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 § 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.
1. Claims 1-6 and 10-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 2023/0308325) in view of Schultze (US 2022/0173948).
2. As per claim 1, Zhang teaches a method, comprising: receiving input digital data (Zhang, Fig. 2 item 201); generating, based upon the input digital data, zero-crossing modulated waveform data encoding the input digital data (Zhang, ¶0138 “… Modulate the data stream … zero crossing …”) wherein the zero-crossing modulated waveform data represents an auxiliary zero-crossing modulated waveform having a plurality of periods (Zhang, ¶0138 “… period … zero time point … zero time point is a zero crossing …”) wherein portions of the plurality of periods are perturbed in at least one of amplitude and phase relative to a sinusoid (Zhang, ¶0024-0025 “… modulated signal … sin …”. Furthermore, it’s well-known in the art to implement wherein portions of the plurality of periods are perturbed in at least one of amplitude and phase relative to a sinusoid in signal modulation -see Schultze US 2022/0173948 for example ¶0081-0082); and mixing the zero-crossing modulated waveform data and modulation data representing a modulated signal so as to produce a multi-component signal (Zhang, ¶0024-0025 “… modulated signal … sin …”). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Zhang and Schultze as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the instant limitation for the benefit of improving modulation and communication performance.
3. Claim 15 is similarly analyzed as claim 1 for obviousness reason discussed above.
4. As per claim 2, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the multi-component signal is a digital multi-component signal, the method further including: converting the digital multi-component signal into an encoded analog signal; transmitting the encoded analog signal (Zhang, ¶0224).
5. Claim 16 is similarly analyzed as claim 2 for obviousness reason discussed above.
6. As per claim 3, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the mixing includes multiplying the zero-crossing modulated waveform data and the modulation data (Zhang, ¶0222).
7. Claim 17 is similarly analyzed as claim 3 for obviousness reason discussed above.
8. As per claim 4, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the mixing includes complex multiplying the zero-crossing modulated waveform data and the modulation data (Zhang, ¶0221).
9. Claim 18 is similarly analyzed as claim 4 for obviousness reason discussed above.
10. As per claim 5, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the auxiliary zero-crossing modulated waveform comprises a shape-shifted sinusoidal waveform (Schultze, ¶0037).
11. Claim 19 is similarly analyzed as claim 5 for obviousness reason discussed above.
12. As per claim 6, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the generating the zero-crossing modulated waveform data includes retrieving, from computer-readable memory (Zhang, ¶0270), first zero-crossing modulated waveform segment data representing a first bit of the input digital data and second zero-crossing modulated waveform segment data representing a second bit of the input digital data (Zhang, ¶0029-0030).
13. As per claim 10, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the modulation data includes amplitude modulation (AM) data representing an AM signal (Schultze, ¶0029).
14. As per claim 11, Zhang teaches a method, comprising: receiving a multi-component analog signal including a modulated signal and an auxiliary zero-crossing modulated signal encoding input digital data (Zhang, ¶0170 “… receive end may obtain the modulated signal …”); generating digital samples of the modulated signal (Zhang, ¶0172 “ … obtained by sampling the modulated signal …” Furthermore, it’s well-known in the art to generating digital samples of the modulated signal on a receiver end in order to recover transmitted data -see Schultze US 2022/0173948 for example ¶0120); mixing the digital samples of the modulated signal with a carrier signal for the modulated signal to create a downconverted signal (Zhang, ¶0173); and decoding the downconverted signal to obtain estimates of the input digital data (Zhang, ¶0173). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Zhang and Schultze as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement the instant limitation for the benefit of improving communication performance.
15. As per claim 12, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 11 further including recovering the carrier signal for the modulated signal from the digital samples of the modulated signal (Zhang, ¶0172).
16. As per claim 13, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 12 further including recovering a carrier of the auxiliary zero-crossing modulated signal based upon the downconverted signal (Zhang, ¶0173).
17. As per claim 14, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 13 wherein the decoding includes comparing a phase of the downconverted signal to a phase of the carrier of the auxiliary zero-crossing modulated signal (Schultze, ¶0200).
18. Claims 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 2023/0308325) in view of Schultze (US 2022/0173948), and further in view of Janesch (US 6650721).
19. As per claim 7, Zhang in view of Schultze teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1). While Zhang in view of Schultze doesn’t explicitly mention, Janesch teaches further including generating the modulation data by modulating a numerically controlled oscillator with the modulation data (Janesch, Col 6 L49-50). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Zhang, Schultze and Janesch as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to implement a well-known teaching and/or instant limitation for the benefit of improving communication performance.
20. As per claim 8, Zhang in view of Schultze and Janesch teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the generating zero-crossing modulated waveform data includes modulating a numerically controlled oscillator (Janesch, Col 6 L49-50) with baseband zero-crossing modulated waveform data (Zhang, ¶0138).
21. As per claim 9, Zhang in view of Schultze and Janesch teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the modulation data includes frequency modulation (FM) data representing an FM signal (Janesch, Col 6 L49-50).
Conclusion
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ZEWDU A. KASSA
Examiner
Art Unit 2637
/ZEWDU A KASSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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