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 .
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 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 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.
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) 1, 4, 11, 12, 13, 16 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoo et al. (U.S. 2017/0244586), hereinafter Yoo, in view of Knudsen et al. (U.S. 2024/0283582), hereinafter Knudsen.
With respect to Claim 1, Yoo teaches an ambient wireless device for wireless communications, comprising:
one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and
one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to cause the ambient wireless device to:
receive one or more synchronization signals indicating a cyclic prefix duration associated with orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) signaling (¶ 0045, “In some cases, a base station 105 may transmit an indication of CP length to a UE 115 via a synchronization signal (e.g., PSS, SSS, etc.), and the indicated CP may be applicable for both uplink and downlink transmission, where the CP length may be the same for both uplink and downlink.”)
Yoo fails to explicitly teach receive, subsequent to the reception of the one or more synchronization signals, an OFDM signal comprising at least one cyclic prefix; and decode the OFDM signal based at least in part on a discard of the at least one cyclic prefix from the OFDM signal in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration.
Knudsen from the same or similar field of endeavor teaches receive, subsequent to the reception of the one or more synchronization signals, an OFDM signal comprising at least one cyclic prefix; and decode the OFDM signal based at least in part on a discard of the at least one cyclic prefix from the OFDM signal in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration (¶ 0062, “UE 110 may discard CP 240 or CP 240 may be exploited such that it is correlated with the first OOK symbol, e.g., to improve robustness).”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yoo as taught by Knudsen to remove or exploit the cyclic prefix when receiving the OFDM signal as the cyclic prefix is not part of the actual symbol and is added to help the device detect and decode the signal.
With respect to Claim 4, Yoo in view of Knudsen teaches the ambient wireless device of claim 1, Yoo teaches wherein the one or more synchronization signals indicate a presence of one or more cyclic prefixes in the OFDM signal (¶ 0045, “In some cases, a base station 105 may transmit an indication of CP length to a UE 115 via a synchronization signal (e.g., PSS, SSS, etc.), and the indicated CP may be applicable for both uplink and downlink transmission, where the CP length may be the same for both uplink and downlink.”)
With respect to Claim 11, Yoo in view of Knudsen teaches the ambient wireless device of claim 1, wherein, to decode the OFDM signal, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the ambient wireless device to: discard a quantity of samples of a plurality of samples of the OFDM signal associated with the at least one cyclic prefix
Knudsen teaches wherein, to decode the OFDM signal, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the ambient wireless device to: discard a quantity of samples of a plurality of samples of the OFDM signal associated with the at least one cyclic prefix (¶ 0062, “UE 110 may discard CP 240 or CP 240 may be exploited such that it is correlated with the first OOK symbol, e.g., to improve robustness)” and ¶ 0064, “FIG. 3, a length of the FFT window is 4384 samples, comprising OFDM symbol 230 of length 4096 samples and CP 240 of length 288 samples.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yoo as taught by Knudsen to remove or exploit the cyclic prefix when receiving the OFDM signal as the cyclic prefix is not part of the actual symbol and is added to help the device detect and decode the signal.
With respect to Claim 12, Yoo in view of Knudsen teaches the ambient wireless device of claim 1, wherein the OFDM signal comprises an on-off keying waveform and one or more cyclic prefixes.
Knudsen teaches the OFDM signal comprises an on-off keying waveform and one or more cyclic prefixes (¶ 0006, “encode the fragments using on-off keying or frequency shift keying.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yoo as taught by Knudsen to remove or exploit the cyclic prefix when receiving the OFDM signal as the cyclic prefix is not part of the actual symbol and is added to help the device detect and decode the signal.
With respect to Claims 13 and 16, the claims are the method that corresponds to the wireless device of claims 1, and are rejected accordingly.
With respect to Claim 20 , the claim is non-transitory computer-readable medium that corresponds to the wireless device of claims 1, and are rejected accordingly.
Claim(s) 2 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoo et al. (U.S. 2017/0244586), hereinafter Yoo, in view of Knudsen et al. (U.S. 2024/0283582), hereinafter Knudsen, in view of Shim et al. (U.S. 2018/0278386), hereinafter Shim.
