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 .
The applicants ADS appears incorrect. It makes reference to Domestic priority PCT/JP2023/018588 and foreign priority JP 2022-112866 both of which have different specifications and drawings and are drawn to a level shifting circuit (not the claimed Reception device). Looking at PCT/JP2023/024116 or cited published WO-2024014297 A1(which has the same specification and drawings) it appears to be the PCT to which is the rightful priority. The inventor listed is Masahiro Uno. Given that, the inventor listed on both the ADS and oath appears to be incorrect as well. Clarification or correction is required for both the ADS and oath.
3. Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority. However, based on paragraph 2 above, It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the Japanese application as required by 37 CFR 1.55. In the case of a design application, the certified copy must be filed during the pendency of the application, unless filed with a petition under 37 CFR 1.55(g) together with the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(g)(1), that includes a showing of good and sufficient cause for the delay in filing the certified copy of the foreign application. If the certified copy of the foreign application is filed after the date the issue fee is paid, the patent will not include the priority claim unless corrected by a certificate of correction under 35 U.S.C. 255 and 37 CFR 1.323.
4. The references cited in the IDS filed 1/1/25 have not been considered as the appear to be directed to a different application.
Claim Objections
5. Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: It appears that claim 17 was meant to be dependent upon claim 14 (not claim 12). Claim 17 claims a second switch. There is no first switch in claim 12. The first switch is listed for the first time in claim 14. For the purposes of examination, claim 17 will be treated as if it is dependent upon claim 14. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
6. 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)(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.
7. Claims 1-3, 7, 10-12, 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Oishi et al US 11765684 B2.
8. Consider claims 1 and 19. Oishi et al teaches (figs 1 and 2) a transmission/reception device (200) comprising: an antenna component including a plurality of antenna elements (211A-211D) that receives a predetermined radio wave (col 10, lines 7-8) transmitted from a predetermined transmission device (100), and a transmission line that connects the plurality of antenna elements in series (see line inside 200 that connects them) and transmits a radio wave received by each of the antenna elements; a correlator (218 and col 7, lines 47-49) that acquires the radio wave via the transmission line and calculates (Col 7, lines 47-56) a correlation between the radio wave received by each of the antenna elements and the predetermined radio wave; and an arrival direction calculation unit that calculates an arrival direction of the radio wave on the basis of the calculated correlation (col 9, lines 66 to col 10, line 6). Method claim 18 is rejected for the same reasons as apparatus claim 1, since the recited elements would perform the claimed steps.
9. Regarding claim 2. Oishi et al teaches (reads on predetermined detection standard in col 10, lines 9-10) wherein the predetermined radio wave includes a correlation sequence.
10. Regarding claim 3. Oishi et al teaches a storage unit (220) that stores the correlation sequence in advance, wherein the correlator calculates the correlation between the radio wave received by each of the antenna elements and the predetermined radio wave on the basis of the correlation sequence stored in advance (from col 41, lines 4-13...described in this specification may be achieved by any of software, hardware, and a combination of software and hardware. A program that configures software is stored in advance in, for example, a recording medium (non-transitory medium) installed inside or outside the devices. In addition, for example, when a computer executes the programs, the programs are read into random access memory (RAM), and executed by a processor such as a CPU.…).
11. Regarding claim 7. Oishi et al teaches wherein the transmission line has a shape of a straight line (the line interconnecting the antennas in fig 1 is not labeled but is straight).
12. Regarding claims 10 and 11. Oishi et al teaches four antenna (211a-211d) which reads on two (claim 10) and three (claim 11).
13. Regarding claim 12. Oishi et al teaches (fig 5) a reception circuit (212-217) that is provided between the transmission line (not labeled) and the correlator (218) and converts the radio wave received by each of the antenna elements into a baseband signal.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
14. 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.
15. Claims 5, 6, 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oishi et al US 11765684 B2 in view of Examiners Official Notice.
16. Regarding claim 5. Oishi et al discloses an antenna (211a-211D) but fails to explicitly state the antenna element is a patch antenna, a dipole antenna, a monopole antenna, or a slot antenna. However, the examiner takes Official Notice that these types of antennas are notoriously well known in the art. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute any of these antennas for that taught by Oishi et al since they would be functionally equivalent.
