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
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 – 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nimbalker (US 2022/0094473 A1) in view of FARSIABI (US 2024/0137151 A1) in view of BOEHNKE (US 2024/0073066 A1).
In regards to claim 1, Nimbalker teaches:
generating a set of log likelihood ratios (LLRs) corresponding to the set of information bits; segmenting the set of LLRs into a plurality of shaping blocks based, at least in part, on a shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks; (Abstract & 0042, a method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network. The method includes communicating utilizing data signaling based on a code block size and/or code block length. An error coded representation of a code block may comprise bits representing the information of the code block and/or error detection coding and/or error correction coding; the information bits may be directly included, or transformed (e.g., when using polar coding for FEC).) decoding, according to a shaping code rate, the plurality of shaping blocks using a polar code to obtain a sequence of shaping bits, wherein the polar code used to decode the plurality of shaping blocks depends on the shaping code rate and the shaping block length; (0031, Transmission parameters may comprise in particular frequency resources and/or start (in time domain, e.g. in which allocation unit) and/or modulation and/or coding (in particular, modulation and coding scheme) and/or code rate and/or beam parameters, e.g. pertaining to the beam in which the data signaling is transmitted) and/or MIMO parameter/s and/or parameter/s indicating an arrangement of code blocks of the data signaling, and/or information regarding reception, e.g. antenna and/or beams for reception, and/or information indicative of a beam pair to use for transmission and/or reception.)
Nimbalker fails to teach:
generating a set of log likelihood ratios (LLRs) corresponding to the set of information bits; segmenting the set of LLRs into a plurality of shaping blocks based, at least in part, on a shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks; generating a sequence of shaped symbols from the sequence of shaping bits; and transmitting the sequence of shaped symbols to a receiving device.
However, FARSIABI teaches:
generating a set of log likelihood ratios (LLRs) corresponding to the set of information bits; segmenting the set of LLRs into a plurality of shaping blocks based, at least in part, on a shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks; (0014, a symbols-to-log-likelihood ratio (LLR) convertor configured to convert the set of extracted non-binary symbols S″ to LLRs; a deinterleaver configured to rearrange the LLRs to reverse the effects of the interleaving performed by the transmitter;) generating a sequence of shaped symbols from the sequence of shaping bits; and transmitting the sequence of shaped symbols to a receiving device. (0014, the received set of processed non-binary symbols S′ to reverse the operations performed by a transmitter symbol processor included in the transmitter, and generate a set of extracted non-binary symbols S″;)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of FARSIABI, which teaches a hybrid product polar codes-based communication systems and methods for receiving a stream of information bits and reshaping the stream of information bits into at least a first rectangular information matrix in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (FARSIABI: 0007, an interest in improving the latency of a fiber-optical communication system.)
In regards to claim 2, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 1.
Nimbalker fails to teach:
wherein generating the sequence of shaped symbols comprises: encoding, according to the shaping code rate, the sequence of shaping bits using the polar code to obtain a shaping codeword; performing a shaping operation on a subset of the set of information bits to generate a sequence of shaped information bits; encoding, using a forward error correction (FEC) code rate, the sequence of shaped information bits, the sequence of shaping bits, and a remaining subset of non- shaped information bits of the set of information bits to generate a set of encoded bits in the plurality of shaping blocks; and generating the sequence of shaped symbols based on the set of encoded bits and the plurality of shaping blocks.
However, FARSIABI teaches:
wherein generating the sequence of shaped symbols comprises: encoding, according to the shaping code rate, the sequence of shaping bits using the polar code to obtain a shaping codeword; (0064, the received codewords to a polar-code decoder) performing a shaping operation on a subset of the set of information bits to generate a sequence of shaped information bits; (Abstract, reshaping the stream of information bits into at least a first rectangular information) encoding, using a forward error correction (FEC) code rate, the sequence of shaped information bits, the sequence of shaping bits, and a remaining subset of non- shaped information bits of the set of information bits to generate a set of encoded bits in the plurality of shaping blocks; and generating the sequence of shaped symbols based on the set of encoded bits and the plurality of shaping blocks. (0074 & 0075, the transmitter 300 may include a pre-processor 304, a product polar code encoder 306, a polar code encoder 308, an interleaver 310 a bits-to symbol mapper 312 and a transmitter symbol processor 314. The pre-processor 304 may be configured to receive a stream of information bits 302 and the pre-processor 304 may reshape the information bits 302 into at least two rectangular information matrices.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of FARSIABI, which teaches a hybrid product polar codes-based communication systems and methods for receiving a stream of information bits and reshaping the stream of information bits into at least a first rectangular information matrix in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (FARSIABI: 0007, an interest in improving the latency of a fiber-optical communication system.)
