Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 2 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Referring to claim 2, the claim recites, “a number n of packets”. The variable “n” is undefined and, therefore, indefinite. For purposes of this office action, “number n” has been interpreted to be any positive integer greater than or equal to 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, 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 negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 2 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over US 2008/0028281 A1 to Miyazaki et al (herein referred to as Miyazaki).
Referring to claim 2, Miyazaki discloses a transmitting method (Figures 1 & 2 as well as paragraphs [0110-0124], comprising: obtaining information data (Figure 1, 100, & Figure 2, “information bits u”); determining a number n [of packets] for an erasure correction coding processing unit (paragraph [0115-0124]); using, when a length of the information data is smaller than a threshold for forming the number n [of packets], the information data together with dummy data to form n coding packets for the erasure correction coding processing unit (Figure 1, dummy data K0 is inserted in order to realize with codes with a plurality of code rates, paragraph [0124]) ; generating one or more parity packets including parity data by applying erasure correction coding to the n coding packets (Figure 2 and Figure 1, 300); and transmitting the information data and the parity data, without transmitting the dummy data (Figure 2, transmission path 30 transmits data and parity data without dummy data as shown in Figure 1, 400 after dummy bits are deleted). Miyazaki does not explicitly disclose a “number n of packets”. However, Miyazaki does disclose multiple embodiments where data transmission is performed in a W-CDMA or CDMA mobile wireless communication system. One of ordinary skill in the art would be knowledgeable to the fact that data is formatted to and transmitted utilizing one or more packets in CDMA communication (see paragraphs [0034], [0176], [0204]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to apply the use of packets as taught by CDMA to format data to be transmitted utilizing the teachings of Miyazaki to improve an error rate in encoding methods, decoding methods, and devices thereof in which dummy bits are added to information bits (see paragraph [0046]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see the Remarks, filed April 8, 206, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim 2 under Double Patenting have been fully considered and are persuasive in light of the filing of the approved Terminal Disclaimer. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection under 112 and 103 is made in view of Miyazaki as explained above.
Conclusion
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Justin R. Knapp
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2112
/JUSTIN R KNAPP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2112
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