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
Claims 1, 6, 11, and 16 have been amended.
Claims 2 and 12 have been cancelled.
Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are currently pending and addressed below.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claims 1, 4-5, 8-11, 14-15, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh (US 2022/0146660), hereinafter referred to as Singh, in view of Santra et al. (US 2020/0116850), hereinafter referred to as Santra. Singh and Santra are considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of signal processing for radar devices.
Regarding claim 1, Singh teaches:
An apparatus for driver assistance ("FIG. 1 is an illustration of an automobile 100 equipped with multiple radar systems 110, 112 for distance and angle of arrival determination. High resolution 77 [GigaHertz] (GHz) automotive radar systems have been developed to improve driving comfort and safety by measuring the distance from the vehicle to surrounding objects." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0024),
the apparatus comprising: a radar installed on a vehicle, having a sensing area outside the vehicle ("Some vehicles may have a single radar system 110 that may be used for tasks such as adaptive cruise control, object warning, automatic braking, etc., for example. Some vehicles may have several radar systems, e.g., one in front 110 and one in back 112." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0024) (The examiner notes that Fig. 1 of Singh as shown below illustrates sensing areas for radar systems installed on a vehicle),
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and configured to provide object data ("In order to determine the distance and angle of arrival from the radar system to a target object, e.g., for parking assistance, a signal received from the radar system front end is usually processed via a flow of signal processing steps, including Doppler correction and beamforming." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0026);
and a controller configured to identify a distance to an object around the vehicle and a moving speed of the object based on processing the object data ("The phase differences between the received reflections at a first receiver antenna and the received reflections at a second receiver antenna allow the angle of arrival of target objects to be computed. Thus with an FMCW radar system, the distance between the target object and the radar system, relative velocity of the target object, relative angle of the target object and the like can be calculated." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0029),
wherein the radar comprises: a plurality of transmission antennas; a plurality of reception antennas ("Some radar systems, called MIMO radar systems, use multiple transmitter antennas and multiple receiver antennas to improve the resolution of the radar system in determining the angle of arrival. Some MIMO radar systems use TDM to distinguish between chirp signals from different transmitter antennas." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0025);
and a signal processor configured to provide transmission signals to the plurality of transmission antennas to transmit a plurality of transmission radio waves ("CPU core 230 includes a chirp timing controller module 231 that receives a stream of data from receiver antenna array 223 via an analog to digital converter (ADC) 237 and performs chirp generation and control of the transmitter via a digital to analog converter (DAC) 235." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0031)
and acquire a plurality of reception signals received by the plurality of reception antennas ("A receiver 222 receives signals from an antenna array 223 of one or more receiver (RX) antennas. A baseband module 224 amplifies and filters the received signals that are reflected from objects in the path of the transmitted chirp signals." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0027),
and the signal processor is configured to: determine an angle to the object based on at least two signals of the plurality of reception signals ("The phase differences between the received reflections at a first receiver antenna and the received reflections at a second receiver antenna allow the angle of arrival of target objects to be computed." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0029);
and correct the phases of the plurality of reception signals based on the identified phase error between the plurality of transmission radio waves ("In addition, the TMD-MIMO radar system performs Doppler correction on the received beat signals, to correct for phase differences between different received signals due to the time difference between a first transmitted chirp signal and a second transmitted chirp signal." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0050) (The examiner notes that the phase differences between different received signals as taught by Singh corresponds to the claimed identified phase error).