In regards to claim 3, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
further comprising transmitting, to the receiving device, configuration information indicating a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index value associated with the set of encoded bits, the MCS index value corresponding to an entry in an MCS lookup table that indicates: modulation order; the FEC code rate; and the shaping code rate. (0016, The MCS indication may in particular index a MCS table. Thus, multiple functions may be assigned to one indication, with low signaling overhead. A MCS may in particular pertain to the data signaling, e.g. to be used to modulate and/or encode (or demodulate and/or decode) the data signaling.)
In regards to claim 4, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 3. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
wherein each shaped symbol of the sequence of shaped symbols is associated with a respective symbol probability.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
wherein each shaped symbol of the sequence of shaped symbols is associated with a respective symbol probability. (0047, The MCS indication may in particular index a MCS table. Thus, multiple functions may be assigned to one indication, with low signaling overhead. A MCS may in particular pertain to the data signaling, e.g. to be used to modulate and/or encode (or demodulate and/or decode) the data signaling.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
In regards to claim 5, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 3. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
further comprising providing an indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities to the receiving device.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
further comprising providing an indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities to the receiving device. (0047, and performing a joint channel coding and probability shaping of the message based on the log-likelihood ratios to obtain the symbol sequence.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
In regards to claim 6, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
further comprising transmitting, to the receiving device, configuration information indicating a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index value associated with the set of encoded bits, the MCS index value corresponding to an entry in an MCS lookup table that indicates: modulation order; the FEC code rate; and the shaping code rate. (0016, The MCS indication may in particular index a MCS table. Thus, multiple functions may be assigned to one indication, with low signaling overhead. A MCS may in particular pertain to the data signaling, e.g. to be used to modulate and/or encode (or demodulate and/or decode) the data signaling.)
In regards to claim 7, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 5.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein providing the indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities comprises transmitting one or more radio resource control (RRC) messages including the indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities. (0044, it may be a higher layer message, e.g. an RRC or MAC layer message, which allows using higher-layer protocols to be used, simplifying physical layer procedures.)
In regards to claim 8, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
further comprising, when the shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks is greater than a first power of two integer but less than a second power of two integer, reducing the shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks to the first power of two integer.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
further comprising, when the shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks is greater than a first power of two integer but less than a second power of two integer, reducing the shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks to the first power of two integer. (0136, Different techniques like, e.g., puncturing, shortening, or other polarization kernels may be used for rate matching to obtain polar codes for block lengths N that are not a power of two.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
In regards to claim 9, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 8. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
further comprising, based on the reduced shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks, skipping performing the shaping operation on one or more information bits in the subset of the set of information bits.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
further comprising, based on the reduced shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks, skipping performing the shaping operation on one or more information bits in the subset of the set of information bits. (0099 & 0101, The encoding device 400 and/or decoding device 410 may comprise a processor or processing circuitry (not shown) configured to perform, conduct or initiate the various operations of the respective device 400, 410 described herein. The processing circuitry may comprise the computational blocks 404 and 406 and/or 412 and 415. which stores one or more instruction(s) that can be executed by the processor or by the processing circuitry, in particular under control of the software;)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
In regards to claim 10, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein segmenting the set of LLRs into the plurality of shaping blocks is further based on: a maximum shaping block length for the plurality of shaping blocks; a number of resource elements available for transmitting the set of encoded bits; and a number of shaping blocks of the plurality of shaping blocks. (0055, In general, the control information message may indicate a maximum code block size or code block length, e.g. with indicating Lmax.)
In regards to claim 11, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein the maximum shaping block length is fixed in a standards document and is different for uplink transmissions as compared to downlink transmissions. (0019 & 0112, In general, the at least first indication may comprise at least one or more of a MCS indication, and/or a signaling characteristic of the control information message, and/or an explicit code block size and/or code block length indication. A subblock and/or subblock group may comprise information bits (representing the data to be transmitted, e.g. user data and/or downlink/sidelink data or uplink data).)
