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 .
Priorities and Examiner Remarks
This application is a Continuation of 17816370 (filed 07/29/2022, now U.S. Patent # 12069663), that is a Divisional of 17099343 (filed 11/16/2020, now U.S. Patent # 11438880), which claims priority from Provisional Application 62939254
(filed 11/22/2019).
The Terminal Disclaimers filed on 07/02/2026 are approved on 07/15/2026.
The Remarks filed on 07/02/2026 are considered, and the arguments related to prior art Van Nee does not qualify as a prior art are persuasive. Hence, prior art Van Nee is removed from the current non-final Office Action.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoffe (US 20200382139 A1, hereinafter Yoffe), in view of YUAN et al. (US 20190245651 A1, hereinafter YUAN).
Regarding claim 1,
Yoffe teaches a method for wireless communication by a wireless communication device, the method comprising (in general, see sections including but not limited to paragraphs 16-70 and fig. 2, that disclose “Transmitter Operation” with five stages (e.g. Stage 1-5)):
generating a plurality of data units, each data unit including information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 29 along with para. 16, “...a number of payload bits (bin)...”);
performing an encoding operation on the information bits in the plurality of data units to generate one or more output bitstreams including amplitude bits based on the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 29-30 along with para. 16 and 58, “...for LDPC framing and OFDM packing, the transmitter circuitry may be configured to compute a number of output bits (bout) to be transmitted (i.e., transmitted bits) [stage 1] based on a number of payload bits (bin) at an output of a shaping encoder, a shaping rate (rshaping), and an overhead percent (Boverhead)...”, note that “...the transmitter circuitry may also be configured to append a number of repetition bits (Nrep) after LDPC encoding [stage 4] based on whether an LDPC code rate matches a ratio between amplitude bits and sign bits of a target QAM level...”);
monitoring a length of the amplitude bits in the one or more output bitstreams during the performance of the encoding operation (Yoffe, see at least para. 30, “...We suggest to do the computation by first evaluating the number of bits at the output of the shaping encoder and bound the maximal number of bits...”);
stopping the encoding operation on the information bits at an end of a current fixed-length segment of the information bits of a plurality of fixed-length segments of the information bits responsive to the length of the amplitude bits in the one or more output bitstreams reaching a threshold (Yoffe, see at least para. 30-31, for one non-limiting example, “...If the number of output bits at the shaping encoder is lower than estimated, additional padding bits are added. For long enough sequences, the amount of overhead bits (bits that are added for fixed length) is negligible compared to the number of payload bits...”);
adding padding bits to the one or more output bitstreams after stopping the prefix encoding operation until a length of one or more of the output bitstreams is equal to an integer multiple of fixed-length segments of the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 30-31 along with para. 21, for one non-limiting example, “...If the number of output bits at the shaping encoder is lower than estimated, additional padding bits are added. For long enough sequences, the amount of overhead bits (bits that are added for fixed length) is negligible compared to the number of payload bits...”, note that “...Number of payload bits in each LDPC code-word and number of shortening bits. Shortening bits refer to ‘0’ padding bits that are used as input for the LDPC encoder for a fixed number of input bits but are not actually transmitted...”).
Yoffe does not specifically teach wirelessly transmitting a wireless packet including a plurality of symbols based on the one or more output bitstreams.
YUAN teaches wirelessly transmitting a wireless packet including a plurality of symbols based on the one or more output bitstreams. (in general, see fig. 2 and its paragraphs, in particular, see at least para. 21-22 along with para. 33, “...The transmitter may be configured to encode the data signal to form the encoded sequence of symbols in accordance with an encoding scheme that employs probabilistic amplitude shaping...”, note that para. 33 discloses “...The amplitudes are encoded in encoder 2, modulated by modulator 3 and transmitted over a channel 4...”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate YUAN into Yoffe can lead to efficient use of bandwidth. (YUAN, para. 22).
Regarding claim 2,
Yoffe in view of YUAN teaches claim 1.
Yoffe further teaches wherein each data unit of the plurality of data units corresponds to a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU), a group of multiple bytes of information bits of multiple groups of information bits within a single MPDU, or a group of information bits corresponding to an integer number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols. (Yoffe, see at least para. 81-82, for one unlimiting example, MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU))
Regarding claim 4,
Yoffe teaches a method for wireless communication by a wireless communication device, the method comprising (in general, see sections including but not limited to paragraphs 16-70 and fig. 2, that disclose “Transmitter Operation” with five stages (e.g. Stage 1-5)):
generating a plurality of data units, each data unit including information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 29 along with para. 16, “...a number of payload bits (bin)...”);
performing an encoding operation on the information bits in the plurality of data units to generate one or more output bitstreams including amplitude bits based on the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 29-30 along with para. 16 and 58, “...for LDPC framing and OFDM packing, the transmitter circuitry may be configured to compute a number of output bits (bout) to be transmitted (i.e., transmitted bits) [stage 1] based on a number of payload bits (bin) at an output of a shaping encoder, a shaping rate (rshaping), and an overhead percent (Boverhead)...”, note that “...the transmitter circuitry may also be configured to append a number of repetition bits (Nrep) after LDPC encoding [stage 4] based on whether an LDPC code rate matches a ratio between amplitude bits and sign bits of a target QAM level...”);
monitoring a length of the information bits on which the encoding operation is performed (Yoffe, see at least para. 30, “...We suggest to do the computation by first evaluating the number of bits at the output of the shaping encoder and bound the maximal number of bits...”);
for each fixed-length segment of the information bits of a plurality of fixed-length segments of the information bits: determining, during or after the performance of the encoding operation on the fixed-length segment of the information bits, whether a boundary in the one or more output bitstreams is or would be reached based on the performance of the encoding operation on the fixed-length segment of the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 56-57, “...Stage 4: Add Repetition Bits. In the suggested method the relation between parity and amplitudes bits must be fixed...”);
