DETAILED ACTION
This is a non-final Office Action on the merits in response to communications filed by Applicant on January 23rd, 2026. Claims 1, 4-7, and 10-13 are currently pending and examined below.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
The amendments to the Claims filed on January 23rd, 2026 have been entered. Claims 1, 4-6, and 11-12 are currently amended and pending, claims 7 and 10 are as previously presented and pending, claim 13 is new and currently pending, and claims 2-3 and 8-9 have been canceled.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 5-6, and 8-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2015148550 A1 ("Inoue") in view of KR 20100001470 A ("An") in further view of US 10885794 B2 ("Dennerline").
Regarding claim 1, Inoue teaches an information processing method for creating a route, by a computer, the information processing method comprising:
acquiring, from an achieved record database, an achieved data group having recordation of achieved route information associating a first start point, a first finish point, and an achieved route being a past travel route between the first start point and the first finish point with one another (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0061, “As shown in FIG. 6A, first, in step S401, the history statistical processing unit 27 acquires the departure point PO and the destination point PD from the received presentation route search request. Subsequently, based on the map information stored in the map information storage unit 25, the history statistical processing unit 27 searches (acquires) a planned route from the acquired departure point PO to the destination point PD. The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can be seen from the cited passages, the system is configured to store information regarding previously traveled routes and then retrieves this information later when determining a new route.);
acquiring a query including a second start point and a second finish point (Inoue: ¶ 0023, “The destination point input unit 22 receives from the user of the terminal device 2 the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery charge (for example, the remaining battery charge of the traveling battery 14 of the vehicle A owned by the user) and the driver It accepts an input of an ID (for example, a driver ID that identifies the user). Then, the destination point input unit 22 outputs the received information of the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery amount, and the driver ID to the route calculation unit 23.”);
creating one or more recommendable routes each having a start point and a finish point respectively agreeing with the second start point and the second finish point of the query by connecting a plurality of achieved routes recorded in the achieved data group (Inoue: ¶ 0091, “Referring back to FIG. 6A, in the subsequent step S404, the history statistical processing unit 27 refers to the combined route generated by combining the plurality of traveling routes stored in the traveling history storage unit 26, Search and determine similar synthetic routes which are identical or similar synthetic routes.”, ¶ 0092, “Here, FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing a composite route, in which three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A1 are shown by dotted lines, three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A2 are shown by alternate long and short dashed lines, and the vehicle A3 travels Four running routes are indicated by fine dotted lines, and three synthetic routes 1, 2, and 3 are shown. As shown in FIG. 8, the history statistical processing unit 27 extracts the information of the synthetic route 1, 2, 3... Obtained by synthesizing a plurality of traveling routes on which the same vehicle has traveled, and sets in step S403 described above A synthetic route having a start point in the departure area RO and an end point in the destination area RD is extracted as a similar synthetic route. Note that such a synthetic route is extracted when the history statistical processing unit 27 searches for a similar synthetic route as shown in the subroutine of FIG. It may be stored in the same way as the travel route.”, ¶ 0095, “In the example shown in FIG. 9A, the case of combining two traveling routes has been illustrated, but the number of combined traveling routes is not limited to two when obtaining a combined route, and three or more may be used. It is also good. That is, for example, as in the example shown in FIG. 9 (B), the end of “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1” is a combined route consisting of “traveling route 1 of vehicle A1” and “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1”. Further combining "the travel route 3 of the vehicle A1 having the start point within the combined point range RS" with a circular range having a radius rS from the point, "the travel route 1 of the vehicle A1" and "the travel route of the vehicle A1 It is possible to generate a composite route consisting of “2” and “travel route 3 of vehicle A1”. In addition, in the synthetic | combination route obtained in this way, the start point of "the driving | running route 1 of vehicle A1" becomes a start point of a synthetic | combination route, and the finish point of "the driving | running route 3 of vehicle A1" is a synthetic | combination route End point of”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, data regarding previously traveled routes are used to connect these said routes together to form a new recommend travel route from the departure point PO to the destination point PD. Paragraphs 0061 and 0064 shows that the departure area RO and the destination area RD are set using the departure point PO and destination point PD respectively.);
and outputting the one or more recommendable routes (Inoue: ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, once the presentation route is determined, it is subsequently displayed on the display unit.),
recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person (Inoue: ¶0116, “In step S405, when it is determined that the presentation route (similar route or similar combined route) is determined, the process proceeds to step S406, and in step S406, the history statistical processing unit 27 stores the traveling history storage unit 26.”. The cited passage clearly shows that when the presentation route is determined, the system stores the route and its corresponding information.),
wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0039, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S104, and the traveling history recording unit 19 records the information on the vehicle speed, the information on the accelerator opening degree, and the information on the air conditioner usage output from the detection units 4, 8, 9, 10 as vehicle state information. . When the traveling history recording unit 19 completes traveling along the guidance route guided by the navigation device 18, information on power consumption consumed when traveling the guidance route (hereinafter also referred to as power consumption information) Also included in the vehicle status information and recorded.”, ¶ 0040, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S105, and the travel history recording unit 19 uses the travel time basic information, travel information, and vehicle status information recorded in the travel history recording unit 19 as the first travel history information as a vehicle information provision device.”. As can be seen from the cited passage additional information is stored along with the traveling route, this information includes: travel time, vehicle speed, air conditioner use, power consumption, and altitude information.),
in the outputting of the one or more recommendable routes, display data for a display screen image is output to display, on a display, the plurality of achieved routes forming each recommendable route in association with the travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, the power consumption associated with the route is displayed along with the route itself.),
the achieved route includes a plurality of roads (Inoue: ¶ 0028, “The map information storage unit 25 stores in advance map information of the area where the vehicle A travels. As map information, for example, a node or link representing a road network, a position of a charging facility C for charging the traveling battery 14 provided to the vehicle A, a position of a facility attached to a toll road or a toll road Information etc. can be mentioned.”, ¶ 0061, “The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the achieved route consists of a plurality of roads.), and
the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes (Inoue: Figure 2A, ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route In addition to drawing on the map the charging via point PC passed when traveling R, the screen also displays the power consumption (kW · h) consumed when traveling the presentation route R and the numerical information of the reachable distance (km) Display in the corner of As a result, the user of the terminal device 2 can confirm in advance the power consumption when traveling the vehicle A to the destination point PD, the cruising distance, and the charging via point PC.”, ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. The cited figure and passage clearly shows that the distance to be traveled and the amount of power consumed when traveling the route are displayed when displaying the route.).
