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 .
In the previous Office action mailed on 07/11/2025, the secondary reference (Park US 2023/0028353) is a typo error. The correction of the secondary reference should have been (Park US 2013/0028353). My apologies for the delay.
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.
Claims 1, 6-7, 10-11, 15-16, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scholand et al (US 2020/0328776) hereinafter Scholand in view of Park (US 2013/0028353).
Regarding claims 1, 11, Scholand discloses a test and measurement system for a frequency-hopping communication system, the test and measurement system comprising: a radio frequency antenna structured to receive a signal from a frequency-hopping data transmitting device including at least two frames of data in which the at least two frames of data are sent at two or more unique radio frequencies (see [0293] illustrates that method 3700 includes identifying a set of hopping frequencies for a superframe that are each associated with a respective hopping index and are arranged in increasing order by hopping index (3702), for a first frame of a plurality of frames in the superframe, using a first hopping frequency of the set of hopping frequencies to transmit or receive for a first data channel and using a second hopping frequency of the set of hopping frequencies to transmit and receive for a second data channel (3704), and for each given frame remaining in the plurality of frames, using a hopping frequency for the first data channel that has a hopping index that is higher than the hopping frequency used for the first data channel in the frame preceding the given frame and using a hopping frequency for the second data channel that has a hopping index that is lower than the hopping frequency used for the second data channel in the frame preceding the given frame (3706)). Scholand fails to explicitly disclose a decoder structured to decode the at least two frames of data without prior knowledge of the two or more unique radio frequencies at which the frequency-hopping data transmitting device sent the at least two frames of data.
Park discloses a decoder structured to decode the at least two frames of data without prior knowledge of the two or more unique radio frequencies at which the frequency-hopping data transmitting device sent the at least two frames of data (see [0003]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to decode the at least two frames of data without prior knowledge of the two or more unique radio frequencies at which the frequency-hopping data transmitting device sent the at least two frames of data as taught by Park into the teachings of Scholand in order to recover one or more of the narrowband signals that form the wideband signal.
Regarding claim 6, 15, Scholand discloses an In-phase Quadrature (IQ) processor structured to decode the signal received from the frequency-hopping data transmitting device (see [0105], [0168]).
Regarding claim 7, 16, Scholand discloses the signal received from the frequency-hopping data transmitting device is stored as an IQ waveform and as a time-domain waveform (see [0105], [0115], [0168]).
Regarding claims 10, 19, Scholand discloses a memory structured to store the decoded at least two frames of data in a list indexed by frame number (see [0089], [0258], [0273]).
5. Claims 2-3, 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scholand et al (US 2020/0328776) hereinafter Scholand in view of Park (US 2013/0028353) as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Findikoglu (US 2018/0231501) hereinafter Findikoglu.
Regarding claims 2, 12, Scholand and Park fail to disclose a short-time Fourier transform processor structured to determine the two or more unique radio frequencies.
Findikoglu discloses a short-time Fourier transform processor structured to determine the two or more unique radio frequencies (see [0009] – [0011]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to determine the two or more unique radio frequencies by using short-time Fourier transform processor as taught by Findikoglu into the teachings of Scholand and Park in order to display the distribution of received signal strength as a function of time and frequency.
Regarding claims 3, 13, Findikoglu discloses the short-time Fourier transform processor is structured to determine a deviation frequency for each of the two or more unique radio frequencies (see [0009] – [0011]).
6. Claims 8-9, 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scholand et al (US 2020/0328776) hereinafter Scholand in view of Park (US 2013/0028353) as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Honkanen et al (US 2012/0257604) hereinafter Honkanen.
Regarding claims 8, 17, Scholand and Park fail to disclose a polynomial extractor structured to determine a whitening word used to scramble the at least two frames of data.
Honkanen discloses a polynomial extractor structured to determine a whitening word used to scramble the at least two frames of data (see [0040]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to determine a whitening word used to scramble the at least two frames of data by using the polynomial extractor as taught by Honkanen into the teachings of Scholand and Park in order to randomize, and thus distinguish, the data from highly redundant patterns and to minimize DC bias in the packet.
Regarding claims 9, 18, Honkanen discloses the frequency-hopping data transmitting device transmits the at least two frames of data according to a Bluetooth™ protocol (see [0008], [0033], [0037]).
7. Claims 4-5, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scholand et al (US 2020/0328776) hereinafter Scholand in view of Park (US 2013/0028353) as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Li et al (U.S. Pat. 10,079,699) hereinafter Li.
Regarding claims 4-5, 14, Scholand and Park fail to disclose a Gaussian Frequency Shift Key processor is configured to determine a frequency deviation for a plurality of symbol intervals contained in at least one of the at least two frames of data.
Li discloses a gaussian frequency shift key processor is configured to determine a frequency deviation for a plurality of symbol intervals contained in at least one of the at least two frames of data (see Abstract, col. 2, lines 48-65). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to determine a frequency deviation for a plurality of symbol intervals contained in at least one of the at least two frames of data by using the gaussian frequency shift key processor as taught by Li into the teachings of Scholand and Park in order to convert the frequency deviation to a new modulation index, and potentially a ratio between a target modulation index and a measured modulation index as a scaling factor.
Conclusion
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/KHAI TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632
KT
December 26, 2025