DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-6, 8-16, 18-19, 21, and 23-24 are presented for examination.
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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 6/5/25, 3/18/26 have been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The Figure 1b is objected to because the drawings are not of sufficient quality for satisfactory reproduction. Specifically the first column in this figure.
See 37 CFR 1.84(l).
(l) Character of lines, numbers, and letters. All drawings must be made by a process which will give them satisfactory reproduction characteristics. Every line, number, and letter must be durable, clean, black (except for color drawings), sufficiently dense and dark, and uniformly thick and well-defined. The weight of all lines and letters must be heavy enough to permit adequate reproduction.
This requirement applies to all lines however fine, to shading, and to lines representing cut surfaces in sectional views. Lines and strokes of different thicknesses may be used in the same drawing where different thicknesses have a different meaning.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-6, 8-16, 18-19, 21, and 23-24 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
As per claims 1, 21 and 23, the following phrases in the independent claims “the encoded data sequence comprises N pieces of encoded data, N is an integer greater than K” and “N represents a number of polarized subchannels, and N is less than or equal to an nth power of 2” appear to define the variable N with two different definitions. Therefore, it is not clear to the examiner whether these two definitions describe the same variable or two different ones. The specification generally is not clear and using almost the same language, but does not clarify the issue. See Paragraphs [0012], [0019] and [0033-0035].
Further in claims 6, 8-11, 14-16, 18, and 19 use the same variable “N” which causes more confusion as to which definition to use – unless they are the same but either way this should be clarified in the claims.
Claims 2-6, 8-16, 18, 19 and 24 depend either directly of indirectly on the independent claims and as such inherit the lack of clarity of the independent claims and are rejected for the same reasoning. Clarification is required for a proper search and comparison with the prior arts. As such these claims will not be considered with respect to the prior arts.
The examiner invites applicant to call for an interview if it would provide clarity.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 10,348,328 to Nammi et al. teaches programming of frozen bits of first stage control channel information block enables scheduling information to be included for the second stage of the control channel information. By including some of the scheduling information for the second stage in the first stage frozen bits, the size of the first stage information blocks can be reduced, reducing the overhead required to transmit control information for the traffic channel.
US 10,608,669 to Nammi et al. teaches bit locations can be based on the type of polar code selected to encode/decode the data channels. Different polar codes, based on the encoding/decoding process, may have different locations that have different reliabilities. Similarly, for a given polar code, information blocks of different lengths may have different frozen and non-frozen bit locations.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CYNTHIA H BRITT whose telephone number is (571)272-3815. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 8-5.
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 Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mark Featherstone can be reached at (571)270-3750. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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CYNTHIA H. BRITT
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2111
/CYNTHIA BRITT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2111
