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 .
Response to Amendment
This action is responsive to RCE and IDS filed 06/01/2026. Claims 1-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-16, 18-20, 22, 26, 28 and 30 remain pending.
Claim Objections
Claim 28 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 28 on page 14, line 3 mentions “(is smaller than a bit width of foreign position data”, remove the ‘(‘.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-16, 18-19, 22, 26 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the to-be-broadcasted information". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 6 recites the limitations “the latitude data” and “the longitude data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 9 recites the limitations “the latitude data”, “the truncated latitude data”, “the longitude data” and “the truncated longitude data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 12 recites the limitations "the encodable longitudinal separation" and “the latitude data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 14 recites the limitation "the position data (PD1)". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 18 recites the limitations "the payload section" and “the header section”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 22 recites the limitations "the memory" and “the to-be-broadcasted information”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 30 recites the limitations "the memory" and “the to-be-broadcasted information”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
The dependent claims listed above are rejected for depending on a rejected base claim.
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.
Claim 30 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
The spec mentions “This computer-program product is - according to another aspect of the invention - stored on a computer-readable medium.”, including “In the described embodiment, this is all done in software (i.e. as a computer program product stored in a flash memory of the control unit) running on the control unit 12…”. This description does not explicitly limit the ‘computer-program product’ to be non-transitory. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), ‘a computer program product’ covers forms of transitory propagating signals or a data structure per se and therefore would not be patent-eligible. Transitory media does not fit within recognized categories of statutory subject matter. Therefore, claim 30 is rejected. (See MPEP 2106-2106.01).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-16, 18-20, 22, 26 and 30 are objected to as being rejected under 35 USC 112(b), but would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the 112 rejections set forth above; also, claim 28 is objected to due to minor grammatical issues and would be allowable if rewritten in correct grammatical form; finally, claim 30 is further objected to as being rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101, but would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the 101 rejection set forth above.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Similar to the reasons for allowable subject matter described in nonfinal action dated 08/28/2025, the prior art of record does not expressly teach or render obvious, in the context of the claims taken as a whole, the subject matter of the independent claims. Furthermore, similar to the reasons described in the Written Opinion of the ISA, closest art VARGA as well as Mader fails to teach wherein the broadcast device is configured to generate the data packet in such a way that the data packet comprises a pair cl = (el, ml) with an exponent el being a natural number and with a mantissa ml being a natural number,
wherein the pair cl is indicative of a value v1,
wherein the mantissa m has a bit width of Nmi and wherein the exponent e has a bit width of Nei,
wherein
vi=2e1 * (2Nml+ml)- 2Nml
and wherein the bit widths Nml and Nel are selected such that a total bit width N1=Nei+Nml of the pair cl is smaller than a total bit width of the value vi.
Moreover, modifying the prior art to achieve the claim limitation can only be achieved by hindsight, as no other reference includes these claims limitations.
Conclusion
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/JAMES E MUNION/Examiner, Art Unit 2687 09/04/2026
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