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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 4-7, 9, 12-15, and 17 are pending in this application.
Claims 2-3, 8, 10-11, 16, and 18-20 are cancelled.
Claims 1, 6-7, 9, 14-15, and 17 are amended.
Claims 1, 4-7, 9, 12-15, and 17 are presented for examination.
Response to Amendments
The applicant’s amendments, filed on 1 April 2026, with respect to the 35 USC 112(a) rejection of claims 1-7, 9-15, and 17-19 has been fully considered. The rejection has been withdrawn.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 4-7, 9, 12-15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gholamnejad Davani et al. (US Publication 2022/0105952 A1) in view of Harda et al. (US Publication 2021/0316765 A1), Bolourchi (US Publication 2009/0091435 A1), and in further view of Lundsgaard (US Patent 11,472,421 B1).
Regarding claim 1, Gholamnejad Davani teaches a method for overriding a manually disabled advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) safety feature (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32; detecting driver condition of a driver, enabling one or more vehicle safety features of a vehicle and overriding disabled one or more vehicle safety features), the method comprising: …..… determining whether the vehicle operator is impaired during the current driving trip based on the background monitoring operation of the ADAS vehicle safety system of the vehicle operator (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device detects whether the driver is impaired; eye openness detection); re-enabling, by the ADAS vehicle safety system, the manually disabled LKA system to issue an audible alert to the vehicle operator when the vehicle operator is impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 5, 7; detect a driver's condition and as a result, activates one or more of the manually disabled safety features; vehicle safety features include automatic emergency braking, lane keep assist; alert the driver; blasting the radio).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach activating a background monitoring operation of an ADAS vehicle safety system, having a lane keeping assistance (LKA) system manually disabled by a vehicle operator prior to a current driving trip.
However, Gholamnejad Davani is deemed to disclose an equivalent teaching. The prior art teaches that safety features can limit the driver’s control over the vehicle, and thus the driver will disable the safety feature, such as lane keep assist (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4, 7). After the feature has been disabled for a while, the driver may forget the features have been disabled (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4) allowing for Gholamnejad’s system to re-enable the disabled lane keep assist if the driver becomes impaired. Gholamnejad teaches detecting the driver’s condition (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). The detection device tracks the eye to detect when the driver is falling asleep, therefore impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27). Once the driver is detected as impaired, the system overrides the disabled vehicle safety feature (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). That the detection occurs while the safety features have been disabled discloses the claimed "background monitoring operation". The prior art does teach a driver manually disabling the lane keep assist prior to the trip where the driver is detected as impaired.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date to have an activating background operation of the manually disabled safety feature taught in Gholamnejad Davani with a reasonable expectation of success because when driver impairment of drowsiness is detected by computer vision, the vehicle enables one or more vehicle safety features that were disabled by the driver (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27, 32).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip (Harda: Para. 25, 31, 35-36; monitored driver operation comprises “continuously” evaluating the monitored manual driver operation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile; a violation of a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS, while a violation of a “non-critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in a reduced evaluation score; controlling entity of the vehicle, such as e.g. speed limitations, distance to lead-vehicle, in-lane positioning).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Gholamnejad Davani and Harda don’t explicitly teach applying a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane.
However Bolourchi, in the same field of endeavor, teaches applying a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane (Bolourchi: Para. 28; the lane departure warning and LK system can be activated to provide a torque correction to the vehicle).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), and the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26) with a reasonable expectation of success because the drowsy driver detection that provides a centering torque to nudge the vehicle away from the lane boundary line as taught by Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26).
Gholamnejad Davani, Harda, and Bolourchi don’t explicitly teach manually disabling, by the ADAS vehicle safety system, the LKA system once the vehicle operator completes the current trip.
However Lundsgaard, in the same field of endeavor, teaches manually disabling, by the ADAS vehicle safety system, the lane assistance safety feature once the vehicle operator completes the current trip (Lundsgaard: Col. 2 Lines 24-28, Col. 19 Lines 52-59; the computing device may disable one or more autonomous driving features for the current drive or for future drives; autonomous lane changing).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26), and the disabling a safety feature at the end of the current trip taught in Lundsgaard (Lundsgaard: Col. 19 Lines 52-59) with a reasonable expectation of success because updating a driver’s profile on needed and not needed safety features helps the vehicle setup for future drive through driver profile retrieval (Lundsgaard: Col. 12 Lines 36-49).
