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 § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 16 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Xu et al. (U.S. Patent 12,170,569).
Regarding claim 16, Xu et al. teaches a method for online reconfiguration in a passive optical network (see col. 3, lines 40-41 and FIG. 2), comprising: performing, at a central optical node (see col. 3, lines 43-44 and FIG. 2), a link quality parameter measurement; identifying, at the central optical node, a link quality parameter margin based on the link quality parameter measurement (Xu et al. teaches in col. 8 determining GMI and in col. 9, lines 49-51 adjust the modulation format such that the data rate is maximize while a certain amount of margin is preserved to guarantee error-free performance); computing, at the central optical node, an updated link setting based on the link quality parameter margin; and applying the updated link setting.
Regarding claim 19, Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 8 updated modulation type as an updated setting.
Regarding claim 20, Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 2 an OLT.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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) 1-5, 7-8, 10 and 12-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (U.S. Patent 12,170,569) in view of G.987.2 (G.987.2, “10-Gigabit-capable passive optical networks (XG-PON): Physical media dependent (PMD) layer specification”, ITU-T, 2016).
Regarding claim 1, Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 2 an optical network unit (ONU) in a passive optical network (PON), comprising: a receiver, at the ONU, configured to receive a downstream signal from an optical line terminal (OLT) (inherently the ONU has a receiver for receiving downstream signal from the OLT); a detector configured to measure a link quality parameter in the downstream signal (Xu et al. teaches in col. 3, line 10 downlink signals and in FIG. 8 determining NGMI for each channel); and a processing device configured to: identify a link quality parameter target (Xu et al. teaches in col. 9, lines 3-4 NGMI threshold), wherein the link quality parameter target is a value that achieves a target error probability (Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 6B and FIG. 6C the relation between error rate and NGMI); compute a link quality parameter margin between the measured link quality parameter and the link quality parameter target; and adjust a transmission parameter based on the link quality parameter margin (Xu et al. teaches col. 9, lines 49-51 adjust the modulation format such that the data rate is maximize while a certain amount of margin is preserved to guarantee error-free performance). The difference between Xu et al. and the claimed invention is that Xu et al. does not teach that the receiver is a physical media dependent (PMD) receiver. G.987.2 teaches PMD layer for XG-PON which is cited as an example by Xu et al. (see col. 12, lines 60-67). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of G.987.2 with the system of Xu et al. because G.987.2 is an international standard. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a PMD receiver, as taught by G.987.2, in the system of Xu et al.
Regarding claim 2, Xu et al. teaches in claim 2 GMI.
Regarding claim 3, Xu et al. teaches in claim 2 SNR.
Regarding claim 4, Xu et al. teaches FEC coding and the GMI is calculated based on measurement at the output of the FEC decoder.
Regarding claim 5, Xu et al. teaches in FIGs. 5A-5C SNR and in FIGs. 6A-6C NGMI. They are mathematically equivalent and can be converted between each other.
Regarding claim 7, Xu et al. teaches in col. 2, line 22-23 FEC.
Regarding claim 8, Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 8 modulation format.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Xu et al. and G.987.2 teaches an optical line terminal (OLT) in a passive optical network (PON), comprising: a physical media dependent (PMD) receiver, at the OLT, configured to receive one or more upstream signals from one or more optical network units (ONUs) (G.987.2 teaches in FIG. 6-1 (page 2) a PON comprising an OLT and a plurality of ONUs and in Table 9-4 (page 8) PMD receiver for the OLT); a detector, at the OLT, configured to measure a link quality parameter in the one or more upstream signals (Xu et al. teaches in col. 3, lines 12-14 uplink signals and in FIG. 8 determining NGMI for each channel); and a processing device configured to: identify a link quality parameter target (Xu et al. teaches in col. 9, lines 3-4 NGMI threshold), wherein the link quality parameter target is the value of the link quality parameter that achieves a target error probability (Xu et al. teaches in FIG. 6B and FIG. 6C the relation between error rate and NGMI); and adjust a burst parameter based on the link quality parameter target (Xu et al. teaches col. 9, lines 49-51 adjust the modulation format such that the data rate is maximize while a certain amount of margin is preserved to guarantee error-free performance).
Regarding claim 12, Xu et al. teaches adjust the modulation format which means using a LDPC with different length (see FIG. 5A and 5B where different modulation formats with different LDPC lengths are shown).
Regarding claim 13, Xu et al. teaches in claim 2 GMI.
Regarding claim 14, Xu et al. teaches in claim 2 that the signal parameter threshold can be specified using bit error rate.
