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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 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 –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Liu (US 2025/0132965).
Liu discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 1, a UE (see “terminal device” recited in paragraph [0071] and shown in Fig. 5) in a wireless communication system (see “wireless network” recited in paragraph [0079]), the UE comprising:
a transceiver (see “transceiver” recited in paragraph [0079] and communication apparatus 540 in Fig. 5); and
a processor (see processor 510 in Fig. 5) operably coupled to the transceiver, the processor configured to:
generate data modulation symbols including a set of zero symbols (see S’ symbols in Fig. 3A or 3B), wherein the data modulation symbols are up-sampled or zero-padded (see paragraph [0029] and Fig. 3A-3B, wherein zero-padding is performed on the sequence; and see “the pre-operation of the DFT spreading may include the zero-padding operation” recited in paragraph [0040], which shows that Fig. 3A-3B being the pre-operation of the DFT spreading step shown in Fig. 2A),
perform, to obtain DFT output signal (see DFT output X’ in Fig. 3A-3B), a DFT spread operation on the up-sampled data modulation symbols or the zero-padded data modulation symbols (see Fig. 3A or Fig. 3B, wherein DFT spreading is performed after the zero-embedding block),
perform, based on (i) a target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to a, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]) and (ii) a SC allocation (see subcarrier mapping step after the DFT spreading in Fig. 2A), a discarding operation or a down sampling operation on the DFT output signal, wherein the discarding operation or the down sampling operation generates a subset of DFT symbols (see data deletion block in Fig. 3A or the phase compensation and superimposition block in Fig. 3B, wherein a reduced number of DFT symbols are output in both figure),
map the subset of DFT symbols to a set of SCs corresponding to a transmission bandwidth (see subcarrier mapping step in Fig. 2A that maps the output of the DFT spreading to subcarriers for transmission), and
perform an IFFT operation on the subset of DFT symbols to obtain an FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal (see IFFT operation in Fig. 2A following the subcarrier mapping block for “DFT-s-OFDM” generating in paragraph [0026] and paragraph [0026] shows that the “DFT-s-OFDM scheme” being “based on Faster-Than-Nyquist (FTN) modulation”),
wherein the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal corresponds to the target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]), and
wherein the target FTN compression rate is a positive rational number smaller than one (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c, b≤c, b and c are positive integers” recited in paragraph [0028], wherein when b<c, the value of α would be a positive rational number smaller than one).
Regarding claim 4, the processor is further configured to spread the data modulation symbols using the DFT spread operation and obtain consecutive DFT output signals (see Fig. 3A-3B, wherein the cM-point DFT spreading spreads the data modulation symbols to obtain consecutive output signals X’).
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) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Sayed Hassan (US 2024/0154849).
Liu discloses the features as shown above.
Liu also discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 2, wherein: the processor is further configured to perform FDSS operation on the subset of DFT symbols (see “Frequency Domain Spectrum Shaping (FDSS) may be performed after the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is performed” recited in paragraph [0024]).
Liu does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 2, wherein: the processor is configured to transmit UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting the FTN.
Sayed Hassan discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 2, wherein: the processor is configured to transmit UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting the FTN (see Fig. 4, wherein the UE 115-a transmits UE capability indication in step 405; and see “At 405, the UE 115-a may send the network entity 105-a a UE capability indication. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of performing a rearrangement scheme. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of creating FTN DTF-s-OFDM waveforms” recited in paragraph [0111]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu using features, as taught by Sayed Hassan, in order to provide higher spectral efficiency (see paragraph [0003] of Sayed Hassan).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Cao (US 2022/0416988).
Liu discloses the features as shown above.
Liu does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 3, wherein the processor is further configured to spread each of the data modulation symbol over the set of subcarriers that is scattered over an entire spectrum (Liu discloses the DFT spreading as shown above, but does not show that the output DFT being spread over a set of subcarriers scattered over an entire spectrum).
Cao discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 3, wherein the processor is further configured to spread each of the data modulation symbol over the set of subcarriers that is scattered over an entire spectrum (see “Data Tone Mapping Plan: Uniformly Spreading Distributed Data Subcarriers Over Entire Spreading Spectrum” recited in paragraph [0117]-[0118] and Fig. 6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu using features, as taught by Cao, in order to improve transmission performance (see paragraph [0053] of Cao).
