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 Interpretation
During patent examination, pending claims must be “given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.” MPEP 2111; See also, MPEP 2173.02. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claim. In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-551 (CCPA 1969). See also, In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (“During patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow”). The reason is simply that during patent prosecution when claims can be amended, ambiguities should be recognized, scope and breadth of language explored, and clarification imposed. An essential purpose of patent examination is to fashion claims that are precise, clear, correct, and unambiguous. Only in this way can uncertainties of claim scope be removed, as much as possible, during the administrative process.
The Examiner respectfully requests of the Applicant in preparing responses, to consider fully the entirety of the reference(s) as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention. It is noted, REFERENCES ARE RELEVANT AS PRIOR ART FOR ALL THEY CONTAIN.
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 –
Claim(s) 1-6, 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0108140 A1 to Stadelmayer et al. (hereinafter Stadelmayer).
With regard to claim 1, Stadelmayer discloses:
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon (see, detailed description, including, integrated circuits, memory devices (e.g., FLASH, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM) para. 0028), configured to be executable by processing circuitry for causing the processing circuitry to:
identify radar data collected during a time period between a first prompt and a second prompt (see, detailed description, including, directed to advanced techniques of gesture classification or classification of other motions based on radar measurements and/or gesture recognition using radar measurements having high accuracy at low reaction times, where the prompts are interpreted to include time periods of radar measurements, para. 0032);
identify a subset of the radar data based at least on Doppler processing (see, detailed description, including, Measurement data provided by the radar sensor can thus indicate depth positions of multiple objects of a scene. It would also be possible that velocities are indicated, para. 0055); and
label the subset of the radar data as a gesture (see, detailed description, including, directed to advanced techniques of gesture classification or classification of other motions based on radar measurements and/or gesture recognition using radar measurements having high accuracy at low reaction times, where the prompts are interpreted to include time periods of radar measurements, para. 0032).
With regard to claim 2, Stadelmayer discloses:
2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to:
cause the first prompt to be outputted, wherein the first prompt instructs a user to initiate the gesture (see, Fig. 3, and detailed description, including, Various gesture classes are conceivable. The particular choice of the set of gesture classes used for the gesture classification is not germane for the functioning of the techniques described herein. Nonetheless, hereinafter, a few examples will be given for possible gesture classes: (1) Swipe left to right. Para/ 0034-0036); and
after the time period has elapsed after the first prompt has been outputted, cause the second prompt to be outputted, wherein the second prompt instructs the user that a duration for performing the gesture has ceased (see, detailed description, as above, and The BPF can be applied to the data samples of each one of multiple subsequent measurement frames along the fast-time dimension. The BPF outputs complex-valued signals for the measurement frames. These complex-valued signals can then be used to determine the 1-D time series, para. 0080).
With regard to claim 3, Stadelmayer discloses:
3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the radar data is collected during a data collection period, and wherein the instructions further direct the processing circuitry to:
cause the first prompt to be outputted after initiation of the data collection period (see, detailed description, including, Various techniques disclosed herein employ a radar measurement of a scene including an object—e.g., a hand or finger or handheld object such as a stylus or beacon, para. 0052); and
cause the second prompt to be output before termination of the data collection period (see, as above, and radar chirps can be used to measure a position of one or more objects in a scene having extents of tens of centimeters or meters, para. 0052).
With regard to claim 4, Stadelmayer discloses:
4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the instructions further direct the processing circuitry to:
identify a second set of the radar data collected between the initiation of the data collection period and the first prompt (see3, detailed description, including, a millimeter-wave radar sensor may be used to perform the radar measurement; the radar sensor operates as a frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar, para. 0053);
identify a third set of the radar data collected between the second prompt and the termination of the data collection period (see, detailed description, including, A millimeter-wave radar sensor may transmit and receive signals in the 20 GHz to 122 GHz range. Alternatively, frequencies outside of this range, such as frequencies between 1 GHz and 20 GHz, or frequencies between 122 GHz and 300 GHz, may also be used, para. 0053); and
label the second set of the radar data and the third set of the radar data as negative gesture samples (see, detailed description, including, The distance between anchor sample and either positive or negative sample is defined as
d(x.sub.1, x.sub.2)=(x.sub.1−x.sub.2).sup.T(x.sub.1−x.sub.2) (5), and para. 0116).
With regard to claim 5, Stadelmayer discloses:
5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first prompt and the second prompt are audio prompts (see, detailed description, including, radar chirps can be used to measure a position of one or more objects in a scene having extents of tens of centimeters or meters, para. 0052).
With regard to claim 6, Stadelmayer discloses:
6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further direct the processing circuitry to identify the first prompt and the second prompt based on signals generated by a user input device (see, detailed description, including, As a general rule, the techniques described herein are not limited to a particular use case of the HMI. Example use cases include: motion-controlled wearable and mobile devices, motion-controlled smart TVs, projectors, gesture-controlled smart homes and smart devices, automotive infotainment systems, augmented reality-virtual reality (AR-VR), feedback systems. Motion classification can alleviate the need for touch and clicks needed for HMI, para. 0050).