With respect to Claim 2. Yoo in view of Knudsen teaches the ambient wireless device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the ambient wireless device to: receive an indication of a subcarrier spacing associated with the at least one cyclic prefix, wherein the at least one cyclic prefix is discarded based at least in part on the subcarrier spacing.
Shim teaches wherein the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the ambient wireless device to: receive an indication of a subcarrier spacing associated with the at least one cyclic prefix, wherein the at least one cyclic prefix is discarded based at least in part on the subcarrier spacing (¶ 0113, “the first cyclic prefix symbol remover 612 removes a cyclic prefix symbol according to a sub-carrier spacing of 15 kHz band which is a corresponding band.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the application to combine the invention of Yoo as taught by Shim in order to properly remove the cyclic prefix as the corresponding sub-carrier spacing by band or numerology.
With respect to Claim 14, the claims are the method that corresponds to the wireless device of claim 2, and are rejected accordingly.
.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3, 5-10, 15 and 17-19 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed July 8, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to the argument, However, Knudsen does not teach or suggest "decod[ing] the OFDM signal based at least in part on a discard of the at least one cyclic prefix from the OFDM signal in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration," as recited in independent claim 1. For example, Knudsen describes signal adaption based on CP length, where a value of a last OOK symbol is determined based on a comparison of OOK symbol length to a CP length. See id., [0062] and [0070]. But determining a symbol value using a CP length is not the same as "a discard of the at least one cyclic prefix from the OFDM signal in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration," as recited in independent claim 1. Although Knudsen discusses discarding extra bits, such discarding is performed regardless of CP length for both short and long OOK symbol durations. See id.,[0067] and [0064]. Thus, Knudsen does not teach or suggest "decod[ing] the OFDM signalbased at least in part on a discard of the at least one cyclic prefix from the OFDM signal in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration," as recited in independent claim 1 or overcome the deficiencies in the showing of the cited portions of Yoo.
Further, even if Knudsen could be read to teach discarding the cyclic prefix (which Applicant does not concede), Knudsen does not teach performing such discarding "in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration." Independent claim 1 requires the ambient wireless device to first receive synchronization signals indicating a cyclic prefix duration, and then decode the OFDM signal by discarding the cyclic prefix in accordance with that indicated duration. Knudsen's CP adaptation methods are predetermined at the transmitter based on OOK symbol length relative to CP length-Knudsen does not teach the UE receiving any indication of cyclic prefix duration via synchronization signals and then discarding the cyclic prefix based on that received indication. See Knudsen [0061]-[0062]. Rather, the UE in Knudsen simply removes extra bits or tolerates OOK symbol duration variance without reference to any received cyclic prefix duration indication. See id. [0067], [0074], and [0078]. Thus, Knudsen fails to teach discarding the cyclic prefix "in accordance with the cyclic prefix duration," as recited in independent claim 1.
Examiner disagrees, looking to ¶ [0062]:
[0062] For instance, in case of short OOK symbol durations, a last Manchester encoded OOK symbol 250 may be selected as CP 240 such that it ensures correct CP behavior. When decoding the received OOK symbols, UE 110 may discard CP 240 or CP 240 may be exploited such that it is correlated with the first OOK symbol, e.g., to improve robustness). Alternatively, in case of long OOK symbol durations, the OOK symbol duration may be extended in one OFDM symbol and reduced in the subsequent OFDM symbol, to ensure correct CP behavior.
Examiner submits that Knudsen explicitly teaches discarding the cyclic prefix. When the references are combined, Yoo teaches communicating the length of the cyclic prefix, and Knudsen teaches that the cyclic prefix can be discarded. The cyclic prefix is not part of the data or payload, so once the data is received, it is no longer necessary and one of ordinary skill in the art would realize that it could be removed.
Examiner submits that when the references are combined, they would render obvious the claimed invention.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELA NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5660. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9AM - 5PM.
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/ANGELA NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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