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Nadal (US 2020/0322196).
Liu discloses the features as shown above.
Liu also discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 5, wherein the processor is further configured to: spread the data modulation symbols using the DFT spread operation and obtain different consecutive DFT output signals (see Fig. 3A-3B, wherein the cM-point DFT spreading spreads the data modulation symbols to obtain consecutive output signals X’) ; and perform the IFFT operation to the different consecutive DFT output signals to obtain the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal (see IFFT block in Fig. 2A; and see “DFT-s-OFDM scheme based on Faster-Than-Nyquist (FTN)” recited in paragraph [0028])
Liu does not explicitly disclose the following features: regarding claim 5, the IFFT operation including a set of zeros occupying unused subcarrier positions.
Nadal discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 5, the IFFT operation including a set of zeros occupying unused subcarrier positions (see “The signal is transposed in the time domain by an IFFT which may be of size M if the transposition is made prior to the oversampling and filtering, or of a size KM otherwise, M being the total number of subcarriers allocated for the transmission, comprising useful subcarriers dedicated to the mapping of the data symbols, pilot subcarriers, guard subcarriers, and zero-padded (unused) subcarriers” recited in paragraph [0004]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu using features, as taught by Nadal, in order to provide robustness to inter-symbol interferences (see paragraph [0004] of Nadal).
Claim(s) 9-10, 12 and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu in view of Sayed Hassan.
Liu discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 9, a method of a UE (see “terminal device” recited in paragraph [0071] and shown in Fig. 5) in a wireless communication system (see “wireless network” recited in paragraph [0079]), the method comprising:
generating data modulation symbols including a set of zero symbols (see S’ symbols in Fig. 3A or 3B), wherein the data modulation symbols are up-sampled or zero-padded (see paragraph [0029] and Fig. 3A-3B, wherein zero-padding is performed on the sequence; and see “the pre-operation of the DFT spreading may include the zero-padding operation” recited in paragraph [0040], which shows that Fig. 3A-3B being the pre-operation of the DFT spreading step shown in Fig. 2A),
performing, to obtain DFT output signal (see DFT output X’ in Fig. 3A-3B), a DFT spread operation on the up-sampled data modulation symbols or the zero-padded data modulation symbols (see Fig. 3A or Fig. 3B, wherein DFT spreading is performed after the zero-embedding block),
performing, based on (i) a target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to a, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]) and (ii) a SC allocation (see subcarrier mapping step after the DFT spreading in Fig. 2A), a discarding operation or a down sampling operation on the DFT output signal, wherein the discarding operation or the down sampling operation generates a subset of DFT symbols (see data deletion block in Fig. 3A or the phase compensation and superimposition block in Fig. 3B, wherein a reduced number of DFT symbols are output in both figure),
mapping the subset of DFT symbols to a set of SCs corresponding to a transmission bandwidth (see subcarrier mapping step in Fig. 2A that maps the output of the DFT spreading to subcarriers for transmission), and
performing an IFFT operation on the subset of DFT symbols to obtain an FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal (see IFFT operation in Fig. 2A following the subcarrier mapping block for “DFT-s-OFDM” generating in paragraph [0026] and paragraph [0026] shows that the “DFT-s-OFDM scheme” being “based on Faster-Than-Nyquist (FTN) modulation”), wherein the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal corresponds to the target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]) comprising a positive rational number smaller than one (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c, b≤c, b and c are positive integers” recited in paragraph [0028], wherein when b<c, the value of α would be a positive rational number smaller than one).
Regarding claim 10, performing a FDSS operation on the subset of DFT symbols (see “Frequency Domain Spectrum Shaping (FDSS) may be performed after the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is performed” recited in paragraph [0024]).
Regarding claim 12, spreading the data modulation symbols using the DFT spread operation and obtain consecutive DFT output signals (see Fig. 3A-3B, wherein the cM-point DFT spreading spreads the data modulation symbols to obtain consecutive output signals X’).
