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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 2 and 10: the limitation “transmitting the decoder neural network to the receiving device” is indefinite. A neural network refers to a system architecture or computational model, which cannot literally be transmitted over a wireless propagation channel. It is unclear what data structure the claim intends to transmit. For examination purposes the claim limitation “transmitting the decoder neural network to the receiving device” is interpreted as “ transmitting parameters of the decoder neutral network”,” transmitting weights of the decoder neural network” or “transmitting configuration data of the decoder neural network”.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 4-9, 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brandt-Pearce et al(US 2021/0234742 A1) hereinafter Brandt ‘ 742 in view of Gunduz (WO 2020/035684 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 9, Brandt ‘742 teaches, a transmitting device for wireless communication comprising([0028], [0035] and Figs. 3, 5, a wireless communication device): memory, and at least one processor operatively coupled to the memory, the memory and the at least one processor configured( [0035], [0043] and Figs. 3, 5, the transmission wireless device comprising processor and main memory): to calculate distortion error based on a non-distorted digital transmit waveform and a non-linearity([0025], [0033] and Figs. 2A, 3, the transmitter calculates the distortion error by calculating the difference between the intended waveform an the physical non-linear limit);
to transmit, to a receiving device, the compressed distortion error to compensate for the non-linearity in a power amplifier (PA)([0025], [0027] and Figs. 2A, 3, transmitting the isolated distortion error (the clipped information) across a channel so the receiver can reconstruct the signal and compensate for the transmitter’s no-linear power limitations)
Brandt ‘742 does not explicitly teach, to compress the distortion error with an encoder neural network of an auto-encoder.
Gunduz ‘684 teaches, to compress the distortion error with an encoder neural network of an auto-encoder ([0018], [0037], [0074] and Figs. 2, 5, using an encoder neural network of an auto-encoder to compress a payload for transmission).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Brandt ‘742, by incorporating the teaching of Gunduz ‘684, since such modification would provide an encoder neural network that can be trained and highly efficient at encoding the information source for transmission, thereby a enabling transmitter device to receive a plurality of different information sources or types of information source and efficiently transmitting each information source, as suggested by Gunduz ‘684([0025]).
Regarding claims 4 and 12 the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations, Brandt ‘742 further teaches, receiving the non-distorted digital transmit waveform from an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) block([0020] ,[0028]-[0030] and Fig. 3, an IFFT block whose output is supplied to downstream transmitter/clipping processing).
Regarding claims 5 and 13 the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations, Brandt ‘742 further teaches, in which the non-distorted digital transmit waveform is a time domain signal([0020], [0030], the IFFT output being a discrete time-domain OFDM signal).
Regarding claim 6, Brandt ‘742 teaches, a method of wireless communications, at a receiving device([0007], [0036] and Fig. 4, a receiver system configured to receive digital data signals transmitted across a wireless communication channel), comprising: recovering an undistorted signal based on the decompressed distortion error([0025], [0038], [0039] and Fig. 4, the receiver uses the received clipped information (the distortion error) to reconstruct the original time domain signal).
Brandt ‘742 does not explicitly teach, decompressing, with a decoder neural network of an auto-encoder, a distortion error caused by a power amplifier (PA).
Gunduz ‘684 teaches, decompressing, with a decoder neural network of an auto-encoder, a distortion error caused by a power amplifier (PA)([0035], [0052], [0223] and Figs. 2, 11, using a decoder neural network of an auto-encoder to decode and reconstruct a compressed data payload received over a communications channel).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Brandt ‘742, by incorporating the teaching of Gunduz ‘684, since such modification would provide an encoder neural network that can be trained and highly efficient at encoding the information source for transmission, thereby a enabling transmitter device to receive a plurality of different information sources or types of information source and efficiently transmitting each information source, as suggested by Gunduz ‘684([0025]).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations, Brandt ‘742 further teaches, transmitting the undistorted signal to a fast Fourier transform (FFT) block ([0038], [0039] and Fig. 4, the recovered singal is reconstructed into a serial frame. After this reconstruction, the serial to -parallel circuit converts into parallel signals which are transmitted to a FFT circuit 442).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations, Brandt ‘742 further teaches, the decompressing and the recovering occur in time domain ([0038], [0039] and Fig. 4, performing the signal recovery prior the FFT conversion. The received clipped information (the distortion error) from subsequent time slots is added back via an adder and windowing circuit to reconstruct a “serial discrete time domain frame” which suggests that the recovery of the undistorted signal occurs in the time domain).
Claims 2 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 as applied to claims above, and further in view of Holt et al(US 2018/0174050 A1) .
Regarding claims 2 and 10, the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations except, training the encoder neural network and a decoder neural network; and, transmitting the decoder neural network to the receiving device.
Holt ‘050 teaches, training the encoder neural network and a decoder neural network ([0062], [0065], [0084] and Figs. 2-4, model trainer 178 trains encoder model 172 and decoder model 176(neural network) using a loss function); and transmitting the decoder neural network to the receiving device([0062], [0075] and Fig. 2, the receiver device 180 receives the decoder model 176( neural network) from the machine learning computing system 160 over network 142).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Brandt ‘742, by incorporating the teaching of Holt ‘050, since such modification would enable to provide systems and methods for implementing adaptive channel coding using machine-learned models, as suggested by Holt ‘050([0001]).
Claims 3 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 as applied to claims above, and further in view of TANG B., et al., "A Clipping-Noise Compression Method to Reduce PAPR of OFDM Signals", IEEE Communications Letters, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, NJ, US, Vol. 23, No. 8, 1 August 2019, pp. 1389-1392. Submitted by applicant via IDS hereinafter referred as Tang.
Regarding claims 3 and 11, the combination of Brandt ‘742 and Gunduz ‘684 teaches, all of the claim limitations except, in which the non-linearity results from filtering and clipping of a signal.
Tang teaches, in which the non-linearity results from filtering and clipping of a signal(section II. B, iterative clipping and filtering samples exceeding a threshold are clipped and the resulting signal is frequency-domain filtered).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Brandt ‘742, by incorporating the teaching of Tang, since such modification would provide a clipping-noise compression method for PAPR reduction, which can significantly reduce eh computational complexity, as suggested by Tang(section I).
Internet Communications
Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, which can be found: http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only: (1) Central Fax which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; or (3) EFS WEB. Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.03.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AWET A HAILE whose telephone number is (571)270-3114. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM EST.
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/AWET HAILE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474
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