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
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.
Claims 37-39 and 47-49 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gross et al. (US 10,567,010), hereinafter Gross, in view of Xu et al. (EP 3607689), hereinafter Xu.
Regarding claim 37, Gross teaches a method comprising: receiving a transmission including a plurality of channel symbols (Gross, col. 5, lines 1-5 teach successive-cancellation [SC] decoding estimating bits using a channel output y; col. 6, lines 21-34 teach a decoder receiving LLR values calculated from a channel output); calculating a plurality of log-likelihood ratio (LLR) values from the plurality of received channel symbols (Gross, col. 5, lines 1-10 teach the SC decoder using the channel output and an LLR defined as Equation 2A; col. 6, lines 21-34 teach the root node inputs being LLR values calculated from the channel output); performing fast list decoding based on the plurality of calculated LLR values (Gross, col. 23, lines 7-11 teaches an SSC-List algorithm having lower latency and greater throughput than the prior art SC-List algorithm; col. 38, lines 36-40 teaches updating path metrics for each path) to generate a plurality of decoded sequences (Gross, col. 19, lines 46-61 teaches a list decoder keeping L distinct paths and presets the L most likely candidate codewords after decoding; col. 23, lines 21-23 teaches an adaptive SSC-List-CRC decoding algorithm that generates a list of L candidate codewords) and a plurality of path metric values corresponding to the plurality of decoded sequences (Gross, col. 19, 55-61 teaches each candidate having a path reliability metric; col. 23, lines 21-23 teaches the candidates produced by the SSC-List are sorted by their path reliability metric); determining a decoded sequence, of the plurality of decoded sequences, satisfies a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) check from among the plurality of decoded sequences (Gross, col. 19, line 63 through col. 20, lines 1-10 teach the CRC provides the selection criterion among the final candidate codewords; col. 23, lines 24-27 teaches the adaptive procedure selects the most reliable candidate among the list that satisfies the CRC); outputting the decoded sequence (Gross, col. 57-61 teaches the codeword with the best path reliability metric is selected as the decoder output; col. 23, lines 24-27 teaches that under the CRC procedure, the most reliable CRC-passing candidate is selected and if none passes, the best metric candidate is selected).
Gross fails to teach the method being implemented by a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU).
However, Xu, in an analogous art, teaches the method being implemented by a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (Xu, para. [0045]-[0050] teaches a wireless device with a transmitter and receiver, that receives polar-encoded input data over a channel, and a processor and memory performing polar and CRC decoding).
Gross and Xu are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of polar coding systems utilizing cyclic redundancy check codes.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the fast SSC-List-CRC decoder taught by Gross to incorporate the teachings of Xu by including the functionality of the wireless receiver apparatus.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to provide the receiver taught by Xu with reduced decoding latency.
Regarding claim 38, the combination of Gross in view of Xu teaches the method of claim 37, further comprising: performing a CRC check on each of the plurality of decoded sequences, until determining the decoded sequence which satisfies the CRC check (Gross, col. 19, line 63 through col. 20, lines 1-10 teach the CRC provides the selection criterion among the final candidate codewords; col. 23, lines 24-27 teaches that under the CRC procedure, the most reliable CRC-passing candidate is selected and if none passes, the best metric candidate is selected).
Regarding claim 39, the combination of Gross in view of Xu teaches the method of claim 38, wherein the CRC check is performed on each of the plurality of decoded sequences in an order based on the plurality of path metric values (Gross, col. 23, lines 21-27 teaches that generating L candidate codewords, sorting them by path-reliability metric and choosing the most reliable candidate that satisfies CRC).
Claim 47 is a wireless transmit/receive unit with limitations similar to the method of claim 37, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 48 is a wireless transmit/receive unit with limitations similar to the method of claim 38, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 49 is a wireless transmit/receive unit with limitations similar to the method of claim 39, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 40, 46, 50 and 56 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gross in view of Xu, as applied to claims 37 and 47 above, and further in view of Shen et al. (US 10,341,048), hereinafter Shen.
Regarding claim 40, the combination of Gross in view of Xu teaches the method of claim 37, but fails to teach further comprising: polar encoding the output decoded sequence, wherein an output sequence of the polar encoding includes a plurality of information bits carried by the transmission.
