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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a) - (d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. KR 10-2022-0071672, filed on June 13, 2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted complies with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Rejection under 112(b)
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.
Claims 1 – 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112b, 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The language, or similar language, of the features stating “frequency of 0.5” is ambiguous because frequency should be stated in terms of Hertz such as Hz, MHz, GHz. Also, a frequency of 0.5 for a satellite transmission and reception is not realistic. See claims 1, 6, 9, 11, 16 and 19. Based on the Examiner’s research, the Examiner believes this to be a modulation index or maximum frequency index or deviation. See Wikipedia Minimum-Shift keying attached to file wrapper. The specification refers to a multiplexing power efficiency. See Spec. Para. 63. However, the Examiner cannot reasonably determine Applicant’s intent, thus the metes and bounds of the claims cannot be fully defined; therefore, the claims are indefinite.
The dependent claims 1 – 10 and 12 – 20 are all rejected due to dependency on rejected base claims.
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 statutory basis for 35 USC § 103
“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 claims 1 – 2, 10 – 12 and 20 are rejected under 35 USC as being obvious over Yao (US 20150172084 A1) in view of Al-Eidan (US 10491261 B1) and Cangiani (US 20020075907 A1).
As to claims 1 and 11, Yao discloses a satellite navigation signal generation apparatus comprising:
a signal generator generating a first satellite navigation signal, a second satellite navigation signal, and a third satellite navigation signal (Fig. 5 item 100, in particular 130-n, as described by Figs. 1 – 4);
a modulator modulating signals with same phases, which are generated by configuring an amplitude and a phase of an in-phase component and an amplitude and a phase of a quadrature-phase component (Para. 88 “coherent integration and dump”) based on a relationship of absolute sample values corresponding respectively to variable (Paras. 11 and 30) (Para. 30 “the power parameter may be an absolute power of the baseband signal”), into different chip pulse waveforms (Fig. 5 item 200); and
a multiplexer performing constant envelope multiplexing on the satellite navigation signals modulated by the modulator, wherein the modulator performs chip pulse modulation in which the absolute sample value of the first satellite navigation signal and the absolute sample value of the second satellite navigation signal have a first value A and a second value B (see 112-b rejection), respectively (Fig. 5 item 300 see also Abstract.).
In the same field of endeavor (regarding the frequency of 0.5 as best understood), Al-Eidan teaches “MSK (Minimum Shift Keying) which has a modulation index of 0.5 is particularly resistant to noise and can be used for long distance communication.”
In view of Al-Eidan, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply a modulation of 0.5 in order to improve noise resistance thereby improving accuracy. Also, the 0.5 is the best choice for orthogonality (noise resistant) for bits between 1 and 0 as evidenced by the Wikipedia document discussed supra in 112-b rejection.
In the same field of endeavor (regarding instantaneous power), Cangiani teaches “Based on the commanded power distribution, the multiplexer determines, on a chip-by-chip basis, the values of those I and Q chips to be transmitted in a single DS spread spectrum signal representing the multiple input CDMA signals. It does so in a manner that insures that the total instantaneous power, represented by I.sup.2+Q.sup.2, remains constant for all chip intervals. It may do so by keeping I.sup.2 and Q.sup.2 individually constant, or by controlling their sum, depending on the desired nature of the signal to be transmitted. In either case, the said baseband DS spread spectrum signal produced by the multiplexer has constant envelope.”
In view of the teachings of Cangiani, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply instantaneous power in order to achieve a constant envelope as required by the primary reference Yao thereby achieving Yao’s objective. Alternatively, and based on Cangiani’s citation, it should be apparent that instantaneous power is inherent to constant envelope.
As to claims 2 and 12, Yao in view of Al-Eidan and Cangiani teaches the apparatus of claim 1 and 11, wherein the absolute sample value of the second satellite navigation signal has the second value B during a period in which the absolute sample value of the first satellite navigation signal is the first value A (For each period, each signal has a variable power. See Paras. 11 and 30. There are no requirements claimed yet that dictate what those values are. Besides items 130-n are parallel thus occur at same time.).
As to claims 10 and 20, Yao in view of Al-Eidan and Cangiani teaches the apparatus of claim 1 and 11, wherein the signal generator generates signals spectrum-spread with different spreading codes to the first to third satellite navigation signals (Fig. 5 items 130-n and Para. 17 “orthogonal” and Para. 35 “BPSK” -binary phase shift keying).
Potentially Allowable subject matter
Claime 3 – 9 and 13 – 19 are rejected under 112b but would be allowable if written to overcome 112b and if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of base claim. Claims 3 – 9 and 13 – 19 are based on equations and mathematical concepts not disclosed by the prior art. See e.g., Spec. Paras. 13 – 18, 51 – 61 and 80. The language “equal in average” means that averages of each subset of a set are equal. This is not disclosed by the prior art.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Justice whose telephone number is 571-270-7029. The examiner can normally be reached on during normal business hours. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vladimir Magloire can be reached at telephone number 571-270-5144. 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 Patent Center. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center to authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to the USPTO patent electronic filing system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). Examiner interviews are available via a variety of formats see MPEP § 713.01. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/InterviewPractice.
/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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