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 § 103
2. 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
3. Claims 1 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Thiesen et al US 20090273517 (cited by applicant).
4. Consider claim 1. Ling (fig 5A) teaches a receiving node (500) for a wireless system, the receiving node comprising: plurality of antenna elements (501) or antenna sub-arrays a plurality of receive branches wherein each receive branch of the plurality of receive branches comprises: a radio front-end (503), RFE, having an input coupled to a respective one of the plurality of antennas or antenna sub-arrays and an output, the RFE of the receive branch configured to output a wideband radio frequency, RF, signal at the output of the RFE the wideband RF signal comprising a narrowband RF signal; a phase-locked loop (511), PLL, configured to provide a PLL output (col 8, lines 17-25); down-conversion circuitry (505) configured to down-convert the wideband RF signal to baseband based on the PLL output of the PLL to thereby provide a wideband baseband signal for the receive branch the wideband baseband signal comprising a narrowband signal that is a baseband version of the narrowband RF signal comprised in the wideband RF signal (col 8, lines 26-30); filtering circuitry (513)configured to filter the wideband baseband signal for the receive branch to attenuate in-band and out-of-band interference and thereby provide a filtered wideband baseband signal for the receive branch the filtered wideband baseband signal for the receive branch comprising the narrowband signal ; and an analog-to-digital conversion (515), ADC, circuitry configured to convert the narrowband signal or a modified version thereof from analog to digital, thereby providing a digital narrowband signal for the receive branch. Ling fails to teach wherein the PLLs of the plurality of receive branches are configured to apply respective phase rotations for wideband analog beam steering. However, Thiesen et al (fig 14) teaches (see 0058 and 0060) analog beam steering in a wideband receiver using phase rotations. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute the PLL structure of Thiesen et al in Ling in order to increase the effectiveness of the system. The method of claim 11 is rejected for the same reasons as apparatus claim 1, since the recited elements would perform the claim steps.
5. Claims 2-4 and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Thiesen et al US 20090273517 (cited by applicant) further in view of Hormis et al US 2020/0367257.
6. Regarding claim 2, although likely inherent, Ling doesn’t explicitly state plurality of receive branches and perform, based on the digital narrowband signals provided by the plurality of receive branches a narrowband beam scan procedure by which a plurality of beam directions are simultaneously scanned and one of the plurality of beam directions is selected. However, from the same field of endeavor Hormis et al teaches such (see 0125). It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to use the teachings of Hormis et al in the Ling in order to provide the best signal to the receiver. Method claim 12 is rejected for the same reasons as apparatus claim 2 since the recited elements would perform the claimed steps.
7. Regarding claims 3 and 13. Thiesen teaches (fig 1) wherein the phase rotations (16, 18) applied by the PLLs (0029) are configured to apply wideband analog beam steering in the one of the plurality of beam directions selected by the digital processing circuitry (30).
Regarding claims 4 and 14. Hormis et al teaches (fig 7) each receive branch of the plurality of receive branches further comprises phase rotation circuitry (785) configured to apply a second phase rotation to the digital narrowband signal for the receive branch, the second phase rotation being the opposite of the phase rotation applied by the respective PLL.
8. Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Thiesen et al US 20090273517 (cited by applicant) in view of Hormis et al US 2020/0367257 further in view of Examiners Official Notice.
9. Regarding claim 5. The combination fails to explicitly state during reception of a subsequent wideband signal, the phase rotations applied by the PLLs of the plurality of receive branches are configured so as to receive the subsequent wideband signal at the one of the plurality of beam directions selected by the digital processing circuitry. However, the examiner takes official notice that this is the standard practice in beam forming receivers and it would have been obvious to process the subsequent wideband signal for maximum efficiency of the receiver.
