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 § 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) 1-4, 6, 8-10, 13-16, 18 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hammerschmidt et al. (Hammerschmidt, US PGPub 2018/0210079).
Referring to Claim 1, Hammerschmidt teaches a management unit (Fig. 4 #140; [0020-0022] and [0110]); a plurality of distributed radar units (Fig. 4 #110-1, 110-2 and 110-3; [0110]); and a dielectric waveguide network (Fig. 4 #130-1, 130-2, 130-3 and 130-4; [0093] and [0111]) comprising a plurality of dielectric waveguides coupling the management unit to the plurality of distributed radar units; wherein the management unit is configured to generate a reference signal for synchronization of operations of the plurality of distributed radar units; and the dielectric waveguide network is configured to propagate a representation of the reference signal to each of the distributed radar units of the plurality of distributed radar units; [0115]; wherein the management unit is further configured to introduce time stamp information into the reference signal through modulation of the reference signal; implicit from at least [0058] and [0084-0085] as distance is calculated as well.
Referring to Claim 2, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein the reference signal comprises one of a continuous waveform (CW) signal or a frequency modulated continuous waveform (FMCW) signal; [0084].
Referring to Claim 3, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein the reference signal has a carrier frequency equal to a frequency of a radar illumination signal generated by at least one distributed radar unit based on the reference signal; [0115].
Referring to Claim 4, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein each dielectric waveguide includes a dielectric core at least partially surrounded by at least one cladding layer; [0074].
Referring to Claim 6, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein the at least one cladding layer is composed of at least one of a polymer, a metal, or a metal alloy; [0074].
Referring to Claim 8, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein at least one distributed radar unit of the plurality of distributed radar units is configured to determine the time stamp information from the received representation of the reference signal and to control a timing of at least one radar operation of the distributed radar unit based on the time stamp information; see disclosure discussion of individual control of radar units.
Referring to Claim 9, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein the dielectric waveguide network has a parallel star topology having a plurality of dielectric waveguides, each dielectric waveguide terminating at the management unit at one end and terminating at a corresponding distributed radar unit at an opposing end; See Fig. 4.
Referring to Claim 10, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein the management unit comprises: a splitter having an input to receive the reference signal and a plurality of outputs, each output to provide a representation of the reference signal; and a plurality of waveguide interfaces, each waveguide interface coupled to a corresponding output of the plurality of outputs of the splitter and further coupled to a first end of a corresponding dielectric waveguide of the plurality of dielectric waveguides, the waveguide interface having at least one launcher for launching an analog signal corresponding to a received representation of the reference signal as an electromagnetic signal for propagation to a proximal end of the dielectric waveguide; Fig. 4 #144-3, 141-8 and 141-9; [0112].
Referring to Claim 13, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein each distributed radar unit comprises: a waveguide interface coupled to a proximal end of a corresponding dielectric waveguide of the dielectric waveguide network and comprising at least one launcher and at least one amplifier to convert an electromagnetic signal received from the dielectric waveguide to a corresponding analog signal; and wherein the distributed radar unit is configured to control at least one radar operation of the distributed radar unit based on a representation of the reference signal generated from the analog signal; See Fig. 4 and [0084].
Referring to Claim 14, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein: at least one distributed radar unit is configured to generate a digital data signal representative of results of a radar sensing operation of the distributed radar unit; the dielectric waveguide network is configured to propagate a representation of the digital data signal to the management unit; and the management unit is configured to control at least one operation of the distributed radar system based on the digital data signal; [0089].
Referring to Claim 15, Hammerschmidt teaches a vehicle comprising an advanced driver assistance system having the distributed radar system of claim 1; Fig. 3 and 4 represent a bumper of a vehicle.
Referring to Claim 16, Hammerschmidt teaches generating, at a management unit, a reference signal; transmitting a representation of the reference signal from the management unit to each of a plurality of distributed radar units via a dielectric waveguide network comprising a plurality of dielectric waveguides; and receiving, at each distributed radar unit, the representation of the reference signal from the dielectric waveguide network and controlling one or more radar operations of the distributed radar unit based on the received representation of the reference signal; modulating, at the management unit, the reference signal to introduce time stamp information into the reference signal; and controlling, at a distributed radar unit, a timing of at least one radar operation of the distributed radar unit based on time stamp information from a received representation of the reference signal; See the citations of Claim 1, 7 and 8 above as this claim is method equivalent to the above system claim.