Regarding claim 4, Gholamnejad Davani teaches the method of claim 1, in which determining whether the vehicle operator is impaired comprises: measuring one or more biometric properties of the vehicle operator (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device includes camera and/or driver-facing dashboard camera); providing the one or more biometric properties of the vehicle operator to a processor (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; computer vision techniques include, but are not limited to, eye tracking, face recognition and tracking, blink rate detection, and eye openness detection); and determining, by the processor, an impairment level of the vehicle operator, based on eye movements, heart rate, pupil dilation, and/or head position of the vehicle operator and a predetermined threshold impairment (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; computer vision techniques include, but are not limited to, eye tracking, face recognition and tracking, blink rate detection, and eye openness detection; detection device detects whether the driver is impaired, for example drowsy, dizzy, or falling asleep).
Regarding claim 5, Gholamnejad Davani teaches the method of claim 4, further comprising using one or more cameras mounted within the cabin of the vehicle for measuring the biometric properties of the vehicle operator (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device includes camera and/or driver-facing dashboard camera).
Regarding claim 6, Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach further comprising: monitoring unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; determining an aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over a predetermined period of time; and detecting a trigger of the LKA system if the aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over the predetermined period of time is greater than the predetermined safety threshold.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches further comprising: monitoring unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; determining an aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over a predetermined period of time (Harda: Para. 14, 25, 31; monitor the manual driver operation of the vehicle for a time period, evaluate the monitored manual driver operation of the vehicle against the second set of pre-cautionary constraints during the time period, and to deactivate the second set of pre-cautionary constraints if the manual driver operation passes the evaluation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile; controlling entity of the vehicle, such as e.g. speed limitations, distance to lead-vehicle, in-lane positioning); and detecting a trigger of the LKA system if the aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over the predetermined period of time is greater than the predetermined safety threshold (Harda: Para. 14, 35; partial control comprises access to steering, acceleration, and braking of the vehicle while the PCS module imposes a second set of pre-cautionary constraints out of the plurality of pre-cautionary constraints for the driver while the driver has partial control of the vehicle; a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Regarding claim 7, Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach further comprising: monitoring unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; detecting a number of the LKA system violations over a predetermined distance; and detecting a trigger of the LKA system if the number of LKA system violations over the predetermined distance is greater than the predetermined safety threshold.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches further comprising: monitoring unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; detecting a number of the LKA system violations over a predetermined distance (Harda: Para. 14, 25, 31; monitor the manual driver operation of the vehicle for a time period, evaluate the monitored manual driver operation of the vehicle against the second set of pre-cautionary constraints during the time period, and to deactivate the second set of pre-cautionary constraints if the manual driver operation passes the evaluation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile; ; controlling entity of the vehicle, such as e.g. speed limitations, distance to lead-vehicle, in-lane positioning); and detecting a trigger of the LKA system if the number of LKA system violations over the predetermined distance is greater than the predetermined safety threshold (Harda: Para. 14, 35; partial control comprises access to steering, acceleration, and braking of the vehicle while the PCS module imposes a second set of pre-cautionary constraints out of the plurality of pre-cautionary constraints for the driver while the driver has partial control of the vehicle; a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS).
Harda teaches monitoring the driver over a set period of time with non-critical and critical violations used to create an evaluation score for the driver. A non-critical violation reduces the evaluation score. A critical violation reduces the evaluation score and immediately hands back control of a vehicle safety feature to the ADS (Harda: Para. 35). If a violation reduces the evaluation score, the sum total of violations would reduce the evaluation score based on the detected number of violations. It would be obvious to monitor the driver over a predetermined distance instead of time because both are known marked quantities of the vehicle. The vehicle’s clock marks the passage of time and the vehicle’s odometer marks the passage of miles.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Regarding claim 9, Gholamnejad Davani teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium having program code recorded thereon for overriding a manually disabled advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) safety feature, the program code being executed by a processor (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32; detecting driver condition of a driver, enabling one or more vehicle safety features of a vehicle and overriding disabled one or more vehicle safety features) and comprising: ……..; program code to determine whether the vehicle operator is impaired during the current driving trip based on the background monitoring operation of the ADAS vehicle safety system (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device detects whether the driver is impaired; eye openness detection); program code to re-enable, by an ADAS vehicle safety system, the manually disabled LKA system to issue an audible alert to the vehicle operation when the vehicle operator is impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 5, 7; detect a driver's condition and as a result, activates one or more of the manually disabled safety features; vehicle safety features include automatic emergency braking, lane keep assist; alert the driver; blasting the radio).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach program code to activate a background monitoring operation of an ADAS vehicle safety system, having a lane keeping assistance (LKA) system manually disabled by a vehicle operator prior to a current driving trip.
