Prosecution Insights
Last updated: September 17, 2026
Application No. 18/860,921

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR THE SPARSE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE MICRO-DOPPLER SPECTRUM IN JOINT COMMUNICATION AND SENSING APPLICATIONS

Non-Final OA §112
Filed
Oct 28, 2024
Priority
May 03, 2022 — IT 102022000008906 +1 more
Examiner
NGUYEN, THE HY
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Fundación Imdea Networks
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
74%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
10m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 74% — above average
74%
Career Allowance Rate
243 granted / 327 resolved
+14.3% vs TC avg
Strong +32% interview lift
Without
With
+31.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 8m
Avg Prosecution
36 currently pending
Career history
357
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
2.9%
-37.1% vs TC avg
§103
59.9%
+19.9% vs TC avg
§102
20.4%
-19.6% vs TC avg
§112
15.3%
-24.7% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 327 resolved cases

Office Action

§112
DETAILED ACTION 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 § 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. Claim(s) 1-9, 11-15, and 20 is/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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Claim 1 recites the limitations “the reflections or refractions,” “the available channel impulse response (CIR) estimates,” and “the time domain.” There are insufficient antecedent bases for these limitations in the claim 1. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the transmitted signal are received.” It is not clear if the “transmitted signal” is referring to “wireless communication signals” that “are transmitted through a multi-path channel” because “transmitted signal” is written in singular form and “wireless communication signals” is written in plural form. Claim 2 recites the limitation "the spectrum." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “said time slot duration (T).” Claim 3 depends on claim 2 which recites “slotted sliding window with slot duration (T).” It is not clear if “T” is “time slot duration” or “slotted sliding window with slot duration.” Claim 3 recites the limitations “the desired maximum micro-Doppler velocity resolution” and "the spectrum." There are insufficient antecedent bases for these limitations in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the desired micro-Doppler reconstruction quality” and "the threshold number." There are insufficient antecedent bases for these limitations in the claim. Claim 5 recites the limitation "the current window." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 6 recites the limitation "the time window." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 7 recites the limitation "the window duration." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 8 recites the limitation "the subsequent window." It is not clear if there is a single subsequent window or if there are more than one subsequent window. Claim 8 depends on claim 2 which recites “for each subsequent window.” Applicant may want to change the limitation in claim 8 to “each subsequent window.” Claim 9 recites the limitation "the CIR window slot sample." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 11 recites the limitations "the number of slots in the time window," “the non-missing CIR samples,” “the complete CIR measurement window,” “the sparsity,” and ‘the spectrum.” There are insufficient antecedent bases for these limitations in the claim. Claim 11 recites the limitation "wherein W is the number of slots in the time window." Claim 11 depends on claim 2 which recites “window length slots (W).” It is not clear if “W” is “the number of slots in the time window” or “window length slots.” Claim 11 recites the limitation "the window." It is not clear if “the window” refers to the “time window” in claim 11, “the slotted sliding window” in claim 2, or “each subsequent window” in claim 2. Claim 12 recites the limitation "the algorithm." It is not clear if “the algorithm” is referring to “reconstruction algorithm” in claim 11 or an “algorithm used for solving the optimization problem” of claim 12. Claim 13 recites the limitation "the highest received power." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 14 recites the limitation "the contribution." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 15 recites the limitations "the spectra" and “the micro-Doppler spectra.” There are insufficient antecedent bases for these limitations in the claim. Claim 20 recites the limitation "the different beampatterns." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claims 10 and 16-19 are rejected based on their dependency to claim 1. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2008/0192843 A1 teaches in [0105]: Reference is made to FIG. 5 which shows the scattered pilots grid (500) after performing time interpolation of the channel impulse response samples from the exemplary scattered pilots grid (400). US 2024/0310504 A1 teaches in [0093]: The CIR window size is a design parameter that can be chosen to be long enough to capture human movements. For example, in the case of a UWB module with a 200 Hz sampling rate, the window size can be 256 samples, making the window length approximately 1 second. Note that the window size is typically chosen to be a power of 2 for faster Fourier transform implementation. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THE HY NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-3813. The examiner can normally be reached on Mo-Fr: 8am-4pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Avellino, can be reached on (571) 272-3905. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /THE HY NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478 TheHy.Nguyen@USPTO.gov
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Oct 28, 2024
Application Filed
Sep 11, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §112 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
74%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+31.7%)
2y 8m (~10m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 327 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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