responsive to determining that the boundary in the one or more output bitstreams is not or would not be reached based on the performance of the encoding operation on the fixed-length segment of the information bits, inserting, into the one or more output bitstreams before the boundary, one or more sequences of amplitude bits generated based on the fixed-length segment of the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 57-59 along with para. 24, “...In this case we suggest to append repetition of data bits (amplitude bits) ... If the LDPC code rate doesn't match the ratio between the amplitude bits and the sign bits of the targeted QAM, repetition can be applied to increase the number of amplitude bits or puncturing can be applied to decrease the number of parity bits so that the ratio between the (increased) amplitude bits and (decreased) sign bits meets the required ratio of the targeted QAM...”, note that “...Fixed relation between the number of amplitudes bits and number of parity bits (that are used as MSB/sign bits)...”); and
responsive to determining that the boundary in the one or more output bitstreams is or would be reached based on the performance of the encoding operation on the fixed-length segment of the information bits, not including, in the one or more output bitstreams before the boundary, any amplitude bits generated based on the information bits in the fixed-length segment of the information bits (Yoffe, see at least para. 57-59 along with para. 24, “...In this case we suggest to append repetition of data bits (amplitude bits). If the LDPC code rate matches the ratio between amplitude bits and sign bits of the targeted QAM, the number of repetition bits in this case is exactly the same as the number of shortening bits and is known in advance. This ensures fixed number of amplitudes and fixed relation between them and the number of parity bits...”);
adding padding bits to the one or more output bitstreams after a last amplitude bit in the one or more output bitstreams before the boundary such that a length of the amplitude bits in the one or more output bitstreams is aligned with the boundary (Yoffe, see at least para. 63-64 in view of para. 16, “...Here we suggest to always add an additional OFDM symbol instead of puncturing, if the number of total coded bits NTCB cannot be fit into the number of OFDM symbols Nsym calculated by Eq (2). The degradation in throughput will be negligible if the packet is long enough. To fill up a complete number of OFDM symbols repetition should be applied...”, note that “...the transmitter circuitry may also be configured to perform OFDM packing by adding the number of repetition bits (Nrep) after interleaving to fill the number of OFDM symbols (Nsym) including adding an additional OFDM symbol when a number of total coded bits (NTCB) does not be fit into the number of OFDM symbols (Nsym)...”).
Yoffe does not specifically teach wirelessly transmitting a wireless packet including a plurality of symbols based on the one or more output bitstreams.
YUAN teaches wirelessly transmitting a wireless packet including a plurality of symbols based on the one or more output bitstreams. (in general, see fig. 2 and its paragraphs, in particular, see at least para. 21-22 along with para. 33, “...The transmitter may be configured to encode the data signal to form the encoded sequence of symbols in accordance with an encoding scheme that employs probabilistic amplitude shaping...”, note that para. 33 discloses “...The amplitudes are encoded in encoder 2, modulated by modulator 3 and transmitted over a channel 4...”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate YUAN into Yoffe can lead to efficient use of bandwidth. (YUAN, para. 22).
Regarding claim 3, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 4 above. To be more specific, although reciting subject matters slightly different, one skilled in the art would have known claim 3 performs reverse (or corresponding) procedures of claim 4 above. For example, it would be a wireless communication device of claim 3 (e.g. decoding, receiving, etc.) that performs the reverse (or corresponding) procedures of the wireless communication device of claim 4 (e.g. encoding, transmitting, etc.). Hence, the examiner applies the same rejection reasoning as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claim 5, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 2.
Regarding claim 6, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 4 above. To be more specific, although reciting subject matters slightly different, one skilled in the art would have known claim 6 performs reverse (or corresponding) procedures of claim 4 above. For example, it would be a wireless communication device of claim 6 (e.g. decoding, receiving, etc.) that performs the reverse (or corresponding) procedures of the wireless communication device of claim 4 (e.g. encoding, transmitting, etc.). Hence, the examiner applies the same rejection reasoning as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claims 7 and 8, these claims are rejected for the same reasoning as claims 1 and 2, respectively, except each of these claims is in apparatus claim format.
To be more specific, Yoffe in view of YUAN also teaches a same or similar apparatus comprising processor, transceiver, and memory (Yoffe, see at least fig. 2 and/or 4), which are well known in the art and commonly used for providing and enabling robust and reliable data communication hardware and software.
Regarding claim 9, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 3 except this claim is in apparatus claim format.
To be more specific, Yoffe in view of YUAN also teaches a same or similar apparatus comprising processor, transceiver, and memory (Yoffe, see at least fig. 2 and/or 5), which are well known in the art and commonly used for providing and enabling robust and reliable data communication hardware and software.
Regarding claim 10, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 4 except this claim is in apparatus claim format.
To be more specific, Yoffe in view of YUAN also teaches a same or similar apparatus comprising processor, transceiver, and memory (Yoffe, see at least fig. 2 and/or 4), which are well known in the art and commonly used for providing and enabling robust and reliable data communication hardware and software.
Regarding claim 11, in view of claim 9 above, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 2 except this claim is in apparatus claim format.
Regarding claim 12, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 6 except this claim is in apparatus claim format.
To be more specific, Yoffe in view of YUAN also teaches a same or similar apparatus comprising processor, transceiver, and memory (Yoffe, see at least fig. 2 and/or 5), which are well known in the art and commonly used for providing and enabling robust and reliable data communication hardware and software.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YEE F LAM whose telephone number is (571)270-7577. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ayman Abaza can be reached on 571-270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/YEE F LAM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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