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 .
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 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hayase (US 2011/0234448 A1), Takano (JP 2001/267961 A), and Ding (US 2019/0339386 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Hayase teaches an object detection device configured to be mounted to a movable body and configured to detect an object present around the movable body, the device comprising:
a wave transmitter configured to transmit a transmission wave corresponding to a transmission signal [[abstract] radar device includes: a frequency modulating unit for modulating a frequency of a transmission signal by a triangular wave; a transmitting unit for pulsing the frequency modulated transmission signal to transmit the pulsed transmission signal as a transmission pulse];
a wave receiver configured to receive, as a reception wave, the transmission wave reflected by the object [[abstract] a receiving unit for generating a beat signal based on a frequency difference between a frequency modulated transmission signal and a reflected received pulse];
a relative speed estimation part configured to estimate a relative speed between the movable body and the object [[abstract] relative velocity calculating unit for calculating a distance to a target and a relative velocity based on the sampled beat signal; [[0002] obtains a distance to a target and a relative velocity, in which a pulse width and a range gate interval (width) are changed depending on a travel environment so as to ensure both of a short-distance precision and a long-distance performance without increasing a calculation amount; [0164] transmission pulse width Tw is set to be larger than the long-distance range gate width Trl so that the received pulses may be sampled by the long-distance range gates; [[0071] As illustrated by an item (b) of FIG. 4, a given number (N in the drawing) of transmission pulses are transmitted during the up phase.].
Hayase does not explicitly teach and yet Takano teaches a correlation processing part configured to change, in accordance with the relative speed, a window width of a reference window [[0032] in step 2a, the movement speed information is obtained from the movement speed detection unit 110, and the process proceeds to step 2b. In step 2b, based on the movement speed information obtained in step 2a, the window width for performing a path search is set for the matched filter 102.; [0033] in setting the path search window width in step 2b, when the movement speed is high, the phase within the path slot changes relatively quickly, and the instantaneous fluctuations of the path accompanying the movement also become large, so the path search window width should be set wide].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the changing of range gate width in accordance with relative velocity as taught by Hayase, with the adjustable window with of a matched filter in accordance with movement speed as taught by Takano so that the correct search window is chosen to be sufficiently wide (Takano) [[0032-0033]].
Hayase does not explicitly teach and yet Ding teaches correlation processing and a reference window that defines the number of pulses of the transmission signal to be correlated with a reception signal corresponding to the reception wave when a correlation value corresponding to similarity between the transmission signal and the reception signal is obtained [[0036] receiver signal path 500 uses multiple correlators 508 and corresponding post-processing for identifying valid peak information and code ID; [0037] first correlator 508 receives a first transmit (TX) template, labeled Code1, providing information about a first code used by a first burst pattern; [0038] “autocorrelation” refers to the correlator output when the code ID of the received echo matches the code ID of the correlator template, and “cross-correlation” refers to the correlator output when the code ID of the received echo does not match the code ID of the correlator template; [0048] sliding window 706 first crosses correlator 1 (solid-line) peak 704 between sample numbers 2,000 and 2,500, peak 704 is validated as a secondary peak, above secondary peak threshold 708, despite a larger correlator 2 peak at approximately 2,500 samples coming within the width specified by sliding window 706; [0053] input peak 1002 is at the center location of the time window 606 (the width 2 win of which can be, for example, a programmable register setting)]; and
a detection part configured to detect information on the object, in a case where the correlation value is determined to indicate similarity at a level equal to or higher than a predetermined level [[0006] threshold stage is configured to amplitude-threshold the envelope. The peak search stage is configured to detect one or more peaks by determining the respective locations and amplitudes of peaks in the thresholded envelope; [0047] when a Code1 echo is processed through the two correlators of FIG. 5A, the Code1 correlator 508 will see a large peak, but there is still some residual cross-correlation between the Code1 echo and the Code2 template; [0058] relative velocity … doppler shift is created in the received ultrasonic signal; [0059] Peak amplitude information and Doppler template information are useful to calculate Doppler frequency shift and correct Doppler-related peak location shift. Example 1200 is therefore directed to an ultrasonic sensing system that can determine the Doppler shift for an object that is moving relative to the ultrasonic transducer(s); [0060] a template specific to a Doppler-shifted frequency can be generated to enable detection of the Doppler effect so that the relative velocity of object and transducer can be understood].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the changing of range gate width in accordance with relative velocity as taught by Hayase, with the adjustable sliding window of correlators as taught by Ding so that a threshold may be applied to include or exclude multiple peaks [[0006]].
Regarding claim 2, Hayase does not explicitly teach and yet Ding teaches the object detection device according to claim 1, wherein the correlation processing part is configured to change the window width in units of code length of the transmission signal [[0052] width of the autocorrelation pulses … note that this number is in terms of ADC samples. It can also be a number that represents time as round(1/8×transducerFrequency×7/ADCSampleRate).; [0053] input peak 1002 is at the center location of the time window 606 (the width 2 win of which can be, for example, a programmable register setting)].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to combine the changing of window width with relative velocity as taught by Hayase, with the adjustable window with of correlators as taught by Ding so that a threshold may be applied to include or exclude multiple peaks [[0006]].
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pgs. 3-4, filed 4/16/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Takano (JP 2001/267961 A).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN D ARMSTRONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7339. The examiner can normally be reached M - F 9am-5pm.
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/JONATHAN D ARMSTRONG/ Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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