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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the application filed on 12/20/2022. Claims 1-14 are pending, claims 1, 4, 13 and 14 are amended and claims 2, 3 and 5-8 are cancelled.
Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 24 December 2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 01/05/2026 have been considered by the examiner and initialed copies of the IDS are hereby attached.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION. —The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 4 and 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 13 and 14 recites the limitation, “is compared with levels indicated by the received data of others of which received time is close”. It is unclear what is meant by this limitation as the phrase “time is close” is relative with no specific quantitative meaning. Additionally, the term “time is close” is not a term known to one of ordinary skill in the art. The term “time is close” is not defined by the claim or the specification and therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the claim. While paragraph [0035] of the specification states ““…time is close” may be data that is not adjacent to the target data in terms of time.” The phrase “may be” leaves the description open-ended, which does not provide a specific definition. Furthermore, the specification does not set a span of time that is considered adjacent, such as millisecond, second, and etc. For examination purposes the examiner will interpret the term “close” to be a predefined threshold of time from the received time.
Claims 1, 13 and 14 recite the limitation, “suppress a level indicated…” It is unclear what is being suppressed, such as a signal level or a noise level. Paragraph [0045] of the instant specification describes a noise level is being suppressed. For examination purposes the examiner will interpret the limitation to recite, “suppress a noise level indicated…”
Claims 1, 13, and 14 recite other instances of the term “level”. For examination purposes all instances of “level” will be interpreted as “noise level”.
Claims 1, 13 and 14 recite the limitation, “suppress a level indicated…” It is unclear what is being suppressed, such as a signal level or a noise level. Paragraph [0045] of the instant specification describes a noise level is being suppressed. For examination purposes the examiner will interpret the limitation to recite, “suppress a noise level indicated…”
Claims 1, 13 and 14 recite the limitation, “the received data of others…” It is unclear to what “others” is referencing, such as other received signals or the other received data. For examination purposes the examiner will interpret the limitation to recite, “the received data of the other received signals…”
Claims 1, 13 and 14 recite the limitation, “the level higher”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation. For examination purposes the examiner will interpret the limitation to recite, “a higher noise level”.
Dependent claims 4 and 9-12 are also rejected because they depend on rejected claims 1, 13 and 14 and inherit the deficiencies noted above.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowable subject matter:
Maeno (US20130342382A1) and Goto (JP2016206153A) are prior art that are considered close to the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 1 Maeno teaches: A signal processing device (Figure 4), comprising: a hardware processor programmed to at least: calculate a correction value of strength for each of distances from an antenna based on a received signal comprising a signal acquired by a plurality of transmissions and receptions via the antenna (Figure 1, element 15; Para: [0045]:” FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a radar apparatus 1 according to this embodiment of the invention. FIG. 2 is a view showing distance and azimuth setting concepts of a method of setting a threshold by the radar apparatus 1 according to this embodiment of the invention.”; Para. [0099]: “However, by using the threshold level determined by the configuration and processing of this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 11B, almost all the sea clutter components can be suppressed, and even at the position where the sea clutter component still remains, the amplitude level of the sea clutter component is extremely low. On the other hand, the echo levels of target objects A, B and C are above a predetermined amplitude level.”); and suppress a level indicated by received data generated based on the received signal for each of the distances by using the correction value for each of the distances (Figure 11A and 11B; Para [0099]: “However, by using the threshold level determined by the configuration and processing of this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 11B, almost all the sea clutter components can be suppressed, and even at the position where the sea clutter component still remains, the amplitude level of the sea clutter component is extremely low. On the other hand, the echo levels of target objects A, B and C are above a predetermined amplitude level.”).
Maeno does not teach “wherein the received signal is a signal acquired from all directions”.
However, Goto in the analogous arts teaches: wherein the received signal is a signal acquired from all directions (Description of embodiments: “The antenna 5 is a radar antenna capable of transmitting a pulsed radio wave having strong directivity. The antenna 5 is configured to receive a reflected wave from a target. The radar apparatus 1 measures the time from when a pulsed radio wave is transmitted until the reflected wave is received. Thereby, the radar apparatus 1 can detect the distance r to the target. The antenna 5 is configured to be able to rotate 360 ° on a horizontal plane. The antenna 5 is configured to repeatedly transmit and receive radio waves while changing the transmission direction of pulsed radio waves (changing the antenna angle). With the above configuration, the radar apparatus 1 can detect a target on a plane around the ship over 360 °.”).
Maeno further teaches: wherein the hardware processor is programmed to at least perform statistical processing of the level indicated by the received data for each of the distances (Para. [0057]: “Specifically, the threshold setting device 15 acquires detection data levels LDd in a predetermined azimuth range at a first position R1, a second position R2, and a third position R3, respectively. The azimuth range may be a predetermined range including the observing sweep (e.g., an azimuth range AR.sub.1, that is the azimuth angle range. DELTA..theta..sub.1, when the observing sweep is a sweep SW(m) as shown in FIG. 2) may be specified, or an entire circumferential direction (corresponding to the one rotation of the antenna 13 may be specified). The threshold setting device 15 calculates the average value of the detection data levels LDd obtained in the specified azimuth range, for each position.”), and calculate the correction value by using a result of the statistical processing, and wherein in the statistical processing (Figure 3, Step S103; Para [0057]: “The threshold setting device 15 firstly sets, based on average values of detection data levels of a plurality of positions, initial threshold levels for the respective sampling positions before the adaption (S101). Specifically, the threshold setting device 15 acquires detection data levels LDd in a predetermined azimuth range at a first position R1, a second position R2, and a third position R3, respectively”), a level indicated by target data, which is the received data of a target, is compared with levels indicated by the received data of others of which received time is close, the level of the target data is replaced with the level higher than the level of the target data, and the replaced level of the target data is used to calculate the correction value.
In reference to depend/independent claim 1, the prior arts made of record individually or in any combination, failed to teach, render obvious, or fairly suggest to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing the combination of the claimed features of claim 1. Specifically, the prior arts made of record fail to disclose the limitation: “a level indicated by target data, which is the received data of a target, is compared with levels indicated by the received data of others of which received time is close, the level of the target data is replaced with the level higher than the level of the target data, and the replaced level of the target data is used to calculate the correction value. “.
Claims 13 and 14 recites limitations that are similar to those of claim 1, therefore claims 13 and 14 are allowable under the same rationale.
Claims 4 and 9-12 are allowable because they depend on allowable claim 1
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bongani J. Mashele whose telephone number is (703)756-5861. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00AM-5:00PM (CT).
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/BONGANI JABULANI MASHELE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/RESHA DESAI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3648