Singh does not explicitly disclose, but Santra teaches:
subtract a phase corresponding to the angle to the object from phases of the plurality of reception signals ("In an embodiment of the present invention, the macro-Doppler components associated with a moving human are estimated and subtracted from the range-Doppler map (steps 310 and 320) before extracting the phase difference (in step 324), thus compensating for effects of Doppler components in the estimation of angle of arrival θ, thereby increasing the angle of arrival θ accuracy." – see at least Santra: paragraph 0045);
identify a phase error between the plurality of transmission radio waves based on a plurality of phase-subtracted signals including the subtracted phases ("During step 324, a phase difference between signals received by receivers RX1 and RX2 is determined for each identified target based on the range-Doppler maps (generated during steps 310 and 320) using the range-Doppler indices determined during steps 312 (and 322)." – see at least Santra: paragraph 0041) (The examiner notes that the phase difference between signals as taught by Santra corresponds to the claimed phase error between the plurality of transmission radio waves).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Singh with these above aforementioned teachings from Santra to subtract a phase corresponding to the angle to the object from phases of the plurality of reception signals, and identify a phase difference between the plurality of transmission radio waves based on a plurality of phase-subtracted signals including the subtracted phases. At the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Santra’s method of radar signal processing with Singh’s radar system in order to compensate for Doppler effects during radar measurements (“In an embodiment of the present invention, estimating the angle of arrival of a radar signal reflected in a human is improved by compensating for Doppler components before calculating the angle of arrival using a phase mono-pulse algorithm. The macro-Doppler component of a moving human is subtracted from a range-Doppler map before estimating the angle of arrival. For static humans, Doppler components associated with vital signs (e.g., breathing) are compensated before estimating the angle of arrival.” – see at least Santra: paragraph 0019). Doing so would provide the benefit of increasing the accuracy for angle measurements using a radar (“In an embodiment of the present invention, the macro-Doppler components associated with a moving human are estimated and subtracted from the range-Doppler map (steps 310 and 320) before extracting the phase difference (in step 324), thus compensating for effects of Doppler components in the estimation of angle of arrival θ, thereby increasing the angle of arrival θ accuracy.” – see at least Santra: paragraph 0045).
The examiner notes that Singh also teaches methods of using Doppler correction to compensate for phase differences between signals (“In order to determine the distance and angle of arrival from the radar system to a target object, e.g., for parking assistance, a signal received from the radar system front end is usually processed via a flow of signal processing steps, including Doppler correction and beamforming. Doppler correction compensates for phase differences due to the movement of a target object between transmission of a first chirp signal and a second chirp signal.” – see at least Singh: paragraph 0026). As such, the teachings from Santra regarding a particular method of how the Doppler correction may be performed may be readily integrated with the teachings from Singh.
Regarding claim 4, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh further teaches:
wherein the plurality of transmission radio waves include a first transmission radio wave and a second transmission radio wave ("Doppler correction compensates for phase differences due to the movement of a target object between transmission of a first chirp signal and a second chirp signal." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0026),
and the plurality of reception signals include first sub-signals corresponding to the first transmission radio wave and second sub-signals corresponding to the second transmission radio wave ("Receiver beamforming estimates the angle of arrival by comparing phases of the received signals to the expected signal phases for an object arriving from a hypothesis angle." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0026).
Regarding claim 5, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh further teaches:
wherein the signal processor is configured to identify a phase difference between first phases of the first sub-signals and second phases of the second sub-signals ("The phase differences between the received reflections across consecutive chirps allow the velocity of target objects to be computed." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0029).
Regarding claim 8, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh further teaches:
wherein the plurality of transmission antennas radiate transmission signals whose frequencies linearly vary in response to a chirp signal and the plurality of reception antennas receive reflected signals reflected from the object ("During normal operation, linear frequency chirps are transmitted, and reflected signals are received." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0030).
Regarding claim 9, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh further teaches:
wherein the radar further includes a signal processing circuit configured to provide an intermediate frequency signal, which has been generated based on mixing the transmission signal and the reception signal, to the signal processor ("Received reflections are then mixed with the transmitted chirp signal to produce a received beat signal, which will give the distance, velocity, and angle of arrival for the target object after signal processing." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0028).
Regarding claim 10, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh further teaches:
wherein the signal processor is configured to: transform the intermediate frequency signal into frequency domain data using a first fast Fourier transform ("First, at step 310, the processing unit performs a range FFT on sampled data matrix 305, for example data from radar sensor circuit 210 sampled by ADC 237. Sampled data matrix 305 is a three dimensional (3D) matrix including sampled data values from received beat signals indexed by antenna combination over time, (antenna combination × sample × time)." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0033);
and transform the frequency domain data into phase domain data using a second fast Fourier transform ("At step 330, the processing unit performs a Doppler FFT on the transposed 3D range matrix 325. The resulting 3D Doppler matrix 335 includes data values sorted into velocity bins representing ranges of velocities for a target object indexed by antenna combination and range bin, (antenna combination × velocity bin × range bin)." – see at least Singh: paragraph 0034) (The examiner notes that Fig. 3 of Singh as shown below illustrates a second fast Fourier transform (FFT) being performed in step 330 after a first fast Fourier transform (FFT) being performed in step 310).