Regarding claim 17, a base station (see “base station” recited in paragraph [0100] and shown in Fig. 5) in a wireless communication system (see “wireless network” recited in paragraph [0079]), the base station comprising:
a transceiver (see “transceiver” recited in paragraph [0079] and communication apparatus 540 in Fig. 5); and
a processor (see processor 510 in Fig. 5) operably coupled to the transceiver;
wherein:
data modulation symbols including a set of zero symbols is generated (see S’ symbols in Fig. 3A or 3B), wherein the data modulation symbols are up-sampled or zero-padded (see paragraph [0029] and Fig. 3A-3B, wherein zero-padding is performed on the sequence; and see “the pre-operation of the DFT spreading may include the zero-padding operation” recited in paragraph [0040], which shows that Fig. 3A-3B being the pre-operation of the DFT spreading step shown in Fig. 2A),
a DFT spread operation is performed to obtain DFT output signal (see on the up-sampled data modulation symbols or the zero-padded data modulation symbols (see Fig. 3A or Fig. 3B, wherein DFT spreading is performed after the zero-embedding block),
based on (i) a target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to a, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]) and (ii) a SC allocation (see subcarrier mapping step after the DFT spreading in Fig. 2A), a discarding operation or a down sampling operation is performed on the DFT output signal, wherein the discarding operation or the down sampling operation generates a subset of DFT symbols (see data deletion block in Fig. 3A or the phase compensation and superimposition block in Fig. 3B, wherein a reduced number of DFT symbols are output in both figure),
he subset of DFT symbols is mapped to a set of SCs corresponding to a transmission bandwidth (see subcarrier mapping step in Fig. 2A that maps the output of the DFT spreading to subcarriers for transmission), and
an IFFT operation is performed on the subset of DFT symbols to obtain an FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal (see IFFT operation in Fig. 2A following the subcarrier mapping block for “DFT-s-OFDM” generating in paragraph [0026] and paragraph [0026] shows that the “DFT-s-OFDM scheme” being “based on Faster-Than-Nyquist (FTN) modulation”), wherein the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal corresponds to the target FTN compression rate (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c” recited in paragraph [0028]), comprising a positive rational number smaller than one (see “FTN… the compression factor may be set to α, the a may be set to α=b/c, b≤c, b and c are positive integers” recited in paragraph [0028], wherein when b<c, the value of α would be a positive rational number smaller than one).
Regarding claim 18, wherein a FDSS operation is performed on the subset of DFT symbols (see “Frequency Domain Spectrum Shaping (FDSS) may be performed after the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is performed” recited in paragraph [0024]).
Regarding claim 19, wherein each of the data modulation symbols is spread over the set of subcarriers that is scattered over an entire spectrum; or the data modulation symbols using the DFT spread operation is spread to obtain consecutive DFT output signals (see Fig. 3A-3B, wherein the cM-point DFT spreading spreads the data modulation symbols to obtain consecutive output signals X’).
Liu does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 9, transmitting UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting the FTN; regarding claim 17, the transceiver receive, from a UE, UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting a FTN.
Sayed Hassan discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 9, transmitting UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting the FTN (see Fig. 4, wherein the UE 115-a transmits UE capability indication in step 405; and see “At 405, the UE 115-a may send the network entity 105-a a UE capability indication. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of performing a rearrangement scheme. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of creating FTN DTF-s-OFDM waveforms” recited in paragraph [0111]).
Regarding claim 17, the transceiver receive, from a UE, UE capability information indicating the UE is capable of supporting a FTN (see Fig. 4, wherein the UE 115-a transmits UE capability indication in step 405; and see “At 405, the UE 115-a may send the network entity 105-a a UE capability indication. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of performing a rearrangement scheme. The UE capability indication may indicate that the UE is capable of creating FTN DTF-s-OFDM waveforms” recited in paragraph [0111]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu using features, as taught by Sayed Hassan, in order to provide higher spectral efficiency (see paragraph [0003] of Sayed Hassan).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu and Sayed Hassan as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Cao.
Liu and Sayed Hassan disclose the features as shown above.
Liu does not disclose the following features: regarding claim 11, spreading each of the data modulation symbol over the set of subcarriers that is scattered over an entire spectrum (Liu discloses the DFT spreading as shown above, but does not show that the output DFT being spread over a set of subcarriers scattered over an entire spectrum).
