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 § 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.
Claims 1, 3, 11, 16, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gritsenko (US 2019/0296857) in view of Shen (US 2020/0083984).
Regarding claim 1, Gritsenko describes an apparatus for wireless communication (fig. 17B, base station), comprising:
at least one memory comprising computer-executable instructions; and one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to (fig. 17B & para. 257, processing unit 1450 executing instruction steps in memory 1458 for its method):
encode different payloads, using polar codes, to generate multiple codeword permutations (para. 2 & 7, transmission with polar coding that support up to 16 permutations, see also abstract);
wherein each of the different payloads comprises a first payload portion that is the same for the different payloads and a second payload portion that differs among the different payloads in a deterministic manner and each codeword permutation corresponds to one of the second payload portions (para. 98, transmission of payloads (info.+CRC) is repeated = same first info (payload portion), but in different versions/ permutations, where CRCs (second portion) are determined by corresponding info (deterministically) and the CRCs will be different for each respective permutated info (first portion) being retransmitted).
Gritsenko describes fails to further explicitly describe:
output the multiple codeword permutations sequentially.
Shen also describe polar code transmission (title), further describing:
transmission steps are performed sequentially (fig. 5A&B and para. 63, transmitter end steps are sequentially performed to send signal source through channel to the receive end).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the output of multiple codeword permutations for transmission in Gritsenko be done sequentially as in Shen.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this yields improvement to the polar encoding/decoding performance (Shen, para. 5).
Regarding claim 3, Gritsenko and Shen combined describe:
wherein the second payload portions correspond to counter values that change in a deterministic manner in different payloads (Gritsenko para. 98, CRCs (second payload portions) corresponds to check (counter) values that are deterministically different (changed) for each respective permutated info (different first payload portions, i.e. different payloads).
Regarding claim 11, Gritsenko describes:
wherein the apparatus is configured as a network entity (fig. 17B & para. 257, base station = network entity).
Gritsenko and Shen combined describe:
comprising at least one transceiver configured to transmit the multiple codeword permutations sequentially ((fig. 5A&B and para. 63, transmitter/receiver ends are sequentially performed to send signal source through channel to the receive end).
Regarding claim 16, Gritsenko describes:
UE as receiver end of transmitted permutated codewords in step 916 decodes each received segment to obtain the info/first payload portion (fig. 4 & para. 5), but fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein in order to obtain the first payload portions, the one or more processors are further configured to:
identify an inverse transform associated with one of the second payload portions, and apply the inverse transform.
Shen also describe polar code transmission (title), further describing:
wherein in order to obtain the first payload portions, the one or more processors are further configured to:
identify an inverse transform associated with one of the second payload portions, and apply the inverse transform (para. 15, receiver end performs first inverse transformation, polar decoding and a second inverse transformation on the decoded sequence).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that received multiple codeword permutations for in Gritsenko be inverse transformed as in Shen.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this yields improvement to the polar encoding/decoding performance (Shen, para. 5).
Regarding claim 18, Gritsenko and Shen combined describe:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause the apparatus to: perform an error check operation after applying the inverse transform (Shen, fig. 5a & para. 50, receive end descrambles, then decodes, then performs CRC (error) check, wherein the descrambling comprises the inverse transformation, para. 15).
Regarding claim 20, Gritsenko and Shen combined describe:
wherein the application of the inverse transform results in a depermutation of a codeword permutation (Shen para. 15, inverse transformation operation includes inverse ordering (depermutating)).
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 12, 14 and 21-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gritsenko.
Regarding claims 12 and 14, Gritsenko describes an apparatus/method for wireless communication (fig. 17A, UE), comprising:
at least one memory comprising computer-executable instructions; and one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to (fig. 17A & para. 253-256, processing unit 1400 executing instruction steps in memory 1408 for its method):
obtain multiple codeword permutations corresponding to different payloads, wherein the different payloads comprise first payload portions that are the same and second payload portions that differ in a deterministic manner, and each codeword permutation corresponds to one of the second payload portions (para. 98, UE receives transmission of payloads (info.+CRC) which are repeated = same first info (payload portion), but in different versions/permutations, where CRCs (second portion) are determined by corresponding info (deterministically) and the CRCs will be different for each respective permutated info (first portion) being retransmitted).
process the multiple codeword permutations to obtain the second payload portions (fig. 15 & para. 235-237, UE as receiver performing de-permutation of received codeword permutations, [yielding second payload portions]),
obtain the first payload portions after obtaining the second payload portions (para. 52-53, for each info.+CRC received, UE uses the CRC (second payload portion) to verify/affirm original info (obtaining first payload portion); and
soft combine the first payload portions (para. 7, soft-combining the original PBCH data).
Regarding claim 14, Gritsenko describes:
wherein the second payload portions correspond to counter values that change in a deterministic manner in different payloads (Gritsenko para. 98, CRCs (second payload portions as check (counter) values) correspond to check (counter) values that are deterministically different (changed) for each respective permutated info (different first payload portions, i.e. different payloads).
