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 .
Response to Amendment
This communication is considered fully responsive to the amendment filed on 11/18/2025.
Claims 35, 47, 59, and 64 have been amended and Claims 65-68 are newly added.
Claims 1-34, 43-44, and 55-56 were previously canceled.
Thus, Claims 35-42, 45-54, and 57-68 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendments filed 05/27/2026, regarding the rejection to the claims 35, 47, 59, and 64 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
In the Amendment filed on 05/27/2026, Applicant amended Claim 35 to recite “determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission, of a beamformed coverage area not covered by the first coverage area, for a directional transmission of the message to the one or more third devices.”
While this amendment partially addresses that relationship between the directional transmission and the target region, it fails to overcome the core indefiniteness noted in the previous Office Action dated 03/03/2026. Specifically, the claim still lacks any recitation of the input data, spatial parameters, or technical steps showing how the first obtains or possesses knowledge of the position, location, orientation, or boundaries of (i) the one or more third devices, or (ii) the non-covered/non overlapping coverage areas.
Absent a clear spatial basis or method for acquiring such spatial relationship in the claim language, it remains ambiguous how the first device mathematically or physically determines the “a particular beamformed direction of transmission.” One or ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention because the claim recites a functional result (determining a directional transmission) without the necessary structural or steps-based limitations to achieve that result.
Applicant’s arguments regarding the rejection of the claims over prior art have been fully considered but are moot in view of the extensive 112 (a) and (b) rejections making it speculative at best for proper scope determination to apply prior art rejections. Where there is a great deal of confusion and uncertainty as to the proper interpretation of the limitations of a claim, it would not be proper to reject such a claim on the basis of prior art. As stated in In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 134 USPQ 292 (CCPA 1962), a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 should not be based on considerable speculation about the meaning of terms employed in a claim or assumptions that must be made as to the scope of the claims (MPEP 2173.06). As such, no speculative prior art rejections can be made at this time. However, Applicant should make note of the additional pertinent art cited below when responding to the instant action in addition to the previous art rejections.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 35-42, 45-54, and 57-68 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Specifically, the currently amended independent Claim 35 recites the limitation:
“determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission, of a beamformed coverage area not covered by the first coverage area, …”
Applicant argues that this amended feature is supported by paragraphs [0072]-[0075] and [0092] of the Specification as originally filed. However, the specification does not provide written description support for directing a beam to an area not covered by the “first coverage area” (which is defined in the claim as the transmission coverage of the first device). Instead, paragraphs [0075] and [0092] disclose that the first device determines a directional beam to provide coverage for a desired area that is not covered by the messages received from the second devices (which corresponds to the “second coverage area” in the claim).
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(Fig. 7 of the Instant Application, annotated)
Claim 35 recites “determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission, of a beamformed coverage area not covered by the first coverage area”.
However, the desired coverage area 708 is covered by first coverage area (its own coverage area”) of first device702-A. Claim 35 states that the first device (702-A) targets a beamformed area “not covered by the first coverage area.” Taken literally, this means 702-A is directing a beam to an area not covered by its own coverage area, which makes no sense and has no support from para [0075] and Fig. 7.
Because the Specification does not teach targeting a beamformed coverage area that is not covered by the first device’s own coverage area, the amendment introduces new matter.
Regarding Claims 47, 59, and 64, have similar limitation as of Claim(s) 35, therefore it is rejected under the same reasons as Claim(s) 35.
Claims 36-42, 45-46, 48-54, 57-58, 60-63, and 65-68 depend from one of the independent claims, thus carry the same issues as described above, and therefore are rejected on the same grounds discussed above.
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.
Claims 35-42, 45-54, and 57-68 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 35 contains an internal inconsistency that renders the metes and bounds of the claimed invention unclear. In the “determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission, of a beamformed coverage area not covered by the first coverage area.” However, in the immediately following “transmitting” step, the claim refers back to this same areas as “the beamformed coverage area not overlapping with the second coverage area of the one or more second devices.” It is ambiguous whether the beamformed direction of transmission is targeted at an area not covered by the first coverage area or an area not covered by the second coverage area.
Examiner’s note: To overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) and 112(b) set forth above, Applicant is strongly encouraged to amend the “determining” step of independent claims to change the phrase “first coverage area” to “second coverage area”. Such an amendment would resolve the internal inconsistency within the claim and accurately align the claim terminology with the technical teachings supported by paragraphs [0075] and [0092] of the Specification.
Claim 35 contains the limitation “whether a portion of a first coverage area of a transmission of the first device will overlap with a second coverage area of transmissions of the one or more messages received from the one or more second devices;”. The phrase “whether a portion .. will overlap with …” (specifically the use of “will overlap”) renders the claim scope vague and indefinite for the following reasons.
The use of the future tense auxiliary verb “will” introduces a degree of speculation and uncertainty into the claim. It is unclear whether the claimed feature requires a structural or functional limitation that is presently realized, or if it merely points to a hypothetical or conditional future event that may or may not occur. A patent claim must define the metes and bounds of the invention with reasonable certainty; conveying limitation in terms of future possibilities fails to meet this requirement.
Furthermore, the introductory term “whether” combined with “will overlap” further exacerbates the ambiguity. It remains unclear what specific structure or active step is being performed. The claim language appears to recite a mere determination or an abstract condition rather than defining a clear relationship between the “a portion of a first coverage area” and the “second coverage area”.
