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 .
This is a Non-Final rejection on the merits of this application. Claims 1, 4-6 and 9-11 are currently pending, as discussed below.
Examiner Notes that the fundamentals of the rejections are based on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim language. Applicant is kindly invited to consider the reference as a whole. References are to be interpreted as by one of ordinary skill in the art rather than as by a novice. See MPEP 2141. Therefore, the relevant inquiry when interpreting a reference is not what the reference expressly discloses on its face but what the reference would teach or suggest to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 30 June 2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 07/04/2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment and/or Argument
Applicant’s amendments and/or arguments with respect to the Claim Rejections of Claims 1 and 6 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as set forth in the office action 12 March 2025 have been considered and are NOT persuasive. Specifically, Applicant argues (Pages 7-13 of Applicant’s Remark dated 30 June 2025):
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The Examiner’s Response:
The examiner has carefully considered Applicant’s arguments and respectfully disagrees for the following reasons:
Regarding Argument (i.):
Applicant argues that the applied references cannot be combined because Iwakura (US 2020/0285253 A1) allegedly teaches away from the use of predetermined landing locations, asserting that Carlsson (US 2004/0193334 A1) emphasizes preplanned emergency routes and therefore is incompatible with real-time, image-based landing site identification disclosed in Iwakura. This argument has been fully considered but is NOT persuasive with respect to the present rejection for at least he following reasons. Applicant has misconstrued Iwakura where the claimed mapping of predetermined landing sites corresponds directly to the embodiment in which a forced landing site is selected from a plurality of predetermined landing site candidates stored in memory or map according to the flight route information (see at least Fig. 3-4 [0029, 0036-0049] also shown in Page 4 of Final Action dated 03/12/2025). While Iwakura also discloses an alternative real-time, image-based landing site detection technique, it does NOT criticize, discredit, or discourage the use of predetermined landing sites. The rejection has been modified to rely on Nakazawa (US 2022/0024582 A1), which complements this approach and does not teach away from Iwakura. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been discouraged from combining the applied references.
Regarding Argument (ii.):
Applicant argues that Iwakura does not teach (a) “each of the plurality of distance is a sum of a flying distance…along the predetermined route and a flight landing distance” and that (b) “the UAV in Iwakura would fly in a straight line to the…crash due to the obstacle”. This argument has been fully considered but is NOT persuasive for at least the following reasons:
Although the applicant argues that Iwakura does not explicitly teach controlling the UAV to move via the corresponding emergency passing point and calculating distance as the sum of route distance plus landing distance, these limitations are inherent and/or obvious in view of Iwakura. Iwakura discloses that emergency landing sites are assigned based on the most recently passed via-point, and the UAV is controlled to the (closest) landing site along the predetermined route. Therefore, passage through the corresponding emergency passing point is obvious. Further, the total distance from current position to the assigned landing site necessarily consists of the distance along the route to the via-point plus the distance from the via-point to the emergency landing site. Expressing this distance as a sum is an obvious mathematical formalization of Iwakura’s routing logic.
Applicant’s argument of “the UAV in Iwakura would fly in a straight line to the…crash due to the obstacle” is NOT persuasive. Iwakura explicitly discloses that “[0047] Here, each of three areas a in FIG. 4 indicates an area over which the unmanned aircraft 1 possibly passes in a case of flying to the emergency landing site A, B, or C from the flight route. The flight route and emergency landing sites may be set so that these areas a would be flight possible areas for the unmanned aircraft 1 .” As such, the area necessarily excludes obstacles that would cause a collision. Furthermore, Iwakura additionally discloses an image capturing unit 26 ([0048]) configured to detect obstacle during flight. In view of these teachings, Applicant’s assertion that the UAV would crash into an obstacle is unsupported by Iwakura and is inconsistent with its disclosure.
Accordingly, Applicant’s argument regarding (i.) and (ii.) are NOT persuasive, see 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections below for details.
Claim Objections
Claim 6 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 6 Line 27: “candidate along,” should read –candidate,--
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 4-6, and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iwakura et al. (US 2020/0285253 A1 hereinafter Iwakura) in view of Nakazawa et al. (US 2022/0024582 A1 hereinafter Nakazawa).
