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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on May 1, 2024 has been considered by the examiner. An initialed copy of the IDS is included with this Office Action.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
in paragraph [0001], line 2, “now U.S. Patent No. 12,009,961” should be inserted after “January 6, 2021,”;
in paragraph [0001], line 7, the colon after “Serial No.” should be deleted; and
in paragraph [0081], line 23, “FIG. 15.” should be “FIG. 15,”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: “producing” on line 1 should be “wherein to produce”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
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 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The specification, at the time the application was filed, does not describe transmitting an acknowledgement frame in response to detecting the first preamble. The detailed description in the present application mentions monitoring for an acknowledgement frame but neither the present application nor the parent applications describe a processor configured to “responsive to detecting the first preamble, transmit an acknowledgement frame” as recited in claim 6. Therefore, claim 6 fails to comply with the written description requirement.
Claim 6 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. In claim 6, “responsive to detecting the first preamble” on lines 1-2 renders the claim indefinite since the claim does not recite “detecting the first preamble.” Claim 1 recites that the processor is configured to “determine a start of the first preamble…” (see claim 1, lines 3 and 10) but neither claim 1 nor claim 6 recites a limitation that detects the “first preamble.”
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 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chadha et al. (US Patent No. 2004/0170237 A1 cited in the IDS submitted May 1, 2024). Chadha et al. discloses the claimed invention including receiving a first signal comprising a first preamble that includes K symbols (see paragraph [0022]); correlating the first signal with a delayed version of the first signal to produce a first result (see 420 in FIG. 4 and paragraph [0038]); correlating the first signal with a predetermined preamble to produce a second result (see 441 in FIG. 4 and paragraphs [0047]-[0048]); and determining a start of the first preamble based on the first and second results (see 100 in FIG. 4 and paragraphs [0023]-[0025] wherein “symbol timing boundary” corresponds to the “start of the first preamble”).
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.
Claims 1 and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. (US Patent No. 7,746,812 B2).
With regard to claim 1, Chadha et al. discloses a device comprising circuitry configured to receive a first signal comprising a first preamble that includes K symbols (see paragraph [0022]); correlate the first signal with a delayed version of the first signal to produce a first result (see 420 in FIG. 4 and paragraph [0038]); correlate the first signal with a predetermined preamble to produce a second result (see 441 in FIG. 4 and paragraphs [0047]-[0048]); and determine a start of the first preamble based on the first and second results (see 100 in FIG. 4 and paragraphs [0023]-[0025] wherein “symbol timing boundary” corresponds to the “start of the first preamble”). However, Chadha et al. does not disclose that the device comprises an analog front-end (AFE) and a processor that receives, via the AFE, the first signal. FIG. 4 of Bhukania et al. discloses a wireless receiver that comprises a AFE that provides a signal to a processor for baseband signal processing. (See also column 5, line 64 – column 6, lines 6 and 33-37) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add an AFE to the device of Chadha et al. in order to process the received wireless signal to generate the necessary samples for the circuit in FIG. 4 of Chadha et al. (see paragraph [0027]). Furthermore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to replace the circuitry of Chadha et al. with a processor in order to reduce the size of the device and provide flexibility via programmability.
With regard to claims 11-13, Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. disclose the claimed invention except the details of the first signal as recited in the respective claims. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the device of Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. to receive a first signal such as recited in the respective claims based on the communication system in which the device is implemented since the standards of the communication define the format of the transmitted signals. The details of the first signal itself does not affect the steps (i.e. the receiving, correlating or determining) performed by the “processor” for detecting the preamble.
With regard to claim 14, Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. disclose the claimed invention except for the first preamble comprising OFDM symbols. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the device of Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. in an OFDM system wherein the preamble comprises OFDM symbols since the details of the preamble are based on the communication system in which the device is implemented. Furthermore, an “OFDM” symbol does not affect the steps (i.e. the receiving, correlating or determining) performed by the “processor” for detecting the preamble.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Bhatt et al. (US Publication No. 2007/0280098 A cited in the IDS submitted May 1, 2024). Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. disclose the claimed invention except for using a sliding window. Bhatt et al. teaches using a sliding window for auto-correlation. (See paragraph [0127]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply a known auto-correlation technique to Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. to yield predictable results.
Claims 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Dabak et al. (US Publication No. 2012/0093198 A1 and hereinafter referred to as “Dabak et al. (2012/0093198)”).
With regard to claim 7, Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. disclose the claimed invention except for the first preamble comprising a sequence of symbols of a first type followed by a sequence of a second type. Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) discloses a preamble comprising a sequence of symbols of a first type followed by a sequence of a second type. (See FIG. 15 and paragraph [0080]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a preamble such that disclosed by Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) based on the standards of the communication system in which the device is implemented. The specific details of the preamble itself does not affect the steps (i.e. the receiving, correlating or determining) performed by the “processor.”
With regard to claim 8, Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. and Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) disclose the claimed invention including the symbols of the second type are π phase shifted with respect to the symbols of the first type. (See Dabak et al. (2012/0093198), paragraph [0080])
With regard to claim 9, Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. and Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) disclose the claimed invention including the sequence of symbols of the first type is a sequence of SYNCP symbols and the sequence of symbols of the second type is a sequence of SYNCM symbols. (See Dabak et al. (2012/0093198), FIG. 15 and paragraph [0080])
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. and Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of Dabak et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2012/0320996 A1 cited in the IDS submitted May 1, 2024 and hereinafter referred to as “Dabak et al. (2012/0320996)”). Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. and Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) disclose the claimed invention except for the sequence of symbols of the first type comprising 8 symbols of the first type. Chadha et al. in view of Bhukania et al. and Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) discloses that the sequence of symbols of the first type comprises 6 symbols (see Dabak et al. (2012/0093198)). Dabak et al. (2012/0320996) discloses a preamble structure for powerline communications wherein the preamble comprises a sequence of 8 symbols of the first type. (See paragraph [0006]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use 8 SYNCP symbols instead of 6 symbols based on the standards of the communication system (e.g. a PLC system) in which the device is implemented. The number of symbols does not change the steps of the performed by the “processor” and using 8 SYNCP symbols provides predictable results.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Bhatt et al. Chadha et al. discloses the claimed invention except for using a sliding window. Bhatt et al. teaches using a sliding window for auto-correlation. (See paragraph [0127]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply a known auto-correlation technique to Chadha et al. to yield predictable results.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Dabak et al. (2012/0093198). Chadha et al. discloses the claimed invention except for the first preamble comprising a sequence of symbols of a first type followed by a sequence of a second type. Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) discloses a preamble comprising a sequence of symbols of a first type followed by a sequence of a second type. (See FIG. 15 and paragraph [0080]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a preamble such that disclosed by Dabak et al. (2012/0093198) based on the standards of the communication system in which the device is implemented. The specific details of the preamble itself does not affect the steps (i.e. the receiving, correlating or determining) performed by the “processor” for detecting the preamble.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chadha et al. Chadha et al. discloses the claimed invention except that the first signal comprises a MIMO frame that comprises the first preamble. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to receive a first signal as recited in claim 21 since the details of the first signal itself does not affect the steps (i.e. the receiving, correlating or determining) performed by the “processor.” Furthermore, the details of the first signal are based on the communication system (e.g. MIMO communication system) in which the device is implemented. Furthermore, it is implicit/inherent that a MIMO communication system involves the transmission and reception via a plurality of channels.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 5, 15, 17, 18 and 22 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
Please note that non-cited portions of the respective references may also read on the claim limitations. Therefore, the references should be considered in their entirety.
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/BETSY DEPPE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633