DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is a response to Preliminary Amendment made an Application No. 18/689,705 filed on 03/06/2024 in which claims 1, 4-21, and 24 have been amended and no new matter has been added. Accordingly, Claims 1-24 are currently pending for examination.
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 .
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.
Drawings
The Examiner contends that the drawings submitted on 03/06/2024 are acceptable for examination proceedings.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Examiner has considered the reference(s) listed on the Information Disclosure Statement submitted on 03/11/2024.
Claim Objections
Claims 6, 9, 14, and 17 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 6 and 14 recites acronyms such as “QR” in line 2 and line 3 respectively. For clarity, it is suggested to spell out the specified acronyms in at least the first time it is mentioned in the claim.
Claim 9 recites “A wireless transceiver configured to…, the wireless transceiver comprising processing circuitry…” in line 1-3. For clarity and formality, it is suggested to insert the colon ":" after the word -- comprising: -- in order to properly demarcate the preamble and the body of the claim.
Claim 9 recites “A wireless transceiver” in the preamble which is directed to a machine type claim but the body of the claim appears to include only “processing circuitry”. According to MPEP 2106, a machine type defines as follow: “A machine is a concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices.” Thus, it is suggested to include multiple hardware structures.
Claim 17 recites “the processing circuit” in line 8 while claim 17 also recites “processing circuitry” in line 7. In order to avoid antecedent basis issue, it is suggested to amend “the processing circuit” in line 8 to ---the processing circuitry---.
Appropriate corrections are required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-3, 9-11, and 17-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Stephenne et al. (WO 2019/220180 A1) hereinafter “Stephenne”. The WO reference, Stephenne, was cited in IDS filed 3/11/2024.
Regarding claims 1 and 9, Stephenne discloses Claim 1 of a method for reducing passive intermodulation, PIM, in a wireless transceiver from a preexisting of PIM, and Claim 9 of a wireless transceiver configured to reduce passive intermodulation, PIM, from a preexisting extent of PIM, the wireless transceiver comprising processing circuitry (see FIG. 2; see Page 17, processing circuitry), the method comprising:
determining an uplink signal power (see Page 26, line 13-15, Eq. 12 which discloses determining the uplink signal power);
determining an estimate of a downlink PIM subspace that minimizes a cost function that depends on the uplink signal power and a previous estimate of the downlink PIM subspace (see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace; Eq. 11 which describes the downlink PIM subspace in function of the uplink PIM subspace which itself determined from the uplink signal power. Therefore, the cost function can be considered as being dependent on the uplink signal power and the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace); and
applying a correction to a downlink antenna signal to reduce the PIM, the correction being based at least in part on the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace (see Page 25, Eq. 9 which defines the corrected beamforming vector of a downlink antenna signal).
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Stephenne discloses wherein the cost function includes subtracting from an antenna signal vector a signal contribution which lies in a downlink PIM subspace, the signal contribution being determined by a product of the antenna signal vector and an estimate of a downlink PIM subspace projection matrix (see Page 30, Eq. 24 and see Page 32, Eq. 28).
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Stephenne discloses wherein the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace projection matrix is generated by a product of the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace and a Hermitian transpose of the previous estimate of the downlink PIM subspace (see Page 24, Eq. 3 and see Page 33, Eq. 34).
Regarding claims 17 and 21, Stephenne discloses Claim 17 of a network node configured to reduce passive intermodulation, PIM, from a preexisting extent of PIM affecting performance of at least one wireless transceiver of the network node (see FIG. 2; see Page 18, Radio Node), and Claim 21 of a method in a network node configured to reduce passive intermodulation, PIM, from a preexisting extent of PIM affecting performance of at least one wireless transceiver of the network node, the network comprising:
at least one wireless transceiver (see FIG. 2; see Page 18, radio interface) configured to:
receive an uplink signal vector at a first frequency (see FIG. 3; see Page 22-23, UL subcarriers); and
transmit a downlink signal vector at a second frequency (see FIG. 3; see Page 22-23, DL subcarriers); and
processing circuitry in communication with the at least one wireless transceiver (see FIG. 2; see Page 17, processing circuitry), the processing circuit configured to:
determine an uplink signal power based on the uplink signal vector (see Page 26, line 13-15, Eq. 12 which discloses determining the uplink signal power);
determine an estimate of a downlink PIM subspace that minimizes a function of: the downlink signal vector, a previous estimate of the downlink PIM subspace and the uplink signal power (see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace; Eq. 11 which describes the downlink PIM subspace in function of the uplink PIM subspace which itself determined from the uplink signal power. Therefore, the cost function can be considered as being dependent on the uplink signal power and the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace); and
apply a correction to a downlink antenna signal to obtain the downlink signal vector, the downlink signal vector resulting in PIM that is less than a preexisting extent of PIM, the correction being based at least in part on the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace (see Page 25, Eq. 9 which defines the corrected beamforming vector of a downlink antenna signal).