Regarding Claim 6 (similarly claim 1), Iwakura teaches An unmanned aerial vehicle (see at least Fig. 1-2 Abstract), comprising:
a positioning device configured to generate a current coordinate of the unmanned aerial vehicle (see at least Fig. 1-2 [0029]: the position detection unit (e.g. GPS receiver) detects a current position of the unmanned aircraft); and
a processor coupled to the positioning device (see at least Fig. 1-2: control unit 20), wherein
when the processor detects a flight status of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the processor obtains the current coordinate from the positioning device; (see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: when the control unit detects an abnormality of the unmanned vehicle (e.g. motor, power source, communication or other parts of the UAV), the control unit determines whether or not a force landing at a specific site is possible based on the current position of the unmanned aircraft detected by the position detection unit (e.g. GPS receiver))
the processor is configured to calculate a plurality of distances for the unmanned aerial vehicle to move from the current coordinate to a plurality of emergency landing coordinates along a predetermined route according to the current coordinate, the predetermined route, and the plurality of emergency landing coordinates, wherein a plurality of passing points are marked on the predetermined route, and the plurality of passing points comprise a plurality of predetermined emergency passing points, wherein each of the plurality of predetermined emergency passing points corresponds to one of the plurality of emergency landing coordinates,(see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: the flight roue includes one or a plurality of via-points from a departure site to a destination site wherein each via-point and each site may be identified using geographic coordinates and altitudes. The control unit identifies and selects the closest forced landing site among a plurality of predetermined sites along the predetermined flight route based on the current position of the unmanned aircraft. That is, the control unit has to calculates and compares a plurality of distances for the UAV to reach from a current locations to the respective plurality of predetermined forced landing sites in order to identify the closest landing site as a target landing site from the UAV’s current location. That is, the predetermined route with via-points/passing points as shown in Fig. 4. The via-points are emergency passing points because they linked to emergency sites A/B/C as shown in Fig. 4-5. Calculating distance is constrained by the planned route and/or route segments. Iwakura implicitly support this concept via correspondence concept. Examiner further introduces prior art Nakazawa that teaches the technique of computing a landing point cost by summing distance metrics (flight distance and recovery distance) for multiple candidate landing points as shown in Formula 2.) wherein each of the plurality of distance is a sum of flying distance of the unmanned aerial vehicle from the current coordinate to a corresponding emergency passing point along the predetermined route and a flight landing distance, wherein the flight landing distance is a distance between each of the plurality of emergency landing coordinates and the corresponding emergency passing point; (see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: the flight roue includes one or a plurality of via-points from a departure site to a destination site wherein each via-point and each site may be identified using geographic coordinates and altitudes. The control unit identifies and selects the closest forced landing site among a plurality of predetermined sites along the predetermined flight route based on the current position of the unmanned aircraft. Examiner notes that the UAV travels along route to via-point, then to assigned emergency landing site candidate wherein the assigned emergency landing site is triggered based on which via-point is just traversed; the total distance (assuming UAV is currently located at the center of via-point 2-3) is equal to distance from via-point 2 (corresponds to emergency passing point) to current location plus current location to emergency landing site A. Examiner further introduces prior art Nakazawa that teaches the technique of computing a landing point cost by summing distance metrics (flight distance and recovery distance) for multiple candidate landing points as shown in Formula 2.)
the processor is configured to obtain a target emergency landing coordinate according to a shortest distance among the plurality of distances, wherein the target emergency landing coordinate is one of the plurality of emergency landing coordinate corresponding to the shortest distance (see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: the flight roue includes one or a plurality of via-points from a departure site to a destination site. The control unit identifies and selects the closest forced landing site among a plurality of predetermined sites along the predetermined flight route based on the current position of the unmanned aircraft. Corresponding table in Fig. 5 determines one landing site per route segment which is effectively selecting the shortest route constrained distance among candidates implicitly (distance is implicitly minimized along the route and landing segment. The emergency landing site is selected based on the most recently passed via-point (as shown in table/fig. 5) but does not explicitly compute shortest distance. Examiner further introduces prior art Nakazawa that teaches the technique of selecting a landing point candidate with the lowest cost where the cost is a sum of distance metrics.); and
the processor is configured to control the unmanned aerial vehicle to move to the target emergency landing coordinate along the predetermined route by passing through one of the plurality of predetermined emergency passing points corresponding to the target emergency landing coordinate along, (see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: The UAV proceeds along predetermined route (and via-points) to assigned emergency landing site. The passage through the via-point is inherent if not explicitly, because the system cannot skip the via-point tied to the assigned landing site. The UAV current location relative to the via-point just traversed triggered which assigned landing site it should selected in case of emergency landing.) and the predetermined route includes multiple coordinate positions of the plurality of passing points and a passing order of the plurality of passing points. (see at least Fig. 1-5 [0023-0049]: Via-points 2-7 have defined positions and order as shown in Fig. 4-5. UAV tracks its most recently passed via-point to determine emergency site assigned. )
It may be alleged that Iwakura does not explicitly state sum(ming) of flying distance of the unmanned aerial vehicle from the current coordinate to a corresponding emergency passing point along the predetermined route and a flight landing distance, wherein the flight landing distance is a distance between each of the plurality of emergency landing coordinates and the corresponding emergency passing point;
the processor is configured to obtain a target emergency landing coordinate according to a shortest distance among the plurality of distances, wherein the target emergency landing coordinate is one of the plurality of emergency landing coordinate corresponding to the shortest distance;
Nakazawa is directed to system and method for identifying and making an emergency landing site for an unmanned aerial vehicle, Nakazawa teaches the processor is configured to calculate a plurality of distances for the unmanned aerial vehicle to move from the current coordinate to a plurality of emergency landing coordinates along a predetermined route according to the current coordinate, the predetermined route, and the plurality of emergency landing coordinates, wherein a plurality of passing points are marked on the predetermined route, and the plurality of passing points comprise a plurality of predetermined emergency passing points, wherein each of the plurality of predetermined emergency passing points corresponds to one of the plurality of emergency landing coordinates, wherein each of the plurality of distance is a sum of flying distance of the unmanned aerial vehicle from the current coordinate to a corresponding emergency passing point along the predetermined route and a flight landing distance, wherein the flight landing distance is a distance between each of the plurality of emergency landing coordinates and the corresponding emergency passing point; (see at least Fig. 4-8 [0052-0103]: Incidentally, when the recovery cost is calculated based only on the recovery distance, among the plurality of landing point candidates, the landing point candidate having the shortest recovery distance is selected as the emergency landing point. In this case, the selection unit 23 f may select the emergency landing point further on the basis of the positional relationship between the current position of the UAV 1 and the landing point candidate. For example, the selection unit 23 f calculates the landing point cost using the formula (2) described below on the basis of both the flight distance from the current position of the UAV 1 to the landing point candidate and the recovery distance from the landing point candidate to the reference point regarding each of the plurality of landing point candidates. Then, the selection unit 23 f selects any one landing point candidate of the plurality of landing point candidates as the emergency landing point on the basis of the calculated landing point cost. For example, among the plurality of landing point candidates, the landing point candidate having the lowest landing point cost is selected as the emergency landing point. That is, computing a landing point cost by summing distance metrics of flight distance and recovery distance for multiple candidate landing points.)
