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 .
Examiner Initiated Interview Summary: In order to expedite the prosecution of the pending application, Examiner contacted Applicant representative Martin Regehr on 9/02/2026 and discussed possible claims amendments in order to place Application in condition of allowance. After consulting with the Applicant Mr. Regehr called Examiner and indicated, at this point Applicant would like to receive an office action. No agreement was reached.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 5/11/2026 with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 11, and 20, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura (US PGPUB 2016/0013952 A1) and further in view of Kishigami (US PGPUB 2009/0125793 A1).
As per claim 1, Nakamura discloses a method (Nakamura, Fig. 4), comprising:
receiving a reference signal (Nakamura, Fig. 4:405, and paragraph 46, discloses a reference signal (received reference signal) from the received frequency domain signal to input to the channel estimation unit 406);
generating a channel estimate, based on the reference signal (Nakamura, Fig. 4:406, channel estimation unit, and paragraphs 46 and 47);
determining a channel estimation error metric for the channel estimate (Nakamura, paragraphs 46 and 47, discloses The channel estimation unit 406 uses the received reference signal, which is input, to perform estimation of channel variation (hereinafter, referred to as channel estimation) and estimation of average noise power (or a noise power spectral density, noise energy) for compensating for influence of fading (channel variation) applied to the data signal on a channel);
receiving a transmission (Nakamura, Fig. 4:405, and paragraph 46, discloses The data signal extraction unit 405 further demultiplexes a data signal or a control signal from the received frequency domain signal to input to the demodulation unit 407);
calculating a log likelihood ratio, based on the channel estimation error metric, for each of a plurality of bit positions of the transmission (Nakamura, Fig. 4:407, and paragraphs 49, discloses the demodulation unit 407 restores coded bits represented by the received data signal to calculate the LLR of each of the bits. Note that, channel compensation for the received data signal and restoration of the bits represented by the received data signal are performed with the demodulation by the demodulation unit 407. When performing the demodulation, the demodulation unit 407 in the present embodiment suppresses error included in a bit sequence by using variance of the channel estimation value); and
decoding the transmission based on the log likelihood ratio (Nakamura, Fig. 4:409, decoding unit, and paragraphs 20-21, discloses a decoding unit for performing error correction decoding for the bit restored by the demodulation unit),
Nakamura does not explicitly disclose wherein the calculating of the log likelihood ratio comprises calculating a corrected log likelihood ratio based at least on an uncorrected log likelihood ratio.
Kishigami discloses wherein the calculating of the log likelihood ratio comprises calculating a corrected log likelihood ratio based at least on an uncorrected log likelihood ratio (Kishigami, paragraphs 338-339, 381-383, and 397-399, discloses The first weighter 17 inputs likelihood LLR output by the demodulator 5-m and the error component E(k) output by the error estimator 16, corrects the likelihood LLR based on the error component, and outputs the corrected likelihood LLR, please note here, output of demodulator corresponds to uncorrected LLR and output of weighter corresponds to corrected LLR).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Nakamura teachings by performing LLR calculations as taught by Kishigami.
The motivation would be to provide a communication system with improved reception quality (paragraph 148), as taught by Kishigami.
As per claim 11, Nakamura discloses a system (Nakamura, Fig. 4), comprising:
one or more processors (Nakamura, paragraph 141); and
the one or more processors being configured to cause performance (Nakamura, paragraphs 141-142) of: For rest of claim limitations please see the analysis of claim 1.
As per claim 20, Nakamura discloses a system (Nakamura, Fig. 4), comprising:
means for processing (Nakamura, paragraph 141); and
the means for processing being configured to cause performance (Nakamura, paragraphs 141-142) of: For rest of claim limitations please see the analysis of claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-10, and 12-19, 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SYED Z HAIDER whose telephone number is (571)270-5169. The examiner can normally be reached MONDAY-FRIDAY 9-5:30 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SAM K Ahn can be reached at 571-272-3044. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SYED HAIDER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633
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