With regard to claim 9, Stadelmayer discloses:
9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further direct the processing circuitry to:
collect the radar data after a user initiates the first prompt (see, detailed description, including, a short-range radar measurement could be implemented. Here, radar chirps can be used to measure a position of one or more objects in a scene having extents of tens of centimeters or meters, para. 0052);
compute a Doppler metric after the user initiates the first prompt (see, detailed description, including, A Doppler frequency shift can be used to determine a velocity of the target. Measurement data provided by the radar sensor can thus indicate depth positions of multiple objects of a scene. It would also be possible that velocities are indicated, para. 0055); and
collect a second set of the radar data after the user initiates the second prompt (see, detailed description, including, the measurement frames (sometimes also referred to as data frames or physical frames) include data samples over a certain sampling time for multiple radar pulses, specifically chirps. Slow time is incremented from chirp-to-chirp; fast time is incremented for subsequent samples. A channel dimension may be used that addresses different antennas. The radar sensor outputs a time sequence of measurement frames, para. 0056).
With regard to claim 10, claim 10 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 1 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 11, claim 11 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 2 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 12, claim 12 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claims 3 and 4 (both a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 13, claim 13 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 14, claim 14 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 6 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 15, claim 15 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 7 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 16, claim 16 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 17, claim 17 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claims 1, 2, and 4 (all a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) (and with, further details, including, the method further includes, based on the one or more one dimensional time series, determining a motion class of a motion that is performed by the object using a classification algorithm, para. 0008; and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 18, claim 18 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 1 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) (and with, further details, including, The method further includes training the convolutional neural network algorithm based on a first loss that penalizes the Euclidean distance to the class weights of the respective candidate motion class and indicated by the ground-truth label, as well as further based on a second loss that rewards the Euclidean distance to the class weights of other candidate motion classes not indicated by the ground-truth label. para. 0010; and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above.
With regard to claim 19, claim 19 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) and is therefore rejected using the same art and rationale set forth above, the audio prompts including the radar “chirps” are an audible output, that has to include a speaker device or element to present the audio.
With regard to claim 20, claim 20 (a method claim) recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim) (and with, further details, including, outputting a visual prompt by a display, including, the description of a scene, a radar measurement of a scene including an object—e.g., a hand or finger or handheld object such as a stylus or beacon—to acquire data based on which the gesture classification can be implemented. For instance, a short-range radar measurement could be implemented. Here, radar chirps can be used to measure a position of one or more objects in a scene having extents of tens of centimeters or meters, para. 0052).
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Staydelmeyer in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0341543 A1 to Thoresen rt al. (hereinafter Thoresen).
With regard to claim 7:
Staydelmeyer fails to explicitly disclose:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the user input device includes a microphone configured to generate the signals based on audio received by the microphone.
Thoresen discloses: (see, Fig. 4A, and detailed description, including, A microphone 122 and a resistivity sensor 124 are also provided, para. 0036).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Staydelmeyer and Thoresen before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Thoresen, with Staydelmeyer, including, A microphone 122 and a resistivity sensor 124 are also provided, para. 0036).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.1
With regard to claim 8:
Staydelmeyer fails to explicitly disclose:
8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the user input device includes a touch device.
Thoresen discloses: wherein the user input device includes a touch device
(see, detailed description, including, the larynx member 14 and, as will be discussed in further detail hereinbelow, includes a radar-enhanced capacitive touch surface which provides maximum accessibility for all users, para. 0018).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed, and having the teachings of Staydelmeyer and Thoresen before her, to be motivated to combine the features from Thoresen, with Staydelmeyer, including, the larynx member 14 and, as will be discussed in further detail hereinbelow, includes a radar-enhanced capacitive touch surface which provides maximum accessibility for all users, para. 0018).
Therefore, a rationale to support a conclusion that a claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.2
A sampling of the prior art made of record and not relied upon and considered pertinent to Applicants’ disclosure includes: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2026/0023174 A1 to Barnes that discusses: A counter-bird aircraft system is disclosed, including a Doppler detection device having at least one emitter positioned on an aircraft, the emitter to emit a beam ahead of the aircraft. At least one receiver detects a return signal caused by the presence of a threat to the aircraft. A microprocessor processes the reception of the return signal and transmits an alert to an alert system which notifies the pilot of the presence of the threat.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM D. TITCOMB whose telephone number is (571)270-5190. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30 AM - 6:30 PM (M-F).
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WILLIAM D. TITCOMB
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2178
/WILLIAM D TITCOMB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2178 7-30-2026
1 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
2 KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2007).
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