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Regarding claim 11, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 1 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 14, this claim is substantially similar to claim 4 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 4 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 15, this claim is substantially similar to claim 5 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 5 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 18, this claim is substantially similar to claim 8 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 8 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 19, this claim is substantially similar to claim 9 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 9 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 20, this claim is substantially similar to claim 10 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 10 as has been set forth above.
Claims 3, 7, 13, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh in view of Santra, further in view of Takeuchi et al. (US 2019/0391249), hereinafter referred to as Takeuchi. Takeuchi is considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of signal processing for radar devices.
Regarding claim 3, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh does not explicitly disclose, but Takeuchi teaches:
wherein a minimum distance between the plurality of transmission antennas is greater than a maximum distance between the plurality of reception antennas ("FIG. 19C is a figure for explaining an example in which two transmit antennas TX and four receive antennas RX are used. The two transmit antennas, the transmit antenna TX1 and the transmit antenna TX2, are arrayed at an interval 4d." – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0230) (The examiner notes that Fig. 19C of Takeuchi as shown below illustrates the distance between an array of transmissions antennas and reception antennas, wherein the distance 4d between transmission antennas is always greater than the distance d between reception antennas, regardless of the value of d).
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It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Singh with these above aforementioned teachings from Takeuchi such that a minimum distance between the plurality of transmission antennas is greater than a maximum distance between the plurality of reception antennas. At the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Takeuchi’s radar antenna arrangement with Singh’s radar system in order to generate a plurality of different types of range and phase differences (“Here, if reception at the individual transmit antennas TX can be distinguished, eight types of range difference, 0 to 7d.Math.sin(θ), can be generated even with the four receive antennas RX. As a result, eight types of phase difference, 0 to 7ω, can be obtained. That is, in the configuration illustrated in FIG. 19C, phase differences substantially equivalent to those in the configuration illustrated in FIG. 19B can be calculated.” – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0232). Doing so would provide the benefit of covering a wider aperture length with a smaller number of antennas (“The antennas 1016 are arrayed at predetermined intervals. By devising the manner how the antennas 1016 are arrayed, the sensor device 1100 can cover a wide aperture length with a smaller number of antennas 1016. The exemplary arrangements of antennas 1016 of the present example may be applied to the arrangement of transmit antennas TX or may be applied to the arrangement of receive antennas RX.” – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0234).
Regarding claim 7, Singh in view of Santra and Takeuchi teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh does not explicitly disclose, but Takeuchi teaches:
wherein the transmission signals transmitted from the plurality of transmission antennas are phase-modulated or time-modulated ("FIG. 25B illustrates an exemplary operation method of the sensor device 1100. The sensor device 1100 of the present example uses BPM MIMO (Binary Phase Modulate MIMO) to transmit a transmission wave to a target 1300." – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0289).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Singh with these above aforementioned teachings from Takeuchi such that the transmission signals transmitted from the plurality of transmission antennas are phase-modulated or time-modulated. At the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Takeuchi’s use of phase-modulated transmission signals with Singh’s radar system in order to modify the phases of the transmission waves (“During a first period and a second period, a transmit antenna TX1 transmits transmission waves with their phases not being changed. A transmit antenna TX2 transmits a transmission wave with a phase difference of 0° during the first period, and transmits a transmission wave with a phase difference of 180° during the second period.” – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0290). Doing so would provide the benefit of allowing signal receivers to distinguish signals from a plurality of transmission antennas (“In this manner, the sensor device 1100 can distinguish, on the receiving end, signals from the plurality of transmit antennas TX, and configure a plurality of virtual antennas V by using BPM MIMO. BPM MIMO can be applied to any embodiment.” – see at least Takeuchi: paragraph 0297).
Regarding claim 13, this claim is substantially similar to claim 3 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 3 as has been set forth above.