In regards to claim 12, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
further comprising transmitting a radio resource control (RRC) message to the receiving device indicating the maximum shaping block length. (0015 & 0019, may be predefined and/or configured or configurable with higher layer signaling, e.g. RRC or MAC signaling In general, the at least first indication may comprise at least one or more of a MCS indication, and/or a signaling characteristic of the control information message, and/or an explicit code block size and/or code block length indication.)
In regards to claim 13, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein performing the shaping operation depends on a subband over which the set of information bits will be transmitted. (0119, A subcarrier may be a subband of a carrier, e.g. as defined by a standard. As symbol time length and/or subcarrier spacing (and/or numerology) may be different between different symbols and/or subcarriers, different resource elements may have different extension (length/width) in time and/or frequency domain, in particular resource elements pertaining to different carriers;)
In regards to claim 14, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 2.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein the shaping code rate depends on a subband over which the set of information bits will be transmitted and is different for different subbands. (0119, A subcarrier may be a subband of a carrier, e.g. as defined by a standard. As symbol time length and/or subcarrier spacing (and/or numerology) may be different between different symbols and/or subcarriers, different resource elements may have different extension (length/width) in time and/or frequency domain, in particular resource elements pertaining to different carriers;)
In regards to claim 22, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 1 and corresponds to claim 14 as analyzed accordingly.
In regards to claim 15, Nimbalker teaches:
performing, using a shaping code rate, a deshaping operation on the sequence of shaped information bits based on the sequence of shaping bits to obtain a sequence of deshaped information bits; and concatenating the sequence of deshaped information bits with the remaining subset of non-shaped information bits to obtain the set of information bits. (0031, Transmission parameters may comprise in particular frequency resources and/or start (in time domain, e.g. in which allocation unit) and/or modulation and/or coding (in particular, modulation and coding scheme) and/or code rate and/or beam parameters, e.g. pertaining to the beam in which the data signaling is transmitted) and/or MIMO parameter/s and/or parameter/s indicating an arrangement of code blocks of the data signaling, and/or information regarding reception, e.g. antenna and/or beams for reception, and/or information indicative of a beam pair to use for transmission and/or reception.)
Nimbalker fails to teach:
A method for wireless communication by a receiving device, comprising: receiving, from a transmitting device, a sequence of shaped symbols corresponding to a sequence of bit-level log likelihood ratios (LLRs);converting the sequence of shaped symbols to the sequence of bit-level LLRs; decoding, using a forward error correction (FEC) code rate, the sequence of bit- level LLRs to obtain a sequence of shaped information bits of a set of information bits, a sequence of shaping bits, and a remaining subset of non-shaped information bits of the set of information bits;
However, FARSIABI teaches:
A method for wireless communication by a receiving device, comprising: receiving, from a transmitting device, a sequence of shaped symbols corresponding to a sequence of bit-level log likelihood ratios (LLRs);converting the sequence of shaped symbols to the sequence of bit-level LLRs; (0014, a symbols-to-log-likelihood ratio (LLR) convertor configured to convert the set of extracted non-binary symbols S″ to LLRs;)decoding, using a forward error correction (FEC) code rate, (0003, forward error correction (FEC) is a crucial technique for protecting the data against the channel noise and inherent system impairments.) the sequence of bit- level LLRs to obtain a sequence of shaped information bits of a set of information bits, a sequence of shaping bits, and a remaining subset of non-shaped information bits of the set of information bits; (Abstract & 0014receiving a stream of information bits; ii) reshaping the stream of information bits into at least a first rectangular information; generate information bits manifesting original information bits transmitted by the transmitter.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of FARSIABI, which teaches a hybrid product polar codes-based communication systems and methods for receiving a stream of information bits and reshaping the stream of information bits into at least a first rectangular information matrix in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (FARSIABI: 0007, an interest in improving the latency of a fiber-optical communication system.)
In regards to claim 16, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 15.
