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 .
Claims 1-14 and 22-23 are pending in Instant Application.
Priority
Examiner acknowledges Applicant’s claim to priority benefits: This application is a 371 of PCT/EP2022/060523 filed 04/21/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 10/17/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered if signed and initialed by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 22 and 23 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 22 recites “A computer-program product encoded with instructions that, when executed in hardware, perform a process, the process comprising the method according to claim 8". For clarification with it is recommended to add the limitation of claim 8 into claim 22.
It is also recommended, in view of Figure 7, to add “a processor” to perform the process. Change to “A computer-program product encoded with instructions, store in a memory that, when executed in a processor of a hardware, perform a process, the process comprising:….”
Claim 23 recites “A non-transitory program storage device readable with an apparatus, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable with the apparatus for performing operations according to claim 8”. For clarification with it is recommended to add the limitation of claim 8 into claim 23.
It is also recommended, in view of Figure 7, to add “a processor” for performing operations. Change to “A non-transitory program storage device readable with an apparatus, tangibly embodying a program of instructions, stored in a memory, and executable by a processor with the apparatus for performing operations:….”
Appropriate correction is required.
Notice re prior art available under both pre-AIA and 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) 1, 4-6, 8 and 11-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lu et al. (LU MING ET AL: "Research on Beamspace Adaptive Digital Beamforming Algorithm and FPGA implementation", IEEE, 15 April 2022 (2022-04-15)).
As per claim 1, Lu disclose An apparatus (see Fig.2, Fig.3, a signal processing system), comprising:
at least one processor (see Fig.3, CPU); and
at least one memory storing instructions (see Fig.3, DDR3) that, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform:
estimating interference plus noise covariance of a received signal at an antenna array (see page 53, left column, section B. "the whitening of noise covariance matrix is realized by orthogonalizing the reduced dimension transformation matrix", thus implicitly the interference plus noise (which is the same as noise in this paper) is estimated and then whitened);
performing noise whitening of the received signal (see page 53, left column, section
B, performing / the whitening of noise covariance matrix); and
performing beamforming on the whitened received signal (see page 53, left column, Fig.2, box "Beam space adaptive beamformer', details on performing beamforming on the whitened received signal).
As per claim 4, Lu disclose the apparatus of claim 1.
Lu further disclose wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform converting the whitened received signal to beamspace, wherein the beamspace has lower dimensionality than the received signal prior to beamforming (see Fig.2, section B, section B corresponding dimension reduction transformation matrix).
As per claim 5, Lu disclose the apparatus of claim 1.
Lu further disclose wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: performing channel estimation and symbol detection in the beamspace (see Fig.2, all further signal processing like channel estimation and symbol detection are done after conversion into beam-space).
As per claim 6, Lu disclose the apparatus of claim 1.
Lu further disclose wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform rejecting interference while preserving desired signal energy in a lower-dimensional space than before the beamforming (see pages 54-55, perform rejecting interference while preserving desired signal energy in a lower-dimensional space than before the beamforming).
As per claim 8, claim 8 is rejected the same way as claim 1.
As per claim 11, claim 11 is rejected the same way as claim 4.
As per claim 12, claim 12 is rejected the same way as claim 5.
As per claim 13, claim 13 is rejected the same way as claim 6.
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 2-3, 7, 9-10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lu et al. (LU MING ET AL: "Research on Beamspace Adaptive Digital Beamforming Algorithm and FPGA implementation", IEEE, 15 April 2022 (2022-04-15)), and further in view of Haring et al. (HARING L ET AL: "Dynamic System Level Simulations of Downlink Beam-forming for UMTS FDD", GLOBECOM'03. 2003 - IEEE GLOBAL TELECOM-MUNICATIONS CONFERENCE. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS. SAN FRANCISCO, CA, DEC. 1 - 5, 2003; [IEEE GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICA-TIONS CONFERENCE], NEW YORK, NY: IEEE, US, vol. 1, 1 December 2003 (2003-12-01), pages 492-496).
As per claim 2, Lu disclose the apparatus of claim 1.
Lu however does not explicitly disclose wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: computing a predetermined number of strongest eigenvectors of a spatial covariance matrix of the whitened received signal.
Haring however disclose wherein instructions, when executed with at least one processor, cause an apparatus at least to perform: computing a predetermined number of strongest eigenvectors of a spatial covariance matrix of the whitened received signal (see page 493 section 2, beamforming algorithm showing the concept of strongest eigenvectors).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the functionality of wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform: computing a predetermined number of strongest eigenvectors of a spatial covariance matrix of the whitened received signal, as taught by Haring, in the system of Lu, so as to enhance a system performance especially in downlink and increase performance of a mobile station receiver, see Haring, Section 1.
As per claim 3, the combination of Lu and Haring disclose the apparatus of claim 2.
Haring further disclose wherein a beamforming matrix comprises a complex-conjugate of the computed strongest eigenvectors, and wherein the instructions, when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform left-multiplying the whitened received signal with the beamforming matrix (see page 493 section 2, an apparatus performing left-multiplying the whitened received signal with the beamforming matrix).
As per claim 7, Lu disclose the apparatus of claim 1.
Lu however does not explicitly disclose wherein the noise whitening comprises spatial whitening.
