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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 7, 8, 12-15, 17, 18 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diewald et al. (Diewald, Arbitrary Angle of Arrival in Radar Target Simulation) in view of Ben-Cherif et al. (Ben-Cherif, WO 2024/260943).
Referring to Claim 1, Diewald teaches a primary target generator configured to create at least a part of a radar scene, especially a radar scene, and/or at least one primary radar target, and a secondary target generator configured to create at least one secondary radar target, wherein the secondary target generator comprises a receive path, a Doppler shifter, a delayer or a delay structure, and a transmit path, wherein the at least one primary radar target is based on primary radio waves being incident and/or reflected with respect to a radar under test in a direct manner; See Fig. 1 and Section II Radar Target Simulation and part A Target Generation; but does not explicitly disclose nor limit the secondary target generator to provide static reflections with an ego speed of a vehicle.
However, Ben-Cherif teaches the detection of at least one secondary target based one static reflections with an ego speed of a vehicle; See page 7 of the provided translation “Similarly to the driving assistance system 2, the horizon provider module 4 is able to detect and/or calculate a distance, or inter-distance, of the at least one secondary target relative to the vehicle 1 ego and a relative speed of at least one secondary target located in the road infrastructure. The same applies to different secondary targets.”
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Diewald with the target detection as taught by Ben-Cherif so as to provide additional data about static or fixed objects in order to better avoid collisions.
Referring to Claims 2 and 13, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches at least one transmit-receive pair configured to provide the at least one secondary radar target to a radar under test; See Section II “RuT”.
Referring to Claims 3 and 14, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches wherein the secondary target generator further comprises at least one of an attenuator, an attenuation analog modulator, an attenuation analog modulator with a frequency shift, a Doppler modulator, an analog modulator, or any combination thereof; see beginning portion of Section II.
Referring to Claims 7 and 17, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches wherein the secondary target generator is further configured to vary the respective radar cross section,; Fig. 1 and Parts A and B of Section II.
Referring to Claims 8 and 18, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches wherein the receive path and the transmit path of the secondary target generator and/or the secondary target generator are adapted to be connected to multiple receive and transmit antennas and/or with multiple front ends; See Fig. 1 and Section II.
Referring to Claim 12, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches at least two transmit antennas (Fig. 1 Tx), at least two receive antennas (Fig. 1 Rx), and a radar target generator configured to create at least one radar target and to provide static reflections with an ego speed of a vehicle, wherein the radar target generator comprises a receive path, a Doppler shifter, a delayer or a delay structure, and a transmit path; See Fig. 1 and Section II Radar Target Simulation and part A Target Generation and citations of Ben-Cherif of Claim 1 above as the claims are variations of one another.
Referring to Claim 20, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches creating, by a primary target generator, at least a part of a radar scene, and/or at least one primary radar target, creating, by a secondary target generator, at least one secondary radar target, and providing, by the secondary target generator, static reflections with an ego speed of a vehicle, wherein the secondary target generator comprises a receive path, a Doppler shifter, a delayer or a delay structure, and a transmit path, wherein the at least one primary radar target is based on primary radio waves being incident and/or reflected with respect to a radar under test in a direct manner; see Claim 1.
Claim(s) 5, 6, 15 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif in view of Dvorecki et al. (Dvorecki, US PGPub 2022/0113402).
Referring to Claims 5 and 15, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches wherein the at least one secondary radar target is based on secondary radio waves being incident and/or reflected with respect to a radar under test, but does not explicitly disclose nor limit the waves being incident and/or reflected in an indirect manner.
However, Dvorecki teaches secondary radar targets based on waves being incident and/or reflected in an indirect manner, especially in a multi-path manner, or behaving like this; [0252].
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif with the capturing of objects from indirect/multi-path manner as taught by Dvorecki so as to predictably allow the device to operate in diverse and/or difficult scenarios and readily detect all possible targets/objection in the environment.
Referring to Claims 6 and 16, Diewald as modified by Ben0Cherif and Dvorecki teaches wherein the at least one secondary radar target comprises or is at least one ghost radar target; [0252] of Dvorecki.
Claim(s) 9-11 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif in view of Lutz et al. (Lutz, Target Simulator Concept for Chirp Modulated 77 GHz Automotive Radar Sensors).
Referring to Claim 9, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif teaches the delayer or delay structure, but does not explicitly disclose nor limit it comprises or is at least one of a delay line, a switchable delay line, a digital delay line, a switchable digital delay line, a coax line, a switchable coax line, a fiber line, a switchable fiber line, a small-form-factor-package module, or any combination thereof.
However, Lutz teaches the delayer or delay structure comprises or is at least one of a delay line, a switchable delay line, a digital delay line, a switchable digital delay line, a coax line, a switchable coax line, a fiber line, a switchable fiber line, a small-form-factor-package module, or any combination thereof; See Fig. 5 and Section IV section A.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif with the delay line as taught by Lutz as the delay line predictably allows the control of time of flight of the radar signal allowing for multiple types of targets to be detected.
Referring to Claim 10, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif and Lutz teaches wherein the corresponding delay of the delayer or delay structure is settable; See Fig. 5 and Section IV section A of Lutz.
Referring to Claim 11, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif and Lutz teaches wherein the secondary target generator further comprises at least one further delayer or at least one further delay structure, especially to provide the at least one secondary radar target at different distances; See Fig. 5 and Section IV section A of Lutz.
Referring to Claim 19, Diewald as modified by Ben-Cherif and Lutz teaches wherein the delayer or delay structure comprises or is at least one of a delay line, a switchable delay line, a digital delay line, a switchable digital delay line, a coax line, a switchable coax line, a fiber line, a switchable fiber line, a small-form-factor-package module, or any combination thereof, and/or wherein the corresponding delay of the delayer or delay structure is settable, and/or wherein the radar target generator further comprises at least one further delayer or at least one further delay structure; see rejections of Claims 9-11 above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-3 and 5-20 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.
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 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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/WHITNEY MOORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646