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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 16, 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 5 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kikuchi (WO 2022/014269 A1; English translation is also provided) in view of Otaka (US 2021/0181353).
As to claim 5, Kikuchi discloses an antenna device 65 (see at least figure 3) mounted on a vehicle 1 (see at least figure 1) and configured to communicate at least one of between the vehicle and a second vehicle (see paragraphs [0007], [0028]), between a roadside unit and the vehicle (see paragraph [0007]), or between a pedestrian and the vehicle (see paragraph [0028]) via at least one antenna 65, the antenna device comprising: a memory (see paragraph [0019]); and a processor 3 (see at least figure 2) coupled to the memory and configured to: detect an inclination of the vehicle in a front-rear direction that does not depend on a road shape (see paragraph [0042]); and change a transmission direction of a radio wave transmitted from the antenna 65 based on a detection result of the processor 3 to form a predetermined angle with respect to a road surface of a road when the inclination is equal to or larger than a predetermined value (see paragraphs [0041], [0044], [0045]).
Kikuchi fails to disclose also changing a transmission range of the radio wave transmitted from the antenna based on the detection result of the processor to form the predetermined angle with respect to the road surface of the road when the inclination is equal to or larger than the predetermined value. Otaka discloses changing both of a transmission range and a transmission direction of a radio wave transmitted from a vehicle antenna. In addition, as discussed above Kikuchi already teaches changing a transmission direction of a radio wave transmitted from the antenna 65 based on a detection result of the processor 3 to form a predetermined angle with respect to a road surface of a road when the inclination is equal to or larger than a predetermined value (see paragraphs [0044], [0045]). Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Otaka to Kikuchi, such that a transmission range of the radio wave transmitted from the antenna is also changed based on the detection result of the processor to form the predetermined angle with respect to the road surface of the road when the inclination is equal to or larger than the predetermined value, in order to yield predictable results such as accurately detecting signals transmitted from the vehicle.
Conclusion
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/NGUYEN T VO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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