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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/23/2026 has been entered.
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-13 are pending. Claims 1 is amended. Applicant has elected claims 1-13 without traverse.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 01/23/2026, with respect to the 101 rejection have been considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, on page 9, that the claims amendments recite a specific manner in which boarding approval indication is communicated including output by lighting installed on the vehicle and receiving a message and reports free boarding of a passenger after outputting the boarding disapproval indication represents additional elements not encompassed by the alleged judicial exception.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claim limitations as drafted, recite a concept, that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, is a certain method of organizing human activity. The limitations are analogous to managing personal behavior or interactions between people (interactions between people), or a commercial or legal interaction (sales activity) such as approving passengers for boarding a vehicle. The changing of a light output based upon the approval is still part of the judicial exception. The additional elements (including the server) are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not amount to more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Applicant argues, on pages 9-10, that the amended claims provide an improvement to relevant existing technology by outputting lights of different colors and provides a report of free boarders who board the vehicle after output of the disapproval indication.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. As mentioned above the additional elements to do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. It is important to keep in mind that an improvement in the abstract idea itself (e.g. a recited fundamental economic concept) is not an improvement in technology. For example, in Trading Technologies Int’l v. IBG, 921 F.3d 1084, 1093-94, 2019 USPQ2d 138290 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the court determined that the claimed user interface simply provided a trader with more information to facilitate market trades, which improved the business process of market trading but did not improve computers or technology. Here, the alleged improvement is to allowing passengers to recognize their boarding status which is part of the business process of ridesharing/taxis (robo) and not to a technology or technical field. Therefore, the claims are ineligible.
Applicant’s arguments, filed 01/23/2026, with respect to the art rejection have been considered and are persuasive. Examiner has included the closest prior art of record below.
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 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1
Claims 1-13 are directed to a system with multiple components, and therefore is a machine.
Independent Claims
Step 2A Prong One
The limitation of Claim 1 recites:
… obtain unique passenger data from a plurality of potential passengers of a vehicle, the data including facial information of each potential passenger and/or a position of each potential passenger;
… store, in advance of a boarding of the vehicle process, unique passenger information associated with the plurality of potential passengers; and
…:
determine whether to approve boarding of a respective passenger having a position closest to the vehicle based on the unique passenger information stored …; and
control either one of: a boarding approval indication or a boarding disapproval indication to be output based on whether boarding of the respective passenger is approved;
wherein the boarding approval indication and the boarding disapproval indication include output, by lighting installed on the vehicle, of different colors from one another so that the respective passenger recognizes the boarding approval or the boarding disapproval;
wherein … receives a passenger boarding approval message from …and determines that the boarding of the respective passenger is approved based on the passenger boarding approval message received … ; and
wherein the processor reports free boarding of the respective passenger to the server when determining the respective passenger board the vehicle after outputting the boarding disapproval indication.
The claim limitations as drafted, recite a concept, that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, is a certain method of organizing human activity. The limitations are analogous to managing personal behavior or interactions between people (interactions between people), or a commercial or legal interaction (sales activity) such as approving passengers for boarding a vehicle. The generic computer implementations (see below) do not change the character of the limitations. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the following additional elements:
Claim 1:
A device configured to control a vehicle, the device comprising:
A sensor
A memory storage
processor
server
These additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not amount to more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements, amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. The same analysis applies here in 2B. The additional elements, when considered separately and in combination, do not add significantly more to the exception. They are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claims are ineligible.
Dependent Claims
Step 2A Prong One
Dependent claims 2-13 further narrow the same abstract ideas recited in Claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-13 are directed to an abstract idea for the reasons given above.
Step 2A Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the dependent claims recite the following additional elements:
Claim 7
terminal
Claim 12
Artificial intelligence
These additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not amount to more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements, amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. The same analysis applies here in 2B. The additional elements, when considered separately and in combination, do not add significantly more to the exception. They are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claims are ineligible.