Claim 35 recites:
“selecting information about the first object to report in a message to one or more third devices based on whether the first object corresponds to at least one object of the one or more second objects in the one or more messages and whether a portion of a first coverage area of a transmission of the first device will overlap with a second coverage area of transmissions of the one or more messages received from the one or more second devices;”
“determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission, of a beamformed coverage area not covered by the first coverage area, for a directional transmission of the message to the one or more third devices;” and
“wherein the first device sends the message comprising information about the first object in the directional transmission in the particular beamformed direction of transmission to the beamformed coverage area not overlapping with the second coverage area of the one or more second devices in response to determining that the first object corresponds to at least one of the one or more second objects.”
The limitations “determining a particular beamformed direction of transmission …” and “wherein the first device sends the message … to the beamformed coverage area not overlapping …” remains indefinite. Despite the amendments, the claim still does not recite that the first device has knowledge of the position, location, orientation, or any spatial information regarding (i) the one or more third devices or (ii) the “beamformed coverage area” that allegedly does not overlap with the respective coverage areas, Absent such spatial information, it is unclear how the first device can dynamically calculate and determine a “particular beamformed direction of transmission.”
Specifically, the claim fails to specify:
whether the particular beamformed direction is determined based on the actual physical locations of the one or more third devices,
How the geographical or spatial boundaries of the “beamformed coverage area” are defined, calculated, or identified by the first device,
How the first device identifies the spatial relationship between its beamformed transmission direction and the varying coverage areas of the second devices without relying on location data inputs, or
Whether the directional transmission is intended to reach specific third devices, an arbitrary non-overlapping spatial region, or both.
Because the claim does not explain how the beamformed transmission direction is spatially determined without knowledge of the relevant locations, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the claimed invention. Thus, the relationship between (1) the third devices, (2) the exact non-overlapping region, and (3) the determined beamformed transmission direction remains ambiguous.
Accordingly, the metes and bounds of the claim are therefore not defined with reasonable certainty, and claims 35, 47, 59, and 64 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112 (b) as indefinite.
Claims 36-42, 45-46, 48-54, 57-58, and 60-64 depend from one of the independent claims, thus carry the same issues as described above, and therefore are rejected on the same grounds discussed above.
Conclusion
1. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Hwang (European Patent Application Publication No. EP 3 462 754 A1) discloses that when it is determined that the object related to the external V2X communication device is the same object as one of the at least one first detection object, the CP message may include second object information different from the first object information. In an embodiment, the second object information may be information included in the above-mentioned SPOC.)(Examiner’s note: the object #V3 detected by the V2 is corresponds to one (#V3) of the objects #V1 and V3 in the first CPM (see Fig. 15B and para [0244)
Kwak (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20220264265) discloses that if the distance to the second device is equal to or longer than (exceeds) the threshold distance, the first device may configure the CPM in a manner that information about the overlapping object is included in the CPM (see para [0266]). When the distance between the first ITS station (A) and the object (B) is equal to or longer than a threshold distance, the first ITS station (A) may include, in the CPM, information about the overlapping object (B), so that coverage of the information about the object (B) can increase.
Shimizu et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20200314662) teaches a directional transmission based on position data. Shimizu discloses that determining a beam sweeping direction setting for a mmWave beam alignment with an endpoint based on position data that describes a geographic location of the endpoint. The method includes modifying an operation of a Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) radio of the ego vehicle to perform the mmWave beam alignment with the endpoint based on the beam sweeping direction setting so that an efficiency of the mmWave beam alignment is improved (see Abstract). Shimizu discloses that transmitting a reply V2X message that includes an acknowledgement to the data sharing request, where the acknowledgement includes schedule information for a mmWave communication between the ego vehicle and the endpoint so that directional transmission and reception of the mmWave communication are enabled according to the schedule information (see para 0006). Shimizu discloses that the modification system 199 of the ego vehicle 123 analyzes the first position data (optionally, the first position accuracy data as well), the second position data (optionally, the second position accuracy data as well), the third position data (optionally, the third position accuracy data as well) and the fourth position data (optionally, the fourth position accuracy data as well) to determine beam sweeping direction setting data. The beam sweeping direction setting data includes digital data that describes a directional sweeping range (e.g., one or more arches or areas) where the mmWave radio 141 of the ego vehicle 123 sweeps during a mmWave beam alignment (see para [0098]). Shimizu discloses that the directional sweeping range includes: a beam lobe 510 that points at a direction of the vehicle A and has the position A within its communication range; a beam lobe 512 that points at a direction of the vehicle B and has the position B within its communication range; a beam lobe 514 that points at a direction of the vehicle C and has the position C within its communication range; and a beam lobe 516 that points at a direction of the vehicle D and has the position D within its communication range (see para [0099]). Shimizu discloses that The modification system 199 of the ego vehicle 123 modifies an operation of the mmWave radio 141 of the ego vehicle 123 to perform the mmWave beam alignment so that a beam of the mmWave radio 141 sweeps only in directions of the beam lobes 510, 512, 514 and 516 indicated by the beam sweeping direction setting data. In this way, the mmWave beam alignment process based on the beam sweeping direction setting data can save time, processing power and energy when compared with beam sweeping in all directions (see para [0100]).
2. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
3. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WON JUN CHOI whose telephone number is (703)756-1695. The examiner can normally be reached MON-FRI 08:00 - 17:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Derrick W Ferris can be reached at 571-272-3123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WON JUN CHOI/Examiner, Art Unit 2411
/DERRICK W FERRIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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