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 . The rejections from the Office Action of 6/30/2025 are hereby withdrawn. New grounds for rejection are presented below.
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/24/2025 has been entered.
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 15-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention.
The claims recite predicting the state of movement of a two-wheel vehicle, including estimated acceleration, speed, and distance traveled, using acquired rotational rates (“predicting, using the acquired rotational rates as inputs to a state- propagation model stored in a control device, a predicted state of movement of the two-wheeled vehicle, the predicted state including predicted values of longitudinal acceleration, longitudinal speed, and distance traveled obtained by temporally integrating said state-propagation model”), but the specification does not sufficiently describe how to do that. The measurement of the rotational rates, namely yaw, pitch, and roll values would not enable one to calculate the velocity, acceleration, and distance travelled based off of this data alone.
Considering the relevant Wands factors, at the time of the application filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have known how to calculate velocity, acceleration, and distance travelled based off of acceleration sensor, GPS, and/or wheel speed sensor data, but not rotational rate sensor data alone. The specification does not provide enough direction for one of ordinary skill in the art to successfully carry out the invention and estimate the state of movement based solely on rotational rate data. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would need undue experimentation in order to calculate the claimed state of movement based on the rotation rate data (see MPEP 2164.01).
The applicant has argued that the specification provides sufficient disclosure on how to estimate the state of movement (e.g. acceleration, speed, and distance traveled) using rotational rate sensor data. The applicant points to the state vector in the specification that includes the parameters roll angle, pitch angle, longitudinal acceleration, and speed. The applicant additionally recites that the specification describes how the system equation is used to calculate the temporal change of the state vector.
Upon further review of the specification, the state vector includes the variables the applicant describes (x1 is a roll angle, x2 is a pitch angle, x3 is a longitudinal acceleration, x4 is a longitudinal speed), and additionally x5 (distance traveled) [see ¶0019-0020]. However, it is unknown to one of ordinary skill in the art how to measure all five of these quantities (roll angle, pitch angle, longitudinal acceleration, longitudinal speed, and distance travelled) using only rotational rate sensors. Rotational rate sensors are commonly known to acquire rotational rate data including yaw, pitch, and roll rates. Therefore, the rotational rate sensors cannot directly measure the recited state vector variables x3 (longitudinal acceleration), x4 (longitudinal speed), or x5 (distance traveled). One could feasibly calculate yaw, pitch, and roll angles (and therefore roll angle and pitch angle) through the integration of rotational rate sensor data, but not longitudinal acceleration, longitudinal speed, or distance traveled.
Similarly, in the specification, the system equation (x dot) [see page 6] includes the variables x1, x2, x3, and x4 within the system of equations. One could not feasibly solve or integrate the system of equations with the 4 unknown variables to estimate the changing values for the state vector (including x1, x2, x3, x4, and x5).
Within the context of the claim language in claim 15, the claim recites “predicting, using the acquired rotational rates as inputs to a state- propagation model stored in a control device, a predicted state of movement of the two-wheeled vehicle, the predicted state including predicted values of longitudinal acceleration, longitudinal speed, and distance traveled obtained by temporally integrating said state-propagation model.” (The examiner notes that these acquired rotational rates are acquired by the rotational rate sensor and are the rotational rates of the two-wheeled vehicle in claim 15, and there is a separate wheel rotational speed sensor which detects the rotation of the wheel, so the claim is not using measurements of the wheel’s motion to deduce the longitudinal motion of the vehicle.) The applicant has not explained how one of ordinary skill in the art would be able to use acquired rotational rates of the two-wheeled vehicle (without other measured data relating directly to the longitudinal motion of the vehicle) to determine the longitudinal acceleration, speed, and distance travelled. In simple terms, causing a vehicle to accelerate in a straight line down a track, maintain or change its speed, and travel any given distance, can all be done without causing any change in the 3D orientation of the vehicle, and therefore would not affect the measured rotational rates of the vehicle. The longitudinal acceleration, speed, and distance travelled would therefore not be able to be calculated from the measured rotational rates. Without further explanation in the specification or from the applicant, and without specific examples given to illustrate how this would work, the specification does not enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and/or use the invention, and thus the 112(a) rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Chao et al., Vehicle Longitudinal Speed Estimation Based on Kalman Filter, IEEE, 2020
US 20180222540 A1 – DEVICE AND METHOD FOR THEFT DETECTION
US 10274318 B1 – Nine-axis Quaternion Sensor Fusion Using Modified Kalman Filter
US 20050240347 A1 – Method And Apparatus For Adaptive Filter Based Attitude Updating
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE ROBERT QUIGLEY whose telephone number is (313)446-4879. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM EST.
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/KYLE R QUIGLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857