Referring to Claim 18, Hammerschmidt teaches wherein: the dielectric waveguide network has a parallel star topology having a plurality of dielectric waveguides, each dielectric waveguide terminating at the management unit at one end and terminating at a corresponding distributed radar unit at an opposing end; and transmitting a representation of the reference signal from the management unit to each of the distributed radar units comprises: generating a plurality of representations of the reference signal at the management unit; and launching, at a corresponding waveguide interface of a plurality of waveguide interfaces of the management unit, an electromagnetic signal representative of a corresponding representation of the reference signal into a corresponding dielectric waveguide of the plurality of waveguides using at least one launcher of the waveguide interface; see rejections of Claims 9 and 10 above.
Referring to Claim 20, Hammerschmidt teaches generating, at a distributed radar unit, a digital data signal representative of results of a radar sensing operation of the distributed radar unit; propagating a representation of the digital data signal to the management unit via the dielectric waveguide network; and controlling, at the management unit, at least one operation of the distributed radar system based on a received representation of the digital data signal; see rejection of Claim 14 above.
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) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hammerschmidt in view of Huber (US PGPub 2021/0013578).
Referring to Claim 5, Hammerschmidt teaches the dielectric core, but does not explicitly disclose nor limit it is composed of at least one of: polytetrafluoroethylene, polyethylene, polypropylene, or polystyrene.
However, Huber teaches the dielectric core is composed of at least one of: polytetrafluoroethylene, polyethylene, polypropylene, or polystyrene; [0110-0111].
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Hammerschmidt with the materials as taught by Huber as using known materials that provide predictable results is well known in the art.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 11, 12, 17 and 19 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: Referring to Claims 11 and 19, both of these claims were indicated as being allowable if written in independent form in the previous office action, Applicant has amended these claims into independent form and the claims are now in condition for allowance.
Claims 7, 12 and 17 have been amended to depend on Claims 11 and 19 and are allowed for the same reasons.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 14 April 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s arguments are directed to the limitations of claims 7 and 17 which have been incorporated into Claims 1 and 16, respectively. The Applicant states that the prior art does not disclose or suggest introducing time stamp information into the reference signal. While the Examiner has stated that this implicit based on the paragraphs cited, the Applicant has argued that just because distance is calculated by a radar system it does not necessarily mean that time stamp information has been introduced. Applicant request that the Examiner “provide a basis in fact and/or technical reasoning to reasonably support the determination”. The Examiner maintains the rejection is proper as one of the requirements for determining distance between two objects is the measurement of time it takes for a transmitted signal to be received as a reflection. Therefore timestamp the transmitted signal would have been implicit as this information is needed to for tracking transmit and receive times. The prior art monitors the propagation time of both the transmit signal and the reflected portions of the signal, the Examiner maintains that is implicitly teaches the inclusion or introduction of timestamp information. Further, EP3495836 teaches “The propagation time of the UWB signals over the air interface can be calculated using the time stamps of both messages”; US PGPub 2022/0256496 teaches in [0049] “These timestamps are leveraged to estimate the stochastic processes, relative clock offsets (T) and propagation time (e.g., ToF (τ)) between the two network nodes 20, 22.”; DE102019130872 teaches “… it can be seen that, for example, the hardware interrupt TX-HI with respect to the transmission time of the first beacon message is .sub.triggered at time or time stamp T 1 , which corresponds to a relevant reference point T for determining the propagation time T .sub.p of the first beacon message, for example the hardware interrupt RX-HI is triggered with respect to the time of receipt of the first beacon message at time or time stamp T .sub.2 , which corresponds to the relevant reference point T for determining the propagation time T .sub.p of the first beacon message, and so on”; and DE102019211463 teaches “The first computing unit can, for example, determine the signal propagation time based on the first, second and / or third time stamp and / or a fourth time stamp, the fourth time stamp corresponding to a local arrival time of the second radio signal with respect to the second clock or the second clock signal.” It is the Examiner’s position that all of these citations support the Examiners statement that the limitation is implicitly taught by the Prior Art as in order to determine propagation times, time stamp values are required for this determination. The Examiner maintains the rejections are proper as stated above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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
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