Qualcomm developed an LTE essential patent portfolio through patent engineering of its existing patents related to channel coding and modulation schemes. The document describes Qualcomm's strategy to design claim terms in continuation applications of issued patents to be essential to 3GPP LTE specifications for channel coding and modulation. This allowed Qualcomm to strengthen its patent portfolio in an area of LTE that will be widely implemented in LTE devices.

1. LTE Patent Engineering for Essential Portfolio Development
Alex G. Lee (alexglee@techipm.com)
LTE Patent Portfolio Development Strategy
As the start of worldwide deployment of LTE mobile services, leading mobile equipment vendors,
such as Ericsson, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Samsung, are introducing various
innovative LTE products.
A new study from Juniper Research showed that revenues from LTE mobile broadband subscribers
will exceed $70 billion globally by 2014, and recent research by In-Stat found that the total value of
global end-use LTE device market will exceed $2 billion by 2013. As the market for LTE products
increases, aggressive efforts for holding the LTE patent portfolios (essential patents) are also
intensified among LTE innovation leaders and OEM product manufactures.
Essential patent is defined as patents that contain one or more claims that are infringed by the
implementation of a specification for standardized technology. LTE is standardized through the 3GPP,
and the specification for LTE mobile system (UE and base station for EPS) is published as TS 36
series. A typical way to develop the essential patent is to participate in the standardization process and
try to get IPRs for the standards in parallel (strategic alignment between standardization and IPR).
Without the strategic alignment between standardization and IPR process, however, there is an
alternative way to develop the essential patent portfolios through patent engineering process. The LTE
patent engineering process utilizes the existing patent portfolios.
The patent engineering process for LTE essential patent development is as follows.
Step 1: Audit the existing patents to compare with the LTE TS36 series specification.
Step 2: Investigate the embodiments of the patent which are relevant to the specifications.
Step 3: Design the claim terms to be essential to the implementation of the specification.
Step 4: File the essential patent candidate through continuation or reissue process.
Case study for Qualcomm’s Strategy
Qualcomm’s patent application publication US20050276344, entitled Coding scheme for a wireless
communication system, is a candidate for LTE channel coding essential patent. 3GPP LTE standard
TS36.212 specifies the channel coding in chapter 5.

2. The specified channel coding scheme for transport blocks is turbo coding with a contention-free
quadratic permutation polynomial (QPP) turbo code internal interleaver. After the turbo encoding
process, a codeword is formed by turbo-encoded bit stream, and a Rate Matching (RM) is performed
on the turbo-encoded bit stream to generate a transmission bit stream for each transmission:
information bits are encoded by a turbo encoder 252 with a rate 1/3 turbo code, which generates a
stream of systematic bits, a stream of parity bits from the first constituent convolutional, and a stream
of parity bits from the second constituent convolutional code. Each of these three streams will be
interleaved by a sub-block interleaver. The interleaved parity bits are then interlaced. During the rate
matching procedure, for each transmission, the transmitter reads bits from the buffer, starting from an
offset position and increasing or decreasing the bit index. If the bit index reaches a certain maximum
number, the bit index is reset to the first bit in the buffer (circular buffer based rate matching scheme).
Incremental Redundancy (IR) based HARQ operation is adopted by optimally determining the
starting point of the redundancy versions for transmission in circular rate-matching operation.
Qualcomm’s patent application publication US20050276344 is a continuation application of issued
patent US6961388. Qualcomm designed some claim terms to be essential to the implementation of the
specification TS36.211 utilizing unclaimed patent disclosures:
US6961388
36. A wireless communication system operative to transmit data on a plurality of transmission
channels, wherein each transmission channel is used to transmit a respective sequence of modulation
symbols, the system comprising: an encoder configured to encode a plurality of information bits in
accordance with a particular encoding scheme to provide a plurality of coded bits, and to puncture the
plurality of coded bits in accordance with a particular puncturing scheme to provide a number of
unpunctured coded bits for the plurality of transmission channels, wherein each transmission channel
is capable of transmitting a particular number of information bits per modulation symbol via a
particular modulation scheme selected for the transmission channel, wherein each transmission
channel is further associated with a particular coding rate based at least on the number of information
bits per modulation symbol supported by the transmission channel and its modulation scheme,
wherein at least two transmission channels are associated with different coding rates, and wherein the
encoder is further configured to adjust the puncturing to achieve the different coding rates for the at
least two transmission channels.
37. The system of claim 36, further comprising: a channel interleaver coupled to the encoder and
configured to interleave the plurality of coded bits, and wherein the encoder is configured to puncture

3. the interleaved bits.
38. The system of claim 37, further comprising: a symbol mapping element coupled to the channel
interleaver and configured to form non-binary symbols for the plurality of transmission channels, and
to map each non-binary symbol to a respective modulation symbol, wherein each non-binary symbol
includes a group of unpunctured coded bits.
39. The system of claim 38, further comprising: a signal processor coupled to the symbol mapping
element and configured to pre-condition the modulation symbols for the plurality of transmission
channels to implement a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission.
US20050276344
30. A wireless communication device comprising: an encoder configured to encode a plurality of
information bits in accordance with a particular encoding scheme to provide a plurality of encoded
symbols for a plurality of transmission channels and to puncture the plurality of coded bits in
accordance with a particular puncturing scheme to achieve a desired coding rate for tee plurality of
transmission channels; and a data source coupled with the encoder, the data source configured to
provide the plurality of information bits.
31. The wireless communication device of claim 30, further comprising a channel interleaver coupled
to the encoder and configured to interleave the plurality of encoded bits.
32. The wireless communication device of claim 31, further comprising a symbol mapping element
coupled to the channel interleaver and configured to form non-binary symbols for the plurality of
transmission channels, and to map each non-binary symbol to a respective modulation symbol,
wherein each non-binary symbol includes a group of unpunctured coded bits.
33. The wireless communication device of claim 32, further comprising a signal processor coupled to
the symbol mapping element and configured to pre-condition the modulation symbols for the plurality
of transmission channels to implement a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission.
34. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
puncture the plurality of coded bits to achieve a different coding for at least two transmission channels
of the plurality of transmission channels.
34. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
group transmission channels having similar transmission capabilities to segments, and wherein the
puncturing is performed for each segment independently.
35. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
assign a group of coded bits to each segment, and wherein the puncturing is performed on the group
of coded bits assigned to each segment.
36. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
utilize a Turbo code.
37. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
provide a plurality of tail and parity bits for the plurality of information bits, and wherein the
puncturing is performed on the plurality of tail and parity bits.
38. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the Turbo code includes two constituent
codes operative to provide two streams of tail and parity bits.

4. 39. The wireless communication device of claim 30, wherein the encoder is further configured to
provide bits a coding rate of between, and inclusive of, n/(n+1) and n/(n+2), where n is the number of
information bits per modulation symbol supported.
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