DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 11, and 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 1-2, 6, 11-12, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI(US20240142575A1) in view of Cheng(US20230419681A1).
Regarding claim 1, Choi discloses
A frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar-lidar system for an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) (“ The vehicle 700 may be an autonomous vehicle “ [0106]), comprising: one or more lidar frontends configured to transmit an incident light signal and to receive a reflected light signal to generate one or more frames of lidar data (“a first sensor may be named LiDAR” [0067]); one or more radar frontends configured to transmit an incident electromagnetic wave signal and to receive a reflected electromagnetic wave signal to generate one or more frames of radar data (“a second sensor may be named RADAR” [0067]); a plurality of input/output (I/O) interfaces (“The communication interface 730 may include user interface may provide the capability of inputting and outputting information regarding a user and an image“ [0111]), each corresponding to one of the one or more lidar frontends or one of the one or more radar frontends to receive the radar data or lidar data (FIG.7, Parts 705, 740, and 730 & “ The electronic device 705 according to an example may further include the aforementioned radar device”[0107]); and an edge device (FIG.7, Part.705 & “ser interface may include a network module for connecting to a network and a universal serial bus (USB) host module for forming a data transfer channel with a mobile storage medium.”[0111]) coupled to the plurality of input/output (I/O) interfaces to receive the radar data or lidar data (“The communication interface 730 may include user interface may provide the capability of inputting and outputting information regarding a user and an image” [0111]) for processing to generate a set of four-dimensional (4D) point clouds that are used to perceive a surrounding environment of the ADV (“The first point cloud data […] may respectively include data generated by transforming one of a three-dimensional (3D) first coordinate system or a four-dimensional (4D) first coordinate system” [0008]).
Choi does not appear to set forth a frequency filter. Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. Cheng discloses, wherein the one or more radar frontends each comprise a frequency filter configured to filter the reflected electromagnetic wave signal (“Other filters can also be included, such as a bandpass filter around the radar frequency” [0004] & FIG.4, Part 406).
Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi with the teachings of Cheng to incorporate the features of a frequency filter so as to gain the benefit of improving accuracy [0005 Cheng]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 2, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi discloses the system wherein the set of 4D point clouds are generated by processing a plurality of fast Fourier transform (FFT) kernels corresponding to the radar or lidar data concurrently (“ range obtained from radar data through a range Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), the velocity obtained from the radar data through a Doppler FFT,” [0009]), wherein each FFT kernel is used to perform a FFT algorithm to determine a range, a velocity, or a bearing of an obstacle (“Information about the driving vehicle may include at least one of the moving direction, the position, or the velocity of the driving vehicle” [0073]).
Regarding claim 6, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi discloses the system further comprising a field programmable gate array (“a field-programmable gate array”[0113]), wherein the field programmable gate array comprises the plurality of I/O interfaces (“ the user interface may include one or more input/output devices “ [0111]) and a high speed serial communication bus interface (“communication bus 740” [0105]), wherein data at the plurality of I/O interfaces are serialized and are sent to the edge device through the high speed serial communication bus interface (“The user interface may include a network module for connecting to a network and a universal serial bus (USB) host module” [0111]).
Regarding claim 11, Choi discloses
A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, from a lidar frontend, one or more frames of lidar data(“a first sensor may be named LiDAR” [0067]); receiving, from a radar frontend, one or more frames of radar data (“a second sensor may be named RADAR” [0067]); initializing and launching a plurality of fast Fourier transform (FFT) kernels, wherein each FFT kernel is executed by an edge device to process a frame of lidar or radar data (“ range obtained from radar data through a range Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), the velocity obtained from the radar data through a Doppler FFT,” [0009]); determining range and velocity information for each frame of lidar or radar data (“Information about the driving vehicle may include at least one of the moving direction, the position, or the velocity of the driving vehicle” [0073]); and generating a set of four-dimensional (4D) point clouds from the determined range and velocity information, wherein the set of 4D point clouds are used to perceive a surrounding environment of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) (“The first point cloud data […] may respectively include data generated by transforming one of a three-dimensional (3D) first coordinate system or a four-dimensional (4D) first coordinate system” [0008]).
