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
This action is in reply to the Application Number 18/179,562 filed on 03/07/2023.
Claim 2 has been cancelled.
Claims 1 and 3-9 are currently pending and have been examined.
This action is made FINAL in response to the “Amendment” and “Remarks” filed on 09/15/2025.
Claim Interpretation
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are:
“a computing unit” in claim 8.
“Figure 1 schematically shows an arrangement with a plurality of vehicles 110 and a computing unit 100 for explaining the present invention. The computing unit 100 can, for example, be a server, possibly also for a so-called cloud, which serves as an evaluation site or evaluation system. The vehicles are vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, e.g., so-called autonomous vehicles. These may be part of a vehicle fleet and may be identical or similar in configuration. It is understood that in practice there will be significantly more vehicles. One of the vehicles 110 is also shown enlarged, by way of example. This vehicle comprises a computing unit 112 configured as a control unit, as well as a sensor 114, by way of example. For example, the computing unit 112 may read data from the sensor 114 and may also exchange data with the computing unit 100 and/or other communication units via a communications module (not shown). It is understood that the vehicle may comprise further sensors and/or control units. Likewise, the other vehicles 110 have such a control unit and sensors. Furthermore, exemplary persons 120 are illustrated, e.g., developers.” (Detailed Description of Example Embodiments – Page 12, FIG. 1)
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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.
Claims 1, 4-5, and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carver (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0334762 A1) in view of Bin-Nun (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163185 A1) in further view of Merfels (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0035449 A1).
Regarding Claim 1:
Carver teaches:
A method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, based on triggering events and safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Summary of the Presently Claimed Invention – 8th-10th paragraphs and Detailed Description – 22nd paragraph, FIG. 1))
each triggering event defining one or multiple predetermined conditions for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters detectable at least in part using one or multiple sensors of a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th, 42nd, 45th, 53rd, and 101st-110th paragraphs, FIG. 1, 6))
analyzing the received operating data, and determining correlations of triggering events occurring at more than a predetermined frequency, and/or safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 71st-87th paragraphs))
wherein new triggering events are determined based on the determined correlations and are transmitted to the one or the multiple vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner., (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th and 71st-87th paragraphs))
Carver does not teach but Bin-Nun teaches:
and each safety metric defining a metric that, in each vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner, during operation of the vehicle, determines values for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters and compares them to one or multiple threshold values, the method comprising the following steps: receiving, from one or each vehicle of a plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, operating data of the vehicle, regarding a triggering event and/or safety metric, present and/or recorded at a time, when, at the time in the vehicle, at least one of a plurality of triggering events associated with the vehicle is met and/or at least one of a plurality of safety metrics associated with the vehicle exceeds or falls below a threshold value;, (See (Bin-Nun: Summary of the Invention – 6th-25th paragraphs and Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments – 40th-41st and 65th-66th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Bin-Nun in order to create a safe method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Bin-Nun’s system and method for improving autonomous vehicle safety performance in order to determine values for environmental parameters and compare them to threshold values. Combining Carver and Bin-Nun would thus provide “systems and methods for testing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and/or to assessing and operationalizing autonomous vehicle safety performance relative to human drivers under similar conditions.” (Bin-Nun: Field of the Invention – 2nd paragraph)
Carver in view of Bin-Nun does not teach but Merfels teaches:
with respect to static and/or dynamic vehicle data of the one or of the plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner; and providing the determined correlations,, (See (Merfels: Description – 10th, 18th, 32nd, 35th, and 55th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver in view of Bin-Nun with these above aforementioned teachings from Merfels in order to create an effective method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Merfels’s systems and methods for maintaining vehicle state information in order to provide static vehicle data including sensor position and/or dynamic vehicle data including a result of a last sensor self-calibration. Combining Carver and Merfels would thus provide “a method for determining traffic information, which provides improved traffic information and covers different map sections as completely and uniformly as possible and with a high data quality.” (Merfels: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Regarding Claim 4:
