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 statement (IDS) submitted is 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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 8 – 9, 16 – 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite the abstract ideas as explained in the Step 2A, Prong I analysis below. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application as explained in Step 2A, Prong 2 analysis below. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception as explained in Step 2B analysis below.
Step 2A, Prong 1:
Step 2A, prong 1, of the 2019 Guidance, first looks to whether the claim recites any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activities such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes). 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–54.
The limitations “determine a steering matrix for the radar system, wherein the steering matrix defines a plurality of steering vectors, wherein each steering vector in the plurality of steering vectors is associated with a frequency, determine a measurement vector using signals received by the plurality of receiver modules, initializing an output amplitude vector using the steering matrix and the measurement vector; determine an optimized output amplitude vector by performing steps including: determining a diagonal loading vector using the output amplitude vector; calculating a weighting matrix by executing a first fast Fourier transform using the diagonal loading vector, determining an inverse matrix as an inversion of a sum of the weighting matrix and an identity matrix; executing a second fast Fourier transform using the inverse matrix to determine the optimized output amplitude vector, wherein the optimized output amplitude vector is determined by a relationship between the steering matrix and the measurement vector; and determine an estimated direction of arrival of a first object by correlating the optimized output amplitude vector to the measurement vector” of claim 1, “determine a steering matrix for the radar system, wherein the steering matrix defines a plurality of steering vectors, wherein each steering vector in the plurality of steering vectors is associated with a frequency, determine a measurement vector using signals received by the plurality of receiver modules, initializing a first output amplitude vector using the steering matrix and the measurement vector; determine a second output amplitude vector by performing steps including: determining a diagonal loading vector using the first output amplitude vector; calculating a weighting matrix by executing a first fast Fourier transform using the diagonal loading vector, determining an inverse matrix as an inversion of a sum of the weighting matrix and an identity matrix; and executing a second fast Fourier transform using the inverse matrix to determine the second output amplitude vector, wherein the second output amplitude vector is determined by a relationship between the steering matrix and the measurement vector; determine a normalized difference between the second output amplitude vector and the first output amplitude vector is greater than a convergence threshold; executing an inverse fast Fourier transform to determine an estimate of the measurement vector using the second output amplitude vector; computing a set of diagonal elements by executing a fast Fourier transform using the inverse matrix; updating a noise parameter using the estimate of the measurement vector; updating a scaling parameter using the second output amplitude vector; determining a third output amplitude vector using the noise parameter and the scaling parameter; and determining an estimated direction of arrival of a first object by correlating the third output amplitude vector to the measurement vector” of claim 9 and “determining a steering matrix for a radar system, wherein the steering matrix defines a plurality of steering vectors, wherein each steering vector in the plurality of steering vectors is associated with a frequency, determining a measurement vector using signals received by a plurality of receiver modules, initializing an output amplitude vector using the steering matrix and the measurement vector; determine an optimized output amplitude vector by performing steps including: determining a diagonal loading vector using the output amplitude vector; calculating a weighting matrix by executing a first fast Fourier transform using the diagonal loading vector, determining an inverse matrix as an inversion of a sum of the weighting matrix and an identity matrix; executing a second fast Fourier transform using the inverse matrix to determine the optimized output amplitude vector, wherein the optimized output amplitude vector is determined by a relationship between the steering matrix and the measurement vector; and determining an estimated direction of arrival of a first object by correlating the optimized output amplitude vector to the measurement vector” of claim 18 are directed to mathematical concepts especially Linear Algebra and Fourier transforms.
The limitations of claims 8, 16 and 20 are also mathematical.
Regarding claim 17, the limitation regarding a normalized difference is mathematical and the limitation of determining whether said difference is less than a convergence threshold is mathematical, e.g., inequality, and/or mental process because a person is cable of visually determining whether something is above or below a threshold.
Algorithms that can easily be performed in the mind or by hand or with the aid of a general-purpose computer. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC. v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Mortg. Grader, Inc. v. First. Choice Loan Servs. Inc., 811 F.3d 1314, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Step 2A, Prong 2:
Step 2A, prong 2, of the 2019 Guidance, next analyzes whether claims 22, 33, 36 and 41 recite additional elements that individually or in combination integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. 2019 Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 53–55. The 2019 Guidance identifies considerations indicative of whether an additional element or combination of elements integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, such as an additional element reflecting an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to other technology or technical field. Id. at 55; MPEP § 2106.05(a).
In addition to reciting the above-noted abstract ideas, the issue is whether the claims as a whole including various additional elements integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application. In other words, do the claims as a whole produce any meaningful limits, i.e. improvement in technology?
The additional limitations of the claims are the claimed “a plurality of transmitter modules configured to transmit a plurality of transmitted radar signals, wherein each transmitted radar signal is associated with a transmit channel of a plurality of transmit channels; a plurality of receiver modules configured to receive reflections of the plurality of transmitted radar signals reflected by at least one object and to generate signals based on the received reflections” in claim 1 and similar language in claim 9. Claimed sensors that are claimed at a high level of generality for the purpose of data gathering are considered extra-solution activity.
