DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
2. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
3. Claims 1-10, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by GOLUBCHIK et al. (US 20210294109).
Regarding claim 1, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 2 and specification:
1. A range-finding apparatus in communication with a coherent beam combining (CBC) system (see, 10, fig. 2, see also, paragraph [0044]) which illuminates a target with at least two partially coherent sub-beams, the apparatus comprising:
a phase modulation controller (see, 14a -14c, fig. 2, see also paragraph [0044]) providing at least one optical phase modulation signal to the CBC system;
a signal processor (see, 18, fig. 2) configured to receive a time-varying received intensity signal from the CBC system and to receive an initial measurement of target range having an initial uncertainty (see, 32, fig. 2, see also paragraph [0062]);
the signal processor further configured to calculate frequency components (see, paragraph [0048]) of the received intensity signal; to form rotated frequency components by rotating said frequency components through an angle proportional to a time- of-flight correction (see, paragraph [0061]); to calculate an objective function depending upon the rotated frequency components; to determine a global minimum of the objective function; and to calculate a corrected measurement of target range having an uncertainty which is less than the initial uncertainty (see, paragraph [0003] and [0048]-[0050]).
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Regarding claim 2, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim I wherein the at least one optical phase modulation signal comprises a sinusoidal frequency or a linear frequency modulation signal (see, paragraph [0048]).
Regarding claim 3, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the at least one optical phase modulation signal has a bandwidth whose value is in a range of ten kilohertz to one hundred megahertz (see, paragraph [0061]).
Regarding claim 4, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the frequency components comprise fundamental and second harmonic frequencies of the received intensity signal (see, paragraph [0048]).
Regarding claim 5, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the wherein the signal processor sends feedback to the phase modulation controller comprising one or more updated parameters of the at least one optical phase modulation signal (see, paragraph [0070]).
Regarding claim 6, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the wherein the initial measurement of target range is provided by the CBC system or by an external range-finding device (see, paragraph [0044]).
Regarding claim 7, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 6 wherein the external range-finding device is selected from a group comprising a microwave radar, a millimeter-wave radar, and a forward looking infrared system (see, paragraph [0055]).
Regarding claim 8, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the objective function depends upon absolute values of the rotated frequency components (see, paragraph [0048]-[0050]).
Regarding claim 9, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 8 wherein the objective function comprises a sum-of-absolute- values objective function and/or a sum-of-squares objective function (see, paragraph [0053]).
Regarding claim 10, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses in figure 1 and specification the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the corrected measurement of target range has an uncertainty which is equal in value to the initial uncertainty divided by a factor of at least 300 (see, paragraph [0061]).
Regarding claims 12-13, method claims 12-13 are rejected for the same reasons applied to device claim 1-10 since the limitations of method claims are implemented by the limitations of device claims 1-10.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
5. Claim 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over GOLUBCHIK et al. above, and further in view of Danziger (US 20090128798).
Regarding claim 11, GOLUBCHIK et al. discloses the limitations of claim 1 for the reasons above.
However, GOLUBCHIK et al. is silent as to the limitation of “the at least two
partially coherent sub-beams have coherence lengths whose values are less than or equal to one meter”.
Danziger discloses that it is also most efficient to use lasers having coherence
length longer than the optical path difference of these parasitic interference sources (few centimeters) (see, paragraph [0050]). Even though Danziger does not disclose that the limitation of “the at least two partially coherent sub-beams have coherence lengths whose values are less than or equal to one meter” as claimed, Danziger discloses the limitation can be realized.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at
the time of invention to combine the limitation of “the at least two partially coherent sub-beams have coherence lengths whose values are less than or equal to one meter” with range-finding apparatus of GOLUBCHIK et al. because selecting this limitation allows for providing to be at constant phase and will not introduce noise for the system(see, paragraph [0050] of Danziger).
Conclusion
6. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kinam Park whose telephone number is (571) 270-1738. The examiner can normally be reached on from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, MINSUN HARVEY, can be reached on (571) 272-1835. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/KINAM PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2828
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