DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the amendments filed on July 13th, 2026. A summary of this action:
Claims 1, 4-10, 13-19 have been presented for examination.
Claims 1, 4-10, 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea of a mental process without significantly more.
Claims not rejected under § 102/103. The closest combination of prior art is the previously relied upon combination for claim 2 (non-final action, Apr. 2026) without the use of impermissible hindsight for what is recited in the particular order of this ordered combination.
This action is Final
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 Arguments/Amendments
Regarding the objections
Withdrawn in view of amendment.
Regarding the § 101 Rejection
Maintained, updated as necessitated by amendment.
With respect to the remarks, see ¶¶ 11-13 of the instant disclosure as was cited to in the rejection. Humans are readily able to perform the mental process of evaluating the results from simulation so as to identify a divergence, and then mentally determine/evaluate it so as to “diagnose the cause of the divergence”, per the specification. Simply doing this on a computer does not make it eligible. Furthermore, such “experts” (the humans in ¶¶ 11-13), are readily mentally equipped to debug code, after all people have been debugging code for many decades. Simply remove a piece of code (the removing one or processes from the simulation template) is readily a mental judgement as part of debugging code. The claim places no requirements on a manner to do this in a particular technological manner, e.g. in some particular technological way in how the divergence is identified using techniques unique to only computers, and no particular technological way in how the processes is to be removed but rather merely just does this on a computer to automate the abstract idea.
This case would be different if there was a particular manner in, for example, how the divergence was identified in a distinctly different particular technological way as compared to how humans would do it (e.g. see the rules of McRo in MPEP 2106.05(a) to automate the manual subjective process of the animators in a distinctly different way then how the animators did it; contrast to Fairwarning in MPEP 2106.04(a)(III)(C) wherein “the claimed rules here were "the same questions (though perhaps phrased with different words) that humans in analogous situations detecting fraud have asked for decades, if not centuries.””), but the claims recite not features such as the rules of McRo, i.e. a particular technological manner of how these steps are to be carried out, but rather merely does it on a computer to automate the abstract idea.
As the execution of the simulation with the modified simulation template (remarks at 9-10), this is merely re-running the code after the exclusion. The claim places no requirement on a particular manner in how the code is to be excluded in a particular technological fashion, but merely just runs the code after the debugging step, and gathering the results to be used in a mental process (the identification of the divergence by comparing the results from the two simulation runs, readily mental in view of ¶¶ 11-13).
With respect to the prong 2 remarks, see above. The claims do not recite an entirely different methodology as currently recited, rather they merely specify a code debugging step a person such as a programmer is readily mentally equipped to do, that is its merely removing/deleting the data item of one or more processes. July 2024 Fed. Register Notice: “Claims to “the use of an algorithm-generated content-based identifier to perform the claimed data-management functions,” which include limitations to “controlling access to data items,” “retrieving and delivering copies of data items,” and “marking copies of data items for deletion,” where the claims cover “a medley of mental processes that, taken together, amount only to a multistep mental process,” such that the steps can be practically performed in the human mind,PersonalWeb Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, 8 F.4th 1310, 1316-18 (Fed. Cir. 2021).”
And per ¶¶ 11-13, identifying a divergence is readily a mental process, as discussed above.
And the abstract idea itself cannot provide the improvement to technology. MPEP § 2106.05(a), and MPEP § 2106.04(II)(A)(2): “Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376, 118 USPQ2d 1541, 1546 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (eligibility "cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself.").”
Regarding the § 102/103 Rejection
Withdraw in view of amendments.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 4-10, 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea of a mental process without significantly more.
Step 1
Claim 1 is directed towards the statutory category of a process.
Claim 11 is directed towards the statutory category of an apparatus.
Claim 19 is directed towards the statutory category of an article of manufacture.
Claims 11 and 19, and the dependents thereof, are rejected under a similar rationale as representative claim 1, and the dependents thereof.
Step 2A – Prong 1
The claims recite an abstract idea of a mental process. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2).
As an initial matter, see ¶¶ 11-13 for the thrust of the claimed advance which is conveyed as merely automating a previously manual process: “Improving simulation results to more effectively represent real world results is a rigorous process from both a time perspective and a resource perspective. Specifically, often a simulation can be rerun from end to end to identify a divergence between the simulation results and the real world results. Further, one or more experts have to manually inspect the results of each process in the stack from end to end to diagnose the cause of the divergence…Specifically, in the autonomous vehicle space and with reference to testing, due to both the large amount of data included in running a software stack for a test, and the sheer volume of tests that are run, it is very difficult to efficiently identify divergences between simulation results and real world results.” – i.e. “experts” [people] identify and diagnose the divergence between simulation results and real-world results. Doing this faster by using a computer is merely the speed inherent from the use of a computer to perform an abstract idea (MPEP § 2106.05(f)).
