Appeal No. 2006-3367 Page 3
Application No. 09/849,927
According to the examiner (answer, pages 3 and 4), the admitted prior art
(specification, page 2, line 30 through page 4, line 12 and page 7, lines 4 through 16)
discloses the claim 1 steps of “receiving a data stream generated from a plurality of space
time coded (STC) data streams received from a plurality of transmit antenna elements,”
and “receiving a training sequence for a channel through which the data stream has been
sent and assessing a channel impulse response for the channel based on the training
sequence.” The examiner acknowledges (answer, page 4) that the remainder of the steps
set forth in claim 1 is not disclosed in the admitted prior art.
The examiner is of the opinion (answer, pages 4 and 5) that DiToro describes the
steps missing in the teachings of the admitted prior art. Based upon the teachings of
DiToro, the examiner concludes (answer, page 5) that “it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention that DiToro teaches an equalization
process implemented in the frequency domain and this is implemented in the receiver as
described in the communication system as described in the AAPA [applicant’s admitted
prior art] so as to accurately recover the transmitted signal in the receiver by minimizing
the computational complexity of the equalization process.”
DiToro describes a process of equalization of received signals by apparatus
operating in the frequency domain (column 1, lines 1 through 10). DiToro transmits a
message signal in burst form, and interleaves known test signals during time gaps in the
message signal (Figure 1C; Abstract; column 2, lines 7 through 28). At the receiver, the
message signal and the known test signal are converted into the frequency domain
(Abstract; column 2, lines 29 and 30). DiToro makes clear that the message signal and
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007