Inoue does not teach acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes;
the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route,
and a used date and time of the experienced person.
An, in the same field of endeavor, teaches acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “After the user examines the searched driver preferred routes, he or she decides whether to apply the driver preferred route (S560). If you decide not to apply the driver's preferred route, guidance will continue to the destination along the recommended route (S540, S580).”, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “However, when a specific driver preferred route is selected by deciding whether to apply the driver preferred route (S570), the preferred route processing unit (180) starts route guidance by applying the selected driver preferred route to the recommended route (S580), thereby efficiently and effectively guiding the vehicle to the destination (S580).”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the user can select another user’s preferred route and use said route.);
the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “In addition, the route storage unit (130) stores the preferred route of other users received from the navigation server (40) through the communication unit (600). The driver preference route data of other users' driver preference routes received from the above navigation server (40) may include driver preference route identification information (ID).”. The cited passages clearly shows that the information regarding routes traveled by other users include a driver preference route identification information, which is clearly a method of including a person who has used said route in the travel specificity.),
and a used date and time of the experienced person (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 1, “Information indicating that it is the driver preferred route and information indicating the driver preferred route setting date can be arbitrarily assigned by the preferred route processing unit (180).”, Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “Additionally, the above driver preference reason is an item that requires user input. It is possible to have users directly input their driver preference reasons, but this is likely to be very cumbersome for users, so it is preferable to provide users with several examples for each item and have them input their driver preference reasons in the direction of selecting one. Some examples of driver preference reasons include day of the week (Mon-Fri, weekends, holidays, long weekends), time (commuting, returning from work, lunch, late at night), season (spring-winter), weather (snow, rain, yellow dust, clear), and others (fast route, fuel saving, avoiding surveillance cameras, view, toll, children's zone, accident-prone area), and the driver preference reasons can be saved by having the user select and save the desired example for each item (day of the week, time, etc.).”. As can be seen from the cited passages and from Table 1, the path driven by each driver is stored with a date and additional information that can include the time.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine information processing method taught in Inoue with method of storing data that associates a route with another driver and the date and time said driver used the route taught in An with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because by using the information of routes used by experienced drivers to recommend a route to users, a more efficient and effective recommended route can be determined (An: Description Page 2 Paragraph 3, “Another object of the present invention is to provide a navigation terminal and a navigation system capable of collecting experienced driver preferred route information of multiple drivers so that a recommended route can be efficiently and effectively improved from the driver's perspective.”).
Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Dennerline, in the same field of endeavor, teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route (Dennerline: Figure 8, Column 21 lines 42-67, “FIG. 8 depicts an example display of a unit 10 after a pilot user selects selectable item for “Great pie trip!” from menu 70a below item departure airport KPWK. The selectable item from menu 70a expands to show in display 40a, in this example, three entries for “Great pie trip!” and the identity of pilot user who entered the route, as well as comments and/or replies to a route and identity of pilot users who have made comments and/or replies, and related dates.”. The cited passage and figure clearly shows that the recommended route includes the name of the user who traveled said route.).
Inoue in view of An teaches an information processing method for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used one of the achieved routes forming the recommendable route and a used date and time of the experienced person. Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route. Dennerline teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities required to have modified the method taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline. Furthermore, even though the method taught in Dennerline is for displaying the recommended route and information of the pilot who flew said route for a pilot of a plane, such a method of displaying the name of the person who traveled the recommended route could easily be applied to the method taught in Inoue in view of An, as both methods involve the determination of a recommended travel route for a vehicle based on the routes of other vehicle operators. Additionally, the method taught in Inoue in view of An is already configured to associate a driver ID with the route said driver has traveled, so modifying this ID to be the driver’s name as taught in Dennerline would not change or introduce new functionality. No inventive effort would have been required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of an information processing method for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the method taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because the combination would have yielded predictable results.