the processor is configured to obtain a target emergency landing coordinate according to a shortest distance among the plurality of distances, wherein the target emergency landing coordinate is one of the plurality of emergency landing coordinate corresponding to the shortest distance; (see at least Fig. 4-8 [0052-0103]: Incidentally, when the recovery cost is calculated based only on the recovery distance, among the plurality of landing point candidates, the landing point candidate having the shortest recovery distance is selected as the emergency landing point. In this case, the selection unit 23 f may select the emergency landing point further on the basis of the positional relationship between the current position of the UAV 1 and the landing point candidate. For example, the selection unit 23 f calculates the landing point cost using the formula (2) described below on the basis of both the flight distance from the current position of the UAV 1 to the landing point candidate and the recovery distance from the landing point candidate to the reference point regarding each of the plurality of landing point candidates. Then, the selection unit 23 f selects any one landing point candidate of the plurality of landing point candidates as the emergency landing point on the basis of the calculated landing point cost. For example, among the plurality of landing point candidates, the landing point candidate having the lowest landing point cost is selected as the emergency landing point. )
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Iwakura’s route-based emergency landing system and method to incorporate the technique of computing a landing point cost by summing distance metrics for multiple candidate landing points and subsequently selecting a landing point candidate with the lowest cost as taught by Nakazawa with reasonable expectation of success such that the UAV system can quantitatively rank candidate sites and select a site minimizing total flight distance which is especially critical under emergency situations such as limited battery power or degraded flight capability.
Regarding claims 4 and 9, the combination of Iwakura in view of Nakazawa teaches The landing method for the unmanned aerial vehicle and the unmanned aerial vehicle according to claims 1 and 6,
Iwakura further teaches wherein the plurality of passing points comprise an end point and an origin of the predetermined route. (see at least Fig. 4-5)
Regarding claims 5 and 10, the combination of Iwakura in view of Nakazawa teaches The landing method for the unmanned aerial vehicle and the unmanned aerial vehicle according to claims 4 and 9 ,
Iwakura further teaches wherein the plurality of emergency landing coordinates further comprise an end point coordinate and an origin coordinate of the predetermined route (see at least Fig. 4-5: origin 1 and destination 8), when the target emergency landing coordinate is the end point coordinate, the corresponding emergency passing point is the end point, and when the target emergency landing coordinate is the origin coordinate, the corresponding emergency passing point is the origin. (see at least Fig. 4-5 [0040-0049]: in a case that the unmanned aircraft 1 has not reached the via-point 2 (a case that the passed site is only the departure site 1 ), the departure site 1 is identified as the forced landing site and In a case that the unmanned aircraft 1 has passed over the last via-point 7 , the destination site 8 is identified as the forced landing site.)
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Iwakura in view Nakazawa teaches The unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 7, further comprising:
Iwakura further teaches a storage medium connected to the processor (see at least Fig. 1-2: storage unit 28), wherein the storage medium is configured to store a look-up table and the predetermined route, wherein the look-up table comprises the plurality of emergency landing coordinates and the plurality of predetermined emergency passing points respectively corresponding to the plurality of emergency landing coordinates. (see at least Fig. 1-2, 5 [0040-0049]: the flight route and the plurality of forced landing site may be stored in the storage unit. The control unit 20 identifies a forced landing site, based on a correspondence relationship between a passed site(s) and a forced landing site included in the flight information as illustrated as an example in Fig. 5)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANA F ARTIMEZ whose telephone number is (571)272-3410. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00 am-3:30 pm EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Faris S. Almatrahi can be reached at (313) 446-4821. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANA F ARTIMEZ/Examiner, Art Unit 3667
/FARIS S ALMATRAHI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3667