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 Amendment
The following addresses applicant’s remarks/amendments dated 13 April 2026.
Claims 1 and 17 were amended. No claim was cancelled. No new claims were added. Therefore, claims 1-17 are currently pending in the current application and are addressed below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 6-9 of the Remarks, filed 13 April 2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Donovan in view of O’Keeffe, US 20200271761 A1.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3, 5-10, and 13-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Donovan et al., US 20190302246 A1 (“Donovan”) in view of O’Keeffe, US 20200271761 A1 (“O’Keeffe”).
Regarding claim 1, Donovan discloses a time multiplexing flash light detection and ranging (LiDAR) apparatus, comprising:
a light transmitter, configured to emit pulse light (Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]);
a beam steering unit, optically coupled to the light transmitter and comprising a plurality of beam steering components (Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057]; Fig. 7A, adaptive shutter/mirror 712 connected to transmit electronics 704 through receive electronics 708, Paragraph [0061]), wherein the plurality of beam steering components are activated sequentially to multiplex reflected pulse light from a plurality of field of views (FOV) (Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057]-[0058]; See also Fig. 8 and Paragraphs [0070]-[0071] for illumination pattern creating plurality of FOVs), and the reflected pulse light represents the pulse light reflected by at least one object (Fig. 6, object 610, Paragraph [0056]); and
a light receiver, optically coupled to the light transmitter and configured to capture a portion of the reflected pulse light from one of the plurality of FOVs at a time (Fig. 6, detector 614, Paragraph [0056], Fig. 7A, transmit electronics 704, receive electronics 708, Paragraph [0061]);
[…].
Donovan does not teach: wherein the portion of the reflected pulse light is imaged onto all pixels of the light receiver.
However, O’Keeffe teaches a LIDAR system with a micromirror array that can be configured to image reflected light from a FOV onto all pixels of the light receiver (Fig. 13, micromirror array 1310, photodetector array 1315, Paragraph [0137]: “Micromirror array 1310 can occupy the entire FOV 1325 of a detector or photodetector array 1315”).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Donovan’s beam steering mirror by directing the reflected light onto all pixels of the light receiver, which is disclosed by O’Keeffe. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to magnify, combine, select and overlap portions of one or multiple FOV onto a photodetector, as suggested by O’Keeffe (Paragraph [0137]).
Regarding claim 2, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least a first beam steering component of the plurality of beam steering components is configured to steer the reflected pulse light within a first FOV of the plurality of FOVs toward the light receiver at a first time slot (Donovan, Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057]-[0058]; Fig. 8, steps 806-808, Paragraph [0070]-[0071]), the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus generates a first point cloud data corresponding to the first FOV at the first time slot (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 816-818, Paragraph [0074]), at least a second beam steering component of the plurality of beam steering components is configured to steer the reflected pulse light within a second FOV of the plurality of FOVs toward the light receiver at a second time slot (Donovan, Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057]-[0058]; Fig. 8, steps 806-808, Paragraph [0070]-[0071]; See also Fig. 8 step 820, Paragraph [0074]), and the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus generates a second point cloud data corresponding to the second FOV at the second time slot (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 816-818, Paragraph [0074]; See also Fig. 8 step 820, Paragraph [0074]).
Regarding claim 3, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein an entirety of point cloud data corresponding to an entirety of the plurality of FOVs is formed by integrating at least a plurality of point cloud data corresponding to the plurality of FOV at a plurality of time slots (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 816-818, Paragraph [0074]; See also Fig. 8 step 820, Paragraph [0074]; See also paragraph [0070]).
Regarding claim 5, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light transmitter comprises a plurality of light sources (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]), the plurality of light sources are divided into a plurality of groups, each of the plurality of groups is corresponding to one of the plurality of FOVs (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 806, Paragraph [0071]), and the plurality of groups are activated sequentially to emit the pulse light according to how the plurality of beam steering components are activated (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 808-812, Paragraph [0071]-[0072]).
Regarding claim 6, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light transmitter comprises a plurality of light sources (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]), the plurality of light sources are divided into a plurality of groups (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 806, Paragraph [0071]), a first group of the plurality of groups is configured to emit the pulse light flashing at a first time slot within one of the plurality of FOVs (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 810, Paragraph [0070], [0072]), and a second group of the plurality of groups is configured to emit the pulse light flashing at a second time slot within another of the plurality of FOVs (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 810, Paragraph [0070], [0072], [0074]).
