DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 10/07/2024. Claims 1 and through 14 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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.
Claim Objections
4. Claims 5 and 12 are objected to because of the following informalities: because claims 5 and 12 use the abbreviations FEC and OFDM. The unabbreviated FEC and OFDM are required. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 6 and 13 are objected to because of the following informalities: because claims 6 and 13 use the abbreviation TMCC. The unabbreviated TMCC is required. Appropriate correction is required.
Specification
5. The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
6. 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.
The claims 1 and 8 are drawn to an device (apparatus). However, the claims do not recite any parts of said apparatus that perform the functions. Since the claims are drawn to an apparatus without any parts, the claims are indefinite.
The claims 1 and 8 are drawn to a device (machine). Machine - a concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices. Burrv. Duryee, 68 U.S. (lWall.) 531, 570, 17 L. Ed. 650 (1863). This includes every mechanical device or combination of mechanical powers and devices to perform some function and produce a certain effect or result. Corning v. Burden, 56 U.S. 252, 267, 14 L. Ed. 683 (1854). [Emphasis added].[MPEP 2106.03].
In other words a machine must consist of more than one parts.
This rejection may be overcome by adding an additional structure to the machine as claimed to be consistent with the definition above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saki (US 2021/0400316 A1) in view of Palangappa et al. (US 2019/0280715 A1) and further in view of Cui (US 2022/0405071 A1).
For claim 1 Saki teaches transmission device comprising:
a generation unit that generates physical layer control information, the physical layer control information being included in a physical layer frame (paragraphs 7-8 “physical layer frame includes the error correcting code (control information)”); and
a transmission unit that transmits the physical layer frame as a broadcast signal to which a layered division multiplexing method is applied (paragraph 45 “next-generation broadcast signal) are transmitted by adopting a Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) system”), wherein
the physical layer control information includes a compressed pointer obtained by compressing a pointer that indicates a position of a first error correction code block in the physical layer frame and is expressed by an integer multiple of a greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer (paragraph 55 “in the next-generation system, in a case where a start position of an error correction code block included in a physical layer frame wherein includes a pointer is used indicating an offset of the start position of the error correction code block”).
Sakai does not explicitly teach a compressed pointer being expressed by an integer multiple of greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer.
However, Palangappa teaches to further reduce the size of the decoder memory
the error vector may be compressed by only storing pointers indicating bit locations in the error vector having one values (Palangappa: paragraphs 14 and 26).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Palangappa in the physical layer frame method of Sakai in order to reduce the size of the decoder memory the error vector when a design requirement is an option (Palangappa: paragraphs 14 and 26).
Sakai in view of Palangappa does not explicitly teach wherein the pointer is expressed by an integer multiple of greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer.
However, Cui teaches the base pointer of the currently analyzed pointer
undergoing the alignment computation is extracted for further analysis. In conjunction with this analysis, an integer value of great common divisor (GCD) coefficients of the
remaining address computation is computed and used to obtain the alignment information of the pointer up this (the current) stage of computation (Cui: paragraph 66).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of CUI in the combined physical layer frame method of Palangappa and Sakai in order to obtain the alignment information of the pointer up this (the current) stage of computation when a design requirement is an option (Palangappa: paragraphs 14 and 26).
For claim 2 Sakai teaches the transmission device, wherein a broadcast signal under a first broadcasting method is transmitted in a first layer of the layered division multiplexing method, and a broadcast signal under a second broadcasting method different from the first broadcasting method is transmitted in a second layer (Fig. 2 “current broadcasting at first physical layer and next-generation broadcasting at second physical layer”), and
the physical layer control information includes a number of segments used under the second broadcasting method among a plurality of segments (paragraph 48 “each frequency band includes a plurality of segments (for example, 13 segments in the case of the current system (ISDB-T system))”).
For claim 3 Sakai teaches the transmission device according to claim 2, wherein
the first layer includes a high power layer (Fig. 2 “high power layer at current broadcasting”),
the second layer includes a low power layer, and the second broadcasting method includes a next-generation method of the first broadcasting method (Fig. 2 “low power layer at second physical layer of next-generation broadcasting”).