The signal processor 110 is shown in Fig. 1 and appears to be a general-purpose computer. Using generic computer components to implement an abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. See, e.g., Alice, 573 U.S. at 223–24; see also Memorandum, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 (explaining that courts have identified merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea as an example of when a judicial exception has not been integrated into a practical application).
The improvement is to reduce cost and complexity of radar systems. See Spec. Para. 4. Such improvement does not appear to be realized until dependent claims 2 and 10 wherein the spacing and number of the antenna is claimed that, as claimed, is relevant to the virtual array that reduces size and cost of having a larger antenna array. Any improvements regarding claims 1, 9 and 18 would have to be in the abstract, e.g., mathematical, because all features are mathematical and extra-solution data gathering activity. A claim for a useful or beneficial abstract idea is still an abstract idea. See Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379–80 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
None of the additional limitations provide a meaningful limit on the claim invention. Rather, the additional limitations are directed to data gathering and data processing which is an extra-solution activity.
Step 2B:
Under step 2B of the 2019 Guidance, the issue is whether the claims adds any specific limitations beyond the judicial exception that, either alone or as an ordered combination, amount to more than “well-understood, routine, conventional” activity in the field. 84 Fed. Reg. at 56; MPEP § 2106.05(d).
The issue is whether the claims as a whole including the additional limitations, as an ordered combination, amount to more than “well-understood, routine, conventional” activity in the field. In other words, the issue is whether the additional elements in combination (as well as individually) amount to an inventive concept.
Again, the additional limitations are directed to mere data gathering and data processing, which is “well-understood, routine, and conventional” activity in the field. Thus, the additional limitations alone or in combination do not amount to an inventive concept.
The issue is whether the ordered combination of structural features and/or steps are considered well-understand, routine and conventional or whether the ordered combination itself provides for an improvement of a particular structure. For example, the integration of a computer with a sensor, e.g., radar, is conventional because a sensor collects data and a computer performs calculations and processing on data from said sensors.
BASCOM Global Internet v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 119 USPQ2d 1236 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (BASCOM) provides, in summary, an example wherein the local computer, ISP server, internet computer network and controlled access network are generic computer and networking components that when taken individually do not amount to significantly more but taken together provided for an unconventional and non-generic combination of known elements that result in an improvement of filtering content thus amounting to significantly more wherein the improvement was related to functionality of the computer and networking itself, rather than an abstract idea.
The claims at issue are directed mostly to mathematical concepts wherein a computer is used to perform calculations on data gathered by a sensor, which is well-known, routine and conventional. Again, a claim for a useful or beneficial abstract idea is still an abstract idea. See Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379–80 (Fed. Cir. 2015). As such, the ordered combination of features of the claims at issue are directed solely to abstract ideas or extra-solution activity as discussed supra. The same reasoning applies to the dependent claims.
The dependent claims 8, 16 – 17 and 20 either further define the abstract idea in the independent claims or add limitations which recite abstract ideas similar to the ones addressed above or provide for extra-solution activity and/or intended use.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 – 7, 10 – 11 and 19 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.
Relevant art includes the following: Arkind (US 2023/0375690) teaches “Note that the equations approximating the calculation of B are not an FFT matrix but are sufficiently close to it. The distortion matrix is computed using B which is calculated using any desired well-known technique. The assumption that B is close to FFT is made and the distortion matrix is computed using B. Singular value decomposition (SVD) is then computed to determine the pre and post coefficients (Para. 99).”, Wu (US 2022/0268883) teaches “Cholesky decomposition is used to take advantage of the structure of the underlying matrix to be inverted such that the speed increases and the computation is more robust against numerical issues (Para. 82).” Hammes (US 2020/0400808) teaches “if the covariance matrix is circulant Hermitian matrix, the aforementioned decomposition is, in fact, the eigenvalue decomposition with the columns of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) matrix being the eigenvectors of R.sub.{tilde over (s)}[21]. A circulant Hermitian matrix can be constructed by using a block circulant probing signal matrix (Para. 74).” Emadi (US 2025/0035776) teaches “the present disclosure describes a novel and first-in-the-literature technique for achieving super-resolution via exploiting the Vandermonde structure of the signal and the corresponding virtual array information of a fast Fourier transform (FFT) method in lieu of employing highly computational operations such as singular/eigenvalue decomposition techniques currently used in the industry and academia (Para. 15).”
The prior art does not teach all of the features of the independent claims such as taking a second Fourier transform using the inverse matrix derived from an inversion sum of a weighting matrix and identity matrix as claimed wherein the weighting matrix is derived from using first Fourier fast transform using the diagonal loading vector as claimed. Thus, if the independent claims were amended to overcome the 101 rejection, all the claims would be allowable.
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