Regarding claim 15, Xu et al. teaches col. 9, lines 49-51 adjust the modulation format such that the data rate is maximize while a certain amount of margin is preserved to guarantee error-free performance.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. and G.987.2 as applied to claims 1-5, 7-8, 10 and 12-15 above, and further in view of Ye et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2021/0211205 A1).
Xu et al. and G.987.2 have been discussed above in regard to claims 1-5, 7-8, 10 and 12-15. The difference between Xu et al. and G.987.2 and the claimed invention is that Xu et al. and G.987.2 do not teach that the ONU comprises a non-linear equalizer. Ye et al. teaches in FIG. 4 a downlink system in a PON comprising an OLT and an ONU 420. Ye et al. teaches in paragraph [0043] that the ONU has a second equalizer 4220 which may be a nonlinear equalizer. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Ye et al. with the modified system of Xu et al. and G.987.2 because a nonlinear equalizer tackles non-linear effects caused by the transmission system and improves quality of the received signal. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a non-linear equalizer in the ONU, as taught by Ye et al., in the modified system of Xu et al. and G.987.2.
Claim(s) 9 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. and G.987.2 as applied to claims 1-5, 7-8, 10 and 12-15 above, and further in view of Krampl et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2023/0208542 A1).
Xu et al. and G.987.2 have been discussed above in regard to claims 1-5, 7-8, 10 and 12-15. The difference between Xu et al. and G.987.2 and the claimed invention is that Xu et al. and G.987.2 do not teach how to determine the transmit signal. Krampl et al. teaches in FIG. 1a a passive optical network comprising an OLT and a plurality of ONUs. Krampl et al. teaches in paragraph [0024] using a predetermined signal sequence for LDPC training. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Krampl et al. with the modified system of Xu et al. and G.987.2 because Krampl et al. teaches the details of implementation that are missing from Xu et al. and G.987.2. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to determine the transmit signal by using a predetermined signal sequence, as taught by Krampl et al., in the modified system of Xu et al. and G.987.2.
Regarding claim 11, Krampl et al. teaches in paragraph [0024] using a second preamble subsection for measuring the channel quality.
Claim(s) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (U.S. Patent 12,170,569).
Xu et al. has been discussed above in regard to claims 16. Xu et al. does not expressly teach computing, at the central optical node, the updated link setting based on the link quality parameter margin by: identifying a lower bound violation when the link quality parameter margin is less than a lower bound; identifying an upper bound violation when the link quality parameter margin is greater than an upper bound; computing the updated link setting as a robust setting when the lower bound violation is identified; computing the updated link setting as a throughput setting when the upper bound violation is identified; and computing the updated link setting as a previous setting when the lower bound violation is not identified and the upper bound violation is not identified. However, Xu et al. teaches col. 9, lines 49-51 adjust the modulation format such that the data rate is maximize while a certain amount of margin is preserved to guarantee error-free performance. One of ordinary skill in the art would have interpreted this to mean that there is a predetermined threshold and a predetermined margin. If the GMI is lower than the threshold, there is likely to have errors; it is equivalent to the lower bound violation. If the GMI is higher than the threshold plus the margin, bandwidth is wasted; it is equivalent to the upper bound violation. When a LDPC code under test has a GMI lower than the threshold, a more robust LDPC code is tested next; when a LDPC code under test has a GMI higher than the threshold plus the margin, a LDPC code with higher bandwidth is tested next. If the margin has been chosen properly, a LDPC code which falls between the threshold and the threshold plus the margin can be identified. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to compute, at the central optical node, the updated link setting based on the link quality parameter margin by: identifying a lower bound violation when the link quality parameter margin is less than a lower bound; identifying an upper bound violation when the link quality parameter margin is greater than an upper bound; computing the updated link setting as a robust setting when the lower bound violation is identified; computing the updated link setting as a throughput setting when the upper bound violation is identified; and computing the updated link setting as a previous setting when the lower bound violation is not identified and the upper bound violation is not identified.
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. as applied to claims 16 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Strobel et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2021/0297182 A1).
Xu et al. has been discussed above in regard to claims 16 and 19-20. The difference between Xu et al. and the claimed invention is that Xu et al. does not teach receiving, at the central optical node, an updated link setting request from one or more ONUs, wherein the link setting request is based on a link quality parameter margin; and communicating, from the central optical node to the one or more ONUs, the updated link setting. Strobel et al. teaches LDPC for PON. Strobel et al. teaches in paragraph [0090] that an ONU may request a FEC setting. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Strobel et al. with the system of Xu et al. because the new setting may improve the link performance. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to receive an updated link setting request from a ONU, as taught by Strobel et al., in the system of Xu et al.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHI K LI whose telephone number is (571)272-3031. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:53 a.m. -3:23 p.m.
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skl4 June 2026
/SHI K LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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