Regarding claim 21, Gritsenko describeg:
wherein, in order to process the multiple codeword permutations to obtain the second payload portions, the one or more processors are further configured to perform a non-linear operation (para. 97, receiver end has operations of de-transformation on decoded bits to obtain the CRC (second payload portion) and perform CRC checks (non-linear operation)).
Regarding claim 22, Gritsenko describes:
the second payload portions correspond to counter values that change in a deterministic manner in different payloads (para. 98, transmission of payloads (info.+CRC) is repeated = same first info (payload portion), but in different versions/ permutations, where CRCs (second portion) are determined by corresponding info (deterministically) and the CRCs will be different for each respective permutated info (first portion) being retransmitted); and
the non-linear operation involves at least one counter value bit (Gritsenko para. 97, receiver end comprises [non-linear] operation including use of CRC (bits) for CRC checks).
Regarding claim 23, Gritsenko describe:
at least one transceiver configured to receive the multiple codeword permutations, wherein the apparatus is configured as a user equipment (UE) (Gritsenko, fig. 17A & 17B & para. 23-26, base station & UE representing transmitter & receiver respectively for transmission of codewords as in fig. 14 & 15)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4-10, 13, 15, 17 and 19 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.
Regarding claims 2 and 13, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the different payloads correspond to physical broadcast channel (PBCH) transmissions; and the second payload portions correspond to system frame number (SFN) values conveyed in the PBCH transmissions.
The closest prior art, Shen describing polar code transmission by 1) perform polar coding to generate a first encode sequence, & 2) transform the encoded sequence into a second bit sequence for transmission (fig. 9) with use of SFN (para. 99), and Luo (US 2020/0067536) describing polar coding transmission & reception of PBCH comprising SFN (para. 3 & 5), in combination with Gritsenko, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Regarding claim 4, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein: in order to output the multiple codeword permutations sequentially, the one or more processors are further configured to output a first codeword permutation corresponding to a first counter value and, subsequently, output a second codeword permutation corresponding to a second counter value; and the second codeword permutation is generated by applying a permutation matrix to the first codeword permutation.
The closest prior art, Kim (US 2016/0182187) describing permutation of polar coding using generator matrix (para. 270+), and Luo (US 2020/035755) describing polar coding using permutation matrix (para. 19+), in combination with Gritsenko describing permutation of codewords via permutation matrices, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Regarding claim 15, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein: each codeword permutation comprises one or more information bits and one or more frozen bits; and counter bits are treated as information bits when processing the multiple codeword permutations.
The closest prior art, [common assignee] Ivanov (US 2025/0293803) describing SFN/counter values, in combination with Gritsenko describing information & frozen bits, and Iqbal (US 2024/0022351) describing channel encoding where counter is used to identify first set of valid bits (para. 152), in combination, fail to render the above features as a whole obvious.
Regarding claim 17, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the inverse transform is associated with a matrix formed by a first matrix that has low-triangular (LT) properties and a second matrix that has anti-diagonal upper-triangular (ADT) properties.
The closest prior art Shen describing the transformation matrix being a upper triangular Toeplitz matrix, and Luo describing polar code transmission using an MxM upper triangular matrix (para. 11+), in combination with Gritsenko, fail to render the above additional features as a whole obvious.
Regarding claim 19, the prior art fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein in order to identify the inverse transform associated with one of the second payload portions, the one or more processors are further configured to map decoded bits of a second payload to a permutation index.
The closest prior art, with Gritsenko describing parity check based on parity or “PC” bits that are included in an input vector (para. 59) in combination with Zhang (US 2020/0059245) describing polar code transmission where transmit end divides second encoded bit sequence into L groups of equal length sequences for interleave/scrambles, modulates, mapping & sending (fig. 8), and Luo describing polar coding for transmission, fail to render the above features as a whole obvious.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Lee (WO 2017/196391) describing encoding polar codes by generating a polar code permutation vector based on plural channel reliability estimates & applying the permutation vector to input vector before polar encoding & transmission (fig. 7), Wang (US 2020/0067533) each describing a polar code encoder configured to: map q bits to q positions of q sub-channels, (abstract & fig. 1), Huang (US 2025/0070919) describing joint polar encoding of payloads with different levels of error protection (low & high priority), (fig. 5 & para. 87), Zhang (US 2024/0333426) describing
delivering unequal error protection for multiple payloads in a single forward error correction codeword (abstract), Iqbal (US 20240022351) describing dividing the polar encoded bit sequence into a number of bit groups and interleaving the number of bit groups; and adjusting the interleaved bit sequence to match a payload allocation in REs of DCI; and transmitting a polar encoded codeword (abstract), Shen (US 2020/0083984)
describing polar code transmission & performing soft combination with different time intervals (para. 9 & 12), Yang (US 2018/0062797) describing soft combining at least a first & second subsets of coded bits in a combined set of coded bits, and decoding the first/second control message based at least in part on the combined set of coded bits (abstract), and John Wilson (US 2019/0356420) describing common mother code when constructing polar code for each set of control channel resources, with encoder & decoder for polar codes with HARQ & soft-combining applied to retransmitted bits (abstract).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469