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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for domestic priority filed in various U.S. provisional parent applications No. 63534997, 63535119, 63535113, 63535107, 63535114, 63535116, 63535120, 63535108, and 63535110, Applicant’s effective filing date is the earliest priority date, 08/28/2023 from provisional application No. 63534997.
Claim Objections
The claims are objected to because of the following informalities:
The claims filed on 11/05/2024 are incorrectly numbered. The first independent claim is numbered “1”, and the following claim is also labeled “1”. Examiner is assuming that Applicant intended to label the second claim “2”, and the following claims in the same order as well, with the last claim being labeled “8” instead of “7”. For the purposes of examination and clarity in this office action, Examiner is referring to the claims filed 05/17/2024 where the numbering appears to be correct with 8 claims total.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lange (US 20060092087 A1) in view of Zhang et al. (US 20230208029 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lange discloses [Note: what Lange fails to disclose is strike-through]
An antenna system (see Fig. 1A, antenna system), comprising:
a plurality of planar antennas arranged in a circular pattern (see Fig. 1F and Fig. 1J);
a feeding network coupled to each of the plurality of planar antennas (see Fig. 1A and Fig. 1B, feed 104 connected to compensating structure 106),
a controller configured to control the feeding network such that the feeding network adjusts the first control signal or the second control signal applied to at least one planar antenna of the plurality of planar antennas for moving a phase center of the at least one planar antenna to electronically transform the plurality of planar antennas to an elliptical array (see Fig. 1J, elliptical array; pg. 4, paragraph 0041, “The squinting and de-squinting array layers are used to re-locate the phase center position, x2, from one or more of the feeds to a location, x1, that is laterally displaced from its original position”).
Zhang discloses
wherein for each respective planar antenna of the plurality of planar antennas, the feeding network is configured to apply, to the respective planar antenna, a first control signal for controlling a first transverse magnetic (TM) mode and a second control signal for controlling a second TM mode (see Fig. 4; pg. 8, paragraph 0109, structure of antenna system of Fig. 4; pg. 8, paragraphs 0116-0119, processor 41 can control various aspects of the array; pg. 9, paragraph 0128, “Therefore, amplitudes and phases of the two linearly polarized beams that are placed orthogonally may be controlled to obtain any linearly polarized beam, circularly polarized beam, and elliptically polarized beam.”); and
It would have been obvious to someone with ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features as disclosed by Zhang into the invention of Lange. Both Lange and Zhang are considered analogous arts to the claimed invention as they both disclose antenna system with phase center changing abilities. Lange discloses a circular and elliptical planar patch structure, with feeds and controllers that can change a phase center position; however, Lange fails to disclose control signals for controlling a first and second transverse magnetic mode. This feature is disclosed by Zhang where a processor can control various polarizations of array beams. The combination of Lange and Zhang would be obvious with a reasonable expectation of success in order to provide various beam forming capabilities within a compact design, reducing the space taken up by an antenna array system.
Regarding claim 2, Lange further discloses
The system of claim 1, wherein the feeding network is configured to adjust the first control signal or the second control signal applied to the at least one planar antenna such that sidelobes in radiation patterns for the plurality of planar antennas are reduced (see pg. 2, paragraph 0030, “The reactive near field distribution at the surface of the compensating structure 106 transforms to the radiating near field or far field in propagating towards the surface of the reflector, into a second spherical phase front, with a sector of uniform amplitude distribution across the aperture of the reflector. This sector pattern rolls off rapidly before reaching the edge of the reflector such that the secondary radiation pattern side lobes are minimized”).
Regarding claim 3, Lange further discloses
The system of claim 1, wherein the feeding network is configured to adjust the first control signal or the second control signal applied to the at least one planar antenna such that grating lobes in radiation patterns for the plurality of planar antennas are reduced (see pg. 2, paragraph 0023, “the compensating structures function as lossless lenses to collimate, squint, de-squint, sector and compensate the primary radiation pattern, resulting in improved efficiency and interference rejection by modifying the secondary beam pointing angle, side lobe level and null locations in multiple beam, multiple band antennas”; pg. 2, paragraph 0025, “a system or mechanism for improving the interference rejection from adjacent satellites or terrestrial sources by judicious placement of nulls or control of side lobe levels is provided”).
Regarding claim 4, Lange further discloses
The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to determine a direction of an interferer relative to the plurality of planar antennas and adjust the first control signal or the second control signal applied to the at least one planar antenna based on the determined direction such that a null of a radiation pattern for the plurality of planar antennas is steered to the determined direction, thereby suppressing interference from the interferer (see pg. 2, paragraph 0025, “a system or mechanism for improving the interference rejection from adjacent satellites or terrestrial sources by judicious placement of nulls or control of side lobe levels is provided”; pg. 4, paragraph 0041, “The resulting primary radiation pattern illuminates the surface of the reflector with a spherical wave emanating from a point that has been transposed from position x1 to position x2, with near uniform amplitude distribution and a rapid roll off near the edges of the reflector. This produces a substantial increase in antenna efficiency while maintaining low side lobe levels on the secondary radiation pattern”).
Regarding claims 5-8, the same cited sections and rationale for claims 1-4 are applied. The only difference between claims 1-4 and claims 5-8 is that claims 1-4 refer to an apparatus while claims 5-8 refer to a method. The examiner considers the Abstract of Lange (“A compensating structure includes layers of non-uniform arrays of conductive patches configured to provide phase and/or amplitude distribution modification of feed primary patterns.”) to show that the radar apparatus performs the radar method of claims 5-8.
Additional Relevant Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure and may be found on the accompanying PTO-892 Notice of References Cited:
Skarboro et al. (RU 2782177 C2); invention relates to antenna equipment, in particular, to lens phased antenna arrays. An antenna system is proposed, containing a set of lens sets, each lens set contains a set of non-spherical lenses and a set of radiating elements centered with the corresponding lens of the specified set of lenses and made with the possibility of transmission/reception of a signal via the specified corresponding lens of the specified set of lenses in the required direction, wherein lens sets are not identical by geometry, dielectric profiles, or a combination thereof.
EFFECT: formation of several different beams of a directional diagram, suppression of their lateral lobes, as well as a wide viewing sector of an antenna.
Culkin et al. (US 20100328157 A1); The present invention is directed to a radar system that includes an antenna array having a plurality of antenna elements and a plurality of transmit antenna phase centers.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISABELLA A EDRADA whose telephone number is (571)272-4859. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 9am-5pm EST.
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/ISABELLA A EDRADA/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/William Kelleher/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3648