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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 5-20-2024 and 10-1-2025 are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
An invention is patent-eligible if it claims a “new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. However, the Supreme Court has long interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” are not patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. v. CLS Banklnt’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216(2014).
In determining whether a claim falls within an excluded category, we are guided by the Supreme Court’s two-step framework, described in Mayo and Alice. Id. at 217—18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 75—77 (2012)).
Step 1 – Statutory Category
Claim 15 is directed towards a series of mathematical steps and is therefore a process.
Step 2A, Prong One — Recitation of Judicial Exception
Step 2A of the 2019 Guidance is a two-prong inquiry. In Prong One, we evaluate whether the claim recites a judicial exception. For abstract ideas, Prong One represents a change as compared to prior guidance because we here determine whether the claim recites mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity, or mental processes.
Claim 15 is directed to a method of, and computer system for, signal processing that is accomplished through a series of mathematical operations performed by a computer. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because all claim elements, both individually and in combination, are directed to the mathematical manipulation of data by a general purpose computer.
Step 2A, Prong Two — Practical Application
If a claim recites a judicial exception, in Prong Two we next determine whether the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of that exception by: (a) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception(s); and (b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they integrate the exception into a practical application.
Claims 16-20 discloses further processing steps. These additional steps are all extraneous pre-solution activity. Viewed as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Step 2B — Inventive Concept
For Step 2B of the analysis, we determine whether the claim adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field. See Memorandum.
The method recited in claims 15-20 merely uses a computer system including generic components as a tool to perform the abstract idea. The application of the abstract idea using generic computer components does not transform the claim into a patent-eligible application of the abstract idea and does not result in an improvement in the functioning of the computer or another technology.
Examiner’s Note: For applicant’s benefit portions of the cited reference(s) have been cited to aid in the review of the rejection(s). While every attempt has been made to be thorough and consistent within the rejection it is noted that the PRIOR ART MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING DISCLOSURES THAT TEACH AWAY FROM THE CLAIMS. See MPEP 2141.02 VI.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nam, et. al., U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2020/0081110, published March 12, 2020.
As per claims 1, 8 and 15, Nam discloses an automotive radar system, comprising:
at least one transmitter and at least one receiver, wherein the at least one transmitter and the at least one receiver are configured to transmit and receive radar signals, wherein the at least one transmitter and the at least one receiver are coupled to a vehicle; and a processor (Nam, Fig. 1 and ¶2)
configured to: receive, from the at least one receiver, received radar signals, process the received radar signals to generate a first subsection of a radar cube, process the first subsection of the radar cube to detect a first set of candidate peaks, wherein candidate peaks in the first set of candidate peaks is associated with locations in a Range-Doppler matrix, (Nam, ¶69-70)
process the received radar signals to generate a second subsection of the radar cube, process the second subsection of the radar cube to detect a second set of candidate peaks, wherein each candidate peak in the second set of candidate peaks is associated with a location in the Range-Doppler matrix, combine the locations of the first set of candidate peaks and the locations of the second set of candidate peaks into a candidate peak dataset, (Nam, ¶71)
determine, using the candidate peak dataset, a set of locations in the candidate peak dataset, wherein each location in the set of locations is associated with candidate peaks in both the first set of candidate peaks and the second set of candidate peaks, (Nam, ¶71 peak pairing)
and estimate a direction of arrival of an object using the candidate peaks associated with the set of locations (Nam, ¶71, step 1308).
Nam fails to expressly disclose the subsections being portions of the radar cube, instead using two sets of return data. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to split the cube, since it has been held that omission of an element and its function in a combination where the remaining elements perform the same functions as before involves only routine skill in the art. In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184. In this case, the disclosure of Nam still provides analysis of two separate data streams, combines them and determines angle of arrival.
As per claims 3, 10 and 17, Nam discloses the automotive radar system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to process the range-Doppler matrix from the first subsection to detect a first set of candidate peaks using a constant false alarm rate (CFAR) peak detection algorithm (Nam, ¶70).
As per claims 4, 11 and 18, Nam further discloses the automotive radar system of claim 3, wherein the first subsection of the radar cube and the second subsection of the radar cube, taken together, contain a complete radar cube for the automotive radar system (Nam, ¶69 utilizing the full return data).
As per claims 7 and 14, Nam further discloses the automotive radar system of claim 1, wherein the automotive radar system is at least one of a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar system and an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) radar system (Nam, ¶4).
Claim(s) 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13,16, 19 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nam in view of Wintermantel, U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2017/0153316, published June 1, 2017.
As per claims 2, 9 and 16, Nam discloses the system of claim 1 but fails to expressly disclose deleting memory data.
Wintermantel teaches memory deletion (¶14).\
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to delete data from memory that is no longer needed in order to gain the benefit of reducing memory size as taught by Wintermantel (¶11).
As per claims 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20, Nam as modified by Wintermantel further discloses the radar data to be zero-padded (Wintermantel, ¶44).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to zero-pad certain data in order to gain the benefit of improving calculation efficiency. The examiner submits that zero padding is well known in the art and it is well within the skill of a person in the art to determine when it is necessary.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and is provided on form PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARCUS E WINDRICH whose telephone number is (571)272-6417. The examiner can normally be reached M-F ~7-3:30.
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/MARCUS E WINDRICH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646
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