DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
Claims 1-18 are currently pending and have been examined in this application. This NON-FINAL communication is the first action on the merits.
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.
Claims 1-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carlson (US 4876545) in view of Jolly (US 20200166607).
Regarding Claims 1, 11, Carlson teaches the following limitations:
An electronic warfare (EW) system, the EW system comprising: (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6] In an electronic countermeasures (ECM) system of the type employing a jamming apparatus including a transmitter portion for transmitting jamming signals in order to deceive a foreign transmitter/receiving apparatus and including a warning receiver means operative to receive foreign or threat transmissions to determine the nature of such transmissions and to inform said jamming apparatus of the nature of such threat transmissions, with said warning receiver means capable of operating according to different modes in order to determine the nature of said foreign transmissions, the combination therewith of apparatus for providing selective blanking to said jamming apparatus according to the modes of operation of said receiver means to allow said receiver means and said jamming means to operate without interference between the same, comprising interface means coupled between said jamming apparatus and said receiver means and adapted to exchange information between said jamming apparatus and said receiver means to generate optimum blanking parameter information between said jamming apparatus and said receiver means according to the mode of operation of said receiver means whereby any one of said modes can be accommodated by said ECM system according to said information exchanged.)
a first receiver, wherein the first receiver is an electronic countermeasure (ECM) component to discriminate characteristics of an incoming first signal from a first emitter, (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6])
wherein the first receiver is adapted to be installed on a platform, and (Carlson - [col. 3 ln. 43–49] The jammer 10 is indicated as an ASPJ which stands for aircraft self-protection jammer. The RWR or radar warning receiver operates in conjunction with the jammer 10. As seen from FIG. 1, in modern military aircraft selfprotection equipment is normally found in the installation suite and includes the radar warning receiver RWR 20 and the radar jammer 10.)
wherein the first receiver operates at a first bandwidth on a first scan schedule; (Carlson – [Fig. 8] Data unit B-3 [col. 4 ln. 34–39] This enables the units to establish a blanking schedule to the jammer which allows the RWR 20 to gather sufficient threat identification data and at the same time does not degrade the quality of the jamming output via the transmitting antenna 12. Carlson does not explicitly teach “scan schedule”.)
a second receiver, wherein the second receiver is a radar warning (RW) component to discriminate characteristics of an incoming second signal from a second emitter, (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6])
wherein the second receiver is adapted to be installed on the platform and spaced from the first receiver, and (Carlson – [Fig. 2], [col. 4 ln. 49–53] Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown a more detailed block diagram indicating an interface 30 which is positioned between the RWR 20 and the ASPJ or jamming unit 10.)
wherein the second receiver operates at a second bandwidth on a second scan schedule; and (Carlson – [Fig. 8], [col. 7 ln. 28–38] A first RWR system which is a well known system performs environmental analysis by collecting threat data over frequency intervals which correspond to each of its RF sub-bands. During this process, the RWR requires blanking of the ASPJ. In order to minimize the disruption of jamming outputs, data gathering is performed separately for threats handled in ASPJ tracker channels provided the ECM transmission is at a low duty cycle as opposed to all other threats in the environment.)
a processor that executes instructions to interleave the first scan schedule and second scan schedule, (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12] The RWR 20 includes the analyzer 26 and the control and display module 27. The ASPJ 10 or jammer is shown in greater detail. As one can ascertain from FIG. 2, the ASPJ 10 includes a receiving portion 31 for receiving threat signals and a transmitting portion 32 which is coupled to antenna 12 for transmitting jamming signals. Both the receiver 31 and the transmitter 32 are coupled to a processor 24 which processor performs the above-noted analysis and also contains suitable programs for generating different jamming formats according to the type of threat detected by the system. As indicated above, located between the processor 24 of the ASPJ 10 and the analyzer 26 of the RWR 20 is an interface module designated as module 30. The function of module 30 as will be explained is to operate as an interface between the ASPJ and different RWR's to enable the different RWR's to interface with the ASPJ unit and to provide the proper blanking parameters between the two systems. As seen in FIG. 2, there is an EW MUX bus which essentially is a serial data bus and is used to exchange threat information between the two modules and to set up the blanking mechanism parameters between the ASPJ 10 and the RWR 20.)
wherein the interleaving of the first scan schedule and the second scan schedule is optimized for environmental load and receiver allocation. (Carlson – [Fig. 8], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
(Claim 11) A method comprising: (Jolly – [0008] The present disclosure addresses these and other issues by providing a system and methods utilizing multiple receiver assets to optimize coverage and to maximize probability of intercept on highly agile modern LPI emitters.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the methods of Jolly in order to maximize probability of intercept on highly agile modern LPI emitters (Jolly – [0008]).