Carver in view of Bin-Nun in further view of Merfels, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Carver does not teach but Merfels teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the static vehicle data include at least one of the following: vehicle parameters including weight or power or powertrain; equipment features including LED headlights or active damping or fittings or paintwork; design parameters including sensor position or sensor and installation direction; hardware and/or software versions of components of the vehicle., (See (Merfels: Description – 10th, 18th, 32nd, and 55th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Merfels in order to create an effective method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Merfels’s systems and methods for maintaining vehicle state information in order to provide static vehicle data including sensor position and/or dynamic vehicle data including a result of a last sensor self-calibration. Combining Carver and Merfels would thus provide “a method for determining traffic information, which provides improved traffic information and covers different map sections as completely and uniformly as possible and with a high data quality.” (Merfels: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Regarding Claim 5:
Carver in view of Bin-Nun in further view of Merfels, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Carver does not teach but Merfels teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic vehicle data include at least one of the following: current weight; current software version and/or current function version; current limits of the operational design domain; set system parameters and/or vehicle parameters; result of a last sensor self-calibration; and diagnostic and/or error memory entries., (See (Merfels: Description – 10th, 18th, 35th, and 55th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Merfels in order to create an effective method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Merfels’s systems and methods for maintaining vehicle state information in order to provide static vehicle data including sensor position and/or dynamic vehicle data including a result of a last sensor self-calibration. Combining Carver and Merfels would thus provide “a method for determining traffic information, which provides improved traffic information and covers different map sections as completely and uniformly as possible and with a high data quality.” (Merfels: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Regarding Claim 8:
Carver teaches:
A computing unit configured to validate safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, based on triggering events and safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Summary of the Presently Claimed Invention – 8th-10th paragraphs and Detailed Description – 22nd and 142nd-146th paragraphs, FIG. 1, 10))
each triggering event defining one or multiple predetermined conditions for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters detectable at least in part using one or multiple sensors of a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th, 42nd, 45th, 53rd, and 101st-110th paragraphs, FIG. 1, 6))
analyze the received operating data, and determine correlations of triggering events occurring at more than a predetermined frequency, and/or safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 71st-87th paragraphs))
wherein new triggering events are determined based on the determined correlations and are transmitted to the one or the multiple vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner., (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th and 71st-87th paragraphs))
Carver does not teach but Bin-Nun teaches:
and each safety metric defining a metric that, in each vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner, during operation of the vehicle, determines values for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters and compares them to one or multiple threshold values, the computing unit configured to: receive, from one or each vehicle of a plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, operating data of the vehicle, regarding a triggering event and/or safety metric, present and/or recorded at a time, when, at the time in the vehicle, at least one of a plurality of triggering events associated with the vehicle is met and/or at least one of a plurality of safety metrics associated with the vehicle exceeds or falls below a threshold value;, (See (Bin-Nun: Summary of the Invention – 6th-25th paragraphs and Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments – 40th-41st and 65th-66th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Bin-Nun in order to create a safe method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Bin-Nun’s system and method for improving autonomous vehicle safety performance in order to determine values for environmental parameters and compare them to threshold values. Combining Carver and Bin-Nun would thus provide “systems and methods for testing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and/or to assessing and operationalizing autonomous vehicle safety performance relative to human drivers under similar conditions.” (Bin-Nun: Field of the Invention – 2nd paragraph)
Carver in view of Bin-Nun does not teach but Merfels teaches:
with respect to static and/or dynamic vehicle data of the one or of the plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner; and provide the determined correlations,, (See (Merfels: Description – 10th, 18th, 32nd, 35th, and 55th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver in view of Bin-Nun with these above aforementioned teachings from Merfels in order to create an effective method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Merfels’s systems and methods for maintaining vehicle state information in order to provide static vehicle data including sensor position and/or dynamic vehicle data including a result of a last sensor self-calibration. Combining Carver and Merfels would thus provide “a method for determining traffic information, which provides improved traffic information and covers different map sections as completely and uniformly as possible and with a high data quality.” (Merfels: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Regarding Claim 9:
Carver teaches:
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium on which is stored a computer program for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, based on triggering events and safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Summary of the Presently Claimed Invention – 8th-10th paragraphs and Detailed Description – 22nd and 151st-153rd paragraphs, FIG. 1, 10))
each triggering event defining one or multiple predetermined conditions for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters detectable at least in part using one or multiple sensors of a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th, 42nd, 45th, 53rd, and 101st-110th paragraphs, FIG. 1, 6))
analyzing the received operating data, and determining correlations of triggering events occurring at more than a predetermined frequency, and/or safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 71st-87th paragraphs))
wherein new triggering events are determined based on the determined correlations and are transmitted to the one or the multiple vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner., (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th and 71st-87th paragraphs))
Carver does not teach but Bin-Nun teaches:
and each safety metric defining a metric that, in each vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner, during operation of the vehicle, determines values for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters and compares them to one or multiple threshold values, the computer program, when executed by a computer, causing the computer to perform the following steps: receiving, from one or each vehicle of a plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, operating data of the vehicle, regarding a triggering event and/or safety metric, present and/or recorded at a time, when, at the time in the vehicle, at least one of a plurality of triggering events associated with the vehicle is met and/or at least one of a plurality of safety metrics associated with the vehicle exceeds or falls below a threshold value;, (See (Bin-Nun: Summary of the Invention – 6th-25th paragraphs and Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments – 40th-41st and 65th-66th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Bin-Nun in order to create a safe method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Bin-Nun’s system and method for improving autonomous vehicle safety performance in order to determine values for environmental parameters and compare them to threshold values. Combining Carver and Bin-Nun would thus provide “systems and methods for testing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and/or to assessing and operationalizing autonomous vehicle safety performance relative to human drivers under similar conditions.” (Bin-Nun: Field of the Invention – 2nd paragraph)
Carver in view of Bin-Nun does not teach but Merfels teaches:
with respect to static and/or dynamic vehicle data of the one or of the plurality of vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner; and providing the determined correlations,, (See (Merfels: Description – 10th, 18th, 32nd, 35th, and 55th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver in view of Bin-Nun with these above aforementioned teachings from Merfels in order to create an effective method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Merfels’s systems and methods for maintaining vehicle state information in order to provide static vehicle data including sensor position and/or dynamic vehicle data including a result of a last sensor self-calibration. Combining Carver and Merfels would thus provide “a method for determining traffic information, which provides improved traffic information and covers different map sections as completely and uniformly as possible and with a high data quality.” (Merfels: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carver (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0334762 A1) in view of Bin-Nun (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163185 A1) in further view of Merfels (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0035449 A1) in even further view of Tod (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0225233 A1).
Regarding Claim 3:
Carver in view of Bin-Nun in further view of Merfels, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Carver further teaches:
[…] based on the determined correlations., (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 71st-87th paragraphs))
Carver in view of Bin-Nun in further view of Merfels does not teach but Tod teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein errors in one or several of the multiple vehicles are determined, (See (Tod: Summary – 5th-12th paragraphs and Detailed Description – 89th-90th and 99th-103rd paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver in view of Bin-Nun in further view of Merfels with these above aforementioned teachings from Tod in order to create an accurate method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Tod’s method for determining traffic information in order to determine error in vehicle data. Combining Carver and Tod would thus provide “overall increases in productivity” (Tod: Background – 4th paragraph) by “autonomously navigating a self-driving vehicle in an environment, collecting current state information using a sensor of the vehicle, comparing the current state information with reference data, identifying outlier data in the current state information, and generating an alert based on the outlier data.” (Tod: Summary – 5th paragraph)
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carver (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0334762 A1) in view of Bin-Nun (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163185 A1).
