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 § 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 19 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 19 recites in line 1 the limitation “A second apparatus” without reciting a first apparatus. It is unclear whether claim 19 requires one apparatus or two apparatus.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yoshida et al. (Yoshida et al., “Hierarchical Distribution Matching for Probabilistic Shaped Coded Modulation”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 37, No. 6, March 2019).
Regarding claim 1, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 a data processing method, comprising: performing distribution matching on a first bit sequence (input sequence A') to obtain a second bit sequence (the output sequence of LUT 3); obtaining at least two candidate bit sequences for the second bit sequence (the output sequences of LUT 1), wherein each of the at least two candidate bit sequences comprises a first bit part for identifying the candidate bit sequence (the 1-bit input from A' determines the output sequence) and a second bit part obtained based on interleaving of the second bit sequence (the 3-bit input are interleaving of the output of LUT 1); determining a third bit sequence (the 20-bit output D) in the at least two candidate bit sequences for channel coding.
Regarding claim 2, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that A' comprises magnitude bits (the shaped bits) and sign bits (the non-shaped bits—the 4-bit at the top line).
Regarding claim 3, the LUT 1 performs distribution matching.
Regarding claim 15, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that A' is the sequence to be shaped.
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.
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) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (Yoshida et al., “Hierarchical Distribution Matching for Probabilistic Shaped Coded Modulation”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 37, No. 6, March 2019) in view of Xu et al. (Xu et al., “Probabilistic Shaping QC-LDPC Coded modulation Scheme for Optical Fiber Systems”, CLED Pacific Rim 2018, OSA, 2018).
Yoshida et al. has been discussed above in regard to claims 1-3 and 15. The difference between Yoshida et al. and the claimed invention is that Yoshida et al. does not teach performing constellation mapping. Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 2 mapping bit sequence to constellation points. Mapping the five (5) 4-bit sequences of FIG. 2 of Yoshida et al. to constellation points determines the symbol sequence corresponding to bit sequence D of FIG. 2 of Yoshida et al. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Xu et al. with the system of Yoshida et al. because the constellation can be used to facilitates modulation schemes that carry multiple bits in a single symbol such as 16QAM. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to map bit sequence to constellation points, as taught by Xu et al., in the system of Yoshida et al.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (Yoshida et al., “Hierarchical Distribution Matching for Probabilistic Shaped Coded Modulation”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 37, No. 6, March 2019) in view of Peng et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2022/0247496 A1) and Liu et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2025/0358039 A1).
Yoshida et al. has been discussed above in regard to claims 1-3 and 15. The difference between Yoshida et al. and the claimed invention is that Yoshida et al. does not teach performing the channel coding on a combination of the third bit sequence and the sign bits of the first bit sequence to obtain first parity bits for the third bit sequence; transmitting a first to-be-transmitted bit sequence, wherein the first to-be-transmitted bit sequence comprises the third bit sequence, the sign bits of the first bit sequence and the first parity bits for the third bit sequence. Peng et al. teaches in FIG. 1A a channel coding scheme where sequence after distribution match (DM) are combined by the FEC encoder 106 and then mapped to symbols for modulating the modulator 130. Liu et al. teaches in FIG. 4 and paragraph [0080] that FEC encoder generates parity bits. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Peng et al. and Liu et al. with the system of Yoshida et al. because Peng et al. and Liu et al. provide the details of implementation that are missing from Yoshida et al. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the third bit sequence and the sign bit to obtain parity bits, as taught by Peng et al. and Liu et al., in the system of Yoshida et al.
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (Yoshida et al., “Hierarchical Distribution Matching for Probabilistic Shaped Coded Modulation”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 37, No. 6, March 2019).
Regarding claim 16, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 1 a system comprising a transmitting unit (the top part of FIG. 1) and a receiving unit (the bottom part of FIG. 1) connected by a channel. Even though Yoshida et al. does not disclose the details of the receiving unit, it is clear from FIG. 1 that the receiving unit performs the reverse process of the transmitting unit to recover the original bit sequence. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to reverse the process of FIG. 2 to recover the original bit sequence.
Claim(s) 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (Yoshida et al., “Hierarchical Distribution Matching for Probabilistic Shaped Coded Modulation”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 37, No. 6, March 2019) in view of Liu et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2025/0358039 A1).
Yoshida et al. has been discussed above in regard to claims 1-3 and 15. The difference between Yoshida et al. and the claimed invention is that Yoshida et al. does not teach at least one processor coupled to a memory storing a set of instructions. Liu et al. teaches in paragraph [0209]-[0210] software/instructions stored in computer-readable memory for implementing a process. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Liu et al. with the system of Yoshida et al. because stored program control is flexible and cost effective. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use stored program control for implementing a method, as taught by Liu et al., in the system of Yoshida et al.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-14 and 17 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 SHI K LI whose telephone number is (571)272-3031. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:53 a.m. -3:23 p.m.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David Payne can be reached at 571 272-3024. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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skl9 March 2026
/SHI K LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635