Choi does not appear to set forth a frequency filter. Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. Cheng discloses, wherein the radar frontend comprises a frequency filter configured to filter the reflected electromagnetic wave signal (“Other filters can also be included, such as a bandpass filter around the radar frequency” [0004] & FIG.4, Part 406).
Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi with the teachings of Cheng to incorporate the features of a frequency filter so as to gain the benefit of improving accuracy [0005 Cheng]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 12, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11.Choi discloses the method wherein, the set of 4D point clouds are generated by the plurality of fast Fourier transform (FFT) kernels corresponding to the radar and lidar data concurrently (“range obtained from radar data through a range Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), the velocity obtained from the radar data through a Doppler FFT,” [0009]), wherein each of the plurality of FFT kernels is used to perform a FFT algorithm to determine a range, a velocity, or a bearing of an obstacle (“Information about the driving vehicle may include at least one of the moving direction, the position, or the velocity of the driving vehicle” [0073]).
Regarding claim 16, , Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11. Choi discloses the method wherein, the lidar and radar data are received at a plurality of I/O interfaces (“ the user interface may include one or more input/output devices “ [0111]) of a field programmable gate array (“a field-programmable gate array”[0113]), serialized, and are sent to the edge device through a high speed serial communication bus interface of the field programmable gate array (“The user interface may include a network module for connecting to a network and a universal serial bus (USB) host module” [0111]).
Regarding claim 20, Choi discloses
An autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) (“ The vehicle 700 may be an autonomous vehicle “ [0106]), comprising: an autonomous driving system (FIG.7, Parts 700 and 705); and a frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) (“the radar device may be implemented as a frequency modulated
continuous wave (FMCW) radar” [0087]) radar-lidar system coupled to the autonomous driving system (“and a first sensor may be named LiDAR” [0067]) to provide a set of four-dimensional (4D) point clouds to the autonomous driving system (“The first point cloud data […] may respectively include data generated by transforming one of a three-dimensional (3D) first coordinate system or a four-dimensional (4D) first coordinate system” [0008]), wherein the FMCW radar-lidar system comprises: one or more lidar frontends configured to transmit an incident light signal and to receive a reflected light signal to generate one or more frames of lidar data (“and a first sensor may be named LiDAR” [0067]); one or more radar frontends configured to transmit an incident electromagnetic wave signal and to receive a reflected electromagnetic wave signal to generate one or more frames of radar data (“a second sensor may be named RADAR” [0067]); a plurality of input/output (I/O) interfaces, each corresponding to one of the one or more lidar frontends or one of the one or more radar frontends to receive the radar data or lidar data (“The communication interface 730 may include user interface may provide the capability of inputting and outputting information regarding a user and an image“ [0111]); and an edge device (FIG.7, Part.705 & “ser interface may include a network module for connecting to a network and a universal serial bus (USB) host module for forming a data transfer channel with a mobile storage medium.”[0111]) coupled to the plurality of input/output interfaces to receive the radar data or lidar data (“The communication interface 730 may include user interface may provide the capability of inputting and outputting information regarding a user and an image” [0111]) for processing to generate a set of 4D point that are used to perceive a surrounding environment of the ADV (“The first point cloud data […] may respectively include data generated by transforming one of a three-dimensional (3D) first coordinate system or a four-dimensional (4D) first coordinate system” [0008]).
Choi does not appear to set forth a frequency filter. Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. Cheng discloses, wherein the one or more radar frontends each comprise a frequency filter configured to filter the reflected electromagnetic wave signal (“Other filters can also be included, such as a bandpass filter around the radar frequency” [0004] & FIG.4, Part 406).
Cheng teaches in the same field of combined radar lidar systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi with the teachings of Cheng to incorporate the features of a frequency filter so as to gain the benefit of improving accuracy [0005 Cheng]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Claims 3-4, 10, 13-14, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI (US20240142575A1) as modified by Cheng(US20230419681A1) as applied to claims 1 and 11 above, and further in view of Harrison(US20230196510A1).