Cao discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to spread each of the data modulation symbol over the set of subcarriers that is scattered over an entire spectrum (see “Data Tone Mapping Plan: Uniformly Spreading Distributed Data Subcarriers Over Entire Spreading Spectrum” recited in paragraph [0117]-[0118] and Fig. 6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu and Sayed Hassan using features, as taught by Cao, in order to improve transmission performance (see paragraph [0053] of Cao).
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu and Sayed Hassan as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Nadal.
Liu and Sayed Hassan disclose the features as shown above.
Liu also discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 13, spreading the data modulation symbols using the DFT spread operation and obtain different consecutive DFT output signals (see Fig. 3A-3B, wherein the cM-point DFT spreading spreads the data modulation symbols to obtain consecutive output signals X’) ; and performing the IFFT operation to the different consecutive DFT output signals to obtain the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal (see IFFT block in Fig. 2A; and see “DFT-s-OFDM scheme based on Faster-Than-Nyquist (FTN)” recited in paragraph [0028]; Sayed Hassan also discloses FTN-DFT-s-OFDM in paragraph [0004]).
Liu does not explicitly disclose the following features: regarding claim 13, the IFFT operation including a set of zeros occupying unused subcarrier positions.
Nadal discloses the following features.
Regarding claim 5, the IFFT operation including a set of zeros occupying unused subcarrier positions (see “The signal is transposed in the time domain by an IFFT which may be of size M if the transposition is made prior to the oversampling and filtering, or of a size KM otherwise, M being the total number of subcarriers allocated for the transmission, comprising useful subcarriers dedicated to the mapping of the data symbols, pilot subcarriers, guard subcarriers, and zero-padded (unused) subcarriers” recited in paragraph [0004]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the current application to modify the system of Liu and Sayed Hassan using features, as taught by Nadal, in order to provide robustness to inter-symbol interferences (see paragraph [0004] of Nadal).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-8, 14-16 and 20 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: no reasonable combination of prior art references is found to disclose all of the claimed features as required in the claims objected herein.
Claims 6, 14 and 20 recites the following: wherein: the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal includes an OFDM symbol time, a number of sub-carriers, and a number of OFDM symbols per slot; the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal is transmitted or received over a mixed FTN-DFT-S-OFDM slot that includes time divisions of FTN data symbols, none-FTN data symbols, and none-FTN RS symbols that are placed within a slot; and the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal is transmitted or received over an all FTN-DFT-S-OFDM slot that includes the time divisions of FTN data symbols and none-FTN RS symbols that are placed within the slot.
Harada (US 2022/0286222) discloses a subframe mixed with slots that are FTN configured and non-FTN configured (Figs. 9-13). Sawahashi (US 2017/0078061) discloses FTN symbols (Fig. 2) and subframes having information symbols and reference signals occupying OFDM symbol time and sub-carriers (Fig. 5). However, Harada, Sawahashi and the above cited references, along or in combination, fails to disclose all of the claimed features, as shown above, as required in claims 6, 14 and 20.
Claims 7 and 15 recites the following: wherein the processor is further configured to: enable an FTN-ISI pre-canceling operation using a time windowing operation or a pre-equalization/pre-coding of RS symbols; and add soft edges to adjacent FTN-OFDM symbols with the RS symbols for the time windowing operation.
Yun (US 2017/0099173; paragraph [0008]) and Sawahashi (US 2017/0078061; paragraphs [0046], [0124], [0128]) disclose FTN ISI cancellation/reduction, but do not disclose the claimed canceling operation using a time-windowing operation with soft edges to adjacent FTN-OFDM symbols with the RS symbols for the time windowing operation.
Claims 8 and 16 recite the following: wherein the processor is further configured to calculate the FTN compression rate based on a number of DFT output signals and a maximum number of symbols for the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal.
Liu (paragraphs [0028]-[0029]) discloses an FTN compression factor, but this FTN compression factor does not meet the requirement of being calculated “based on a number of DFT output signals and a maximum number of symbols for the FTN-DFT-S-OFDM signal”. Nadal discloses operations that include a number of FFT output and a maximum number of subcarriers that can be allocated (M) and a down-sampling by a value K (Fig. 7), but Nadal does not calculate an FTN compression rate using these values.
Conclusion
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/JUTAI KAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2473