Nimbalker teaches:
wherein performing the deshaping operation on the sequence of shaped information bits comprises: encoding the sequence of shaping bits using a polar code and the shaping code rate to generate a deshaping codeword; and applying the deshaping codeword to the sequence of shaped information bits to deshape the sequence of shaped information bits and to obtain the sequence of deshaped information bits. (0031, Transmission parameters may comprise in particular frequency resources and/or start (in time domain, e.g. in which allocation unit) and/or modulation and/or coding (in particular, modulation and coding scheme) and/or code rate and/or beam parameters, e.g. pertaining to the beam in which the data signaling is transmitted) and/or MIMO parameter/s and/or parameter/s indicating an arrangement of code blocks of the data signaling, and/or information regarding reception, e.g. antenna and/or beams for reception, and/or information indicative of a beam pair to use for transmission and/or reception.)
With regards to claim 17, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 16 and corresponds to claim 3 as analyzed accordingly.
In regards to claim 18, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 17. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
wherein: each shaped symbol of the sequence of shaped symbols is associated with a respective symbol probability; and converting the sequence of shaped symbols to the sequence of bit-level LLRs is based on the respective symbol probabilities for each shaped symbol.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
wherein: each shaped symbol of the sequence of shaped symbols is associated with a respective symbol probability; and converting the sequence of shaped symbols to the sequence of bit-level LLRs is based on the respective symbol probabilities for each shaped symbol. (0047, for encoding the message into the symbol sequence, the method may comprise: converting the symbol probabilities of the symbols of the discrete symbol alphabet into log-likelihood ratios;)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
In regards to claim 19, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 18. Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI fails to teach:
further comprising receiving an indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities from the transmitting device.
However, BOEHNKE teaches:
further comprising receiving an indication of each of the respective symbol probabilities from the transmitting device. (0047, and performing a joint channel coding and probability shaping of the message based on the log-likelihood ratios to obtain the symbol sequence.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of operating a communication device in a wireless communication network of Nimbalker with the teaching of BOEHNKE, which teaches a dirty paper coding (DPC) scheme for a wireless communication system in order to improve data transmission efficiency in the communication device. (BOEHNKE: 0006, The present disclosure is generally concerned with a reliable data transmission over such a noisy channel in the presence of an arbitrary interference that is known at the transmitter;)
With regards to claim 20, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 19 and corresponds to claim 6 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 21, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the method of claim 19 and corresponds to claim 7 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 23, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus for wireless communication and corresponds to claim 1 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 24, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus of claim 23 and corresponds to claim 2 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 25, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the of claim 24 and corresponds to claim 3 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 26, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus of claim 25 and corresponds to claim 6 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 27, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus for wireless communication and corresponds to claim 15 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 28, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus of claim 27 and corresponds to claim 16 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 29, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus of claim 28 and corresponds to claim 17 as analyzed accordingly.
With regards to claim 30, Nimbalker in view of FARSIABI teaches the apparatus of claim 29 and corresponds to claims 18-20 as analyzed accordingly.
Prior Art Made of Record
The prior art mode of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
Applicant’s disclosure:
Zhang (US 2024/0007220 A1): Embodiments of this application relate to the field of communications technologies, and provide an encoding and decoding method and apparatus, to reduce encoding/decoding complexity and improve encoding/decoding performance. In the method, a transmit device may obtain N to-be-encoded vectors. The transmit device may encode the N to-be-encoded vectors based on a polar code kernel matrix, to obtain N temporary code blocks. The transmit device may respectively perform a mask operation on target bit sequences in an (n+1).sup.th temporary code block to an (n+M).sup.th temporary code block and a source bit sequence segment of an n.sup.th temporary code block, to obtain M mask bit sequences. The transmit device may respectively encode the M mask bit sequences based on the polar kernel matrix, to obtain M encoded mask bit sequences. The transmit device may sum the M encoded mask bit sequences and M temporary code blocks, to obtain M first code blocks.
• Hamelin (US 2021/0297094 A1): A codeword is generated based on a segmentation transform and a Polarization-Assisted Convolutional (PAC) code that includes an outer convolutional code and a polar code, and based on separate encoding of respective different segments of convolutionally encoded input bits according to the polar code. Each segment of the respective segments includes multiple bits of the convolutionally encoded input bits for which the separate encoding of the segment is independent of the separate encoding of other segments. Separate decoding may be applied to segments of such a codeword to decode convolutionally encoded input bits corresponding to the separately encoded segments of the convolutionally encoded input bits.
Conclusion
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/V.P./Examiner, Art Unit 2111
/GUERRIER MERANT/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2111
4/1/2026