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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species C (Claims 5-7) in the reply filed on 03 February 2023 is acknowledged. Claims 1-4 are directed to a non-elected invention and are withdrawn.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
This office acknowledges receipt of the following item(s) from the applicant:
Information Disclosure Statement(s) (IDS) filed on 02 November 2026 and 31 October 2024. The references have been considered.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a) because he unlabeled rectangular box(es) shown in Fig. 3-12 and 15-18 should be provided with descriptive text labels as described in the specification. Applicant includes the details in Fig. 20, 24 and 25, these details should be shown in the other claims as well.
It is stated in Ex parte Good, 1911 C.D. 43, 164 OG 739 (Comm’r Pat. 1911) The question is not whether one skilled in the art can decipher the invention, but whether the drawing is so clearly and artistically executed as to facilitate a ready understanding of the invention… Any structural detail that is essential for a proper understanding of the disclosed invention should be shown in the drawing. MPEP § 608.02(d). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wellman et al. (Wellman, US PGPub 2017/0003376).
Referring to Claim 5, Wellman teaches a TDFD calculator to calculate a TDOA and an FDOA by referring to a peak of cross-correlation; a TDFD positioning processor to perform TDOA positioning and FDOA positioning by referring to the TDOA and the FDOA; a DOA estimation processor to estimate a DOA from a reception signal received by an array antenna of at least one satellite; a DOA positioning processor to perform DOA positioning by referring to the DOA (Fig. 8 #813, 814, 815, 816; [0075-0077]); a TDFD range calculator to set a presence expected area in a TDOA-FDOA space by referring to a result of the DOA positioning processor and a variance of measurement errors (Fig. 8 #820 and 821; [0078-0080]); and an ambiguity handler to select one included in the presence expected area from among a plurality of positioning results calculated by the TDFD positioning processor; Fig. 8 #817; [0080-0081].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US PGPub 2016/0299212 teaches geolocation using TDOA and FDOA and teaches a relevant representation of the state of the art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WHITNEY T MOORE whose telephone number is (571)270-3338. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday from 7am-4pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jack Keith can be reached at (571) 272-6878. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WHITNEY MOORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646