DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Oath/Declaration
The Oath or Declaration is being considered by examiner and complies with PTO requirements.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 12/05/2024. These drawings are reviewed and accepted by the Examiner.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs), submitted on 12/05/2024, and 06/13/2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CRR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 1-2, 11, 20, 29, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sridhar et al (US 2020/0162172) hereinafter Sridhar in view of Millar et al (U.S. Pat. 10,069,519) hereinafter Millar.
Regarding claims 1, 29, Sridhar discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a first device (see Fig. 1, a transmitter device, a receiver device), comprising: a processor; a memory coupled with the processor (see [0019], [0022]), with instructions stored in the memory, the instructions being executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: generate, using information bits, a set of shaping bits associated with shaping the information bits into a probability distribution of modulated symbols for a transmission (see [0019] illustrates that a transmitter device 14 (“transmitter 14”) in the example coherent communications system 10 modulates the carrier signal 12 to produce a modulated carrier signal 16. A digital signal processor (DSP) 18 in the transmitter 14 generates in-phase (I) digital drive signals 22 and quadrature (Q) digital drive signals 24 from information bits 26. Digital-to-analog converters 28 convert the I/Q digital drive signals 22, 24 into respective I/Q analog drive signals 32, 34. The I/Q analog drive signals 32, 34 drive one or more I-Q modulators 36 that modulate the carrier signal 12 to produce the modulated carrier signal 16. The modulated carrier signal 16, which conveys the information bits 26, is then transmitted on a link 38. For simplicity, additional components of the transmitter 14 such as amplifiers are not illustrated or discussed in this document); encode the information bits using a first channel coding scheme (see [0024]); encode the set of shaping bits using a second channel coding scheme based at least in part on generating the set of shaping bits (see 0024] Illustrates that the FEC encoding 40 is applied to the shaped information bits and, as indicated by a dotted arrow, to any remaining portion of the information bits 26. The bits of the remaining portion are unshaped. Systematic FEC encoding 40 preserves the shaping of the shaped information bits). Sridhar fails to explicitly disclose modulating the encoded information bits and the encoded set of shaping bits for the transmission to a second device, the modulated encoded information bits associated with modulated symbols that are probabilistically shaped corresponding to the probability distribution.
Mallar discloses modulating the encoded information bits and the encoded set of shaping bits for the transmission to a second device, the modulated encoded information bits associated with modulated symbols that are probabilistically shaped corresponding to the probability distribution (see Abstract, Fig. 1C, col. 6, lines 37-54). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to decode the information bits using a first channel decoding scheme based at least in part on deshaping the information bits as taught by Mallar into the teachings of Sridhar in order to map the block of bits to a block of shaped bits with a non-uniform distribution using the selected distribution matcher and a transmitter front end to transmit the block of shaped bits over a communication channel, such that bits in a sequence of the blocks of shaped bits are distributed according to the target probability mass function (PMF).
Regarding claim 2, Mallar discloses wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: transmit the modulated encoded information bits and the modulated encoded set of shaping bits to the second device (col. 6, lines 47-54).
Regarding claim 11, Sridhar discloses wherein the information bits comprise data bits and parity bits associated with the data bits (see col. 4, lines 16-32; col. 6, lines 37-46).
Regarding claims 20, 30, Sridhar discloses an apparatus for wireless communication at a first device (see Fig. 1, a transmitter device 14, a receiver device 54), comprising: a processor; a memory coupled with the processor (see [0019], [0022]) with instructions stored in the memory, the instructions being executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: generate, using information bits, a set of shaping bits associated with shaping the information bits into a probability distribution of modulated symbols for a transmission (see [0019], [0039], [0041], [0071] illustrates that the transmitter DSP 18 implements the functionality illustrated in FIG. 8, the receiver DSP 78 implements the functionality illustrated in FIG. 9, so that the probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) 46 performed in the transmitter DSP 18 is reversed by the inverse PCS 92 in the receiver DSP 78 and the scrambling 48 performed in the transmitter DSP 18 is reversed by the descrambling 94 performed in the receiver DSP 78). Sridhar fails to explicitly disclose decoding the information bits using a first channel decoding scheme based at least in part on deshaping the information bits.
Mallar discloses decoding the information bits using a first channel decoding scheme based at least in part on deshaping the information bits (see Abstract, Fig. 1C, col. 6, lines 37-54). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modulate the encoded information bits and the encoded set of shaping bits for the transmission to a second device, the modulated encoded information bits associated with modulated symbols that are probabilistically shaped corresponding to the probability distribution as taught by Mallar into the teachings of Sridhar in order to map the block of bits to a block of shaped bits with a non-uniform distribution using the selected distribution matcher and a transmitter front end to transmit the block of shaped bits over a communication channel, such that bits in a sequence of the blocks of shaped bits are distributed according to the target probability mass function (PMF).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10, 12-19, 21-28 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sayed Hassan et al. (US 2024/0340209) disclose a probabilistic amplitude shaping applied to PAPR reduction.
Koike-Akino et al (US 2023/0033774) disclose systems and methods for dual coding concatenation in probabilistic amplitude shaping.
Sen et al (US 2024/0406797) discloses a joint low-density parity-check coding and modulation designs.
Yoshida (US 2022/0103285) disclose a subchannel encoding device, subchannel decoding device, subchannel encoding method, subchannel decoding method, and subchannel multiplexing optical communication system.
Ebrahimzad et al (US 2020/0119840) disclose a probabilistic constellation shaping of multi-dimensional symbols for improved tolerance to nonlinear impairments.
Ophir et al (US 2003/0123564) disclose a spectral power management for constrained transmissions using constellation shaping.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHAI TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3019. The examiner can normally be reached until 4:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KHAI TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632
KT
March 23, 2026