For claim 4 Sakai teaches the transmission device according to claim 2, wherein
the physical layer control information includes information indicating whether or not an adjustment band is placed in a guard band, the adjustment band being used to transmit the broadcast signal under the second broadcasting method (paragraph 110 “Guard Interval”).
For claim 5 Sakai teaches the transmission device wherein
the physical layer frame includes an OFDM frame , the error correction code block includes an FEC block, and the pointer includes an FEC block pointer (paragraph 56 “an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) frame can be used as the physical layer frame, a Forward Error Correction (FEC) block can be used as the error correction block, and an FEC block pointer can be used as the pointer” and paragraph 103 “The FEC block pointer supplied from the FEC pointer calculation unit is included in the next-generation TMCC signal”).
For claim 6 Sakai teaches the transmission device, wherein the physical layer control information includes a TMCC signal (paragraphs 102-103 “The TMCC generation unit generates a Transmission Multiplexing Configuration Control (TMCC)”) .
For claim 7 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches a transmission method (as discussed in claim 1) comprising:
causing a transmission device to generate physical layer control information, the physical layer control information being included in a physical layer frame (as discussed in claim 1); and
causing the transmission device to transmit the physical layer frame as a broadcast signal to which a layered division multiplexing method is applied(as discussed in claim 1), wherein
the physical layer control information includes a compressed pointer obtained by compressing a pointer that indicates a position of a first error correction code block in the physical layer frame and is expressed by an integer multiple of a greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 8 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches
a reception device (Saki: Fig. 1 “reception device 20-1…20-M”) comprising a reception unit that receives a physical layer frame transmitted as a broadcast signal to which a layered division multiplexing method is applied (as discussed in claim 1), wherein
the physical layer frame includes physical layer control information including a compressed pointer obtained by compressing a pointer that indicates a position of a first error correction code block in the physical layer frame and is expressed by an integer multiple of a greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer (as discussed in claim 1), and
the reception unit performs error correction decoding for each error correction code block included in the physical layer frame on a basis of the compressed pointer obtained from the physical layer control information (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 9 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches
the reception device (Saki: Fig. 1 “reception device 20-1…20-M”), wherein
a broadcast signal under a first broadcasting method is transmitted in a first layer of the layered division multiplexing method, and a broadcast signal under a second broadcasting method different from the first broadcasting method is transmitted in a second layer (as discussed in claim 1), and
the physical layer control information includes a number of segments used under the second broadcasting method among a plurality of segments (Sakai: paragraph 48 “each frequency band includes a plurality of segments (for example, 13 segments in the case of the current system (ISDB-T system)).”).
For claim 10 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches the reception device according to claim 9, wherein the first layer includes a high power layer, the second layer includes a low power layer, and the second broadcasting method includes a next- generation method of the first broadcasting method (as discussed in claim 3).
For claim 11 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches the reception device according to claim 9, wherein
the physical layer control information includes information indicating whether or not an adjustment band is placed in a guard band, the adjustment band being used to transmit the broadcast signal under the second broadcasting method (as discussed in claim 4).
For claim 12 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches the reception device, wherein
the physical layer frame includes an OFDM frame (as discussed in claim 5),
the error correction code block includes an FEC block (as discussed in claim 5), and
the pointer includes an FEC block pointer (as discussed in claim 5).
For claim 13 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches the reception device, wherein the physical layer control information includes a TMCC signal (as discussed in claim 6).
For claim 14 Saki in view of Palangappa and further in view of Cui teaches a reception method comprising causing a reception device to receive a physical layer frame transmitted as a broadcast signal to which a layered division multiplexing method is applied (as discussed in claim 1), wherein
the physical layer frame includes physical layer control information including a compressed pointer obtained by compressing a pointer that indicates a position of a first error correction code block in the physical layer frame and is expressed by an integer multiple of a greatest common divisor of possible values of the pointer (as discussed in claim 1), and
error correction decoding is performed for each error correction code block included in the physical layer frame on a basis of the compressed pointer obtained from the physical layer control information (as discussed in claim 1).
Conclusion
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached at (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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