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
The claims filed June 9, 2026 have been entered. Claims 1-20 remain pending in this application. No claims have been amended, cancelled, or are new.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 5-6, filed June 9, 2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, new grounds of rejection are made in view of Mazzaro et al. (US 20150253415 A1), Speed (US 20240280668 A1), Nanzer et al. (US 20200284898 A1), and Cohen (US 20220381686 A1).
Claim Objections
Claim 15 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 15 line 6 recites,
“[…] removing environmental and system-generated noise from received signal; and […]”, but should instead recite,
“[…] removing environmental and system-generated noise from the received signal; and […]”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-8, 10-15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by Mazzaro et al. (US 20150253415 A1), hereinafter Mazzaro.
Regarding claim 1, Mazzaro teaches a harmonic radar system for detecting an electronic device, comprising:
a signal generator that generates one or more transmit radio frequency (RF) signals (Fig. 3, sine-wave generators 1-M 11A-11C each generate an RF signal),
a transmitting antenna for sending the transmit RF signals into an environment (Fig. 3, transmit antenna 17T),
a receiving antenna for receiving signals re-radiated by the electronic device in the environment in response to the transmit RF signals (Fig. 3, receive antenna 17R receives signal FR from target device; para. 50, “A harmonic radar is a radio-frequency [RF] sensor that exploits the nonlinear electromagnetic response of a target to an incident radar wave.”; see paras. 3-4), and
a spectrum analyzer for identifying a harmonic frequency of the transmit RF signals in the received signals (Fig. 1A, spectrum analyzer 22; para. 15, “Optionally, the analyzer comprises a classifier which classifies the detected harmonics as originating from different types of electronic devices, the classifier being operatively connected to the plurality of detectors.”; see para. 20).
Regarding claim 2, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 1, further comprising
one or more low-pass filters for removing harmonics from the transmit RF signals coupled between the signal generator and the transmitting antenna (Fig. 3, low-pass filter 15 coupled between sine-wave generators/signal generator 11 and transmit antenna 17T).
Regarding claim 3, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 2, further comprising
a transmitting amplifier coupled between the signal generator and the one or more low-pass filters (Fig. 3, amplifier 14A between sine-wave generators/signal generator 11 and low-pass filter 15).
Regarding claim 4, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 1, further comprising
one or more high-pass filters for filtering the received signals coupled between the receiving antenna and the spectrum analyzer (Fig. 3, high-pass filter 10 between receive antenna 17R and detectors/spectrum analyzer 22).
Regarding claim 5, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 4, further comprising
a receiving amplifier (Fig. 3, LNA 20).
Regarding claim 6, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 1,
wherein the signal generator is tunable to generate signals between approximately 9 kHz and 6 GHz (Fig. 3, spectrum analyzer 22 is tunable to generate signals between 9 kHz and 40 GHz which encompasses the claimed range).
Regarding claim 7, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 6,
wherein the signal generator generates a signal at f0 (para. 48, “A number of detection techniques have already been developed to exploit the nonlinear responses of RF electronics. One popular technique is to transmit a single frequency f0 and receive the target response at the second harmonic of the transmitted tone, 2f0.”).
Regarding claim 8, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 7,
wherein the spectrum analyzer has a frequency range of approximately 2f0 (para. 48, “For example, when the predetermined selected frequency range comprises return signals in the vicinity of 2f1 and 2f2, the return signals in the range include (f1+f2), (3f1−f2), (3f2−f1), (4f1−2f2), (4f2−2f1), (5f2−3f1), (6f2−4f1), etc.”; 3f1-f2 is equal to f1 or 2f0).
Regarding claim 10, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 1, further comprising
a processing computer coupled to the signal generator and spectrum analyzer (Fig. 1A, spectrum analyzer 22 implicitly contains a processing computer and is coupled to waveform generator 11).
Regarding claim 11, Mazzaro teaches a harmonic radar system for detecting an electronic device, comprising:
a signal generator that generates a transmit radio frequency (RF) signal (Fig. 3, sine-wave generators 1-M 11A-11C each generate an RF signal),
a coupler for receiving the transmit RF signal (Fig. 3, coupling means implicitly between low-pass filter 15 and transmit antenna 17T),
an antenna for (i) transmitting the transmit RF signal from the coupler into an environment including the electronic device and (ii) receiving signals re-radiated by the electronic device in response to the transmit RF signals and sending them to the coupler (Fig. 3, transmit antenna 17T transmits signal FT and receive antenna 17R receives signal FR from target device; para. 50, “A harmonic radar is a radio-frequency [RF] sensor that exploits the nonlinear electromagnetic response of a target to an incident radar wave.”; see paras. 3-4), and
a spectrum analyzer for identifying a harmonic frequency of the transmit RF signals in the received signals (Fig. 1A, spectrum analyzer 22; para. 15, “Optionally, the analyzer comprises a classifier which classifies the detected harmonics as originating from different types of electronic devices, the classifier being operatively connected to the plurality of detectors.”; see para. 20).
Regarding claim 12, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 11, further comprising,
coupled between the signal generator and the coupler, an amplifier and one or more low-pass filters for removing harmonic frequencies in the transmit RF signal (Fig. 3, amplifier 14A and low-pass filter 15 between sine-wave generators 11 and transmit antenna 17T).
