10444337 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 20, 2011)

Ex Parte Ozen

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesDec 20, 2011

10444337 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 20, 2011)

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. 10/444,337 05/23/2003 Serdar Ozen 7220D. 7582 7590 12/20/2011 Zenith Electronics Corporation 2000 Millbrook Drive Lincolnshire, IL 60069 EXAMINER WANG, TED M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2611 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/20/2011 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________________ Ex parte SERDAR OZEN ____________________ Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, JOHN A. JEFFERY, and THU A. DANG, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 2 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 5, 9, 12, and 16 (App. Br. 2). Claims 1-4 are allowed and claims 6-8, 10, 11, 13-15, 17, and 18 are objected to as being dependent upon rejected claims but are otherwise considered to be allowable (id.). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. A. INVENTION Appellant’s invention is directed to the estimation of a channel impulse response (CIR) based both on the training sequence that is periodically transmitted within a continuous stream of information symbols and on the statistics of the unknown data adjacent to the training sequence (Spec. 2, ll. 11-16). B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 5 is exemplary: 5. A method for determining a channel impulse response for a channel comprising: receiving a signal from the channel, wherein the received signal contains a training sequence and unknown data; and, determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response in accordance with only two factors, wherein the two factors consist of the received signal and a constant. Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 3 C. REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Piirainen US 2002/0024994 A1 Feb. 28, 2002 Claims 5, 9, 12 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Piirainen. II. ISSUE The dispositive issue before us is whether the Examiner has erred in determining that Piirainen teaches “determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response in accordance with only two factors, wherein the two factors consist of the received signal and a constant” (claim 5, emphasis added). III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Pirrainen 1. Piirainen discloses estimation means which are adapted to operate on the basis of Bayes’ Theorem or on the basis of linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE-) processing (p. 3, ¶ [0040]), wherein the channel impulse response function in vector representation h can be obtained based on the following basis equation: h = E(h)+(Chh-1 + XHCW-1X)XHCW-1(y-XE(h)), with y representing received signals, X representing a symbol sequence matrix, CW representing the covariance matrix of noise, Chh Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 4 representing the covariance matrix of the estimated channel impulse response function parameters, and E representing the phase matrix including information of the signal phase relation of the received signals (p. 3, ¶¶ [0045]-[0047]). 2. Using assumptions and substitutions, the basis equation is reduced to the following format: h = (δ2Chh-1 +XHX)-1XHy with δ2 denoting the value of the variance of the noise of the starting point linear model (p. 4, [0062]-[0063]). 3. As δ2 → 0, the method/device will perform the processing according to a classical least square error method, wherein the unknown parameters required in the reduced equation are δ2 and Chh (p. 4, ¶¶ [0064]- [0065]). IV. ANALYSIS Appellant contends that Appellant’s equation “can be pre-calculated (prior to use in the receiver) because all terms are known” (App. Br. 5). Appellant argues that contrary to Appellant’s teaching, in Piirainen, “the noise variance δ2 and the channel impulse response covariance matrix Chh are unknowns and need to be determined” (App. Br. 7). Thus, according to Appellant, “Piirainen does not disclose determining a channel impulse response in accordance with only the received signal and a constant” (App. Br. 8). After reviewing the record before us, we agree with Appellant that Piirainen does not teach “determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response in accordance with only two factors, wherein the two Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 5 factors consist of the received signal and a constant” as required by representative claim 5. Piirainen discloses estimating using a reduced equation: h = (δ2Chh-1 +XHX)-1XHy, wherein y denotes a received signal, X denotes a symbol sequence matrix, δ2 denotes the value of the variance of the noise, and Chh denotes the covariance matrix of the estimated channel impulse response function parameters (FF 1-2). Though X is known (a constant), δ2 and Chh are unknown and to be determined (FF 3). Thus, we find Piirainen to disclose determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response in accordance with the received signal, a constant and two unknown variables. That is, we do not find any teaching in the portions cited by the Examiner of determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response in accordance with only the received signal and a constant as required by claim 5. Though the Examiner finds that “Piirainen’s reference clearly teaches that as δ2 → 0, the proposed method/device will perform a processing according to classical LSE method” and thus the Piirainen’s equation will be reduced to “h = (0 +XHX)-1XHy” (Ans. 6), we agree with Appellant that “δ2 → 0 in classical mathematical notation simply means ‘as δ2 approaches the limit condition of 0’ or, put another way, ‘as δ2 becomes sufficiently small’” (Reply Br. 2). That is, as δ2 approaches 0, it is not 0, i.e., a constant, but is rather a sufficiently small variable. Thus, contrary to the Examiner’s findings, as δ2 approaches 0, δ2Chh-1 becomes sufficiently small but is not a constant. Accordingly, we find that Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting representative claim 5 under over Piirainen. Independent Appeal 2010-001536 Application 10/444,337 6 claim 12 recites similar limitations with respect to claim 5 and thus falls with claim 5. Therefore, we find that Appellant has shown that the Examiner has erred in rejecting independent claims 5 and 12 and claims 9 and 16, depending respectively therefrom and falling therewith over Piirainen. V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 9, 12, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is reversed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). REVERSED peb