermore, since each power amplifier model is associated with a respective set of antennas on the base station, this would have resulted in meeting the claimed limitation “to periodically receive signaling indicating selected transmit antennas.”
Regarding claim 11, Kwun in combination with Meir teaches “estimate distortion added to the data transmission (Meir, paragraph 0107: the communication between base station 105-a and UE 115-a may include downlink signal 230. The base station 105-a may amplify the downlink signal 230 using a power amplifier. As the power amplifier nears saturation, this may result in a distortion that may generate non-linear noise by directly affecting the mapped symbols of downlink signal 230. Thus, aspects of the amplified downlink signal 230 may be distorted. This results in a “distortion added to the data transmission”. Paragraph 0108: The UE 115-a may apply the digital post distortion algorithm 245 to the downlink signal 230 one or more times estimating nonlinear noise 245-c (“estimate distortion”)); and
remove the estimated distortion from the data transmission (Meir, paragraph 0107: UE 115-a may apply a digital post distortion algorithm 245 to the received downlink signal 230 to remove the non-linear noise from the downlink signal 230. Paragraph 0109: adder 240 may subtract the estimated nonlinear noise 245-c from the demodulated downlink signal 230-b).”
Claims 3, 5 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claims 1 and 26 above, and further in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman).
Regarding claims 3 and 28, Kwun in combination with Meir do not teach “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the apparatus to signal a capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection.”
In Meir, the device 115-b in FIG 3 is clearly capable of “performing DPoD based on antenna selection”, where “antenna selection” is indicated by means of indication of a particular power amplifier model associated with the selected antennas (otherwise the method of FIG 3 would be meaningless). What is missing from Meir is “the apparatus to signal a capability of the apparatus” to perform such action.
Gutman teaches in paragraph 0091 that the receiving device may indicate signal processing capabilities (e.g., DPOD capabilities) to the transmitting device. The receiving device may indicate the DPOD capabilities via L1 signaling, L2 signaling, or RRC signaling.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Gutman indication, by the receiver to the transmitter, of processing capabilities with respect to DPOD. Doing so would have allowed to increase the throughput of communications based on the signal processing capabilities of the receiving device (see Gutman, paragraph 0091).
Since the device of combined Kwun and Meir’s disclosures is capable of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas), out of the plurality of models, based on indication from the base station, and the receiving device of Gutman indicates its processing capability with respect to DPoD in general, it would have further been obvious, in the device of combined Kwun, Meir and Gutman’s disclosures, to adapt the indication of the receiver’s capability with respect to DPoD processing specifically to the disclosed by Meir capability of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas). Doing so would have further enhanced the functionality of the system by letting the base station know specific processing capabilities of the receiver.
Regarding claim 5, Kwun and Meir in combination with Gutman teaches “wherein signaling the capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection is via a radio resource control (RRC) message (Gutman, paragraph 0091: The receiving device may indicate the DPOD capabilities via … RRC signaling.).”
Claims 4 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun), US 20230163794 (Meir) and US 20230189162 (Gutman) as applied to claims 3 and 28 above, and further in view of US 20200328839 (Zhang).
Regarding claims 4 and 29, Kwun and Meir in combination with Gutman teaches or fairly suggests “signaling the capability of the apparatus for performing DPoD based on antenna selection (please see explanation in the rejection of claim 3 above. Gutman in paragraph 0091 teaches indicating capabilities of the receiving device via RRC signaling)…”
Kwun, Meir or Gutman do not teach that the signaling “is via a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).”
Zhang teaches in paragraph 0166 that the UE may transmit the UE capability information to the base station via RRC signaling. Particularly, the UE may transmit the UE capability information via RRC signaling on one or more of a PUCCH or a PUSCH during the connection establishment procedure. Accordingly, the base station may use the UE capability information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Zhang usage of PUCCH to transmit the capabilities of the user equipment to the base station during the connection establishment procedure, in the system of combined Kwun, Meir and Gutman’s disclosures simply as design choice with predictable results, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20250112599 (Tan).
Regarding claims 6 and 7, Kwun and Meir do not teach “wherein the signaling indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas comprises dynamic signaling of the subset of one or more transmit antennas” (as in claim 6) and “wherein the dynamic signaling of the subset of one or more transmit antennas is via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)” (as in claim 7).
Kwun and Meir teach or fairly suggest transmission of indication of the selected transmission antennas as well as power amplifier model(s), as was explained in the rejection of claim 1 above, from the base station to the user equipment.
On the other side, Tan in paragraph 0057 teaches that when the PA parameters are estimated at the gNB, the parameters can be signaled with, e.g., physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) or MAC CE to the UE. This represents recited in claim 6 “dynamic signaling” and in claim 7 signaling “via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)”.
Therefore, since Kwun and Meir do not disclose how exactly the signaling is performed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Tan signaling via physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), in the system of Kwun and Meir simply as design choice with predictable results and to fill in where Kwun and Meir are silent, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Claim 8 is alternatively rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20230155617 (Meir’617).