See MPEP § 2106.05(a)(I), for mere automating of manual processes is not an improvement to technology.
The mental process recited in claim 1 is:
identifying a divergence of the baseline simulation between the performed behaviors of the AV and simulated behaviors in the baseline simulation of the AV;
create a modified simulation template by removing one or more processes from the simulation template;
identifying a divergence of the modified simulation between the performed behaviors of the AV and simulated behaviors in the modified simulation of the AV;
troubleshooting the baseline simulation based on a comparison between the divergence of the modified simulation and the divergence of the baseline simulation; and
identify whether the one or more processes are a cause of the divergence of the baseline simulation, as part of troubleshooting the baseline simulation, based on:
an exclusion of the one or more processes from the modified simulation;
and the comparison between the divergence of the baseline simulation and the divergence of the modified simulation.
The above is a mental process when taken in view of ¶¶ 11-13 as discussed above, i.e. an engineer/software developer reviews the simulation results, and mentally evaluates/judges what is causing the divergence, and then mentally judges how to troubleshoot it.
The step of creating the modified simulation template by removing one or more processes is merely a mental judgment/opinion/evaluation, e.g. a programmer is debugging code, reviewing results of a code run, and mentally judges to comment out or delete a section of code (the act of the creating), then run it again to see if it fixed the issue (the divergence). See ¶¶ 44-45, 52, 57-59, figures 2 and 4 to clarify, as the simulation template is simply a collection of programs/processes to later be run in simulation, i.e. a collection of code, such as readily printable into paper form for human review, or a person can use a computer as a tool to view the code and make changes.
To clarify on the identifying the divergence, see ¶ 47 – one simply looks at the simulation results and judges if there were “differences in a trajectory of the AV”, e.g. by comparing a few values such as in tabular form (e.g. tables listing out a few steps in time as rows, with corresponding columns providing location of the vehicle at those times), or by mental observation of the trajectories such as people doing routinely in their own mind when observing traffic on real worlds when driving (e.g. visually observing and judging another driver is likely intoxicated because they keep swerving all over the road, or reckless because they are driving 30 mph over the flow of traffic and darting in and out of various lanes, etc.), wherein the "based on" an exclusion is merely specifying that a program was excluded in the prior mere data gathering (see prong 2 below), and the based on the comparison is merely being based on the mental judgement/evaluation.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, these limitations are process steps that cover mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper but for the recitation of a generic computer component. If a claim, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers a mental process but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the "Mental Process" grouping of abstract ideas. A person would readily be able to perform this process either mentally or with the assistance of pen and paper. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2).
To clarify, see the USPTO 101 training examples, available at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/laws/examination-policy/subject-matter-eligibility. In particular, with respect to the physical aids, see example # 45, analysis of claim 1 under step 2A prong 1, including: “Note that even if most humans would use a physical aid (e.g., pen and paper, a slide rule, or a calculator) to help them complete the recited calculation, the use of such physical aid does not negate the mental nature of this limitation.”; also see example # 49, analysis of claim 1, under step 2A prong 1: “Moreover, the recited mathematical calculation is simple enough that it can be practically performed in the human mind. Even if most humans would use a physical aid, like a pen and paper or a calculator, to make such calculations, the use of a physical aid would not negate the mental nature of this limitation.”.
As such, the claims recite a mental process.
Step 2A, prong 2
The claimed invention does not recite any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Refer to MPEP §2106.04(d).
The following limitations are merely reciting the words "apply it" (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(f), including the “Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more”:
Claim 1 does not have any express recitation of a computer/processor (e.g. it is not expressly a computer-implemented method) – see In re Prater in MPEP § 2111
Claims 10 and 19 recite a generic computer and generic computer components as tool to automate an abstract idea.
Should claim 1 be amended to expressly recite such generic computer components/a generic computer, these would be rejected under a similar rationale as claims 10 and 19.
See ¶¶ 62-72 to clarify on the generic nature of these recitations
The following limitations are adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(g):
accessing captured real-world data of performed behaviors of an autonomous vehicle (AV) in operation; running input data that is generated based on the real-world data through a simulation template as part of a baseline simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV; running the input data through the modified simulation template as part of a modified simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV; - mere data gathering for use in the mental process, see ¶¶ 11-13 as discussed above.
