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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Introduction
This Action supersedes the action mailed 11/04/2025. This action corrects the lack of examination of the new claims 21-23.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6-9, 11, 13-15, 17, and 19-23 are pending. Claims 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, and 21-23 have been examined in this Office Action. Claims 6, 7, 13, 14, 19, and 20 have been withdrawn. Claims 3, 5, 10, 12, 16, and 18 have been cancelled and claims 21-23 have been added since the last Office Action.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular paragraphs / columns and line numbers or figures in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. Applicant is reminded that the Examiner is entitled to give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the language of the claims. Furthermore, the Examiner is not limited to Applicants' definition which is not specifically set forth in the disclosure.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2013/0297196 to Shida in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2013/0268174 to Koshizen.
As per claim 1, Shida discloses a vehicle on-board unit for a host vehicle (Shida; At least the abstract) comprising:
a communication system including an antenna that is configured to be mounted to a vehicle and programmed to electronically receive travel information from one or more preceding vehicles that are traveling ahead of the host vehicle in a lane (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 41 and 42); and
an electronic controller (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 55) including a vehicle path determination component programmed to determine a travel path of the host vehicle in the lane in which the host vehicle is currently traveling (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 40-42),
a target vehicle speed determination component programmed to select a reference vehicle from the travel path that is traveling ahead of the vehicle and to determine a target vehicle speed for the host vehicle based on a traveling speed of a predetermined group of preceding vehicles traveling between the host vehicle and the reference vehicle up to the reference vehicle, and control the target vehicle speed for the host vehicle (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 7, 8, 26, 30, 34, and 60; the vehicle selects a group of vehicles and, thus, selects a front vehicle of that group).
Shida discloses that the target speed can be based on the positions of the vehicles in the group of vehicles (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 76) and the traveling state of each vehicle (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 91), therefore, taking into account the traffic and state of environment into the calculation of the target vehicle speed. Shide does not explicitly disclose to determine a target vehicle speed based on a hyperbolic distribution of distance from the host vehicle.
However, the above feature(s) are taught by Koshizen (Koshizen; At least paragraph(s) 41-45). Koshizen teaches using a probability distribution of distances of vehicle in a group of preceding vehicles to describe the traffic and state of the environment ahead of a vehicle. At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have incorporated the teachings of Koshizen into the invention of Shida with a reasonable expectation of success with the motivation of using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way with predictable results. Using the traffic and environmental description of Koshizen in the speed determination of Shida would better categorize the environment and traffic situation in order to provide more information to better determine an appropriate speed. Using this categorization of the traffic could provide “effective drive control for avoiding or eliminating the traffic congestion” as discussed in at least paragraph(s) 5 of Koshizen. The mathematical function used in combining the information about the preceding vehicles, whether averaging or weighting as disclosed in Shida or a probability distribution as taught in Koshizen, would be within the skill of one in the art and part of routine testing performed during creation of the system.
As per claim 2, Shida discloses wherein the target vehicle speed determination component is programmed to calculate an average speed of the predetermined group of preceding vehicles, the target vehicle speed determination component being further programmed to control the target vehicle speed for the host vehicle based on the average speed (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 26 and 34).
As per claims 8, 9, and 15, Shida discloses a host vehicle and method (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 6) using the on-board unit of claims 1 and 2. Therefore, claims 8, 9, and 15 are rejected using the same citations and reasoning as applied to claims 1 and 2.
As per claims 21-23, Shida discloses the reference vehicle selected by the target vehicle speed determination component is the slowest vehicle within a predetermined distance ahead of the host vehicle (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 107) and
Shida does not explicitly disclose determines the target vehicle speed for the host vehicle based on the hyperbolic distribution of distance from the host vehicle and the traveling speed of only the predetermined group of preceding vehicles traveling between the host vehicle and the reference vehicle up to the reference vehicle.
However, Shida discloses the that slowest reference speed is the most important as vehicles behind the slowest will catch up (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 34, 107, and 108). Shida also implies and one in the art would understand that vehicles ahead of the slowest vehicle will not affect the group since they will increase the distance from the group (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 5, 34, and 35). Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have determine[ed] the target vehicle speed for the host vehicle based on the hyperbolic distribution of distance from the host vehicle and the traveling speed of only the predetermined group of preceding vehicles traveling between the host vehicle and the reference vehicle up to the reference vehicle based on Shida, in view of Koshizen as discussed above, with the motivation of choosing from a finite number of identified predictable solutions. Shida discloses that the weighting is determined through routine testing (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 36) and provides suggestions of weighting only the slowest vehicle, weighting every vehicle, weighting every vehicle with higher weighting to the slower vehicles, etc. Therefore, it would be obvious and within the skill and normal testing of one in the art to determine the optimal weighting with weighting the vehicles between the ego vehicle and the slowest vehicle as an option since these are the vehicles that will affect the ego vehicle as displayed in Shida and known to one in the art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 4, 11, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shida, in view of Koshizen, and in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0203973 to Dronen et al.
As per claim 4, Shida discloses receiving information from preceding vehicles within the communication range of the vehicle-to-vehicle communication (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 30), but does not explicitly disclose wherein the predetermined distance preceding the host vehicle is approximately 300 meters.
However, the above feature(s) are taught by Dronen (Dronen; At least paragraph(s) 81). At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have incorporated the teachings of Dronen into the invention of Shida with a reasonable expectation of success with the motivation of simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results. Dronen teaches that the range of vehicle-to-vehicle communications are 300 meters, thus it would be obvious to one in the art to use 300 meters as the predetermined distance for acquiring vehicle information in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication of Shida.
As per claims 11 and 17, Shida discloses a host vehicle and method (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 6) using the on-board unit of claim 4. Therefore, claims 11 and 17 are rejected using the same citations and reasoning as applied to claim 4.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 7, filed 10/07/2025, with respect to the objections and 35 U.S.C. 112 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objections and 35 U.S.C. 112 rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 10/07/2025 with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive. With respect to Applicant's arguments that the combination of Shida and Koshizen does not teach the limitations of the independent claims, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. As discussed in the rejection above, Shida discloses calculating a target speed using the “positions as well as the speeds of the reference vehicles” (Shida; At least paragraph(s) 76) and Koshizen teaches estimating the inter-vehicle distances (i.e., positions) of a group of vehicles using a distribution. Therefore, combining Koshizen into the invention of Shida would result in determining the target speed based on the distribution of distances and speed of the group of preceding vehicles, as recited in the claim limitation.
Applicant's arguments filed 10/07/2025 with respect to the new claims have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive. With respect to Applicant's arguments that Shida (assumed to be incorrectly listed as Koshizen in arguments) does not disclose the limitations, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The new claims would be obvious to one in the art as discussed in the rejection above.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892. The prior art shows the state of the art.
Specifically, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0197549 discusses basing the speed of a vehicle on the speed and distances of a group of vehicles ahead up to a slowest vehicle (see at least paragraph(s) 78 and 79).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID P MERLINO whose telephone number is (571)272-8362. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 5:30am-3:00pm F 5:30-9:00 am ET.
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/David P. Merlino/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665