17. Regarding claim 6. Oishi et al discloses a transmission line interconnecting the antennas but fails to explicitly state the transmission line is a coaxial cable, a microstrip line, a coplanar line, a slot line, a substrate integrated waveguide, or a twisted pair line. However, the examiner takes Official Notice that these types of transmission lines are notoriously well known in the art. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute any of these transmission lines for that taught by Oishi et al since they would be functionally equivalent.
18. Regarding claim 8. Oishi et al discloses a transmission line by fails to explicitly state that the transmission line is configured with a metamaterial structure. However, the examiner takes Official Notice that these types of transmission line structure are notoriously well known in the art. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute any of these transmission line structure for that taught by Oishi et al since they would be functionally equivalent.
19. Regarding claim 9. Oishi et al teaches an antenna component (211a) but fails to explicitly state it has a laminated structure including a dielectric and a plurality of conductors sandwiching the dielectric. However, the examiner takes Official Notice that these types of antenna structures are notoriously well known in the art. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to substitute this type antenna structure for that taught by Oishi et al since they would be functionally equivalent.
Allowable Subject Matter
20. Claims 4 and 13-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 4. The prior art of record fails to teach or make obvious wherein the arrival direction calculation unit calculates an arrival angle of the radio wave using a difference between arrival times of the radio waves received by the respective antenna elements obtained on the basis of the calculated correlation, and a length of the transmission line between the plurality of antenna elements.
21. Regarding claim 13. The prior art of record fails to teach or make obvious wherein the antenna component has: a first antenna component including a plurality of first antenna elements aligned along a first direction and a first transmission line connecting the plurality of first antenna elements in series; and a second antenna component including a plurality of second antenna elements aligned along a first direction different from the first direction, and a second transmission line connecting the plurality of second antenna elements in series. Dependent claims 14-17 are objected to as allowable since they depend upon claim 13.
22. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kobayakawa WO-2004082171-A1 teaches a radio device comprises two receiving means for detecting parallel and alternately the received wave that has arrived at two elements from a common transmission end for every period that is an integral multiple of the symbol period of the received wave and an arrival angle calculating means (13) for calculating every period the angle of arrival of the received wave as an inverse function of the difference between “the two phases proportional to the distance between the two elements, given respectively to the function of the effective arrangement of the elements and the angle of arrival, and commonly including the phase shift of the two receiving means”.
Maehara JP 2021-110591-A teaches a radio wave arrival direction to be estimated with high accuracy while suppressing an increase in the size of a device configuration for estimating the arrival direction. A switching part 21 outputs one of receive signals inputted from a plurality of antennas 20. A control unit 10 calculates a reference correction value on the basis of a receive signal from a specific antenna having been acquired twice at a time interval td via the switching part 21. The control unit 10 generates a first correlation matrix on the basis of receive signals having been sequentially acquired one by one at the time interval td from each of the plurality of antennas 20 via the switching part 21. The control unit 10 removes a phase difference component due to the time interval td from the first correlation matrix using the reference correction value and thereby calculates a second correlation matrix.
Gao JP-3596517 B2 teaches a radio wave direction-of-arrival estimation apparatus using an array antenna, a radio wave direction-of-arrival estimation method, and a variable directivity transmitting / receiving apparatus that changes the antenna directivity based on the result of radio wave direction estimation.
Arakawa WO 2020080333 A1 teaches an arrival angle detecting device (1) is provided with an array antenna (2), a correlation matrix calculating unit (4), a spatial average processing unit (5), and an arrival angle estimating unit (6). The array antenna (2) consists of a plurality of antenna elements (21) to (2M) which are arranged at equal intervals to receive radio waves. The correlation matrix calculating unit (4) calculates a correlation matrix (R) having phase differences between the radio waves received by the antenna elements (21) to (2M) as elements. The spatial average processing unit (5) performs averaging of diagonal elements along each descending diagonal from the left to the right of the correlation matrix (R), and rearranges the same within the matrix to create an averaged correlation matrix (Ra) comprising a Toeplitz matrix. The arrival angle estimating unit (6) estimates an arrival angle (θk) of radio waves from the averaged correlation matrix (Ra).
Conclusion
23. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CURTIS A KUNTZ whose telephone number is (571)272-7499. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th from 530am to 330pm and Fri from 530am to 10am.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D Anderson, can be reached at telephone number 5712724177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CURTIS A KUNTZ/Primary examiner, Art Unit 2646
Prosecution Insights