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 with traverse of Group I (Claims 1-10) in the reply filed on 04 February 2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that Kong does not teach generating code phase discriminator vectors that are based on estimated signal processing…. This is not found persuasive because Kong uses iterative estimation of signal parameters and iteratively applies these estimations to the equations of the model which are used in the continuous correlation process as taught in [0066]. This is further evidenced by the presented art rejection below.
Claims 11-18 are directed to non-elected claims and are currently withdrawn.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
This office acknowledges receipt of the following item(s) from the applicant:
Information Disclosure Statement(s) (IDS) filed on 22 January 2024 and 01 August 2024. The references have been considered.
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) 1, 2, 4 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kong et al. (Kong, US PGPub 2012/006349).
Referring to Claim 1, Kong teaches receiving ([0030]), at a receiver, a ranging signal from a transmitter, the ranging signal including a reference sequence; generating, by the receiver, a filtered ranging signal using the received ranging signal (Fig. 5a #502; [0053] and [0059]); estimating, by the receiver using the filtered ranging signal, a first estimated time of arrival (TOA) of the received ranging signal ([0056] and [0060]); generating, by the receiver, a filtered local replica of the received ranging signal ([0062]); determining, by the receiver, a plurality of first time delay hypotheses of an actual TOA of the received ranging signal ([0062]); generating, by the receiver, a correlator vector using the filtered ranging signal, the filtered local replica of the received ranging signal, and the plurality of first time delay hypotheses ([0064]); generating, by the receiver, a plurality of code phase discriminator vectors corresponding to a plurality of second time delay hypotheses placed relative to the plurality of first time delay hypotheses, each code phase discriminator vector being based on estimated signal processing, filtering, and noise characteristics of the received ranging signal for a respective second time delay hypothesis ([0048] and [0066] teach the equations applied to the model include iterative estimations of signal parameters and are continuously correlated); and determining, by the receiver, a second estimated TOA of the received ranging signal using the correlator vector and the plurality of code phase discriminator vectors, the second estimated TOA being a more accurate estimate of the actual TOA of the received ranging signal as compared to the first estimated TOA; [0066-0067] and [0085].
Referring to Claim 2, Kong teaches wherein the generating a filtered ranging signal comprises: correcting, by the receiver, Doppler and frequency offsets of the received ranging signal; Fig. 5a #515; [0060].
Referring to Claim 4, Kong teaches wherein the determining a plurality of first time delay hypotheses of an actual time of arrival of the received ranging signal comprises: determining, by the receiver, the plurality of first time delay hypotheses surrounding the first estimated TOA, wherein each time delay hypothesis corresponds to a delta time delay around a time reference that is based on the first estimated TOA; Fig. 7 #730; [0081].
Referring to Claim 5, Kong teaches wherein: one or more second time delay hypotheses of the plurality of second time delay hypotheses corresponds to an earlier time than an earliest first time delay hypothesis, or corresponds to a later time than a latest first time delay hypothesis; [0081].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 6-10 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
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/WHITNEY MOORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646