Regarding claims 18 and 22, Stephenne discloses wherein determining the estimate of the downlink PIM subspace includes estimating a PIM channel covariance matrix, the estimated PIM channel covariance matrix being based at least in part on a preselected number of eigenvectors (see Page 25, the downlink PIM channel covariance matrix is RDL_IF).
Regarding claims 19 and 23, Stephenne discloses wherein the estimated PIM channel covariance matrix is based at least in part on a diagonal matrix of eigenvalues of the PIM channel covariance matrix (see Page 25, matrix Σ is a NxN diagonal matrix).
Regarding claims 20 and 24, Stephenne discloses wherein the at least one wireless transceiver include a first wireless transceiver configured to receive the uplink signal vector (see FIG. 2; see Page 17, the radio interface may include one or more RF receivers) and a second wireless transceiver configured to transmit the downlink signal vector (see FIG. 2; see Page 17, the radio interface may include one or more RF transmitters).
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 4 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stephenne in view of FLEISCHER et al. (US 2022/0263588 A1) hereinafter “Fleischer”.
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Stephenne does not explicitly disclose a gradient descent algorithm.
However, in the same analogous art, Fleischer discloses wherein the cost function is minimized by application of a gradient descent algorithm with an update term that includes a gradient determined using the previous estimate of the downlink PIM subspace weighted by a step factor (see ¶ [0035] [0103], the optimization of the cost function may be performed using a gradient based method and the cost function optimizes for PIM noise correction).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a gradient descent algorithm as taught by Fleischer, in the system of Stephenne, so that it would provide to have a better conversion speed (Fleischer: see ¶ [0035]).
Claims 5-8 and 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stephenne in view of Kularatna et al. (US 2023/0142639 A1) hereinafter “Kularatna”.
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Stephenne does not explicitly disclose a recursive least squares algorithm.
However, in the same analogous art, Kularatna discloses wherein the cost function is minimized by application of a recursive least squares algorithm which is based at least in part on setting an approximate second order cost function gradient to zero (Kularatna: see ¶ [0101-02], Recursive Least Square algorithm is used to calculate the PIM values and Stephenne: see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a recursive least squares algorithm as taught by Kularatna, in the system of Stephenne, so that it would provide to improve or optimal PIM cancellation at the received signal (Kularatna: see ¶ [0063]).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Stephenne does not explicitly disclose recursive least squares algorithm.
However, in the same analogous art, Kularatna discloses wherein an approximate second order cost function is minimized by application of an inverse QR-recursive least squares algorithm which is based at least in part on a product of an antenna signal vector and the previous estimate of the downlink PIM subspace (Kularatna: see ¶ [0101-02], Recursive Least Square algorithm is used to calculate the PIM values and Stephenne: see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a recursive least squares algorithm as taught by Kularatna, in the system of Stephenne, so that it would provide to improve or optimal PIM cancellation at the received signal (Kularatna: see ¶ [0063]).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Stephenne does not explicitly disclose recursive least squares algorithm.
However, in the same analogous art, Kularatna discloses wherein an approximate second order cost function is minimized by application by an inverse QR-recursive least squares algorithm which is based at least in part on a pre-array including a term inversely proportional to a root mean square value of the uplink signal (Kularatna: see ¶ [0101-02], Recursive Least Square algorithm is used to calculate the PIM values and Stephenne: see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a recursive least squares algorithm as taught by Kularatna, in the system of Stephenne, so that it would provide to improve or optimal PIM cancellation at the received signal (Kularatna: see ¶ [0063]).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Stephenne does not explicitly disclose recursive least squares algorithm.
However, in the same analogous art, Kularatna discloses wherein an approximate second order cost function is minimized by application of a block inverse QR-recursive least squares algorithm which is based at least in part on processing multiple samples concurrently to obtain pre-array blocks including a term inversely proportional to a root mean square of the uplink signal for the multiple samples (Kularatna: see ¶ [0101-02], Recursive Least Square algorithm is used to calculate the PIM values and Stephenne: see Page 24-25, Eq. 1 which describes the cost function; Eq. 10 which describes the downlink PIM subspace).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to provide a recursive least squares algorithm as taught by Kularatna, in the system of Stephenne, so that it would provide to improve or optimal PIM cancellation at the received signal (Kularatna: see ¶ [0063]).
Conclusion
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of the action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this action.
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/PETER CHEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462