Haring however disclose wherein a noise whitening comprises spatial whitening (see page 494 right column "spatially white noise power PN").
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the functionality of wherein a noise whitening comprises spatial whitening, as taught by Haring, in the system of Lu, so as to enhance a system performance especially in downlink and increase performance of a mobile station receiver, see Haring, Section 1.
As per claim 9, claim 9 is rejected the same way as claim 2.
As per claim 10, claim 10 is rejected the same way as claim 3.
As per claim 14, claim 14 is rejected the same way as claim 7.
Claims 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lu et al. (LU MING ET AL: "Research on Beamspace Adaptive Digital Beamforming Algorithm and FPGA implementation", IEEE, 15 April 2022 (2022-04-15)), and further in view of Kuchi et al. (US Pub. No.:2022/0416859).
As per claim 22, Lu disclose the method of claim 8.
Lu however does not explicitly disclose A computer-program product encoded with instructions that, when executed in hardware, perform a process.
Kuchi however disclose A computer-program product encoded with instructions that, when executed in hardware, perform a process (see Fig. 10, Fig.26, para. 0081-0085, 0270-0279, the method 2600 is described in the general context of computer executable instructions, computer executable instructions include programs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the functionality of A computer-program product encoded with instructions that, when executed in hardware, perform a process, as taught by Kuchi, in the system of Lu, so as to enhance data reception quality, and condensing is performed to ensure that the receiver system performance is maximized, by constructively combining data and reference signals and mitigating intra-cell (or other-cell) and inter-cell (or self) interference, see Kuchi, paragraphs 30-37.
As per claim 23, Lu disclose the method of claim 8.
Lu however does not explicitly disclose A non-transitory program storage device readable with an apparatus, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable with the apparatus.
Kuchi however disclose A non-transitory program storage device readable with an apparatus, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable with the apparatus (see Fig. 10, Fig.26, para. 0081-0085, 0270-0279, an “article of manufacture” comprises non-transitory computer readable medium, hardware logic, and/or transmission signals in which code may be implemented, a device in which the code implementing the described embodiments of operations is encoded, comprise a computer readable medium or hardware logic).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the functionality of A non-transitory program storage device readable with an apparatus, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable with the apparatus, as taught by Kuchi, in the system of Lu, so as to enhance data reception quality, and condensing is performed to ensure that the receiver system performance is maximized, by constructively combining data and reference signals and mitigating intra-cell (or other-cell) and inter-cell (or self) interference, see Kuchi, paragraphs 30-37.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Gunes (US Pub. No.:2022/0255679) – see para. 0043, “The Interference Rejection Combining (IRC) is known in prior art as a combining method suitable when cells overlap that causes significant interference. IRC is applied to demodulated I/Q samples, i.e., transmitted baseband complex-valued signals, representing those samples of the constellation for the type of modulation used, such as Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK). In LTE, reference/pilot symbols are transmitted at known time-frequency grid locations (such that they don't interfere with one another), from which the receiver can perform the channel estimation, e.g., determine the signal to noise ratio, channel covariance matrix, etc. IRC method first performs spatially noise-whitening of the received signals before any further processing, and then combines the signals according to a criterion such as the Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC)”.
Landis (US Pub. No.:2020/0389771) – see para. 0081, “In matrix R, the covariance between an interfering signal and a CV2X signal may be measured at a number of receiver antennas (e.g., two antennas 220-a and 220-b). The mean of the absolute squared values of diagonal elements r.sub.11 and r.sub.22 may represent the sum of the power of the detected noise plus interference received at antennas 220-a and 220-b. The off diagonal elements r.sub.12 and r.sub.21 may represent the conjugate multiplicative at each receiver antenna per time sample. The matrix may be applied by UE 115-a and/or 115-b to whiten the noise plus interference on the receiver antennas (e.g., antennas 220-a and 220-b or 220-c and 220-d) for CV2X communications between UEs 115-a and 115-b. The whitening of the noise plus interference may allow UE 115-a to improve the performance of CV2X communication link 205-c with UE 115-b by increasing the success of decoding received CV2X transmissions at UE 115-a. The estimation and/or whitening of interference may be applied to one or more CV2X subframes based on the variance of interference. Additionally, the UE 115-a may generate UE 115-a and/or 115-b may also generate statistics by monitoring noise and/or interference (e.g., WIFI interference, LTE interference, or both) over time, and use generated the generated statistics for noise cancellation”.
Wu (CN 104683282B) – see pages 7-8, “Here, further counting the calculating complexity of the two, as shown in Table 1, the conventional MMSE-IRC receiver relative to HHR-1 operation of the MMSE is to be done per subcarrier, the receiver of the invention in relation to MMSE increased left multiplying the whitening operation U and UH and UV each subcarrier is to be made, and the decomposition and upper triangular inversion is only performed once per RB. As can be seen, although increasing the amount and the operation of the RB, the receiver of the invention compared to conventional MMSE-IRC receiver multiplication number is reduced by half, the overall complexity is greatly reduced”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAKERAM JANGBAHADUR whose telephone number is (571)272-1335. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7 am - 4 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ian Moore can be reached on 571-272-3085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAKERAM JANGBAHADUR/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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