Regarding claim 8, “wherein the signaling indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas comprises one or more indexes of the subset of one or more transmit antennas”, Meir (when combined with Kwun) teaches transmission of power amplifier model(s) from the base station to the user equipment.
On the other side, Meir’617 in paragraph 0105 teaches that the base station 105-a may indicate, to the UE 115-a, one or more parameters for the PA model. For example, the base station 105-a may transmit a representation of the PA model defined in terms of a lookup table (LUT). The LUT may include a set of different PA models. Each PA model of the set of PA models may correspond to an index. The base station may indicate one of the set of PA models via an index corresponding to the LUT. Paragraph 0116: The LUT configuration information may include a LUT. A LUT may include a set of indices, each index associated with a particular PA model. The base station 105-b may indicate (e.g., via higher layer signaling such as RRC signaling, or dynamic signaling such as downlink control information (DCI) signaling) an index value. The UE 115-b, upon receiving the index, may identify (e.g., via the LUT) a PA model.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Meir’617 signaling via an index, in the system of Kwun and Meir simply as design choice with predictable results and to fill in where Meir is silent, since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Since in the system of Kwun and Meir, an indicated power amplifier model corresponds to “the subset of one or more transmit antennas”, using an index pointing to a specific power amplifier model would correspond to using an index to indicate corresponding “the subset of one or more transmit antennas.”
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of US 20090316807 (Kim).
Regarding claim 9, Kwun teaches “wherein the signaling indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas comprises a bitmap (paragraph 0046: sending, by a transmitter to the receiver, information on a subset of the antennas selected for subsequent transmission of data. The information on the subset of the selected antennas may be transmitted in the form of a bitmap.)…”
Although this may be considered to be implicit, Kwun does not teach that the bitmap is “of used antennas and unused antennas, the used antennas indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas.”
Kim in paragraph 0061 teaches transmission of the information regarding the selected antennas in a bitmap form, and the position of each bitmap can represent antenna index. The positions in bitmap represent the corresponding physical and effective antennas. For example, a 4-bit bitmap can represent four (4) physical or effective antennas and (0 1 0 1) denotes the second and fourth physical or effective antennas selected.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize explicitly disclosed by Kim usage of specific bits in the bitmap to indicate used and unused antennas, in the system of Kwun. Doing so would have provided an explicit indication of antenna status by means of specific bits in the bitmap.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of US 20160191020 (Velazquez).
Regarding claim 13, Kwun and Meir do not teach “wherein the one or more processors being configured to cause the apparatus to estimate the distortion added to the data transmission comprises the one or more processors being configured to cause the apparatus to perform Fast Fourier transform (FFT) operations and inverse FFT (IFFT) operations to generate a set of non-linearity kernels associated with the data transmission, and wherein a number of the FFT operations and a number of the IFFT operations is based on a number of the subset of one or more transmit antennas.”
Velazquez teaches a compensator for removing nonlinear distortion. The compensator operates in a digital post-compensation configuration for linearization of devices or systems (see abstract).
Particularly, Velazquez teaches “the apparatus to perform Fast Fourier transform (FFT) operations and inverse FFT (IFFT) operations to generate a set of non-linearity kernels associated with the data transmission (paragraph 0089: Data at measured frequencies can be interpolated and extrapolate to a set of uniformly-spaced frequencies corresponding to those of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The inverse FFT translates these frequency-domain measurements to time-domain Volterra kernels.).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Velazquez operations of FFT and IFFT to generate Volterra kernels, in the system of Kwun and Meir. Doing so would have provided an additional method of removing nonlinear distortion.
With respect to the requirement that “a number of the FFT operations and a number of the IFFT operations is based on a number of the subset of one or more transmit antennas”, this appears to be implicit since, in general, the more transmit antennas are used to transmit information, the more received data is accumulated at the receiver thus causing the number of operations of the FFT and the IFFT to increase.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of WO 2022236456 (ELSHAFIE).
Regarding claim 12, Kwun and Meir do not teach “decode one or more demodulation reference signals (DMRS); and determine precoding based on the one or more DMRS.”
ELSHAFIE in paragraph 0055 teaches that the precoded channel f1(Hk) may be signaled in a demodulation reference signal (DMRS). The UE may estimate the channel precoder function (“determine precoding based on the one or more DMRS”) by decoding a DMRS (“decode one or more demodulation reference signals (DMRS)”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by ELSHAFIE decoding of demodulation reference signal (DMRS) to estimate the channel precoded function, in the system of Kwun and Meir. Doing so would have allowed to estimate the precoder used by the transmitter.
Claims 17, 20, 25 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) and US 20230163794 (Meir).
