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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 7 and 10 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The previous allowability of claims 14-20 has been withdrawn since the claims recite abstract ideas without significantly more. See the §101 rejection below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract ideas without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) “generate a carrier profile of an input signal,” “compare the carrier profile to a previous carrier profile,” and “update a peak cancellation waveform.. responsive to the comparison.” Each of these abstract ideas are directed to basic evaluation and analysis of input signals that can be performed as mental processes. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because generically recited computer elements do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer (“programmable circuitry configured to… execute machine-readable instructions”). The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because there is no practical application of the abstract ideas in a particular (non-generic) structure.
Claims 14-20 differ from claims 1-13 which disclose a specific structure.
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.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mauer et al. (US 9,337,782, hereinafter “Mauer”) in view of Agon (US 2018/0083820).
Regarding claim 7, Mauer discloses a transmitter apparatus (circuitry 100, Fig. 2) comprising:
peak cancellation waveform generator circuitry having an input and an output, and configured to determine a carrier profile corresponding to an input signal at the input and provide a peak cancellation waveform at the output based on the carrier profile (peak canceling circuitry 104, Fig. 2, col. 4, ll. 27-38, 56-63, implemented as in Fig. 3, with peak detection circuit 154 and peak cancellation waveform generation circuitry 156 provide control signals, i.e. “carrier profile,” to peak cancellation wave form generation circuitry which outputs a peak cancellation waveform accordingly, col. 8, ll. 6-17);
crest factor reduction circuitry having an input coupled to the output of the peak cancellation waveform generator circuitry, and having an output, the crest factor reduction circuitry configured to modify the input signal based on the peak cancellation waveform (subtraction circuit 152, subtracts peak cancellation waveform from the delayed input signal via delay 150, Fig. 3, col. 8, ll. 25-30); and
digital pre-distortion circuitry having an input coupled to the output of the crest factor reduction circuitry (digital predistortion circuitry 106, receives output of peak canceling circuitry 104, Fig. 2).
However, Mauer does not expressly disclose determining the carrier profile corresponding to the input signal based on a power spectral density of the input signal.
Agon discloses a similar peak to average power radio reduction scheme in which a peak cancellation signal is generated based on weights determined based on clipping noise samples of the input signal that are detected as containing noise/amplitudes above a clipping level threshold (see Fig. 3, para. 0028-0029, the generated weights correspond to the recited “carrier profile”), wherein the weights are determined using the power spectral density of a clipping noise sample (para. 0029). The resultant peak cancellation signal is subtracted from a delayed/buffered input signal via buffer 305 (Fig. 3).
Because both Mauer and Agon disclose peak reduction/cancellation schemes, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the application was filed, to substitute one peak cancellation scheme for another, for the predictable result of generating control signals/weights (i.e. “carrier profiles”) for generating a peak cancellation signal based on a power spectral density of the input signal.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mauer et al. (US 9,337,782, hereinafter “Mauer”) in view of Agon (US 2018/0083820), as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of Navidpour et al. (US 2008/010502, hereinafter “Navidpour”).
Regarding claim 10, Mauer and Agon disclose everything applied to claim 7 above, but do not expressly disclose wherein the crest factor reduction circuity includes first crest factor reduction stage circuitry having an output coupled to an input of second crest factor reduction stage circuitry.
Navidpour discloses a transmitter 100 including a peak to average power reduction (PARR) block 104 which includes multiple PARR stages 116, in which a first PARR stage 116-1 outputs to an input of a subsequent PARR stage 116-N, Fig. 1, para. 0034-0035, see also para. 0052 for multistage PAR reduction, for achieve a PAR target while introducing minimal additional distortion).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the application was filed, to modify the peak cancellation scheme of Mauer and Agon, to incorporate a multi-stage peak cancellation scheme, since this is suggested by the multi-stage PAR reduction scheme of Navidpour and is adaptable to achieve a target PAR with minimizing additional distortion.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-6 are allowed.
Claims 8, 9, and 11-13 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID S HUANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., EST.
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/David S Huang/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631 5/1/2026
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