A claim that integrates a judicial exception into a practical application will apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception. See MPEP § 2106.04(d).
MPEP 2106.04(II)(A)(2) “…Instead, under Prong Two, a claim that recites a judicial exception is not directed to that judicial exception, if the claim as a whole integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of that exception. Prong Two thus distinguishes claims that are "directed to" the recited judicial exception from claims that are not "directed to" the recited judicial exception…Because a judicial exception is not eligible subject matter, Bilski, 561 U.S. at 601, 95 USPQ2d at 1005-06 (quoting Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 309, 206 USPQ at 197 (1980)), if there are no additional claim elements besides the judicial exception, or if the additional claim elements merely recite another judicial exception, that is insufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. See, e.g., RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327, 122 USPQ2d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2017) ("Adding one abstract idea (math) to another abstract idea (encoding and decoding) does not render the claim non-abstract"); Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376, 118 USPQ2d 1541, 1546 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (eligibility "cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself."). For a claim reciting a judicial exception to be eligible, the additional elements (if any) in the claim must "transform the nature of the claim" into a patent-eligible application of the judicial exception, Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217, 110 USPQ2d at 1981, either at Prong Two or in Step 2B” and MPEP § 2106(I): “Mayo, 566 U.S. at 80, 84, 101 USPQ2dat 1969, 1971 (noting that the Court in Diamond v. Diehr found “the overall process patent eligible because of the way the additional steps of the process integrated the equation into the process as a whole,”” – and see MPEP § 2106.05(e).
To further clarify, MPEP § 2106.04(II)(A)(1): “Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 216, 110 USPQ2d at 1980 (citing Mayo, 566 US at 71, 101 USPQ2d at 1965). Yet, the Court has explained that ‘‘[a]t some level, all inventions embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas,’’ and has cautioned ‘‘to tread carefully in construing this exclusionary principle lest it swallow all of patent law” See also Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335, 118 USPQ2d 1684, 1688 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("The ‘directed to’ inquiry, therefore, cannot simply ask whether the claims involve a patent-ineligible concept, because essentially every routinely patent-eligible claim involving physical products and actions involves a law of nature and/or natural phenomenon").”
As a point of clarity, RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327, 122 USPQ2d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2017) ("Adding one abstract idea (math) to another abstract idea (encoding and decoding) does not render the claim non-abstract"); Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376, 118 USPQ2d 1541, 1546 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (eligibility "cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself." discussed in MPEP § 2106.04(II)(A)(2) as well as MPEP § 2106.04(I): “Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1151, 120 USPQ2d 1473, 1483 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("a new abstract idea is still an abstract idea") (emphasis in original).
The claimed invention does not recite any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Refer to MPEP §2106.04(d).
Step 2B
The claimed invention does not recite any additional elements/limitations that amount to significantly more.
The following limitations are merely reciting the words "apply it" (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(f), including the “Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more”:
Claim 1 does not have any express recitation of a computer/processor (e.g. it is not expressly a computer-implemented method) – see In re Prater in MPEP § 2111
Claims 10 and 19 recite a generic computer and generic computer components as tool to automate an abstract idea.
Should claim 1 be amended to expressly recite such generic computer components/a generic computer, these would be rejected under a similar rationale as claims 10 and 19.
See ¶¶ 62-72 to clarify on the generic nature of these recitations
The following limitations are adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(g):
accessing captured real-world data of performed behaviors of an autonomous vehicle (AV) in operation; running input data that is generated based on the real-world data through a simulation template as part of a baseline simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV; running the input data through the modified simulation template as part of a modified simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV; - mere data gathering for use in the mental process, see ¶¶ 11-13 as discussed above.
In addition, the above insignificant extra-solution activities are also considered as well-understood, routine, and conventional activities, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(d):
accessing captured real-world data of performed behaviors of an autonomous vehicle (AV) in operation; - this is considered similar to the example WURC activity as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(d)(II) of: “i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 610, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1745 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (using a telephone for image transmission); OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network);”
running input data that is generated based on the real-world data through a simulation template as part of a baseline simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV; running the input data through a modified simulation template as part of a modified simulation of the performed behaviors of the AV – see ¶¶ 11-13 as discussed above.
