DETAILED ACTION
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.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Specie 1 (Claims 2-4, 8) in the reply filed on 7/1/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 1-4, 8, 16-18 and 21-23 are currently examined.
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 of this title, 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 1-4, 8, 16-18 and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130023201 A1 (Coleman), in view of US 20060209984 A1 (Kenington), in further view of US 20160294502 A1 (Yensen) and US 20230111606 A1 (He).
Regarding Claims 1, 22-23:
A method, stored on a non-transitory medium and executed by a processor for enhancing an RF jamming system, the method comprising the steps of: - pre-distorting an input signal to compensate for non-linear distortion in at least one power amplifier to define a pre-distorted signal; - adjusting a voltage of a power supply of the at least one power amplifier based upon the pre-distorted signal; - power sequencing the at least one power amplifier to power up and power down the at least one amplifier; - adjusting the pre-distorted signal to achieve a low probability of intercept to define an adjusted signal; and - transmitting the adjusted signal (Coleman: Fig. 1, a communication jamming system that comprises power amp; par, 57, “The RF power amplifier 120 is preferably a selective band RF power that is capable of frequency hopping operation. The RF power amplifier 120 can be … closed-loop digital pre-distortion with variable power control; par. 26, “to provide a system and method for dynamically generating a set of jamming signals at target frequencies in a predetermined portion of RF band, and then translating up and down a large portion of the RF spectrum based on software-defined radio technologies.”, i.e., adjusting for Low Probability of Intercept transmitting).
Coleman does not teach explicitly on envelop-based power supply voltage adjustment. However, Kenington teaches (Kenington: Figs. 1-2. Par. 22-25, in an envelope-tracking power supply, the power supply 60 is operable for tracking the input signal envelope, derived from input signals 18 and varying the level of power supplied to the amplifier in response to variation of the input signal envelope; the predistortion circuit 70 predistorts the input signal envelope before it is directed to power supply 60… The power supply 60 then uses the predistorted envelope signal 74 to meet the power requirements of power amplifier 10).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Coleman with envelop-based power supply voltage adjustment as further taught by Kenington. The advantage of doing so is to improve upon the efficiency and linearity of an RF power amplifier, in a transmitter system (Kenington: Background).
Coleman does not teach explicitly on power sequencing the at least one power amplifier to power up and power down. However, Yensen teaches (Yensen: par. 7-8 and 32, memory includes logic instructions that permit the sequencer to control power-up and power-down sequences for transmitter and receiver devices of the transceiver in order to sequence various transmit and receive operations).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Coleman with power sequencing the at least one power amplifier to power up and power down as further taught by Yensen. The advantage of doing so is to enable complex operation scenarios and military-specific events that have not been addressed satisfactorily (Yensen: Backgrond).
Coleman as modified does not teach explicitly to use trained AI to predict pre-distortion. However, Rawat teaches (He: Figs. 2-3, a BiRNN model for digital pre-distortion of PAs).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Coleman with use trained AI to predict pre-distortion as further taught by He. The advantage of doing so is to dynamically optimize predistortion for better linearity (He: Backgrond).
Regarding Claim 2: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of pre-distorting further comprises the step of predicting the pre-distortion utilizing machine learning (AI) (He: Figs. 2-3, a BiRNN model for digital pre-distortion of PAs) .
Regarding Claim 3: The method of claim 2 wherein the step of pre-distorting further comprises the step of training the machine learning by providing a dataset of modulated signals to predict an optimal pre-distortion for the input signal to define the pre-distorted signal (He: e.g., par. 46, training processing).
Regarding Claim 4: The method of claim 2 wherein the step of pre-distorting further comprises the step of utilizing a neural network. (He: Figs. 2-3, a BiRNN model for digital pre-distortion of PAs)
Regarding Claim 8: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of adjusting further comprises the step of determining the adjustment utilizing machine learning (AI) (He: Figs. 2-3).
Regarding Claim 16: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of pre-distorting further includes the step of adapting to at least one change in the at least one power amplifier (Kenington: e.g., par. 17 and 38, component aging, power level changes, and temperature changes in the various components and systems utilized in the power amplifier).
Regarding Claim 17: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of pre-distorting further includes the steps of: - monitoring an output of the at least one power amplifier; and - adjusting the pre-distorting based upon the monitored output of the at least one power amplifier (Kenington: e.g., par. 21, 26, the amplifier output 14 that is fed back on path 42 is also utilized by DSP 72 for updating, correcting, and adapting predistorter circuit 70).
Regarding Claim 18: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of adjusting the voltage and the step of power sequencing utilize digital signal processing (Kenington: e.g., par. 19 and 24; Yensen: par. 33, the receiver and the sequencer are both implemented on FPGAs (field programmable gate array) with custom logic and software (i.e., DSP)).
Regarding Claim 21: The method of claim 1 wherein the input signal may comprise a plurality of input signals, resulting in a plurality of pre-distorted signals and a plurality of adjusted signals (Coleman: par. 49 and Fig. 5).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHITONG CHEN whose telephone number is (571) 270-1936. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30am - 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, Yuwen Pan can be reached on 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ZHITONG CHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649
Prosecution Insights