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 .
Priority
This application is a continuation of US Application No. 16/823,973, filed on March 19, 2020, which is a bypass continuation of International Application No. PCT/GB2018/052716, filed on September 25, 2018, which in turn claims priority to GB Application No. 1715573.0, filed on September 26, 2017. Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. GB Application No. 1715573.0, filed on September 26, 2017.
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 § 102
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 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.
Claims 2 – 4, 6 – 11, 13 – 18 and 20 – 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Roh (US 20110156954 A1).
As to claims 2, 9 and 16, Roh discloses a method for performing signal correlation for a signal processing system, comprising:
receiving a plurality of signals from a plurality of remote sources (Fig. 1 GPS);
generating a plurality of local signals (Figs. 4a-b);
correlating one or more of the local signals with the plurality of received signals to generate a plurality of correlation results (Fig. 4a-b);
compensating a phase of at least one of the local signals, the received signal, and the correlation results based on a plurality of hypotheses regarding at least one system parameter to generate a plurality of phase-compensated correlation results (Para. 54 “In the arrangement of FIG. 4a, delay-locked loop 70 determines a correlation value using the code-phase hypothesis of an estimated phase relationship between the known spreading code and the received signal; by way of an feedback loop, this code-phase hypothesis is adjusted according to the correlation result, to minimize an error value between the code-phase estimate of the hypothesis and the code-phase that produces the maximum correlation. That code-phase of the correlation peak indicates the time of receipt of the satellite signal at navigation system 20, from which the user position can be determined.”);
combining the plurality of phase-compensated correlation results to generate a joint correlation score (Fig. 4b item 75 combines outputs of correlators 74E-L and Para. 54 “minimize an error value between the code-phase hypothesis and code-phase that produces the maximum correlation” meats the scope of a joint score between code-phase hypothesis and codes-phase resulting in maximum correlation.);
determining a preferred hypothesis in the plurality of hypotheses that maximizes the joint correlation score (Id.); and
using the preferred hypothesis to estimate a value of a parameter associated with the signal processing system (Id. “position”).
As toc claims 3, 10 and 17, Roh discloses method of claim 2, 9 and 16 wherein the parameter comprises a frequency-related parameter (Para. 54 wherein phase and position (peak amplitude) is related frequency.)
As to claims 4, 11 and 18, Roh discloses the method of claims 3, 10 and 17 wherein the frequency-related parameter comprises frequency, frequency evolution, or frequency and frequency evolution (Para. 45 “carrier frequency (or phase)” thus Roh treats the phase and carrier frequency the same. As phase change, so does frequency.)
As to claim 6, 13 and 20, Roh discloses the method of claim 3, 10, 17 wherein the frequency-related parameter comprises a frequency of a local oscillator signal used to control a phase of at least one of the local signals (Fig. 4a shows “I, Q” phases going into item 70 in Fig. 4a, wherein item 70 contains the correlators as shown in Fig. 4b wherein item 63 is indicative of intermediate frequency IF.).
As to claims 7, 14 and 21, Roh discloses the method of claim 2, 9 and 17 further comprising determining a motion of a portion of the signal processing system, and wherein the compensating is based, at least in part, on the determined motion (Para. 54 “Similarly, frequency-locked loop 71 determines a correlation using the carrier-phase hypothesis of an estimate of the carrier frequency (or phase) of the received satellite signal (the received signal possibly including Doppler shift due to motion of navigation system 20 relative to the satellite), as applied by downconverter 63. Feedback generated by frequency-locked loop 71 adjusts the carrier frequency estimate based on the correlation, to minimize an error value between the measured correlation and a correlation peak frequency;” Note that there is feedback between items 70 and 71.).
As to claims 8, 15 and 22, Roh discloses the method of claims 7, 14 and 21 wherein at least one hypothesis in the plurality of hypotheses is based, at least in part, on the determined motion of the portion of the signal processing system (as cited in claims 7, 15 and 22).
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 5, 12 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Roh in view of Wang (US 20070118286 A1).
As to claims 5, 12 and 19, Roh does not discloses the method of claim 3, 11 and 18 wherein the frequency-related parameter is defined by an n-order polynomial, where n has a value that is greater than or equal to 2.
In the same field of endeavor, Wang teaches “a curve fitting mechanism such as a least means square (LMS) curve fitting mechanism is used to find a second order or third order, magnitude-versus-time polynomial that mathematically correlates to carrier phase and/or code phase change of an obtained set of m digital samples from received GPS signals. The value of m can be adjusted so that the rate of production of GPS solutions closely matches solution input rates of other modules in the system. The fitted polynomial can be used to predict the over-time trajectory of the range residual parameter (RR) and to thereby predict Doppler effects expected for GPS carrier frequency and for GPS code phase (Para. 10).”
In view of the teachings of Wang, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply the second or third order curve fitting LMS in order to minimize error thereby improving accuracy.
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