Regarding claim 3, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi does not appear to set forth the synchronization of the data. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the system wherein, the edge device is further configured to synchronize the radar data to the lidar data by down sampling the radar data (“a 2×2 max pooling operation with stride 2 for down-sampling “ [0024]) or up sampling the lidar data (“Every step in the expansive path consists of an up-sampling of the feature map” [0024]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features synchronizing radar and lidar data so as to gain the advantage to gain the benefit of improving the vehicle identification [0020 Harrison]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 4, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi does not appear to set forth the synchronization of the data in a 4D point cloud. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the system wherein, the edge device is further configured to generate merged two or more 4D point clouds having at least a radar component and a lidar component using synchronized lidar and radar data (“The super-resolution network is trained to map radar data into time synchronized lidar scans.” [0015]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features of merging two or more point clouds having at least a radar and lidar component so as to gain the benefit of improving the radar resolution [0020 Harrison]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 10, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi does not appear to set forth a front-end identifier. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the system wherein, a data format for a 4D point cloud includes a front-end module identifier specifying an identifier of a frontend device, a time stamp, and cloud data specifying velocity, range, and angular bearings of a surrounding of an ADV (“combined at the target list and occupancy map 820 to produce an output containing the type/class of target identified, their location, their velocity, and so on. “ [0042] & “Including associated timestamp data 306” [0023]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features of a front-end module identifier so as to gain the advantage of tracking which signals are coming from which sensors. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 13, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11. Choi does not appear to set the synchronization of the data. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the method further comprising synchronizing the radar data to the lidar data by down sampling the radar data (“a 2×2 max pooling operation with stride 2 for down-sampling “ [0024]) or up sampling the lidar data (“Every step in the expansive path consists of an up-sampling of the feature map” [0024]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features synchronizing radar and lidar data so as to gain the advantage to gain the benefit of improving the vehicle identification [0020 Harrison]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 14, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11.. Choi does not appear to set forth the synchronization of the data in a 4D point cloud. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the method further comprising, further comprising merging two or more 4D point clouds having at least a radar component and a lidar component using synchronized lidar and radar data (“The super-resolution network is trained to map radar data into time synchronized lidar scans.” [0015]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features of merging two or more point clouds having at least a radar and lidar component so as to gain the advantage of to gain the benefit of improving the radar resolution [0020 Harrison]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 19, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11. Choi does not appear to set forth the synchronization of the data. Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. Harrison discloses the method further comprising synchronizing the radar data to the lidar data by down sampling the radar data (“a 2×2 max pooling operation with stride 2 for down-sampling “ [0024]) or up sampling the lidar data (“Every step in the expansive path consists of an up-sampling of the feature map” [0024]).
Harrison teaches in the same field of endeavor of autonomous vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Harrison to incorporate the features synchronizing radar and lidar data so as to gain the advantage of improving sensor performance [0030 Harrison]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Claims 5, 7-8, 15, and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI (US20240142575A1) as modified by Cheng(US20230419681A1) as applied to claims 1, 6, 11, and 16 above, and further in view of in view of JÜRGEN (DE102016112471A1).
Regarding claim 5, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi does not appear to set forth the optical-electrical converter (O/E) or filter. Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. Jürgen discloses the system wherein, the one or more lidar frontends each comprise an optical-electrical converter (O/E) (“The receiver 30 converts the optical reception signals 34 into analog electrical reception signals 42. “ [0071]) and a first analog to digital converter (ADC) (“analog-to-digital converter” [0042]), wherein the one or more radar frontends each comprise a second ADC. (FIG.3, Part.74 & “the at least one detection device can operate with transmission signals and reception signals on the basis of electromagnetic signals,”[0021]).
Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Jürgen to incorporate the features of an optical-electrical converter (O/E), filter, and ADC so as to gain the advantage of improving detection accuracy and speed [0006 Jürgen ]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 7, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 6. Choi does not appear to set forth the data buffers storing data in a FIFO manner. Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. Jürgen discloses the system wherein the field programmable gate array further comprises: a plurality of data buffers corresponding to the plurality of I/O interfaces (“at least one buffer element” [0010]), wherein each of the plurality of data buffers stores N samples of data from an analog to digital converter in a first in first out manner, wherein N is an integer greater than 1 (“Advantageously, at least one buffer element can comprise at least one digital storage medium, in particular a first-in-first-out memory (FIFO memory).” [0027]).
Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Jürgen to incorporate the features of data buffers storing data in a FIFO manner so as to gain the advantage of reducing readout time [0012 Jürgen ]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 8, Choi as modified by Cheng and further modified by Jürgen discloses all the limitations of claim 7. Choi discloses the system wherein, the edge device is further configured to transfer the N samples of data from the plurality of data buffers at the field programmable gate array (“a field-programmable gate array “ [0113]) to the edge device via a DMA engine of the edge device (FIG.7, Part 720).
Regarding claim 15, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 11. Choi does not appear to set forth the optical-electrical converter (O/E) or filter. Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. Jürgen discloses the method wherein, the lidar frontend comprises an optical- electrical converter (O/E) (“The receiver 30 converts the optical reception signals 34 into analog electrical reception signals 42. “ [0071]) and a first analog to digital converter (ADC) (“analog-to-digital converter” [0042]), wherein the radar frontend a second ADC (FIG.3, Part.74 & “the at least one detection device can operate with transmission signals and reception signals on the basis of electromagnetic signals,”[0021]).
Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Jürgen to incorporate the features of an optical-electrical converter (O/E), filter, and ADC so as to gain the advantage of improving detection accuracy and speed [0006 Jürgen ]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 17, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 16. Choi does not appear to set forth the data buffers storing data in a FIFO manner. Jürgen discloses the method wherein, the lidar and radar data are buffered at a plurality of data buffers corresponding to the plurality of I/O interfaces of the field programmable gate array (“at least one buffer element” [0010]), wherein each of the plurality of data buffers stores N samples of data from an analog to digital converter in a first in first out manner, wherein N is an integer greater than 1 (“Advantageously, at least one buffer element can comprise at least one digital storage medium, in particular a first-in-first-out memory (FIFO memory).” [0027]).
Jürgen teaches in the same field of endeavor of vehicle remote sensing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of Jürgen to incorporate the features of data buffers storing data in a FIFO manner so as to gain the advantage of reducing readout time [0012, Jürgen]. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
Regarding claim 18, Choi as modified by Cheng and further modified by Jürgen discloses all the limitations of claim 17. Choi discloses the method further comprising, transferring the N samples of data from the plurality of data buffers of the field programmable gate array (“a field-programmable gate array “ [0113]) to a plurality of processing cores of the edge device via a DMA engine of the edge device (FIG.7, Part 720).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHOI (US20240142575A1) as modified by Cheng(US20230419681A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of in view of SUGIO(US20230230286A1).
Regarding claim 9, Choi as modified by Cheng discloses all the limitations of claim 1. Choi does not appear to set forth the point cloud data compression SUGIO teaches in the same field of endeavor of Lidar point cloud processing. SUGIO discloses the system wherein, the edge device is further configured to compress the set of 4D point clouds using a compression technique (“Encoder 4613 encodes (compresses) the point cloud data, and outputs the resulting encoded data,” [0188]).
SUGIO teaches in the same field of endeavor of Lidar point cloud processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Choi as modified by Cheng with the teachings of SUGIO to incorporate the features of point cloud data compression so as to gain the advantage of reducing data size and transmission time. Also, since it has been held that if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill (MPEP 2143).
For applicant’s benefit portions of the cited reference(s) have been cited to aid in the review of the rejection(s). While every attempt has been made to be thorough and consistent within the rejection it is noted that the PRIOR ART MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING DISCLOSURES THAT TEACH AWAY FROM THE CLAIMS. See MPEP 2141.02 VI.
Documents Considered but not Relied Upon
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the applicant’s Disclosure.
CHEN(US20220196798A1) is considered analogous art to the instant application as it discloses in [0194] “the dataset 1106 may include a FFT four dimensional (4D) complex values image.”
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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/C.P.R./Examiner, Art Unit 3646
/JACK W KEITH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3646