10. Claims 18, 26 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Gehring US 2004/0082304 (cited by applicant).
11. Regarding claim 18. Ling teaches (fig 5A) a receiving node (500) for a wireless system, the receiving node comprising: a plurality of antenna elements (501) or antenna sub-arrays; a plurality of receive branches (fig 5A), wherein each receive branch of the plurality of receive branches comprises: a radio front-end (503), RFE, having an input coupled to a respective one of the plurality of antennas or antenna sub-arrays and an output, the RFE of the receive branch configured to output a wideband radio frequency, RF, signal at the output of the RFE, the wideband RF signal comprising a narrowband RF signal; down-conversion circuitry (505) configured to down-convert the wideband RF signal to baseband based on an output of a phase-locked loop, PLL, to thereby provide a wideband baseband signal for the receive branch, filtering circuitry (513) configured to filter the wideband baseband signal for the receive branch to attenuate in-band and out-of-band interference and thereby provide a filtered wideband baseband signal for the receive branch,
and analog-to-digital conversion (515), ADC, circuitry configured to convert the frequency-shifted narrowband signal from analog to digital, thereby providing a digital narrowband signal for the receive branch. Ling fails to teach the wideband baseband signal comprising a narrowband signal that is a baseband version of the narrowband RF signal comprised in the wideband RF signal and is at a frequency offset from DC, the filtered wideband baseband signal for the receive branch comprising the narrowband signal that is at the frequency offset from DC; o frequency-shifting circuitry configured to shift the narrowband signal to DC to provide a frequency-shifted narrowband signal. However, Gehring (fig 3) teaches such (0037 and 0038) to eliminate DC offset from down converting narrowband signals. It would have been obvious, before the effective date to use the teachings of Gehring in Ling in order to maximize system efficiency by providing a cleaner signal. Method claim 26 is rejected for the same reasons as apparatus claim 28 since the recited elements would perform the claimed steps.
12. Regarding claim 30. Gehring (fig 3) wherein frequency-shifting the narrowband signal to DC comprises applying a configurable frequency-shift to shift the narrowband signal to DC (0038).
13. Claims 27-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Gehring US 2004/0082304 (cited by applicant) further in view of Hormis et al US 2020/0367257.
14. Regarding claim 27, although likely inherent, Ling doesn’t explicitly state plurality of receive branches and perform, based on the digital narrowband signals provided by the plurality of receive branches a narrowband beam scan procedure by which a plurality of beam directions are simultaneously scanned and one of the plurality of beam directions is selected. However, from the same field of endeavor Hormis et al teaches such (see 0125). It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to use the teachings of Hormis et al in the Ling in order to provide the best signal to the receiver.
15. Regarding claim 28. Ling teaches (see col 8, line 10-25) further comprising applying analog beam steering in the one of the plurality of beam directions selected by the digital processing circuitry.
16. Claim 29 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ling US10142001B2 (cited by applicant) in view of Gehring US 2004/0082304 (cited by applicant) further in view of Kishore EP 1820277.
Regarding 29. Although Gehring teaches a frequency-shifting circuit, he fails to teach it using a complex intermediate frequency, IF, harmonic rejection mixer. However, such is well known in the art for removing DC offset as taught by Kishore Fig 2 (…the output of the RF amplifier 102 can be coupled to a filter 104 that can be configured as a programmable harmonic rejection filter. The filter 104 can be configured, for example, as a programmable bandwidth lowpass filter, having a cutoff frequency that can be programmed to reduce undesired harmonic frequency components. As described below, the use of a harmonic reject frequency conversion stage can substantially reduce the constraints on the filter 104….) It would have been obvious substitution of one filter for another to use the filter scheme taught by Kishore for that taught by Gehring et al in order to further reduce the noise leakage.
Allowable Subject Matter
17. Claims 6, 7 and 15-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claims 6 and 15. The prior art of record fails to teach or make obvious wherein the narrowband signal is at a frequency offset from DC; each receive branch of the plurality of receive branches further comprises frequency-shifting circuitry configured to frequency-shift the narrowband signal to DC to thereby provide a frequency-shifted narrowband signal; and the ADC circuitry is configured to convert the frequency-shifted narrowband signal from analog to digital, thereby providing the digital narrowband signal for the receive branch.
Dependent claims 7, 16 and 17 are objected to since it depends upon claim 6 and 15 respectively.
18. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Jam US 20210391904 teaches a front-end antenna system for transmitting and receiving one or more beams and including at least one of a radio frequency (RF) stage, an intermediate frequency (IF) stage, and a digital stage includes one or more beam networks configured to form one or more signal streams over the one or more beams, where each beam network from among the one or more beam networks comprises a beamformer network, a switching network, or a combination thereof. The front-end antenna system includes an array of antennas configured to output each of the beams in a selected spatial region from among a plurality of spatial regions, where one or more antennas from among the array of antennas are multiport antennas. The front-end antenna system includes a plurality of transceivers that electrically couple the array of antennas and the one or more beam networks.
Conclusion
19. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CURTIS A KUNTZ whose telephone number is (571)272-7499. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th from 530am to 330pm and Fri from 530am to 10am.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D Anderson, can be reached at telephone number 5712724177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CURTIS A KUNTZ/Primary examiner, Art Unit 2646
Prosecution Insights