However, Shen, in an analogous art, teaches further comprising: polar encoding (Shen, Fig. 7, S702, col. 13, lines 45-46, “S702. The decoder performs Polar code encoding on the third bit vector to generate an encoded second code word”) the output decoded sequence (Shen, Fig. 7, S701-S702, col. 13, lines 43-46, “S701. A decoder performs Polar code decoding on a received to-be-decoded vector to generate a third bit vector. S702. The decoder performs Polar code encoding on the third bit vector to generate an encoded second code word”; the third bit vector is the decoder output sequence that gets polar encoded), wherein an output sequence of the polar encoding (Shen, Fig. 7, S702 teaches an encoded second code word being generated from the polar encoding on the third bit vector) includes a plurality of information bits (Shen, Fig. 7, S703, col. 13, lines 47-50, “S703. The decoder extracts, from the encoded second code word, a bit corresponding to a sequence number of an information bit index set, and uses the bit as a decoded fourth information bit”) carried by the transmission (Shen, Fig. 7, S701-S703 teaches a received to-be-decoded vector and identifying the information bit index set being recovered from the received vector as decoded information, which means that the information bits are represented by the received transmission).
Gross, Xu, and Shen are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of polar coding systems.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Gross in view of Xu to incorporate the teachings of Shen by including the functionality of applying polar encoding on the decoder side and extracting information bits.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to all for relatively low complexity conversion to a polar code converted into a system code, and improve bit error rate performance of the polar code (Shen, col. 1, lines 46-50, “Embodiments of the present invention provide a channel encoding and decoding method and apparatus, which can implement that a Polar code is converted into a system code in a manner with relatively low complexity, and can improve bit error rate performance of the Polar code”).
Regarding claim 46, the combination of Gross in view of Xu, further in view of Shen teaches the method of claim 37, further comprising: setting one or more parts of the output decoded sequence (Shen, Fig. 7, S701-S702, col. 13, lines 43-46, “S701. A decoder performs Polar code decoding on a received to-be-decoded vector to generate a third bit vector. S702. The decoder performs Polar code encoding on the third bit vector to generate an encoded second code word”; the third bit vector is the decoder output sequence that gets polar encoded) which correspond to frozen input bits (Shen, col. 13, lines 53-54, “First, Polar code encoding is performed on the third bit vector and a frozen bit”) to a fixed value before performing the polar encoding (Shen, col. 9, lines 3-7, “Specifically, by using the foregoing generated second bit vector, a frozen bit, and a Polar code generator matrix, Polar code encoding may be performed to generate the encoded first code word, where the frozen bit is a specific bit in a Polar code, and the frozen bit is known and may be set to 0”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of Gross in view of Xu to incorporate the teachings of Shen by including the functionality of setting positions corresponding to frozen bits to their known fixed values before performing polar encoding on a decoded sequence.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would be to all for relatively low complexity conversion to a polar code converted into a system code, and improve bit error rate performance of the polar code (Shen, col. 1, lines 46-50, “Embodiments of the present invention provide a channel encoding and decoding method and apparatus, which can implement that a Polar code is converted into a system code in a manner with relatively low complexity, and can improve bit error rate performance of the Polar code”).
Claim 50 is a wireless transmit/receive unit with limitations similar to the method of claim 40, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 56 is a wireless transmit/receive unit with limitations similar to the method of claim 46, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 42-45 and 52-55 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art of record does not teach or suggest determining one or more CRC bits using a plurality of output bits of one or more component polar codes of a polar encoding, in combination with the remaining limitations of the claims. Instead, the prior art calculates CRC bits from information bits before polar encoding. The prior art therefore does not teach or suggest using component polar code output bits as inputs to the CRC determination. Accordingly, claims 41 and 51 are indicated as allowable subject matter.
Claims 42-45 and 52-55 are dependent on claims 41 and 51, respectively, and are therefore rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Meller et al. (US 11,201,629) teaches low latency list decoding using constituent polar codes, candidate codewords, likelihood information, and sequential processing.
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/G.V.B./Examiner, Art Unit 2112
/ALBERT DECADY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2112
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