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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 2 and 11, in the reply filed on 10/08/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 3-9 and 12-18 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected Groups, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 10/08/2025.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Flann et al. (US 2025/0192749 A1).
As to claims 1 and 10, Flann discloses a system/method of filtering a path of a vehicle, the system comprising: a user interface (user interface 28) configured to support the selection of a threshold value (para. 0032, 0034, 0045) used to filter the path of the vehicle; a data processor configured to: receive the path that defines guidance lines and transitions between guidance lines, the guidance lines defining movement of the vehicle though a work area or field (Fig. 5); filter the path by deleting portions of the guidance lines that do not satisfy the threshold value (para. 0020, 0032-0038); and a guidance module to control at least one motive function of the vehicle based on the filtered path (para. 0022).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 11 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Ce Li Li whose telephone number is (571)270-5564. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 10AM-7PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Peter D Nolan can be reached at 571-270-7016. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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CE LI . LI
Examiner
Art Unit 3661
/PETER D NOLAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3661