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 .
Claims 1-16 are pending.
IDS are considered.
Drawings are accepted.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lakkis (US 2007/0113159) in view of Zhang (US 2009/0285240).
As to claim 1, 12:
Lakkis discloses:
An ultra-wideband-based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) transmission method (See at least ¶0026, Fig. 2, 0058, UWB frame structure for a transmitter device), and a communication apparatus having a processor and transceiver unit (¶0085-87, processor, transceiver)performing the method comprising:
generating, by a communication apparatus, a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the PPDU comprises a preamble sequence, (¶0057, 0058, Mother-code pairs generated by the code generator are used to spread the preamble, header, and data fields in the frame) the preamble sequence is generated based on a sequence set, the sequence set comprises at least a first sequence and a second sequence, (See at least ¶0045, 0049-0056, 0058, a set of Golay complementary code pairs are employed, and each piconet maybe assigned one code pair to generate the preamble. Each pair is (ai,bi). The channel-estimation sequence is formed by repetition of code ai64 followed by a repetition of code bi64)
a result of a cross-correlation between a first part of the first sequence and a first part of the second sequence is A, a result of a cross-correlation between a second part of the first sequence and a second part of the second sequence is B, and a sum of A and B is 0; (See at least ¶0013, “pairs of binary complementary codes. If values of +1 and -1 are elements of Golay complementary sequences, then the sum of the autocorrelation functions of two Golay complementary sequences has zero sidelobes”, ¶0055, “ periodic autocorrelation function has a zero-correlation zone”, ¶0058, the result is a function of first part, i.e. from sequence a, then second part from sequence b, ¶0076, “ the sum of the autocorrelation of complementary codes a or b has zero sidelobe levels”)
and sending, by the communication apparatus’ transceiver unit, the PPDU. (¶0020, 0057, 0063, also claims 25-26, generate the complementary pair, spread the UWB frame, and transmit the UW signal)
Lakkis discloses generating and sending a UWB frame whose preamble is formed from a set of set of complementary Golay pairs (a,b), and teaches the sum of the autocorrelation of a and b is zero per ¶013, 0055, 0058, 0076). Lakkis does not explicitly refers to the cancellation in the wording of “a cross-correlation between a second part of the first sequence and a second part of the second sequence is B, and a sum of A and B is 0”. The difference is semantic rather than functional.
Zhang, in related field of endeavor, remedies the expressive difference by calling the pair a first and second sequence whose out of phase coefficients sum to zero per ¶0012, 0072,claims 4 and 6, and noting near-zero-cross correlation of the pair per ¶0072, and building each CES symbol from parts of a and parts of b per ¶0012, also figs, 8, 16.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to express Lakkis’ a-b UWB CES in Zhang’s part-wise complementary form, which is the same pair used the same way. The same of the two part-wise correlation is the complementary-pair identity Lakkis already relies on.
As to claim 7:
An ultra-wideband-based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) transmission method (See at least ¶0026, Fig. 2, 0058, UWB frame structure for communication between transmitter and a receiver), comprising:
receiving, by a communication apparatus, a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the PPDU comprises a preamble sequence, (¶0057, 0058, Mother-code pairs generated by the code generator are used to spread the preamble, header, and data fields in the frame) the preamble sequence is generated based on a sequence set, the sequence set comprises at least a first sequence and a second sequence, (See at least ¶0045, 0049-0056, 0058, a set of Golay complementary code pairs are employed, and each piconet maybe assigned one code pair to generate the preamble. Each pair is (ai,bi). The channel-estimation sequence is formed by repetition of code ai64 followed by a repetition of code bi64)
a result of a cross-correlation between a first part of the first sequence and a first part of the second sequence is A, a result of a cross-correlation between a second part of the first sequence and a second part of the second sequence is B, and a sum of A and B is 0; (See at least ¶0013, “pairs of binary complementary codes. If values of +1 and -1 are elements of Golay complementary sequences, then the sum of the autocorrelation functions of two Golay complementary sequences has zero sidelobes”, ¶0055, “ periodic autocorrelation function has a zero-correlation zone”, ¶0058, the result is a function of first part, i.e. from sequence a, then second part from sequence b, ¶0076, “ the sum of the autocorrelation of complementary codes a or b has zero sidelobe levels”)
and processing, by the communication apparatus, the PPDU. (¶0020, 0057, 0063, also claims 25-26, generate the complementary pair, spread the UWB frame, and the UW signal to be received and decoded)
Lakkis discloses generating and sending a UWB frame whose preamble is formed from a set of set of complementary Golay pairs (a,b), and teaches the sum of the autocorrelation of a and b is zero per ¶013, 0055, 0058, 0076). Lakkis does not explicitly refers to the cancellation in the wording of “a cross-correlation between a second part of the first sequence and a second part of the second sequence is B, and a sum of A and B is 0”. The difference is semantic rather than functional.