Regarding claims 17 and 30, Kwun teaches “An apparatus for wireless communication (FIG 1 and par. 0036: macro eNB 110 and/or femto eNB 120), the apparatus comprising:
memory storing computer executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the memory and configured to execute the computer executable code (inherent for the macro eNB 110 and/or femto eNB 120) to cause the apparatus to…”
“…perform antenna selection or antenna switching to select a subset of one or more transmit antennas of the apparatus for transmitting a data transmission (FIG 3 with corresponding description. Par. 0044: the transmitter may include a plurality of antennas. Par. 0045: At step 320, the transmitter may select antennas for use in the data transmission. Par. 0058: The transmitter includes total 5 antennas. The transmitter selects two antennas for data transmission. Two antennas are turned on to transmit data (i.e. all selected antennas));
transmit signaling indicating the subset of one or more transmit antennas; and transmit the data transmission using the subset of one or more selected transmit antennas (these limitations are reciprocal to corresponding limitations of claim 1, therefore, they are rejected because of the same reasons as explained in the rejection of claim 1, the explanation being incorporated herein by reference).”
Kwun does not teach “receive signaling of a capability of a user equipment (UE) for performing digital post distortion (DPoD) based on antenna selection.”
Gutman teaches in paragraph 0091 that the receiving device may indicate signal processing capabilities (e.g., DPOD capabilities) to the transmitting device. The receiving device may indicate the DPOD capabilities via L1 signaling, L2 signaling, or RRC signaling. Thus, Gutman teaches “receive signaling of a capability of a user equipment (UE) for performing digital post distortion (DPoD).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Gutman indication, by the receiver to the transmitter, of processing capabilities with respect to DPOD, in the system of Kwun. Doing so would have allowed to increase the throughput of communications based on the signal processing capabilities of the receiving device (see Gutman, paragraph 0091).
Lastly, with respect to digital post distortion “based on antenna selection”, Meir teaches a communication system in which a base station maps transmitter antennas to one of a set of multiple antenna groups based on a power amplifier response of one or more transmitter antennas, determines a power amplifier model for one or more antenna groups based on the power amplifier response of the one or more transmitter antennas, and transmits an indication of the power amplifier model for one or more antenna groups to a UE. (All this in abstract).
Particularly, as disclosed in FIG 3 and paragraphs 0113 – 0118, at 310, base station 105-b may map each transmitter antenna to one of several antenna groups based on similarity between respective power amplifier responses. At 315, base station 105-b may determine a power amplifier model for each group of antennas. At 320, base station 105-b may transmit an indication of the respective power amplifier models of each antenna group to a UE 115-b. At 325, UE 115-b may determine at least one power amplifier model of a transmitter antenna of base station 105-b based on the indication of the respective power amplifier models (“based on antenna selection”). At 330, UE 115-b may select and implement a selected power amplifier model based on explicit signaling from base station 105-b. The UE 115-b may implement the selected power amplifier model with digital post distortion processing.
In other words, the user equipment receives explicit signaling from the base station on a specific power amplifier model corresponding to a specific antenna group. Therefore, by explicitly signaling a specific power amplifier model, the base station thus indirectly notifies the UE of a specific antenna group corresponding to the this power amplifier model, antennas of which will be used for subsequent transmission. Thus, in Meir, indication of a specific power amplifier model serves as an indication of “an antenna selection” corresponding to this model. Based on the received indication for the selection of antennas, the user equipment performs digital post distortion.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Meir “performing digital post distortion (DPoD) based on antenna selection”, in the system of combined Kwun and Gutman’s disclosures. Doing so would have allowed to compensate for power amplifier characteristics, such as non-linearity (e.g., non-linearity remaining after digital predistortion) (see Meir, paragraph 0045) specifically for the non-linearities of the power amplifier associated with selected antennas.
Since the device of combined Kwun and Meir’s disclosures is capable of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas), out of the plurality of models, based on indication from the base station, and the receiving device of Gutman indicates its processing capability with respect to DPoD in general, it would have further been obvious, in the device of combined Meir and Gutman’s disclosures, to adapt the indication of the receiver’s capability with respect to DPoD processing specifically to the disclosed by Meir capability of DPoD processing based on selected power amplifier model (corresponding to a selected subset of antennas). Doing so would have further enhanced the functionality of the system by letting the base station know specific processing capabilities of the receiver.
Regarding claim 20, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 3 and 5 because claim 20 has limitations similar to the limitations of claim 5 (which includes the limitations of claim 3 by dependency).
Regarding claim 25, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 10 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20200328839 (Zhang).
Regarding claim 19, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 3 and 4 because claim 19 has limitations similar to the limitations of claim 4 (which includes the limitations of claim 3 by dependency).
Claims 21 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20250112599 (Tan).
Regarding claim 21, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 6 because they have similar limitations.
Regarding claim 22, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 7 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20230155617 (Meir’617).
Regarding claim 23, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 8 because they have similar limitations.
Claim 24 is alternatively rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140126667 (Kwun) in view of US 20230189162 (Gutman) and US 20230163794 (Meir) as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of US 20090316807 (Kim).
Regarding claim 24, this claim is rejected because of the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 9 because they have similar limitations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14 – 16 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GENNADIY TSVEY whose telephone number is (571)270-3198. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5:30.
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, Wesley Kim can be reached at 571-272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
Prosecution Insights