scan schedule (Jolly – [0050] The rankings and confidence levels are important in the generation of the MDF and scan schedules, which is the next step is process 100, indicated as reference 108 in FIG. 3. Armed with emitter profiles, including measured and tracked identifications, rankings, confidence levels, and information relating to the density of emitters and their location within theater 32, an operator may utilize the MDFG to apply one or more algorithms or processes therein to determine how best to utilize the EW system 10 and its related assets during the upcoming mission.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Regarding Claim 2, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the instructions control assets of the first receiver and the second receiver to be dynamically allocated in real time, (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
where the assets comprise one or more processors, frequency converters, transceiver, and antennas. (Carlson - [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
frequency converters, transceiver (Jolly – [0020] Generally speaking and with general reference to FIG. 1, an EW asset management system of the present disclosure, herein referred to as EW system and generally referenced at 10, may include one or more digital processors 12, one or more frequency converters 14, one or more transceivers 16, one or more transmit antennas 18, and one or more receiving antennas 20. These EW system 10 components, namely, digital processors 12, frequency converters 14, transceiver 16, transmit antennas 18, and receiving antennas 20, may generally be referred to as assets.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the processing of Carlson with the assets of Jolly in order to be operationally connected to other assets (Jolly – [0021]).
Regarding Claims 3, 12, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the instructions control assets of the first receiver and the second receiver to be allocated in real time based on integration of all available asset at any time during operation of the EW system. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Regarding Claims 4, 13, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the instructions integrate assets of the first receiver and the second receiver to be shared between the first receiver and the second receiver. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Regarding Claim 5, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the instructions integrate assets of the first receiver and the second receiver to be shared amongst all receivers in the EW system. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12])
Regarding Claim 6, Carlson further teaches:
further comprising: a first performance metric of the first receiver; a second performance metric of the second receiver, wherein the first performance metric and the second performance metric are different. (Carlson – [Fig. 2], [col. 4 ln. 1–7] Such threat signals are separated from friendly signals by analysis of the threat parameters such as the radio frequency, the pulse partition rate, pulse width and other modulation characteristics of specific and known threat systems. This determination is performed by the analyzer 26 which interfaces with the control and display functions 27 located in the aircraft cockpit.)
Regarding Claims 7, 14, Carlson further teaches:
further comprising: a joint mission data file generator (MDFG) communicatively coupled with both the first receiver and the second receiver, wherein the joint MDFG optimizes the first scan schedule and second scan schedule based on a blanking percentage of one of the ECM component and the RW component. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Regarding Claim 8, Carlson further teaches:
wherein a user-specific scan schedule optimization algorithm considers frequency, receiver location, and priority of the incoming first and second signals when optimizing the first scan schedule and second scan schedule based on the blanking percentage of one of the ECM component and the RW component. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules/algorithms (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
frequency converters, transceiver (Jolly – [0020])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the processing of Carlson with the assets of Jolly in order to be operationally connected to other assets (Jolly – [0021]).
Regarding Claims 9, 17, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the joint MDFG is in operative communication with a user-specific scan schedule optimization algorithm that optimizes the first scan schedule and the second scan schedule dynamically in response to environmental changes. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules/algorithms (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Regarding Claims 10, 18, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the user-specific scan schedule optimization algorithm takes into account a new incoming signal and signal interference. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules/algorithms (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Regarding Claim 15, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the joint MDFG is in operative communication with a user-specific scan schedule optimization algorithm that optimizes the first scan schedule and the second scan schedule dynamically in response to mission requirements. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules/algorithms (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Regarding Claim 16, Carlson further teaches:
wherein the user-specific scan schedule optimization algorithm accounts for frequency, receiver location, and priority of the incoming first and second signals. (Carlson - [col. 2 ln. 50 – col. 3 ln. 6], [col. 4 ln. 34–39], [col. 4 ln. 58 – col. 5 ln. 12], [col. 7 ln. 28–38])
Carlson does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however Jolly, in the same field of endeavor, teaches:
MDFG/scan schedules/algorithms (Jolly – [0050])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the blanking intervals of Carlson with the MDFG/scan schedules of Jolly in order to determine how best to utilize the EW system (Jolly – [0050]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's
disclosure or directed to the state of art is listed on the enclosed PTO-892.
The following is a brief description for relevant prior art that was cited but not applied:
Neuman (US 11520811) describes a system and method for the development and use of an architecture for a Mission Data File Generator (MDFG) for Electronic Warfare (EW) and other systems.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRANDON JAMES HENSON whose telephone number is (703)756-1841. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/BRANDON JAMES HENSON/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
/ROBERT W HODGE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3645