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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to communication filed 12/29/25.
Response to Amendment
The examiner acknowledges the amendment of claims 1,13, the addition of claims 21-23 and the cancellation of claims 17-19.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1,6,13, 21-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen et al. US Patent Application Publication 20230261725.
Regarding claim 1, Tuttle teaches a system comprising: a tag comprising a plurality of antennas (fig. 1, paragraph 031); a reader component configured to transmit signals to the tag (paragraph 030); a processor (112); and a memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by the processor cause the processor to: transmit signals by the reader component to the tag (paragraph 033); receive a response from each antenna (paragraph 033); and based on the responses received from each antenna, determine an orientation of the tag (paragraph 031,048). Tuttle teaches the antennas of the RFID tag are differently polarized (paragraph 048) but is silent on teaching the plurality of antennas are in an order, wherein each antenna of the plurality of antennas except for a first antenna in the order has a polarization offset with respect to a previous antenna in the order, and further wherein the polarization offset is selected based on a number of antennas of the plurality of antennas. Svendsen teaches the plurality of antennas are in an order, wherein each antenna of the plurality of antennas except for a first antenna in the order has a polarization offset with respect to a previous antenna in the order, and further wherein the polarization offset is selected based on a number of antennas of the plurality of antennas (paragraph 010-012, 022)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle as disclosed by Svendsen because such modification represents the substitution of one polarization means for another and producing the predictable result of providing polarization diversity for the reception of differently polarized signal.
Regarding claim 6, Tuttle teaches the plurality of antennas comprises cross polarized antennas (paragraph 029-031).
Regarding claim 13, Tuttle teaches a method comprising:
transmitting, by a processor, signals to a tag comprising a plurality of antennas (fig. 1, paragraph 031);
receiving, by the processor, a response to the signals from each antenna of the plurality of antennas (paragraph 033); and
based on the responses received from each antenna, determining, by the processor, an orientation of the tag (paragraph 031,048). Tuttle teaches the antennas of the RFID tag are differently polarized (paragraph 048) but is silent on teaching the plurality of antennas are in an order, wherein each antenna of the plurality of antennas except for a first antenna in the order has a polarization offset with respect to a previous antenna in the order, and further wherein the polarization offset is based on a number of antennas of the plurality of antennas. Svendsen teaches the plurality of antennas are in an order, wherein each antenna of the plurality of antennas except for a first antenna in the order has a polarization offset with respect to a previous antenna in the order, and further wherein the polarization offset is selected based on a number of antennas of the plurality of antennas (paragraph 010-012, 022)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle as disclosed by Svendsen because such modification represents the substitution of one polarization means for another and producing the predictable result of providing polarization diversity for the reception of differently polarized signal.
Regarding claim 21, Tuttle teaches the plurality of antennas are arranged to be symmetric about a main diagonal of the tag (fig. 7)
Regarding claim 22, Tuttle teaches the polarization offset is further selected based on an individual angular ambiguity of each antenna of the plurality of antenna (variance data is used, paragraph 011-12,15).
Claim(s) 2-3 and 14-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20180247177 and further in view of Panayiotou et al. US Patent Application Publication 20210056272.
Regarding claims 2-3 and 14-15, Tuttle teaches determining the tag orientation based on the response from the tag (paragraph 031,048,070) but is silent on teaching the use of a model to determine the orientation of the RFID tag. Panayiotou et al. in an analogous art teaches the use of a machine learning algorithm in determining the orientation of the RFID tag (paragraph 027).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Panayiotou et al. because such modification represents an improvement over the system of Tuttle by using a model for providing a more accurate and reliable determination of the orientation of the RFID tag.
Claim(s) 4 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 in view of Panayiotou et al. US Patent Application Publication 20210056272 and further in view of Reichardt et al. US Patent Application Publication 20210287530.
Regarding claims 4 and 16, Tuttle in view of Panayiotou is silent on teaching the machine learning classifier is a k-nearest neighbor machine learning classifier. Reichardt et al. in an analogous art teaches the machine learning classifier is a k-nearest neighbor machine learning classifier (paragraph 034).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen in view of Panayiotou as disclosed by Reichardt et al. because such modification represents the selection of particular machine learning model from limited amount of machine learning model for providing the predictable result of predicting an outcome.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 and further in view of Weissman US Patent Application Publication 20190079176.
Regarding claim 5, Tuttle is silent on teaching the tag is a millimeter-wave RFID tag. Weissman in an analogous art teaches determining the orientation of a millimeter-wave RFID tag (paragraph 022).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Weissman because such modification represent the substitution of one type of RFID tag for another in order to achieve the predictable result of a more accurate and reliable orientation of the RFID tag.
Claim(s) 7-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 and further in view of Butler US Patent Application Publication 20170270323.
Regarding claims 7-10, Tuttle is silent on teaching the plurality of antennas comprises at least four antennas. Butler in an analogous art teaches a RFID tag having at least four antennas (fig. 5A, paragraph 0215). Butler also teaches the RFID communicates using multiple frequencies in order to provide advantageous transmission characteristic in different environments. (paragraph 066)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Butler because such modification represents an improvement over the system of Tuttle because such modification allow for the RFID tag to communicate using different types of wireless signal and provide for a more adaptable RFID tag device.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 and further in view of Svendsen et al. US Patent Application Publication 20230261725.
Regarding claim 11, Tuttle is silent on teaching each antenna of the plurality of antennas has a polarization offset of 15° from a previous antenna of the plurality of antennas. Svendsen et al. in an analogous art teaches adjusting the polarization offset in order to achieve the desired power level of the signals (paragraph 011).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Svendsen because such modification represents the substitution of the polarization offset value in order to achieve the predictable result of achieving the desired power level of the signals
Claim(s) 12 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 and further in view of Adib et al. US Patent Application Publication 20240230881.
Regarding claims 12 and 20, Tuttle is silent on teaching determining the orientation of the tag comprises determining one or more of roll, pitch, and yaw. Adib in an analogous art teaches determining the orientation of the tag comprises determining one or more of roll, pitch, and yaw (paragraph 056).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Adib because such modification represents an improvement over the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen in order to provide a better indication of the antenna polarization.
the computer-executable instructions that cause the processor to determine the orientation of the tag (paragraph 048) further cause the processor to standardize an amplitude of the response received from each antenna of the plurality of antennas by subtracting a mean of a vector set of measurements and dividing by a standard deviation.
Claim(s) 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tuttle US Patent Application Publication 20110279232 in view of Svendsen US Patent Application Publication 20230261725 and further in view of Libby US Patent Application Publication 20110221634.
Regarding claim 23, Tuttle is silent on teaching the computer-executable instructions that cause the processor to determine the orientation of the tag further cause the processor to standardize an amplitude of the response received from each antenna of the plurality of antennas by subtracting a mean of a vector set of measurements and dividing by a standard deviation. Libby in an analogous art teaches the computer-executable instructions that cause the processor to determine the orientation of the tag further cause the processor to standardize an amplitude of the response received from each antenna of the plurality of antennas by subtracting a mean of a vector set of measurements and dividing by a standard deviation (paragraph 06).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen as disclosed by Libby because such modification represents an improvement over the system of Tuttle in view of Svendsen by providing a more reliable and accurate means of determining the orientation information.
Conclusion
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/VERNAL U BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2686
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