Indeed, the last time this attack vector came up on HN, it was pointed out that one company has patented using time of flight to validate keyless entry.

Here's the patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8930045

Nice find. Looks like Apple cites it in some of its own patents ("Enhanced automotive passive entry" from 2018-08-16) so maybe they already have rights to it and that's why unlock with Apple watch can work correctly.

`ping`. They were granted a patent for ping. That seems ridiculous.

It also describes RADAR, or even LIDAR for that matter. It doesn't seem like one should be able to patent something that is merely an application of a well known physical principal. Maybe I misunderstand what "novel" means.