However, Gholamnejad Davani is deemed to disclose an equivalent teaching. The prior art teaches that safety features can limit the driver’s control over the vehicle, and thus the driver will disable the safety feature, such as lane keep assist (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4, 7). After the feature has been disabled for a while, the driver may forget the features have been disabled (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4) allowing for Gholamnejad’s system to re-enable the disabled lane keep assist if the driver becomes impaired. Gholamnejad teaches detecting the driver’s condition (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). The detection device tracks the eye to detect when the driver is falling asleep, therefore impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27). Once the driver is detected as impaired, the system overrides the disabled vehicle safety feature (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). That the detection occurs while the safety features have been disabled discloses the claimed "background monitoring operation". The prior art does teach a driver manually disabling the lane keep assist prior to the trip where the driver is detected as impaired.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date to have an activating background operation of the manually disabled safety feature taught in Gholamnejad Davani with a reasonable expectation of success because when driver impairment of drowsiness is detected by computer vision, the vehicle enables one or more vehicle safety features that were disabled by the driver (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27, 32).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip (Harda: Para. 25, 31, 35-36; monitored driver operation comprises “continuously” evaluating the monitored manual driver operation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile; a violation of a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS, while a violation of a “non-critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in a reduced evaluation score; controlling entity of the vehicle, such as e.g. speed limitations, distance to lead-vehicle, in-lane positioning).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Gholamnejad Davani and Harda don’t explicitly teach to apply a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane.
However Bolourchi, in the same field of endeavor, teaches to apply a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane (Bolourchi: Para. 28; the lane departure warning and LK system can be activated to provide a torque correction to the vehicle).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), and the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26) with a reasonable expectation of success because the drowsy driver detection that provides a centering torque to nudge the vehicle away from the lane boundary line as taught by Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26).
Gholamnejad Davani, Harda, and Bolourchi don’t explicitly teach program code to manually disabling, by the ADAS vehicle safety system, the LKA system once the vehicle operator completes a current trip.
However Lundsgaard, in the same field of endeavor, teaches program code to manually disabling, by the ADAS vehicle safety system, the LKA system once the vehicle operator completes a current trip (Lundsgaard: Col. 2 Lines 24-28, Col. 19 Lines 52-59; the computing device may disable one or more autonomous driving features for the current drive or for future drives; autonomous lane changing).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26), and the disabling a safety feature at the end of the current trip taught in Lundsgaard (Lundsgaard: Col. 19 Lines 52-59) with a reasonable expectation of success because updating a driver’s profile on needed and not needed safety features helps the vehicle setup for future drive through driver profile retrieval (Lundsgaard: Col. 12 Lines 36-49).
Regarding claim 12, Gholamnejad Davani teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, in which the program code to determine whether the vehicle operator is impaired comprises: program code to measure one or more biometric properties of the vehicle operator (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device includes camera and/or driver-facing dashboard camera); program code to provide the one or more biometric properties of the vehicle operator to a processor (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; computer vision techniques include, but are not limited to, eye tracking, face recognition and tracking, blink rate detection, and eye openness detection); and program code to determine, by the processor, an impairment level of the vehicle operator, based on eye movements, heart rate, pupil dilation, and/or head position of the vehicle operator and a predetermined threshold impairment (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; computer vision techniques include, but are not limited to, eye tracking, face recognition and tracking, blink rate detection, and eye openness detection; detection device detects whether the driver is impaired, for example drowsy, dizzy, or falling asleep).
Regarding claim 13, Gholamnejad Davani teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising program code to use one or more cameras mounted within the cabin of the vehicle for measuring the biometric properties of the vehicle operator (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device includes camera and/or driver-facing dashboard camera).
