DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This communication is responsive to Application No. 19/127,905 filed on May 07, 2025. Claims 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25 and 28 have been canceled. Accordingly, claims 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-13, 15-17, 19-20, 22-24 and 26-27 are subject to examination.
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
3. The IDSs submitted on 05/15/25 (note: in the Notice of Reference Cited, Examiner has attached the missing English translation of Foreign Patent Documents Cite No 1 “CN 104022983 A”) and 06/17/25 have been entered and considered by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
4. Following claims are objected to because of the following informalities:
in claims 3, 10, 17 and 24 the variable “N” needs to be defined (e.g., where N is a positive integer); and
in claim 8, “wireless device,” (line 2) should be replaced with “wireless device, WD,”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
5. 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.
6. Claims 1-3, 5-6, 12-13, 15-17, 19-20 and 26-27 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.
Claim 1 recites “a radio interface and processing circuitry configured to” (line 3). It is not clear whether said “configured to” is referring to both “a radio interface” and “processing circuitry” or said “configured to” is referring to only “processing circuitry”. Hence, render claim 1 and its dependent claims indefinite. Similar rejection applies to claim 15.
Claim 5 recites “signal content” (line 3). It is not clear whether said “signal content” is different form or the same “signal content” as recited in the last line of claim 1. Hence, render claim 5 indefinite. Similar rejection applies to claims 6, 12-13, 19-20 and 26-27.
Claim 6 recites the limitation "the larger" and "the fewer" in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. Similar rejection applies to claims 13, 20 and 27.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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 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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived 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:
I. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
II. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
III. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
IV. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
8. 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.
9. Claims 1-2, 5-6, 8-9, 12-13, 15-16, 19-20, 22-23 and 26-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khoryaev (US 9,419,830 B2) and in view of Al-Eidan (US 10,491,261 B1).
Regarding claims 1, 8, 15 & 22, Khoryaev teaches a node configured to communicate with a device, the node (Figure 1: 100) comprising one or both of a radio interface (Figure 1: 143 “RF”) and processing circuitry (Figure 1: 114 “Processor”) configured to: receive an orthogonal frequency division multiplex, OFDM, signal provided over a radio frequency, RF, channel that includes at least one guard band, the OFDM signal including at least one pilot signal (Figure 6: Step 604 “Transmitting an OFDM signal including at least one pilot subcarrier and a plurality of zero subcarriers surrounding the pilot subcarrier”, Step 606 “Receiving the OFDM Signal”, Figure 2A: 201 (the OFDM signal) that includes “Left Guard Band”, “Right Guard Band”, “Zero Samples”, “Pilot Subcarriers” & Figure 2B: 207 “ICI Guards”); and mitigate phase noise based at least in part on the at least one pilot signal and further based on observations of signal content of the at least one guard band (Figure 6: Step 608 “Estimating a spectrum of a phase noise affecting the OFDM signal” & Step 610 “Compensating the phase noise based on the estimated spectrum”). Although Khoryaev teaches the node that communicates with and device, Khoryaev does not explicitly disclose a network node to communicate with a wireless device, WD. In a related field of endeavor, Al-Eidan discloses a network node to communicate with a wireless device, WD (Figure 26: 261 (the OFDM signal) that includes “Guard Band” and “Pilot Subcarriers”, Figure 31: a mobile terminal & Figure 32: a base station). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Khoryaev’s communication to include a network and WD as in Al-Eidan. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so to reduce power consumption, Column 10, Lines 3-5.
Regarding claims 2, 9, 16 & 23, the combination of Khoryaev and Al-Eidan discloses the network node of claim 1, the method of claim 8, the WD of claim 15 and the method claim 22. In addition, Khoryaev discloses wherein mitigating the phase noise includes determining a deviation of the signal content of the at least one guard band from an expected signal content and mitigating the phase noise based on the deviation (Figure 2A: 201, Figure 2B: 209 & Equations 2-3).
Regarding claims 5, 12, 19 & 26, Khoryaev further discloses wherein the one or both of the radio interface and processing circuitry are configured to select the at least one guard band to observe signal content based at least in part on a presence of signals adjacent to a guard band of the at least one guard band and a presence of interference in a guard band of the at least one guard band (Figure 2A: 201, Figure 2B: 209, Equations 2-3 & Column 9, Lines 17-19: PN estimator, 132, selects the second number of zero subcarriers to be used for estimating the spectrum).
Regarding claims 6, 13, 20 & 27, Khoryaev also discloses wherein a number of guard bands for observation of signal content is based at least in part on a bandwidth of the OFDM signal, wherein the larger the bandwidth of the OFDM signal, the fewer the guard bands for observation of signal content (Figure 2A: 201, Figure 2B: 209 & Column 9, Lines 12-15: for a high SNR range, it is better to estimate more phase noise spectrum coefficients and apply a reduced number of ICI subcarrier).
10. Claims 3, 10, 17 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khoryaev in view of Al-Eidan and in further view of Yunusov (US 2024/0080158 A1).
Regarding claims 3, 10, 17 & 24, the combination of Khoryaev and Al-Eidan discloses the network node of claim 1, the method of claim 8, the WD of claim 15 and the method claim 22. In addition, Khoryaev discloses wherein the OFDM signal has subcarriers indexed from −NSR to NSR, and receiving the OFDM signal includes determining Fourier transform (FT), where N>2×NSR+1 such that N−2×NSR-1 subcarriers are outside the OFDM signal but within the FT (Figure 2A: 201, Figure 2B: 209, Column 2, Line 57: IEEE 802.11 standards & Column 10, Lines 5-6: a frequency-domain). However, the combination does not explicitly disclose an N-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT). In a related field of endeavor, Yunusov discloses an N-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) (Figure 3: “Subcarrier Index”, “M DFT” & Paragraph 11: estimate phase noise error… performing phase noise correcting). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination’s frequency domain to include DFT as in Yunusov. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so to improve communication, Paragraph 3.
Conclusion
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to SHAWKAT M. ALI whose telephone number is (571) 270-1639. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 8:30AM-3:30PM ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO AIR at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s Supervisor, SAM K. AHN can be reached on (571) 272-3044. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SHAWKAT M ALI/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633
