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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS’s) submitted are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Flax (US 4782450 A) in view of Breed (US 20080140318 A1).
As to claims 1, 10 and 18, Flax discloses a system for indirect profiling a Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR), comprising:
a Passive Secondary Surveillance Radar (PSSR) (col. 6 ll. 47 – 52 “passively determining the position of own aircraft with respect to a secondary surveillance radar transmitting ISLS signals and a ground transponder system …” Fig. 9 item 54),
the PSSR not being able to receive interrogation signals from the SSR (Not disclosed.);
an opportunistic aircraft (Fig. 1 item 10, Fig. 9 item 70), which is:
(i) equipped with a transponder (col. 3 line 4 “aircraft transponder 10”) and has an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out functionality (Not disclosed.);
(ii) in the Line-of-Sight (LOS) with both the SSR and the PSSR (Fig. 9 shows aircraft 70 in LOS of aircraft 54 and radar 12, which is the SSR.);
(iii) interrogated with the interrogation signals from the SSR, when the opportunistic aircraft is within a beam of the SSR during one or more rotations of the SSR (Fig. 9);
the PSSR (any one of the two aircraft 54, 70 having transponders 40 and 72 respectively as shown in Fig. 9) comprising:
(a) means for collecting transponder response signals from the opportunistic aircraft to said interrogation signals from the SSR during said one or more rotations of the SSR (col. 3 ll. 3 – 5 “aircraft transponder 10 will reply to beacon-radar interrogation 18.”);
(b) means for receiving an ADS-B Out response from the opportunistic aircraft and decoding a spatial position of the opportunistic aircraft from the ADS-B Out response (Not disclosed.);
(c) means for determining a staggered Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) pattern of the SSR using the collected transponder response signals (col. 15 ll. 48 – 52 “matches some radar’s extrapolated stagger pattern, …”), the decoded spatial position of the opportunistic aircraft (Fig. 11 steps 110 – 118), a position of the ownship and a position of the SSR (Fig. 11 steps 110 – 118), and a predetermined transponder response time at the opportunistic aircraft (col. 10 “turnaround time”).
The Examiner has noted the above features which are not disclosed. The Examiner further notes that the aircrafts 45, 72 in Fig. 9 would have the same navigation equipment, namely the transponders 40 and 72, meaning said aircrafts 45, 72 have the same functionality. Essentially the difference in the claimed invention and Flax is that Flax does not teach using ADS-B equipped aircraft to provide positional information to a masked/shadowed aircraft via broadcasting of ADS-B/GPS data from other aircraft that are visible to the SSR radar 12 as shown in Fig. 9. The Examiner further notes that any minor differences in claims language between claims 1, 10 and 18 is readily taught by Flax’s Figures 1, 6 and 9.
In the same field of endeavor, Breed teaches “In the case where the vehicle is an airplane, the new ADS-B technology will permit all equipped planes to be aware of other similarly equipped planes and other ground-based vehicles through vehicle-to-vehicle communication (Para. 258).” Breed further teaches “The communication between vehicles for collision avoidance purposes cannot solely be based on line-of-sight technologies as this is not sufficient since vehicles which are out of sight can still cause accidents (Para. 280).”
In view of the teachings of Breed, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply aircraft with ADS-B in order to allow LOS aircraft, with respect to SSR ground station, to provide navigational data regarding ground stations and other aircraft within its LOS to Non-LOS aircraft, with respect to ground station, thereby improving overall situation awareness thus reducing risk.
As to claims 2 and 11, Flax in view of Breed teaches the system of claims 1 and 10 and wherein the interrogation signals are at 1030 MHz, and the transponder response signals are at 1090 MHz (Flax Figs. 12 – 13).
As to claim 4, Flax in view of Breed teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the ownship is equipped with one of:
Global Positioning System (GPS) (As modified by Breed and ADS-B includes GPS data); or
ADS-B Out functionality (As modified by Breed.);
for determining the position of the ownship (Flax Fig. 11 as cited in claim 1 and as modified by Breed.).
As to claim 5, Flax in view of Breed teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the beam of the SSR is a main beam of the SSR (Flax Figs. 1, 6 and 9).
As to claim 6, Flax in view of Breed teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the beam of the SSR is a Side Lobe Suppression (SLS) omni directional beam of the SSR (Flax’s Figs. 1, 6 and 9 show both main-beam and omni-directional.).
As to claims 8 and 13, Flax in view of Breed discloses the method of claims 1 and 10, further comprising determining a location of the ownship using two or more opportunistic aircraft interrogated by the same or different SSRs (Flax states that several fixed transponders may be associated with one radar. Breed at Para. 258 indicates all ADS-B equipped planes at an airport which airports are known to have several aircraft. Breed also teaches “Several vehicles communicating in this manner can determine the best paths for all vehicles to take to minimize the danger to all vehicles (Para. 295.” As such, it would be obvious that use navigational data from all available opportunistic aircraft in order to minimize danger thus improving safety.).
As to claim 14, Flax in view of Breed teaches the method of claim 10, wherein the beam of the SSR is a main beam of the SSR (Flax Figs. 1, 6 and 9).
As to claim 15, Flax in view of Breed teaches the method of claim 10, wherein the beam of the SSR is a Side Lobe Suppression (SLS) omni directional beam of the SSR (Flax Figs. 1, 6 and 9).
As to claims 7 and 16, Flax in view of Breed teaches the system of claim 1 further comprising:
means for receiving a reply from a target aircraft in response to an interrogation signal sent by the SSR to the target aircraft (Fig. 11 step 104);
estimating a transmit time of the interrogation signal to the target aircraft based on a reception time of said reply, and the PRF pattern (Fig. 11 and col. 4 ll. 41 – 57); and
means for determining the position of the target aircraft using an altitude information h of the target object contained in said reply, the position of the SSR, said estimated transmit time of the interrogation signal, and said reception time of said reply (Fig. 11 steps 104 – 118 and col. 12 ll. 37 – 60).
As to claims 9 and 17, Flax in view of Breed teaches the method of claims 1 and 10, wherein the ownship is blocked from a Line of Sight (LOS) of the SSR (The modification with Breed accounts for any combination of any aircraft or ground station being blocked (masked, shawdowed) because Breed makes clear that ADS-B equipment allows for exchange of information with all other ADS-B equipment.).
As to claims 3, 12 and 19, Flax in view of Breed teaches the PSSR of claim 1 and 18, placed on the ground (The modification with Breed accounts for any combination of any aircraft or ground station being blocked (masked, shadowed) because Breed makes clear that ADS-B equipment allows for exchange of information with all other ADS-B equipment.).
As to claims 3, 12 and 20, Flax in view of Breed teaches the PSSR of claims 1 and 18, placed on an ownship aircraft (The modification with Breed accounts for any combination of any aircraft or ground station being blocked (masked, shadowed) because Breed makes clear that ADS-B equipment allows for exchange of information with all other ADS-B equipment.).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W JUSTICE whose telephone number is (571)270-7029. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 - 5:30 M-F.
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648