Regarding claim 7, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light transmitter comprises a plurality of light sources (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]), the plurality of light sources are divided into a plurality of groups (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 806, Paragraph [0071]), the plurality of groups are arranged in a first array (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 806, Paragraph [0070]-[0071]), the plurality of beam steering components are arranged in a second array (Donovan, Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057]), the first array is similar to or coincide with the second array, and the first array and the second array are two-dimensional arrays or one-dimensional arrays (Donovan, Fig. 8, steps 806 – 812, Paragraph [0071]-[0072]).
Regarding claim 8, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of beam steering components comprises a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) micro-mirror (Donovan, Fig. 6, adaptive mirror 602, Paragraph [0057], [0060]) or a MEMS based resonant mirror driven by electrostatic mechanism, electromagnetic mechanism, thermal mechanism, or piezoelectric mechanism, a mechanical driven mirror, a mechanical driven prism, or a lens, the mechanical driven mirror is a polygon mirror, and the mechanical driven prism is a Risley prism.
Regarding claim 9, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a transmitter deflector, configured to deflect the pulse light (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmit optics 608, Paragraph [0056]); a receiver deflector, configured to deflect the reflected pulse light (Donovan, Fig. 6, receive optics 612, Paragraph [0056]); or an intermediate deflector, configured to deflect the reflected pulse light.
Regarding claim 10, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the pulse light incident on the at least one object and the reflected pulse light coming back from the at least one object are non-coaxial (Donovan, Fig. 6, adaptive FOV LIDAR system 600, Paragraph [0056]).
Regarding claim 13, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the pulse light is non-visible, and a wavelength of the pulse light is 840nm, 905nm (Donovan, Paragraph [0041]), 940nm, 1330nm, or 1550nm.
Regarding claim 14, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light transmitter comprises a plurality of light sources (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]), and the plurality of light sources is individually activated, able to be individually activated, or illuminates homogeneously (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 806, Paragraph [0071]).
Regarding claim 15, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein a distance between the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus and one of the at least one object is calculated by measuring a time delay between the pulse light and the reflected pulse light (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 812, Paragraph [0072]).
Regarding claim 16, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses The time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light receiver comprises a plurality of light detectors (Donovan, Fig. 6, detector 614, Paragraph [0056]), the plurality of light detectors are arranged in a two-dimensional array or a one-dimensional array (Donovan, Fig. 6, detector 614, Paragraph [0056]; See also Fig. 1B), wherein each of the plurality of light detectors is individually activated, able to be individually activated to receive the reflected pulse light individually or homogeneously (Donovan, Fig. 8, step 812, Paragraph [0072]).
Claim 17 is a method claim corresponding to apparatus claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Claims 4 and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Donovan in view of O’Keeffe in further view of Finkelstein et al., US 20230393245 A1 (“Finkelstein”).
Regarding claim 4, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1, wherein the light transmitter comprises a plurality of light sources (Donovan, Fig. 6, transmitter 604, Paragraph [0056]).
Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, does not teach: and all the plurality of light sources emit the pulse light flashing simultaneously within an entirety of the plurality of FOVs.
However, Finkelstein teaches a VCSEL array where the entire VCSEL array may be activated when operating in a short-range imaging mode(Fig. 4, emitter module 400, emitters 402, 404, Paragraph [0072]-[0074]).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Donovan’s transmitter by activating all emitters in the array, which is disclosed by Finkelstein. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order “to achieve the desired short-range performance”, as suggested by Finkelstein (Paragraph [0074]).
Regarding claim 11, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1.
Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, does not teach: wherein the light transmitter is an edge-emitting laser source transmitter, a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) source transmitter emitting the pulse light, a fiber laser, or a photonic crystal surface emitting laser (PCSEL) source transmitter.
However, Finkelstein teaches an emitter array where emitter elements may be VCSELs (Fig. 1, emitter array 115, emitters 115e, Paragraph [0052]).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substituted Donovan’s transmitter for Finkelstein’s VCSEL array. One of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted one transmitter array for another and the results would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 12, Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, discloses the time multiplexing flash LiDAR apparatus of claim 1.
Donovan, as modified in view of O’Keeffe, does not teach: wherein the light receiver is a Geiger mode avalanche photodiode receiver comprising a plurality of light detectors.
However, Finkelstein teaches a detector array where detector elements may be SPADs (Fig. 1, detector array 110, detectors 110d, Paragraph [0059]).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substituted Donovan’s detector for Finkelstein’s SPAD detector array. One of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted one detector array for another and the results would have been predictable.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RACHEL N NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5405. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am - 5:30 pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuqing Xiao can be reached at (571) 270-3603. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RACHEL NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
/YUQING XIAO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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