Zhang, in related field of endeavor, remedies the expressive difference by calling the pair a first and second sequence whose out of phase coefficients sum to zero per ¶0012, 0072,claims 4 and 6, and noting near-zero-cross correlation of the pair per ¶0072, and building each CES symbol from parts of a and parts of b per ¶0012, also figs, 8, 16.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to express Lakkis’ a-b UWB CES in Zhang’s part-wise complementary form, which is the same pair used the same way. The same of the two part-wise correlation is the complementary-pair identity Lakkis already relies on.
As to claims 3, 8:
Lakkis in view of Zhang discloses al limitations of claim 1/7, wherein any sequence in the sequence set comprises a first part and a second part, and a sum of an amplitude of an autocorrelation side lobe of the first part and an amplitude of an autocorrelation side lobe of the second part is 0. (See Lakkis, ¶0013, sum of autocorrelation functions of the two Golay complementary sequences has zero sidelobes, ¶0076, sum of the autocorrelation of complementary codes a or b has zero sidelobes levels, ¶0058, CES = first part (a) then second part (b), i.e. two parts of the sequence used in the preamble. See also Zhang, ¶0012, 0072, sum of autocorrelation coefficients of first/second sequences is zero)
As to claims 5, 10, 15:
Lakkis in view of Zhang discloses all limitations of claim 1/7/12, wherein the preamble sequence is a target sequence in the sequence set, or the preamble sequence is obtained by inserting one or more 0s into a target sequence in the sequence set.
(Lakkis discloses the preamble sequence is a target sequence in the sequence set in at least ¶0058, Fig. 2, SYNC/CES are spread with a/b from the pair set, i.e. using the target sequence from the set as the preamble)
Claim(s) 4, 9, 6, 14, 16 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lakkis (US 2007/0113159) in view of Zhang (US 2009/0285240) and in further view of Xin et al. (US 2014/0003474).
As to claim 4, 9, 14:
Lakkis in view of Zhang discloses all limitations of claim 1/7/12, and regarding:
the sequence set comprises K sequences, both a length of the first sequence and a length of the second sequence are N, and a length of a zero correlation zone of the first sequence and the second sequence is Z, wherein K, N, and Z meet the following condition: K = ½ [N/Z], wherein [N/Z]indicates rounding down
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to the nearest integer.
Lakkis already discloses at least a pair of sequences, i.e. first and second sequences (¶0045,0049-0046, Colay pairs, each pair comprises ai and bi), each sequence has N length (¶0056, length 64, ¶0063-0069, lengths 8 and 4, for example), the pair has zero-correlation zone of a predetermined length (i.e. around the main peak, periodic cross-correlation of the pairs <16), and generate and send UWB preamble for that set (¶0057-0058).
Lakkis does not explicitly disclose K = ½ [N/Z], wherein [N/Z]indicates rounding down
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to the nearest integer.