Regarding Claim 6:
Carver teaches:
A method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner, based on triggering events and safety metrics,, (See (Carver: Summary of the Presently Claimed Invention – 8th-10th paragraphs and Detailed Description – 22nd paragraph, FIG. 1))
wherein each triggering event defines one or multiple predetermined conditions for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters detectable at least in part by one or multiple sensors of a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner,, (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th, 42nd, 45th, 53rd, and 101st-110th paragraphs, FIG. 1, 6))
wherein new triggering events are determined based on the determined correlations and are transmitted to the one or the multiple vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner., (See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th and 71st-87th paragraphs))
Carver does not teach but Bin-Nun teaches:
and each safety metric defines a metric that, in a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner, during operation of the vehicle, determines values for one or multiple vehicle parameters and/or environmental parameters and compares them to one or multiple threshold values, the method comprising the following steps: checking, in a vehicle moving in an at least partially automated manner, whether one or at least one of a plurality of triggering events associated with the vehicle is met and/or one or at least one of a plurality of safety metrics associated with the vehicle exceeds or falls below a threshold value; and transmitting, to an evaluation system, operating data of the vehicle regarding the triggering event and/or the safety metric, present and/or recorded at a time, in particular, when at the time in the vehicle, the one or the at least one of the plurality of triggering events associated with the vehicle is met and/or the one or the at least one of the plurality of safety metrics associated with the vehicle exceeds or falls below a threshold value,, (See (Bin-Nun: Summary of the Invention – 6th-25th paragraphs and Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments – 40th-41st and 65th-66th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Bin-Nun in order to create a safe method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Bin-Nun’s system and method for improving autonomous vehicle safety performance in order to determine values for environmental parameters and compare them to threshold values. Combining Carver and Bin-Nun would thus provide “systems and methods for testing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and/or to assessing and operationalizing autonomous vehicle safety performance relative to human drivers under similar conditions.” (Bin-Nun: Field of the Invention – 2nd paragraph)
Regarding Claim 7:
Carver in view of Bin-Nun, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 6. Carver does not teach but Bin-Nun teaches:
The method according to claim 6, wherein the operating data include at least one of the following: for at least one sensor of the vehicle, a result of last sensor self-calibration and current sensor data; internal conditions of the vehicle; current values of at least one safety metric; the triggering event; current values of at least one triggering factor used to determine whether a triggering event is met., (See (Bin-Nun: Summary of the Invention – 6th-8th paragraphs and Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments – 40th-41st and 65th-66th paragraphs))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Carver with these above aforementioned teachings from Bin-Nun in order to create a safe method for validating safety precautions for vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner. At the time the invention was filed, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Carver’s vehicle operation analytics, feedback, and enhancement system with Bin-Nun’s system and method for improving autonomous vehicle safety performance in order to determine values for environmental parameters and compare them to threshold values. Combining Carver and Bin-Nun would thus provide “systems and methods for testing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and/or to assessing and operationalizing autonomous vehicle safety performance relative to human drivers under similar conditions.” (Bin-Nun: Field of the Invention – 2nd paragraph)
Response to Arguments
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection set forth in the Non-Final Rejection mailed on April 17th, 2025 has been withdrawn as the “Amendments” and “Remarks” filed by the Applicant on September 15th, 2025 satisfactorily overcome this rejection.
Applicant’s arguments filed on September 15th, 2025 with regard to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
With regard to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection, the limitations are taught in Carver as has been set forth above, contrary to the Applicant’s assertions. Therefore, the Applicant’s amendments and arguments are insufficient to overcome these prior art rejections.
More specifically, Carver mentions “FIG. 1 illustrates […] a mobile device (such as a phone or tablet), and the like.” Furthermore, Carver states “Whether running as a backend service (most common) […] and the predicted value in the scoring database.” See (Carver: Detailed Description – 36th and 71st-87th paragraphs) In doing so, Carver addresses the Applicant’s limitation of "wherein new triggering events are determined based on the determined correlations and are transmitted to the one or the multiple vehicles moving in an at least partially automated manner" as set forth by the Applicant.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jeffrey Chalhoub whose telephone number is (571) 272-9754. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:30-5:30. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vivek Koppikar can be reached on (571) 272-5109. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/J.R.C./Examiner, Art Unit 3667
/VIVEK D KOPPIKAR/Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 3667
October 7, 2025