Additional WURC evidence for clarity:
Bergamini, Luca, et al. "Simnet: Learning reactive self-driving simulations from real-world observations." 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, 2021. § I ¶ 3: “A common approach to mitigate some of these issues is log replay, where the movement of other traffic participants is replayed around the SDV in simulation as it happened when the log was collected. However, if the SDV’s new actions differ from those when the log was collected, the traffic participants don’t react to it, and thus the simulation becomes unrealistic and ineffective for validation. For example, even a slight braking during the log replay can result in an unrealistic collision with the trailing car due to non-reactivity. These unrealistic outcomes are a result of what is called simulation drift” and see § II last paragraph: “Notable examples of such driving simulators are SUMO [35] and CARLA [36].”
Brogle, Craig, et al. "Hardware-in-the-loop autonomous driving simulation without real-time constraints." IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles 4.3 (2019): 375-384. § II, then see § III incl. ¶¶ 1-2 incl. ”Driving simulation systems have long been a cornerstone in efforts to lower development costs for advanced driver assistance systems [8]–[10] and are used extensively by major automotive manufacturers [11]–[13]….”
Chen, Dian, Vladlen Koltun, and Philipp Krähenbühl. "Learning to drive from a world on rails." Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision. 2021. Abstract and § I, incl. last paragraph.
Deter, Dean, et al. "Simulating the autonomous future: A look at virtual vehicle environments and how to validate simulation using public data sets." IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 38.1 (2020): 111-121. § II
Osiński, Błażej, et al. "CARLA Real Traffic Scenarios--novel training ground and benchmark for autonomous driving." arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.11329 (2020). § II.C to D.
Pena, Javier, et al. "Ad perdevkit: An autonomous driving perception development kit using carla simulator and ros." 2022 IEEE 25th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC). IEEE, 2022. § IV and § IV.D
Stević, Stevan, et al. "Development of ADAS perception applications in ROS and “Software-In-the-Loop” validation with CARLA simulator." Telfor Journal 12.1 (2020): 40-45. §§ II-III
Won, Minseok, and Shiho Kim. "Verification and validation utilizing carla simulator for autonomous driving development." International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. § 1.1, then see § 2.3.
As such, the claims are directed towards a mental process without significantly more.
Regarding the dependent claims
Claim 4 is rejected under a similar rationale as claim 1 for the identifying. See ¶ 49 to clarify on the “non-determinism”, i.e. “the concept that the same software stack can be provided the same input and generate different output as it is run different times” – and this is merely to identify it from mental observations/evaluations/judgements from the previously gathered data.
Claim 5 – merely further limiting the mental process. People are readily equipped to mentally organize a set of programs into a grouping/org structure, e.g. fig. 2 and 4, and this is a routine practice by developers looking to avoid spaghetti code as its known in the art. To clarify, pen and paper would be a useful aid, e.g. a lead developer/software architect, before the coding even starts, sits down and mentally comes up with a code to be later written, e.g. a module for processing LiDAR data, another for processing camera data, another for route planning, etc. The person then organizes these to where they fit into an organization structure, e.g. which ones are for perceiving the environment, which ones are for planning the next motion(s) to be done, etc. An org chart on pen and paper would be a useful mental aid to this process, wherein once this is complete the lead dev is readily able to now delegate out the various modules to junior software developers to work on. Followed by another mental step of the removing (see rejection of claim 2 above)
Claim 6, this is merely further limiting the mental process to what data is to be observed, e.g. the trajectories in the sim results (such as observing these on a print-out map from the computer with the paths plotted of the vehicles, or on a display). See ¶ 47 and see the discussion of trajectories above
Claim 7 is merely further limiting the mental process akin to claim 6, i.e. its merely specifying what data is to previously be gathered for the mental observation/evaluation/judge of the divergence
Claim 8 – see the rejection of claim 2 above, wherein this claim does not even recite how the template (i.e. the list of programs to be simulated) is modified, but only requires modifying the list with any modification.
Claim 9 – see rejections of claims 2 and 8 above, i.e. this is merely specifying starting with an old list of programs, and creating a new list based on the old list.
Remaining dependent claims rejected under similar rationales as their parallel representative claims discussed above.
As such, the claims are directed towards a mental process without significantly more.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Cates et al., US 11,200,151. Claim 1, col. 5. ¶¶ 1-2. Col. 31-33.
Schepers et al., US 2006/0101398. Abstract, ¶ 25
Coyle et al., US 2016/0274998. Abstract. ¶ 7, ¶ 28, ¶ 71.
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/David A Hopkins/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2188
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