DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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
2. 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 12 is 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 12 details “…further comprises generating the for modification…” It cannot be ascertained from the language of the claim what is being encompassed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 13-15, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by Liu (US 2016/006827)
Regarding claims 1 and 13, Liu discloses a system, method (Liu at abstract) comprising:
Receiving a first audio signal at audio sensors of an aircraft at a first position of the aircraft (plurality of sensors used at first tracked location of UAV include microphones; Liu at 0056, 0058).
Analyzing, by a detection and avoidance (DAA) model at computing resources associated with the aircraft, the first audio signal to determine a first signal source associated with the first audio signal (trained model determines a location of a first sound source; Liu at 0043, 0080), wherein the DAA model is a machine learned model trained on acoustic data from known signal sources detectable during flight (model is iteratively trained over time with different sound sources to identify the size, type, and movement characteristics of the sound source; Liu at 0080, 0081).
Generating, by the DAA model, a position and velocity estimation of the first signal source associated with the first audio signal (motion and location estimation associated with the sound source; Liu at 0080).
Classifying, by the DAA model, the first signal source as an air-based signal source based on the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source (size, type, mobility, movement patterns of obstacle identified; Liu at 0080, 0081)
Generating, by the DAA model, a modification of a flight characteristic of the aircraft based on the classification of the first signal source and the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source (hold the UAV at a predetermined distance from obstacle or avoid collision; Liu at 0080, 0081).
Regarding claims 2 and 14, Liu discloses classifying, by the DAA, a second signal source associated with the first audio signal as an air-based audio source based on a position and velocity estimation of the second signal source; and generating, by the DAA, a second modification of the flight characteristic of the aircraft based on the classification of the first signal source and the second signal source and based on the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source and the second signal source, wherein the second modification of the flight characteristic may be configured to cause the aircraft to maintain a distance between the aircraft and the first signal source and second signal source (plurality of obstacles detected, identified as aerial obstacles, and a motion plan implemented and updated for collision avoidance including maintaining a preset distance from the aerial obstacles; Liu at 0013, 0045, 0080, 0081, 0093).
Regarding claims 4 and 15, Liu discloses wherein generating the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source comprises determining a directionality of a signal relative to the aircraft associated with the first signal source (location relative to the UAV and motion of the aerial obstacle determined; Liu at 0015, 0077, 0080, 0083).
Regarding claim 21, Liu discloses wherein the modification of the flight characteristic of the aircraft comprises at least one of a change in the roll, pitch, yaw, elevation, or velocity of
the aircraft (Liu at 0049, 0116).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
Claims 5, 9-12, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu, as applied above, and further in view of Staudinger (US 2020/0393562).
Regarding claims 5 and 16, Liu is silent as to wherein determining a directionality of the signal associated with the first signal source comprises generating a probabilistic estimation of the azimuth angle and elevation of the signal associated with the first signal source relative to the aircraft (prediction of azimuth and elevation of source relative to aircraft predicted from trained model; Staudinger at 0027).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the claimed invention to augment the system and method of Liu with the modeling of Staudinger. Doing so would provide for greater accuracy in prediction of movement in a tracked object for collision avoidance planning.
Regarding claims 9, 10, and 20 the combination teaches wherein generating the semantic classification of the first signal source comprises generating the semantic classification via a machine learning model trained on audio frequencies of multichannel audio signals associated with known air-based signal sources (acoustic model trained with microphone array data and identification data used to classify targeted object; Staudinger at abstract, 0005).
Regarding claim 11, the combination teaches wherein generating the semantic classification of the first signal source further comprises generating a probabilistic confidence interval associated with the semantic classification, and wherein generating the modification of the flight characteristic of the aircraft further comprises generating the modification of the flight characteristic based on the probabilistic confidence interval associated with the semantic classification of the first signal source.(object identification and flight planning as a result of a confidence level from trained model; Staudinger at 0054).
Regarding claim 12, as best understood, the combination teaches wherein generating the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source further comprises generating a probabilistic confidence interval associated with the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source, and wherein generating the modification of the flight characteristic of the aircraft further comprises generating the for modification of the flight characteristic based on the probabilistic confidence interval associated with the position and velocity estimation of the first signal source (target object position and velocity predicted at a confidence level, and flight plan altered; Staudinger at 0029, 0036, 0054, 0057).
Claim Objections
5. Claims 3, 6, 8, and 17-19 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.
Subsequently, claim 7 is objected due to dependency on claim 6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN M DAGER whose telephone number is (571)270-1332. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 0830-1730.
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/JONATHAN M DAGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3663 03 June 2026
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