Xin, in a related field of endeavor, discloses construction of a set of M zero-correlation zone complementary pair sequences as (NxL, N, N, M), per ¶0057, and explicit constructions for length, zone, set-size per ¶0079, 0062, ¶0103-0104, 0096, keeping zone at N. In other words, Xin discloses same pair objects but with explicit K, N, Z set parameter and sizes. While Xin does not explicitly disclose coefficient ½, however the factor is obvious housekeeping as each claimed sequence is a two-part object.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that Lakkis includes such a relationship between K, N, and Z. Both references use the same two-part complementary object, so meeting the K=1/2 [N/Z] is the predictable size zone tradeoff, as motivated by the shared goal of packing more orthogonal complementary-pair training/preamble sequences inside a given zero-autocorrelation zone.
As to claims 6, 11, 16:
Lakkis in view of Zhang discloses all limitations of claim 5/10/15, and regarding:
the preamble sequence is: [a1, 0u1, a2, 0u2, …, aP, 0uP, b1, 0v1, b2, 0v2, ..., bQ, 0vQ];
or the preamble sequence is obtained by repeating a sequence of [a1, 0u1, a2, 0u2, ..., aP, 0uP, b1, 0v1, b2, 0v2, ..., bQ, 0vQ] one or more times, wherein a1, a2, ..., and aP represent P-part elements obtained by splitting a first part of the target sequence, and b1, b2, ..., and bQ represent Q-part elements obtained by splitting a second part of the target sequence; and 0u1, 0u2, ..., and 0uP respectively represent (u1)th, (u2)th, ..., and (uP)th consecutive 0s, 0v1, 0v2, ..., and 0vP respectively represent (v1)th, (v2)th, ..., and (vQ)th consecutive 0s, u1, u2, ..., and uP and v1, v2, ..., and vQ are all integers greater than or equal to 0.
Lakkis discloses the target sequence has a first part and second part, ¶0058, Fig. 2, CES is a complementary pair a then b, and preamble includes the parts in order, with repeated gapped patter per¶057. The claimed detailed sequence listed in the claims merely spells out an the concept already thought by Lakkis.
Lakkis does not explicitly disclose the inserted-zero embodiment as claimed above.
Xin, in a related field of endeavor, discloses in at least ¶0067, Fig. 5-7, Fig. 5, interleaved (A, B, A, B…) and zero between symbols per fig. 5, see also ¶038, 0079, length- N pair concatenated L times, corresponding the a/b sets in claim 6. Therefore Xin discloses a split/concatenate the complementary pair into ordered and interleaved A and B pieces, with inserted zeros.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention to generate Lakkis’ UWB preamble in the form of [a1, 0u1, a2, 0u2, …, aP, 0uP, b1, 0v1, b2, 0v2, ..., bQ, 0vQ]. Insertion of 0s between the symbols of complementary pairs advantageously allow flexible control of rate and guard spacing.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, and 13 is/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.
The references of record disclose all limitation of the base claims as established above, however fail to disclose:
before the generating, by a communication apparatus, a physical layer protocol data unit PPDU, the method further comprises:
receiving, by the communication apparatus, configuration information, wherein the configuration information comprises a device address of the communication apparatus,
the configuration information further comprises sequence configuration information, and the sequence configuration information comprises one or more of the following:
a sequence index corresponding to the communication apparatus, a plurality of gaps corresponding to the communication apparatus,
or positions of the plurality of gaps in a target sequence;
and a gap corresponding to the communication apparatus indicates a quantity of consecutive 0s inserted at a position in the target sequence, the target sequence belongs to the sequence set, and a sequence index of the target sequence is the same as the sequence index corresponding to the communication apparatus.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
McLaughlin et al. (US 9054790) - In an ultra-wideband ("UWB") receiver, a received UWB signal is periodically digitized as a series of ternary samples. The samples are continuously correlated with a predetermined preamble sequence to develop a correlation value. When the value exceeds a predetermined threshold, indicating that the preamble sequence is being received, estimates of the channel impulse response ("CIR") are developed. When a start-of-frame delimiter ("SFD") is detected, the best CIR estimate is provided to a channel matched filter ("CMF") substantially to filter channel-injected noise.
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/QUAN M HUA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645
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