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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I in the reply filed on 05/07/26 is acknowledged.
Claims 17 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 05/07/26.
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) 1-4 and 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Jensen (US Pat No. 7,372,917).
As per claim 1, Jensen disclosed a wireless communication device (see col. 1, ln. 23-25) comprising at least one processor (see at least fig. 6, digital processor) configured to output a first transmission signal, and delay a first envelope signal corresponding to the first transmission signal by an envelope delay amount and output the delayed first envelope signal (see at least fig. 6, envelope delay adjustment block 112); a transmission path circuit (see at least fig. 6, amplifier PA) configured to generate a first radio frequency (RF) output signal, based on the first transmission signal and a supply voltage tracking the first envelope signal; a feedback path circuit (see at least fig. 6, mixer 113, LPF 114, HPF 116, ADC 118, and ACPR optimization logic block 100) configured to generate a first reception signal by receiving the first RF output signal as a first feedback signal; and a time domain-based measurement circuit configured to generate an adjacent channel leakage ratio for the first reception signal in a time domain (see fig. 7, ln.50-col. 8, ln. 8, “During data packet transmission, the down-converted RF signal is converted to a digital signal representing the down-converted high pass and low pass filtered PA output signal digitized by ADC 118. The digital signal produced by ADC 118 is then produced to signal frequency shift block 102 of ACPR optimization logic 100 where the digital signal is frequency shifted by 400 kHz by the signal frequency shift block 102 and sharply low pass filtered by LPF block 106 in order to isolate the transmitted signal in an adjacent channel, such as adjacent channel 2 shown in FIG. 2. The power of the signal in the adjacent channel is calculated by the ACPR estimation algorithm block 108. An output value of ACPR estimation algorithm block 108 is produced to ACPR optimization algorithm block 110 which uses the calculated ACPR value to regulate the delay of the delay mismatch cancellation mechanism so that the ACPR is minimized. Specifically, ACPR optimization algorithm block 110 employs a binary search algorithm wherein the signal delay is varied in a systematic manner in exponentially decreasing step sizes such that the ACPR is driven to a minimum. The output of ACPR optimization algorithm block 110 defines a positive or negative amount of delay and is produced to envelope delay adjustment block 112 that, in turn, introduces the specified amount of delay into the envelope path of the radio transmitter of FIG. 5”), wherein the at least one processor is further configured to adjust the envelope delay amount, based on the adjacent channel leakage ratio (see col. 7, ln. 24-28, “ACPR optimization algorithm block 110 produces an optimized delay value to envelope delay adjustment block 112. Envelope delay adjustment block 112 imposes an arbitrary delay upon the signal path (here, the envelope signal path for a polar transmitter”).
As per claim 2, Jensen disclosed the feedback path circuit is further configured to generate a second reception signal by receiving a second RF output signal from the transmission path circuit, and wherein the second reception signal is used to adjust a value of at least one transmission parameter of the transmission path circuit (see col. 13, ln, 40-48).
As per claim 3, Jensen disclosed the feedback path circuit comprises an analog-to-digital converter (see fig. 6, ADC 118) configured to perform analog-to-digital conversion on the received feedback signal; and a plurality of processing circuits (see fig. 6, signal frequency shift 102, ACPR 108, ACPR optimization algorithm 110) connected to each other to sequentially process the converted feedback signal, wherein the first reception signal comprises a signal output by passing through a part of the plurality of processing blocks, and wherein the second reception signal comprises a signal output by passing all of the plurality of processing blocks (see fig. 6, wherein it is clearly that when there are no channel delay mismatches the ACPR is not needed).
As per claim 4, Jensen disclosed the part of the plurality of processing circuits comprise at least one of a direct current (DC) offset calibration circuit and an inphase/quadrature (I/Q) mismatch calibration circuit (see fig. 9, also wherein it is clear that in order to obtain the desire feedback signal the DC offset and IQ mismatch have to be taken into account).
As per claim 14, Jensen disclosed the at least one processor is further configured to switch from normal mode to calibration mode and connect the feedback path circuit to the transmission path circuit (see col. 7, ln. 36-39 and col. 8, ln. 16-20. It’s clear that communication operates in calibration and normal mode).
As per claim 15, Jensen disclosed a reception path circuit configured to receive a radio frequency (RF) input signal, and wherein the feedback path circuit is configured to comprise part of the reception path circuit (see at least fig. 6, feedback path, LPF 114 HPF, 116, ADC 118, signal frequency shift 102, ACPR 108, ACPR optimization algorithm 110).
As per claim 16, see rejection above in claims 1 and 14.
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.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jensen and in view of Laporte (EP2923442).
As per claim 20, see rejection above in claim 1, Jensen disclosed all the claim limitation of claim 1 but not specifically an adjacent channel leakage ratio for the reception signal by using a lowpass filter having a narrower bandwidth than an inband of the reception signal. However, Laporte disclose such claimed limitation (see claims 1, 5, and 9; see fig. 4, 10, and 15, wherein the band-limited observation receiver (52) comprising a narrowband filter (66), - wherein an observation bandwidth, B.sub.LIMITED, of the band-limited adaptation subsystem (50) is greater than or equal to a bandwidth, B, of a reference signal of the band-limited adaptation subsystem (50) and less than NMAX_ORDER times B, and wherein the narrowband filter (66): is configured to serve as a band-limiting function of the band-limited observation receiver (52), has a pass-band that includes a desired frequency band of the power amplifier output signal, wherein the output signal is a single-band signal having the desired bandwidth that is equal to the bandwidth of the reference signal, and iii) has a bandwidth being less than NMAX_ORDER times B, wherein the system (42) is configured to select a band-limited ratio for the band-limited adaptation subsystem (52), the band-limited ratio being a ratio of the observation bandwidth over the bandwidth of the reference signal). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention for Jensen to adopt the teaching of Laporte in order to improve the efficiency and overall linearity of a power amplifier.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-13 and 18-19 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Pablo Tran whose telephone number is (571)272-7898. The examiner normal hours are 9:30 -5:00 (Monday-Friday). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Jinsong Hu, can be reached at (571)272-3965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300.
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June 17, 2026
/PABLO N TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
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