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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 12 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Barrueco (“low Complexity Adaptive Demapper for 2-D Non-Uniform Constellations) (see the third document under the “Other Documents” section of the IDS submitted on 04/26/2024), in view of Wang et al. (hereinafter, referred to as Wang) (US 2018/0091225).
As to claim 1, Barrueco discloses a method of demodulating a received signal (see the title, the abstract, and Fig. 3c, y is the received signal) that encodes a plurality of symbols (see Fig. 3b, S1-S16 are the symbols), the method comprising: forming a non-uniform constellation of points in a space, each point corresponding to a receivable symbol having a bit length (see the title, the abstract, Fig. 3b, and see also page 16, left hand column, lines 10-14, each symbol contains a certain number of bits) wherein at least two such symbols differ in their probability of reception (see section IV.B.3, page 13, right hand column); demodulating the received signal according to the constellation to produce a sequence of points in the constellation that correspond to a plurality of received symbols (see Figs. 3b and 3c, page 13, section IV.B. and Fig. 5); concatenating the bit sequences of the plurality of received symbols to produce an output bit sequence (see section IV.B, Figs. 3b and 3c (step 3)); and outputting the output bit sequence (see Fig. 3c, step 3). Barrueco discloses all the subject matters claimed in claim 1, except that at least two such symbols have different bit lengths. Wang, in the same field of endeavor, discloses a communication system which forms non-uniform constellation of points in a space (see Fig. 2, and paragraphs 0018 and 0026). Wang further discloses that at least two symbols on the constellation have different bit lengths (see paragraph 0026, four symbols on the inner circle have a bit length of 3 bits and eight symbols located on the outer circle of the constellation have a bit length of 4 bits). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco, as suggested by Wang, in order to improve the spectral efficiency of the signal.
As to claim 12, Barrueco discloses a system for demodulating a received signal (see the title, the abstract, and Fig. 3c, y is the received signal) that encodes a plurality of symbols (see Fig. 3b, S1-S16 are the symbols), the system comprising: a receiver for receiving the signal according to a non-uniform constellation of points in a space (see the title, the abstract, Figs. 3b and 3c and section IV.B), each point corresponding to a receivable symbol having a bit length (see the title, the abstract, Fig. 3b, and see also page 16, left hand column, lines 10-14, each symbol contains a certain number of bits), wherein at least two such symbols differ in their probability of reception (see section IV.B.3, page 13, right hand column); a demodulator for demodulating the received signal according to the constellation to produce a sequence of points in the constellation that correspond to a plurality of received symbols (see Figs. 3b and 3c, page 13, section IV.B. and Fig. 5); and for concatenating the bit sequences of the plurality of received symbols to produce an output bit sequence (see section IV.B, Figs. 3b and 3c (step 3)); and for outputting the output bit sequence (see Fig. 3C, step 3). Barrueco discloses all the subject matters claimed in claim 12, except that at least two such symbols have different bit lengths. Wang, in the same field of endeavor, discloses a communication system which forms non-uniform constellation of points in a space (see Fig. 2, and paragraphs 0018 and 0026). Wang further discloses that at least two symbols on the constellation have different bit lengths (see paragraph 0026, four symbols on the inner circle have a bit length of 3 bits and eight symbols located on the outer circle of the constellation have a bit length of 4 bits). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco, as suggested by Wang, in order to improve the spectral efficiency of the signal.
As to claims 9 and 19, Barrueco further discloses that forming the non-uniform constellation of points comprises forming rings of points in the plane (see Fig. 3b), each ring of points having points that are equiangularly or quasi-equiangularly distributed (see Fig. 3b).
As to claim 10, Barrueco shows that forming the non-uniform constellation of points comprises increasing a minimum distance between points in adjacent rings (see Fig. 3b, the minimum distance between points of the outer ring is more than the minimum distance between points of the inner ring).
As to claims 5 and 15, Barrueco does not disclose that the output bit sequence comprises a source encoding of a codeword. Wang, in the same field of endeavor, discloses a communication system where a non-uniform constellation is formed (see paragraphs 0004, 0024-0025, and claim 10). Wang further discloses that output bit sequence of the modulator comprises a source encoding of a codeword (see the abstract, paragraphs 0003, 0004, 0011, and claim 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco, as suggested by Wang, in order to increase the bandwidth efficiency and data security in the communication system.
As to claims 6 and 16, Wang further discloses that the source encoding comprises a Huffman encoding (see paragraphs 0004, 0011, and 0023-0024). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco, as suggested by Wang, in order to increase the bandwidth efficiency and data security in the communication system.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Barrueco and Wang, further in view of Rico Alvarino et al. (hereinafter, referred to as Rico Alvarino) (US 2017/0288888).
As to claim 2, Barrueco and Wang disclose all the subject matters claimed in claim 2, except for receiving, from a modulator (i.e., the transmitter), data indicating a transmission bit length. Rico Alvarino, in the same field of endeavor, discloses that in a communication system the receiver may receive a signal, from the transmitter, that indicates the symbol length (i.e., the transmission bit length) (see paragraphs 0117 and 0121). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco and Wang, as suggested by Rico Alvarino, in order to improve the performance of the demodulation process and data recovery when different symbols lengths have been used.
Claims 11 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Barrueco and Wang, further in view of Zhang et al. (hereinafter, referred to as Zhang) (US 10,547,487).
As to claims 11 and 20, Barrueco and Wang discloses all the subject matters claimed in claims 11 and 20, except that producing the sequence of points in the constellation includes performing a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. Zhang, in the same field of endeavor, discloses a communication system where a non-uniform constellation is formed (see the abstract and column 1, lines 51 – column 2, line 9 and column 5, lines 42-67). Zhang further discloses that producing the sequence of points in the constellation includes performing a MAP (see column 11, lines 50-58). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Barrueco and Wang, as suggested by Zhang, in order to increase the performance of the data recovery by improving the prediction accuracy when recovering the transmitted signal.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 17, and 18 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 LEILA MALEK whose telephone number is (571)272-8731. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm.
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, Chieh Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. 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.
LEILA . MALEK
Examiner
Art Unit 2632
/LEILA MALEK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632