Ex Parte Seyedi-Esfahani et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 9, 2018

12096626 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2018)

United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/096,626 06/09/2008 Seyed-Alireza Seyedi-Esfahani 2005P02751WOUS 3416 24737 7590 03/13/2018 PTTTT TPS TNTFT T FfTTTAT PROPFRTY fr STANDARDS EXAMINER 465 Columbus Avenue TIMORY, KABIR A Suite 340 Valhalla, NY 10595 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2631 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/13/2018 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): patti. demichele @ Philips, com marianne. fox @ philips, com katelyn.mulroy @philips .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SEYED-ALIREZA SEYEDI-ESFAHANI, VASANTH GADDAM, and DAGNACHEW BIRRU Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 Technology Center 2600 Before STEVEN D.A. MCCARTHY, DENISE M. POTHIER, and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1,6, 15, 20, 24, 25, 30, and 32. Final Act. 1. Claims 2—5, 7—14, 16—19, 21—23, 26—29, and 31 have been canceled. App. Br. 13—15 (Claims App.). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 1, 6, 20, 25, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujii (US 2005/0099936 Al, published May 12, 2005), Yoshida (US 2006/0209974 Al, published Sept. 21, 2006), and Ido (US 2007/0036231 Al, published Feb. 15, 2007). Final Act. 7-10. 1 The real party in interest of the above-identified application is Koninklijke Philips N.V. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 Claims 15, 24, and 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Fujii, Yoshida, Ido, and Palanki (US 2006/0203932 Al, published Sept. 14, 2006). Final Act. 10—11. We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ invention relates to “an adaptive length Guard Interval for Single Carrier Block Transmission in digital communication systems.” Spec. 1:5—7. Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below, with a key disputed limitation emphasized: 1. A system for a Single Carrier Block Transmission having a block of symbols with length N, comprising: a transmitter configured to transmit a guard interval (GI) of a pre-determined length AW before each block of symbols; and a receiver configured to remove the GI of the length Ngi transmitted by the transmitter and received before each block of symbols by the receiver, wherein the transmitter periodically determines the length Ngi of the GI based on an estimate of channel impulse response from received packets, with the length Ngi of the GI being selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response, and sends the length Ngi to the receiver such that an impact of the GI on bandwidth efficiency is reduced. 2 Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 ANALYSIS The Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1, 6,20,25, and 30 over Fujii, Yoshida, and Ido The Examiner finds Fujii, Yoshida, and Ido teach all limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 8—10. In particular, the Examiner finds “Fujii and Yoshida disclose all of the subject matter as described above except for specifically teaching with [sic] the length Ngi of the GI being selected to contain a predetermined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response.” Final Act. 9. In particular, the Examiner finds Ido teaches (claim 1) the recited “with the length Ngi of the GI being selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response.” See Final Act. 9—10 (citing Ido, Figs. 1, 3 A—3D, 4, 7, 9A—9C, 1173, 84, 93). The Examiner reasons it would have been obvious to one [of] ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to use guard interval containing largest power (interpreted to be a pre-determined percentage of channel power) as taught by Ido to modify the guard interval of Fujii in order to prevent intersymbol interference from the system. Final Act. 10. Appellants present, among other arguments, the following principal argument: Ido has nothing to do with any selection of the length Ngi of the GI that is used for transmitting by the transmitter. There does not appear to be any feedback sent from the Ido demodulation device that could possibly be considered as a selection of the length Ngi of the GI for use by a transmitter on any basis, let 3 Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 alone based on a yre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power. FIGs. 3 and 9 of Ido appear to relate to the incoming signal at a receiver. There appear to be two simultaneous incoming waves. These waves are multipath versions of the same originally transmitted signal. In this regard, note that both waves appear to be carrying the same i-th symbol. Ido thus appears to be directed to reducing intersymbol interference in the case of the existence of such multipath waves by specially processing the received waves at the receiver. The power spectrums of the two waves shown in FIGs. 3b-3d and 9b-9c thus actually appear to be the power spectrum of the same single transmitted signal after it has gone through two different paths from the transmitter to reach the receiver due to environmental conditions that create multiple paths to the receiver. Depending on what the transmitted signal bounces off of, there may be many versions of it and the power and timing of two such waves at the receiver are shown. App. Br. 9; see also Reply Br. 2—12. We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Ido discloses The present invention relates to a demodulation device and a demodulation method, and its object is to demodulate subcarrier components utilizing estimated delay profiles to control the timing for performing a Fourier transform and the pass band of an interpolation filter used in interpolating transmission channel characteristics along a frequency axis so as to suppress unnecessary noise components, whereby an error rate after the demodulation is reduced. To achieve the object, in a demodulation device according to the present invention, a Fourier transform unit 1 performs a Fourier transform according to a timing signal and an interpolation filter unit 18 sets a pass band of a frequency interpolation filter used for interpolation 4 Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 along the frequency axis based on a signal corresponding to a maximum delay time, whereby the frequency band of a transmission channel characteristic corresponding to a subcarrier component is restricted when it is output. Ido, Abstract (emphasis added). To the extent Ido’s receiver estimates the channel impulse response, we do not readily see a teaching of the transmitter selecting the length of the guard interval based on this estimate, and more particularly, we further do not see the guard interval length “selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response” as recited in claim 1. Notably, the Examiner’s reliance on Ido to teach this limitation focuses on activities occurring at a receiver—not at a transmitter, as recited. See Final Act. 9-10 (citing Ido, Figs. 1, 3A—3D, 4, 7, 9A-9C,H73, 84, 93). In response, in the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner elaborates by further discussing the processing at Ido’s receiver. See Ans. 3—11. This discussion does not change our determination because, as discussed above, we do not readily see any teaching of the transmitter selecting the length of the guard interval. For example, the Examiner finds Ido’s moving average-calculating unit 23 in Figure 5 teaches the length of the guard interval being selected. See Ans. 4 (citing Ido 149). Ido discloses The moving average-calculating unit 23 [in Figure 5] calculates a moving average value of the input complex signal for a predetermined interval length and outputs the result of the calculation to a correlation maximum point-detecting unit 24. Here, a guard interval length may be set as the predetermined interval length, for example. 5 Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 Ido 149. Thus, contrary to the Examiner’s finding, we do not agree Ido teaches the guard interval being selected. Rather, Ido describes setting the interval length used by moving average-calculating unit 23. Ido describes that the guard interval length may be used for this purpose. Again, to the extent Ido’s receiver estimates the channel impulse response, we do not readily see any teaching of a transmitter selecting the length of the guard interval based on this estimate, and more particularly, we further do not see the guard interval length “selected to contain a pre determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response” as recited in claim 1. We, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. Independent claim 6 similarly recites “with the length Ngi of the GI being selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response.” We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 6. Independent claim 20 likewise recites “wherein given an estimate of channel impulse response the length Ngi of the GI is selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power.” We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 20. Independent claims 25 recites “with the length Ngi of the GI being selected to contain a pre-determined cumulative percentage of channel power for the estimate of channel impulse response.” We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 25. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 30, which depends from claim 25. 6 Appeal 2017-010147 Application 12/096,626 The Obviousness Rejection of Claims 15,24, and 32 over Fujii, Yoshida, Ido, and Palanki The Examiner does not find Palanki cures the deficiency of Fujii, Yoshida, and Ido, discussed above. See Final Act. 10-11. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 15, 24, and 32. ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1,6, 15, 20, 24, 25, 30, and 32 is reversed. REVERSED 7