DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/31/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Art by D1 explicitly teaches identifying single peaks using windowing algorithm and also teaches that collided peaks sometimes difficult to identify[0079-0085] . Art by D4 fives additional different method to identify collided peaks and therefore selection of the peaks is performed in different way.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1, 10, 19 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20210293960 A1 in view of D2 US 20210325519 A1 further in view of D4 US 20190179018 A1.
Regarding claim 1, 10, 19 D1 teaches
1, 10, 19 A light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system, comprising:
an optical scanner to transmit an optical beam towards, and receive a return signal from, a target;[0050]
an optical processing system coupled to the optical scanner to generate a baseband signal in a time domain from the return signal, the baseband signal comprising frequencies corresponding to LIDAR target ranges; and[0064]
a signal processing system coupled to the optical processing system, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory to store instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the LIDAR system to(implicit)
generate a frequency domain waveform based on the baseband signal in the time domain, wherein the frequency domain waveform comprises a spectrum of frequencies;[0064]
perform a first peak detection in frequency domain (fig. 4)
perform a second peak detection in frequency domain (fig. 4)
select a peak frequency from the spectrum of frequencies in the frequency domain waveform based at least in part on the first peak detection within the first frequency band and the second peak detection within the second frequency band.[0122]
Also teaches obtaining collided peaks (fig. 6)
but does not explicitly teach
separate the spectrum of frequencies in the frequency domain waveform into a plurality of frequency bands comprising at least a first frequency band and a second frequency band;
perform a first peak detection within the first frequency band of the spectrum of frequencies;
perform a second peak detection within the second frequency band of the spectrum of frequencies, wherein the first peak detection and second peak detection comprise different peak detection techniques in at least one of thresholding or peak selection
D2 teaches
separate the waveform into a plurality of bands comprising at least a first band and a second band;
perform a first peak detection within the first frequency band of the spectrum of frequencies;(fig. 3a, 3b)
perform a second peak detection within the second frequency band of the spectrum of frequencies,(fig. 3A 3b)
D4 teaches
Using different algorithm for collided peaks[0098-0100] in at least one of
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to in order to identify multiple in the spectrum as required by D1 and further modify using teachings by D4 in order to separate collided/overlapped peaks.
2,11 The LIDAR system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further to:
determine the first peak detection for the first frequency band and the second peak detection for the second frequency band based on properties of the LIDAR system or the target.(implicit in D2 peaks are detected to identify peak from the lidar device vs peaks associated from environment. D2 [0039-0040])
3. 12 The LIDAR system of claim 1, wherein the first and second peak detection each comprise at least one of thresholding and peak selection using one likelihood metric(D2 [0039]), thresholding(D2 [0040]) and peak selection using separate likelihood metrics, thresholding and peak selection using a weighted likelihood metric, and frequency band filtering.(well known different techniques)
4. 13 The LIDAR system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further to:
determine one or more properties of the target based at least in part on the selected peak frequency.(D1 [0057])
5. 14 The LIDAR system of claim 1, wherein the first peak detection selects a first intermediate peak from the first frequency band and the second peak detection selects a second intermediate peak from the second frequency band.(D1 fig. 4)
6. 15 The LIDAR system of claim 5, wherein to select the peak frequency the processor is to:
select one of the first or second intermediate peak as the peak frequency.(implicit either peaks are filtered out to taken to calculate velocity , distance angle)
7. 16 The LIDAR system of claim 6, wherein to select the peak frequency, the processor is to:
perform a third peak detection on the first and second intermediate peaks.(obvious modification to detect multiple peaks)
8. 17 The LIDAR system of claim 6, wherein to select one of the first or second intermediate peaks as the peak frequency, the processor is to:
determine a priority order of the first and second frequency bands; and(implicit/obvious in D2 as bands are processed in some order, whatever is processed first has obviously higher priority)
select one of the first or second intermediate peaks as the peak frequency based on the priority order of the first and second frequency bands. (implicit/obvious in D2 as bands are processed in some order, whatever is processed first has obviously higher priority)
Claim(s) 9, 18 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20210293960 A1 in view of D2 US 20210325519 A1 and D4 further in view of D3 US 20190317191 A1.
Although D1 does notexplcilitly teach D3 teaches
9. The LIDAR system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further to:
determine whether a value of a likelihood metric associated with the first intermediate peak or second intermediate peak exceeds a threshold; and[0084, 0080]
select the peak frequency from the first intermediate peak and the second intermediate peak that has a highest value for the likelihood metric. [0084, 0080]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D3 in order to select the signals associated for example with moving targets.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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