Regarding claim 13, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 11, further comprising,
coupled between the antenna and the spectrum analyzer, one or more high-pass filters for filtering the received signals (Fig. 3, high-pass filter 10 between receive antenna 17R and detectors/spectrum analyzer 22).
Regarding claim 14, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 11, further comprising
a processing computer coupled to the signal generator and spectrum analyzer (Fig. 1A, spectrum analyzer 22 implicitly contains a processing computer and is coupled to waveform generator 11).
Regarding claim 15, Mazzaro teaches a method of using a harmonic radar system for detecting an electronic device, comprising:
generating a transmit radio frequency (RF) signal (Fig. 3, sine-wave generators 1-M 11A-11C each generate an RF signal),
transmitting the transmit RF signal into an environment including the electronic device, receiving a signal re-radiated by the electronic device in response to the transmit RF signal (Fig. 3, transmit antenna 17T transmits signal FT and receive antenna 17R receives signal FR from target device; para. 50, “A harmonic radar is a radio-frequency [RF] sensor that exploits the nonlinear electromagnetic response of a target to an incident radar wave.”; see paras. 3-4),
removing environmental and system-generated noise from received signal (para. 75, “ The high-pass filter 19 achieves a reduction in system-generated harmonics by attenuating frequencies received by the antenna that are well below the lowest transmitted frequency f1.”; environmental noise is implicitly also removed), and
identifying a harmonic frequency of the transmit RF signal in the received signal (Fig. 1A, spectrum analyzer 22; para. 15, “Optionally, the analyzer comprises a classifier which classifies the detected harmonics as originating from different types of electronic devices, the classifier being operatively connected to the plurality of detectors.”; see para. 20).
Regarding claim 18, Mazzaro teaches the method of claim 15,
wherein the transmit RF signal comprises multiple simultaneous tones (para. 7, “A preferred embodiment multitone nonlinear radar system comprises a transmitter that transmits a signal comprising at least two predetermined frequency components […]”).
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 9 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mazzaro in view of Speed (US 20240280668 A1).
Regarding claim 9, Mazzaro teaches the harmonic radar system of claim 1, but fails to teach
wherein a center frequency of one or more transmit RF signals is approximately f0= 2.4 GHz.
However, Speed teaches
wherein a center frequency of one or more transmit RF signals is approximately f0= 2.4 GHz (para. 24, “Preferably, the centre frequency of the predetermined signal is within the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Advantageously the 2.4 GHz ISM band is utilised by Wifi® according to the IEEE 802.11 protocol which is widely used by certain drones.”).
Mazzaro and Speed are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of harmonic radar devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Mazzaro and Speed with the motivation that the 2.4 GHz band is used widely by Wi-Fi-operable electronic devices.
Regarding claim 19, Mazzaro teaches the method of claim 15, but fails to teach
wherein a center frequency of one or more transmit RF signals is approximately fo= 2.4 GHz.
However, Speed teaches
wherein a center frequency of one or more transmit RF signals is approximately f0= 2.4 GHz (para. 24, “Preferably, the centre frequency of the predetermined signal is within the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Advantageously the 2.4 GHz ISM band is utilised by Wifi® according to the IEEE 802.11 protocol which is widely used by certain drones.”).
Mazzaro and Speed are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of harmonic radar devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Mazzaro and Speed with the motivation that the 2.4 GHz band is used widely by Wi-Fi-operable electronic devices.
Regarding claim 20, Mazzaro in view of Speed teaches the method of claim 19,
wherein the identified harmonic frequency is 2fo (Mazzaro; para. 72, “Using the proposed two-tone target discrimination scheme, the receive antenna need only be designed to operate in a narrow band centered at 2f0.”).
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mazzaro in view of Nanzer et al. (US 20200284898 A1), hereinafter Nanzer.
Regarding claim 16, Mazzaro teaches the method of claim 15, but fails to teach
wherein the transmit RF signal comprises a single tone.
However, Nanzer teaches
wherein the transmit RF signal comprises a single tone (claim 11, “[…] transmitting a signal using the transmitter, wherein the signal comprises at least one tone at an incident frequency […]”).
Mazzaro and Nanzer are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of harmonic radar devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Mazzaro and Nanzer with the motivation of having simpler hardware and reducing cost.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mazzaro in view of Cohen (US 20220381686 A1).
Regarding claim 17, Mazzaro teaches the method of claim 15, but fails to teach
wherein the transmit RF signal comprises a swept range of tones.
However, Cohen teaches
wherein the transmit RF signal comprises a swept range of tones (para. 14, “Embodiments of the present disclosure work by transmitting two or more electromagnetic waves, or ‘tones,’ each of which are swept or varied in frequency, preferably in a linear fashion with time [although nonlinear sweeping is contemplated within the scope of this disclosure], and with the sweeps or ‘chirps’ preferably being at the same rate of change in frequency.”).
Mazzaro and Cohen are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of harmonic radar devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Mazzaro and Cohen with the motivation of improving signal-to-noise ratio and clutter rejection capability.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC K HODAC whose telephone number is (571) 270-0123. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 8-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, VLADIMIR MAGLOIRE can be reached at (571) 270-5144. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ERIC K HODAC/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/OLUMIDE AJIBADE AKONAI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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