Regarding claim 14, Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach program code to monitor unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; program code to determine an aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over a predetermined period of time; and program code to detect a trigger of the LKA system if the aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over the predetermined period of time is greater than the predetermined safety threshold.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches program code to monitor unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system (Harda: Para. 45; the second user interface, i.e., the interface that is displayed when the driver has “partial control”, is preferably very similar to the third user interface, differing in that the second user interface has at least one graphical element indicative that the driver is “under evaluation”); program code to determine an aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over a predetermined period of time (Harda: Para. 14, 31; monitor the manual driver operation of the vehicle for a time period, evaluate the monitored manual driver operation of the vehicle against the second set of pre-cautionary constraints during the time period, and to deactivate the second set of pre-cautionary constraints if the manual driver operation passes the evaluation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile); and program code to detect a trigger of the LKA system if the aggregate number of the LKA system near violations over the predetermined period of time is greater than the predetermined safety threshold (Harda: Para. 14, 35; partial control comprises access to steering, acceleration, and braking of the vehicle while the PCS module imposes a second set of pre-cautionary constraints out of the plurality of pre-cautionary constraints for the driver while the driver has partial control of the vehicle; a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Regarding claim 15, Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach program code to monitor unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system; program code to detect a number of the LKA system violations over a predetermined distance; and program code to detect a trigger of the LKA system if the number of LKA system violations over the predetermined distance is greater than the predetermined safety threshold.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches program code to monitor unissued warning notifications detected by the background operation of the vehicle safety system (Harda: Para. 45; the second user interface, i.e., the interface that is displayed when the driver has “partial control”, is preferably very similar to the third user interface, differing in that the second user interface has at least one graphical element indicative that the driver is “under evaluation”); program code to detect a number of the LKA system violations over a predetermined distance (Harda: Para. 14, 31; monitor the manual driver operation of the vehicle for a time period, evaluate the monitored manual driver operation of the vehicle against the second set of pre-cautionary constraints during the time period, and to deactivate the second set of pre-cautionary constraints if the manual driver operation passes the evaluation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile); and program code to detect a trigger of the LKA system if the number of the LKA system violations over the predetermined distance is greater than the predetermined safety threshold (Harda: Para. 14, 35; partial control comprises access to steering, acceleration, and braking of the vehicle while the PCS module imposes a second set of pre-cautionary constraints out of the plurality of pre-cautionary constraints for the driver while the driver has partial control of the vehicle; a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS).
Harda teaches monitoring the driver over a set period of time with non-critical and critical violations used to create an evaluation score for the driver. A non-critical violation reduces the evaluation score. A critical violation reduces the evaluation score and immediately hands back control of a vehicle safety feature to the ADS (Harda: Para. 35). If a violation reduces the evaluation score, the sum total of violations would reduce the evaluation score based on the detected number of violations. It would be obvious to monitor the driver over a predetermined distance instead of time because both are known marked quantities of the vehicle. The vehicle’s clock marks the passage of time and the vehicle’s odometer marks the passage of miles.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Regarding claim 17, Gholamnejad Davani teaches a system for overriding a manually disabled advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) safety feature (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32; detecting driver condition of a driver, enabling one or more vehicle safety features of a vehicle and overriding disabled one or more vehicle safety features), the system comprising: …….; a vehicle operator monitor module to determine whether the vehicle operator is impaired during the current driving trip based on the background monitoring operation of the ADAS vehicle safety system (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27; detection device detects whether the driver is impaired; eye openness detection); the ADAS vehicle safety system to re-enable the manually disabled LKA system to issue an audible alert to the vehicle operator when the vehicle operator is impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 5, 7; detect a driver's condition and as a result, activates one or more of the manually disabled safety features; vehicle safety features include automatic emergency braking, lane keep assist; alert the driver; blasting the radio).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach an ADAS safety feature activation module to activate a background monitoring operation of an ADAS vehicle safety system, having a lane keeping assistance (LKA) system manually disabled by a vehicle operator prior to a current driving trip.
However, Gholamnejad Davani is deemed to disclose an equivalent teaching. The prior art teaches that safety features can limit the driver’s control over the vehicle, and thus the driver will disable the safety feature, such as lane keep assist (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4, 7). After the feature has been disabled for a while, the driver may forget the features have been disabled (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 4) allowing for Gholamnejad’s system to re-enable the disabled lane keep assist if the driver becomes impaired. Gholamnejad teaches detecting the driver’s condition (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). The detection device tracks the eye to detect when the driver is falling asleep, therefore impaired (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27). Once the driver is detected as impaired, the system overrides the disabled vehicle safety feature (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32). That the detection occurs while the safety features have been disabled discloses the claimed "background monitoring operation". The prior art does teach a driver manually disabling the lane keep assist prior to the trip where the driver is detected as impaired.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date to have an activating background operation of the manually disabled safety feature taught in Gholamnejad Davani with a reasonable expectation of success because when driver impairment of drowsiness is detected by computer vision, the vehicle enables one or more vehicle safety features that were disabled by the driver (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 27, 32).
Gholamnejad Davani doesn’t explicitly teach a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip.