Regarding claim 17, this claim is substantially similar to claim 7 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 7 as has been set forth above.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh in view of Santra, further in view of Lee et al. (US 2020/0081108), hereinafter referred to as Lee. Lee is considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of signal processing for radar devices.
Regarding claim 6, Singh in view of Santra teaches all of the elements of the current invention as stated above. Singh does not explicitly disclose, but Lee teaches:
wherein the signal processor is configured to identify whether each of a phase error of the first phases and a phase error of the second phases is smaller than a predetermined allowable error ("When the instructions are executed by the at least one or more processors, the instructions may make the radar sensing device give a target warning using a previous phase curve in accordance with the comparison result, after comparing the target angle error with the predetermined critical error." – see at least Lee: paragraph 0017).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Singh with these above aforementioned teachings from Lee such that the signal processor is configured to identify whether each of a phase error of the first phases and a phase error of the second phases is smaller than a predetermined allowable error. At the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Lee’s use of a predetermined critical error for radar measurements with Singh’s radar system in order to evaluate an error in an angle measured by a radar system (“Referring to FIG. 2, the position of the target 20 recognized through the radar sensor is ‘P1’, but the actual position of the target 20 is ‘P0.’ In this case, a target angle error θ.sub.1 is generated between a target angle α recognized through the radar sensor and an actual target angle δ.” – see at least Lee: paragraph 0039). Doing so would provide the benefit of allowing corrective action to be taken in the case that the target angle error is larger than the predetermined critical error (“That is, when the target angle error θ.sub.2 is larger than the predetermined critical error, the subject vehicle 10 performs correction by applying the target angle error θ.sub.2 to the phase curve and then gives a target warning.” – see at least Lee: paragraph 0060).
Regarding claim 16, this claim is substantially similar to claim 6 and is, therefore, rejected in the same manner as claim 6 as has been set forth above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 24 November 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. As such, the amended claims remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 for substantially the same reason as previously presented in the Non-Final Rejection filed 26 August 2025.
In particular, the Applicant asserts that the “time difference between a first transmitted chirp signal and a second transmitted chirp signal” of Singh is not a disclosure, teaching, or suggestion of “phase error between the plurality of transmission radio waves”. In this argument, the Applicant appears to be interpreting Singh such that the time difference of Singh corresponds to the claimed phase error. However, the examiner is instead interpreting Singh such that the “phase differences between different received signals” as taught by Singh corresponds to the claimed phase error. The examiner has provided additional clarification to the rejection of amended claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103 to more clearly point out how Singh and Santra are being interpreted to address the amended claims.
The Applicant has amended the claims such that claim 1 now recites “identify a phase error” on line 17, instead of “identify a phase difference” as originally recited. However, as best understood by the examiner in view of the written description of the invention, the terms “phase error” and “phase difference” appear to be used interchangeably in the context of the claimed invention. For example, the specification of the instant application recites “ɸerr denotes the phase difference between the first transmission signal and the second transmission signal” on lines 11-12 of page 30, and further recites “ɸerr denotes the error between the first transmission signal and the second transmission signal” on lines 18-19 of page 31. In both of these instances, the written description of the invention appears to use the same symbol “ɸerr” to describe both a phase difference and a phase error, and in both instances ɸerr appears to refer to a difference in phase between the first transmission signal and the second transmission signal. As such, under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims, the examiner is interpreting the “phase error” as recited in amended claim 1 as having substantially the same meaning as the “phase difference” as originally recited in claim 1. The corresponding limitations of claim 1 have therefore been addressed using substantially the same reasoning as previously presented, in view of the “phase differences between different received signals” as taught by Singh and the “phase difference between signals received by receivers RX1 and RX2” as taught by Santra.
As per the pending rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), the amendments to the claims have resolved the issues in the claims with regards to indefiniteness due to insufficient antecedent basis for limitations in the claims. Therefore, the pending rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been withdrawn.
Further, in view of the Applicant’s amendments to the abstract filed 24 November 2025, the pending objections to the specification have been withdrawn.
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 DOMINICK ANTHONY MULDER whose telephone number is (571)272-3610. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7:30am - 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, RAMYA BURGESS can be reached at (571)272-6011. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/D.M./Examiner, Art Unit 3667
/VIVEK D KOPPIKAR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3667
February 13, 2026