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 .
Priority
2. Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The Information Disclosure Statement filed on May 9, 2025 has been considered. An initialed copy of the Form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
5. Claims 1, 2, 4-10, 12-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Niu et al (2025/0267632), hereinafter Niu.
With respect to claims 1, 9, and 17, Niu teaches in paragraph 0086-0087, a method of a reader, comprising: generating a physical reader-to-device channel (PRDCH) preamble including a first preamble and a second preamble; generating a reader-to-device (R2D) signal including the PRDCH preamble and a PRDCH; and transmitting the R2D signal to a device, wherein the PRDCH preamble is located before the PRDCH in time domain.
With respect to claims 2, 10, and 18, Niu teaches in paragraphs 0117, the method, wherein the first preamble is used to indicate a transmission start of the PRDCH, and a length of the first preamble has a fixed value in time domain.
With respect to claims 4 and 12, Niu teaches in paragraph 0152, the method, wherein a chip period of the second preamble is equal to a chip period of the PRDCH.
With respect to claims 5, 13, and 20, Niu teaches in paragraph 0102, the method, wherein the PRDCH includes control information and a payload, and the control information includes at least one of PRDCH scheduling information or physical device-to-reader channel (PDRCH) scheduling information.
With respect to claims 6, 7, 14, and 15, Niu teaches in paragraph 0139, the method, wherein a part of the PRDCH scheduling information is transmitted using a physical layer message.
With respect to claim 7, Niu teaches in paragraph 0154, the method, wherein a part of the PDRCH scheduling information is transmitted using a higher layer message.
With respect to claims 8 and 16, Niu teaches in paragraph 0154, the method, wherein a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is applied independently for each of the control information and the payload.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 3, 11, and 19 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 following is an examiner’s reason for allowance: Although Niu teaches methods of signal reception techniques in a communication system, wherein the methods specifically include generating a PRDCH preamble including a first and second preamble, the above identified prior art of record, taken alone, or in combination with any other prior art, fails to teach or fairly suggest the specific features of claims 6-16 of the present claimed invention. Specifically, prior art fails to teach the claimed method wherein the second preamble is used to acquire synchronization for receiving the PRDCH, and a length of the second preamble in time domain is changed based on M of an on-off keying (OOK) modulation scheme used for the PRDCH, and M is a number of coded bits per orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and further fail to teach the claimed method and device, wherein the receiving of the R2D signal from the reader comprises: acquiring synchronization for receiving the PRDCH based on the second preamble included in the R2D signal, wherein a length of the second preamble in time domain is changed based on M of an on-off keying (OOK) modulation scheme used for the PRDCH, and M is a number of coded bits per orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol. The above limitations are not disclosed in prior art and moreover, one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to come to the claimed invention.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: See attached PTO form 892, Refence Cited.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Allyson N. Trail whose telephone number is (571) 272-2406. The examiner can normally be reached between the hours of 7:30AM to 4:00PM Monday thru Friday.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael G. Lee, can be reached on (571) 272-2398. The fax phone number for this Group is (571) 273-8300.
Communications via Internet e-mail regarding this application, other than those under 35 U.S.C. 132 or which otherwise require a signature, may be used by the applicant and should be addressed to [allyson.trail@uspto.gov].
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/ALLYSON N TRAIL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
March 17, 2026