However Harda, in the same field of endeavor, teaches a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip (Harda: Para. 25, 31, 35-36; monitored driver operation comprises “continuously” evaluating the monitored manual driver operation; time period may be dynamically set based on type of ADS feature (that is being deactivated), on the current ODD of the vehicle, a driver profile; a violation of a “critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in an immediate handover back to the ADS, while a violation of a “non-critical” pre-cautionary constraint results in a reduced evaluation score; controlling entity of the vehicle, such as e.g. speed limitations, distance to lead-vehicle, in-lane positioning).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35) with a reasonable expectation of success because a non-critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation, whereas a critical driver violation will affect the driver evaluation and result in an immediate handover back to the ADS as taught by Harda (Harda: Para. 31, 35-36).
Gholamnejad Davani and Harda don’t explicitly teach to apply a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane.
However Bolourchi, in the same field of endeavor, teaches to apply a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane (Bolourchi: Para. 28; the lane departure warning and LK system can be activated to provide a torque correction to the vehicle).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), and the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26) with a reasonable expectation of success because the drowsy driver detection that provides a centering torque to nudge the vehicle away from the lane boundary line as taught by Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26).
Gholamnejad Davani, Harda, and Bolourchi don’t explicitly teach in which the ADAS vehicle safety system is further manually disable the LKA system once the vehicle operator completes the current driving trip.
However Lundsgaard, in the same field of endeavor, teaches in which the ADAS vehicle safety system is further manually disable the LKA system once the vehicle operator completes the current driving trip (Lundsgaard: Col. 2 Lines 24-28, Col. 19 Lines 52-59; the computing device may disable one or more autonomous driving features for the current drive or for future drives; autonomous lane changing).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modified the overriding disabled vehicle safety feature upon detection of driver impairment in Gholamnejad Davani (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 32) with the monitor a driver for violations during a period of time taught in Harda (Harda: Para. 35), the centering torque in response to lane deviation taught in Bolourchi (Bolourchi: Para. 18, 26), and the disabling a safety feature at the end of the current trip taught in Lundsgaard (Lundsgaard: Col. 19 Lines 52-59) with a reasonable expectation of success because updating a driver’s profile on needed and not needed safety features helps the vehicle setup for future drive through driver profile retrieval (Lundsgaard: Col. 12 Lines 36-49).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed on 1 December 2025, with respect to claims 1-7, 9-15, and 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered, but the arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant’s attorney argues that the prior arts do not teach or suggest “the LKA system to issue an audible alert to the vehicle operator when the vehicle operator is impaired, and a number of driving safety violations is greater than a predetermined safety threshold during the current driving trip and applying (to apply) a torque to a steering wheel to center the vehicle of the vehicle operator within a current lane” as claimed in claims 1, 9, and 17.
In response to the applicant’s argument above, Gholamnejad Davani teaches detecting when a driver is impaired and activating lane keep assist has was manually disabled (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 5, 7, 27). Gholamnejad Davani teaches alerting the driver based on the detected driver’s condition by blasting the radio (Gholamnejad Davani: Para. 5). Harda teaches monitoring the driver over a period of time while in manual mode. A critical type driving violation causes immediate handover back to the ADS (Harda: Para. 35-36). Bolourchi teaches a torque correction as part of the Lane Keeping system which moves the vehicle towards the center of the lane (Bolourchi: Para. 28). Each prior art above at least teaches a type of lane keeping. It is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that torque applied to a steering wheel moving the vehicle to towards the center of the current lane is the normal purpose of autonomous lane keeping. The reliance on a large number of references in a rejection does not, without more, weigh against the obviousness of the claimed invention. See In re Gorman, 933 F.2d 982, 18 USPQ2d 1885 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
The applicant next argues that dependent claims are allowable over the applied references for at least reasons similar to those presented for their base claim, in addition to reasons related to their own recitations.
In response to the applicant’s argument above, the independent claims are rejected. The dependent claims are rejected at least based on their dependencies.
The applicant’s arguments have failed to point out the distinguishing characteristics of the amended claim language over the prior art. For the above reasons, Gholamnejad Davani’s driving feature enablement due to detected driver impairment in view Harda’s driver monitoring threshold, Bolourchi’s steering torque, and Lundsgaard’s disabling of a safety feature after the current trip reads on applicant’s overriding disablement of advanced driver assistance system safety features based on driver impairment and driver performance. The rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/L.E.L./Examiner, Art Unit 3663
/ANGELA Y ORTIZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3663
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