Novelty/Non-Obviousness
The closest prior art of record is:
Nishiyama (US20220101633A1)
Wasekura (US20190080264A1)
Mikuriya (US20220036736A1)
Walling (US20210073825A1)
Nishiyama teaches The detection unit 22 uses the sensor 10 to detect pedestrians that are around the autonomous driving vehicle while the autonomous driving vehicle is traveling. Specifically, the detection unit 22 first extracts a plurality of objects from images (including moving images) acquired by the sensor 10. An object is a collection of multiple pixels. The plurality of objects include a pedestrian's hands, wrists, shoulders, head, chest, hips, knees, ankles, toes, fingertips, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and the like. The detection unit 22 may extract a collective object of the pedestrian's eyes, nose, mouth, ears, etc., as the pedestrian's face. In order to facilitate the extraction of objects, the detection unit 22 may remove noise, distortion, etc., from the image…By means of pattern matching, the detection unit 22 can detect objects around the autonomous driving vehicle as pedestrians. Nishiyama teaches the recognition unit 27 compares the information associated with the detected pedestrian and the information associated with the prospective passenger 50 registered in the storage device 13 to determine whether the information associated with the pedestrian matches or is similar to the information associated with the prospective passenger 50. Nishiyama teaches door control unit 28 controls the locking (lock) and releasing of the lock of the door 18 of the autonomous driving vehicle 40, and the opening/closing of the door 18. When the recognition unit 27 recognizes the prospective passenger 50, the door control unit 28 releases the door lock, which is the locking device of the door 18. As a result, the prospective passenger 50 can open and close the door 18, so that the prospective passenger 50 can open the door 18 and board the autonomous driving vehicle 40.)
However, Nishiyama does not teach passenger boarding approval or disapproval messages from a server. Nishiyama does also does not teach approval and disapproval indication using lights installed on the vehicle with various colors. Nishiyama also does not teach reporting free boarding of a passenger to the server when a passenger boards the vehicle after the vehicle outputs the boarding disapproval indication.
Wasekura teaches a face image of a user captured by a camera of a mobile terminal 30 is transmitted to the control center 10 at the time of admission to the vehicle allocation service and the face image is registered in the database of the vehicle allocation control server 20. Then, when the user uses the vehicle allocation service, the face image registered in the database is transmitted from the vehicle allocation control server 20 to an autonomous vehicle 40 as ID information of the user. The personal authentication unit 53 compares an image of a person near the autonomous vehicle 40 captured by a camera sensor of the autonomous vehicle 40 with the face image of the user acquired from the vehicle allocation control server 20, and authenticates the person imaged by the camera sensor as an identical person of a vehicle allocation request when both images match each other. (i.e. approval message from a server, after facial authentication). However, it does not teach the remaining limitations as described above.
Mikuriya teaches lighting control unit 452, when receiving the lighting direction information, causes the light device 43 (the roof lights 431) to be turned on. Since the operation (the direction) by the user 50 causes the roof lights 431 to be turned on, the user 50 can intuitively identify the vehicle 40 as the one that he/she has reserved. Mikuriya, in Par. 0048, teaches the roof lights 431 to be turned on with the same color as the color displayed on the display 63, the user 50 can intuitively identify the vehicle 40 as the one that he/she has reserved. However, it does not teach the limitations as described above.
Walling teaches after the verification code is assigned to the rideshare trip 60, the rideshare server may transmit rideshare information to the vehicle device 77. The rideshare information may include the rider's name, rider preferences, and/or rider selections. For example, the rider may select a color, symbol, or image to be displayed by the vehicle device. The color, symbol, or image may be displayed by the vehicle device to allow the rider to identify the vehicle associated with the rideshare trip. In other words, the rideshare server may provide rider selections to the vehicle device in order to provide visual confirmation and identification of the rideshare vehicle for the rider without the rider getting into the rideshare vehicle. Additionally, the vehicle device may provide the color, symbol, or image to be displayed to an exterior vehicle device. The color, symbol, or image may be displayed by the exterior vehicle device to allow the rider to identify the vehicle associated with the rideshare trip. Walling also teaches alerts, but for the purposes of contacting emergency contact. However, it does not teach the limitations as described above.
In conclusion, it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the above references to teach all the limitations of claim 1.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISMAIL A MANEJWALA whose telephone number is (571)272-8904. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nathan Uber can be reached on 571-270-3923. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ISMAIL A MANEJWALA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628