Regarding claim 5, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline teaches wherein the display screen image includes a map image on which the plurality of achieved routes forming one or more the recommendable routes are distinctively displayed in a superimposed manner (Inoue: Figure 2A, ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route.”. As can be seen from the cited passage and figure, the route is superimposed on the map in clearly distinct manner.).
Regarding claim 6, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline teaches wherein the display screen image includes a list image distinctively showing the plurality of achieved routes forming the one or more recommendable routes in a list form (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “At this time, when multiple driver preferred routes are searched, they are presented in a list format, and when the user selects one of them, the user can view an explanation, such as the reason for preference for the selected driver preferred route, and at the same time, the recommended route and the selected driver preferred route can be displayed in different colors so that the user can easily see how they are different”).
Regarding claim 10, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline teaches wherein, in the creating of the one or more recommendable routes, the one or more recommendable routes are created by increasing a connection number one by one, and the creating is finished at completion of forming the one or more recommendable routes (Inoue: ¶ 0113, “In the example shown in FIG. 6E, only one virtual passing point PW is set, but if there is no hit where the start point of the second traveling route is present in the departure area RO in step S1008, each start point is taken as the second The virtual transit point PW2 may be set, and the search may be continued until the start point exists in the departure area by inductive processing. That is, when this inductive process is generalized, in steps S1004 to S1010, after the traveling route whose end point is present in the destination area RD is extracted as the first traveling route, the start point of the extracted first traveling route is extracted. A traveling route in which an end point exists in a virtual transit area RW including each is extracted as a second traveling route, and an end point exists in a virtual transit area RW including the start point of the Nth traveling route extracted by repeating this sequentially And extract the traveling route whose start point exists in the departure area RO as the (N + 1) traveling route. Further, in steps S1012 to S1018, after the traveling route having the starting point existing in the departure area RO is extracted as the first traveling route, the starting point is set to the virtual transit area RW including the end point of the extracted first traveling route Start point exists in the virtual transit area RW including the end point of the N-th travel route (N is an integer of 1 or more) extracted by sequentially extracting the travel route in which is present as the second travel route, And the travel route whose end point is present in the target area RD is extracted as the (N + 1) travel route. Then, when the end point is finally reached, a composite route obtained by combining those travel routes, that is, a combination of the travel routes from the first travel route to the (N + 1) travel route is output as a similar composite route.”. The cited passage teaches that the system is configure to connect several routes together to form the recommended route. The process begins by finding a first route with the same start point as the desired start point, then the system connects a second route whose start point is within range of the end point of the first route. Then a third route whose start point is in range of the endpoint of the second route is connected. This process continues until the desired endpoint is reaches. This process clearly teaches that the recommended route is formed by increasing the number of connections one by one until it is formed.).
Regarding claim 11, Inoue teaches an information processing device that creates a route, the information processing device comprising:
a processor (Inoue: ¶ 0022, “On the other hand, the terminal device 2 is configured by hardware including a ROM storing a processing program, a RAM for temporarily storing each data, and a CPU that executes arithmetic processing according to the processing program, Functionally, a destination point input unit 22, a route calculation unit 23, and a display unit 24 are provided. The terminal device 2 may be, for example, a mobile phone terminal or a personal computer possessed by the owner of the vehicle A.”); and
a memory including a program that, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to (Inoue: : ¶ 0022, “On the other hand, the terminal device 2 is configured by hardware including a ROM storing a processing program, a RAM for temporarily storing each data, and a CPU that executes arithmetic processing according to the processing program, Functionally, a destination point input unit 22, a route calculation unit 23, and a display unit 24 are provided. The terminal device 2 may be, for example, a mobile phone terminal or a personal computer possessed by the owner of the vehicle A.”):
acquire, from an achieved record database, an achieved data group having recordation of achieved route information associating a first start point, a first finish point, and an achieved route being a past travel route between the first start point and the first finish point with one another (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0061, “As shown in FIG. 6A, first, in step S401, the history statistical processing unit 27 acquires the departure point PO and the destination point PD from the received presentation route search request. Subsequently, based on the map information stored in the map information storage unit 25, the history statistical processing unit 27 searches (acquires) a planned route from the acquired departure point PO to the destination point PD. The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can be seen from the cited passages, the system is configured to store information regarding previously traveled routes and then retrieves this information later when determining a new route.);
acquire a query including a second start point and a second finish point (Inoue: ¶ 0023, “The destination point input unit 22 receives from the user of the terminal device 2 the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery charge (for example, the remaining battery charge of the traveling battery 14 of the vehicle A owned by the user) and the driver It accepts an input of an ID (for example, a driver ID that identifies the user). Then, the destination point input unit 22 outputs the received information of the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery amount, and the driver ID to the route calculation unit 23.”);
create one or more recommendable routes each having a start point and a finish point respectively agreeing with the second start point and the second finish point of the query by connecting a plurality of achieved routes recorded in the achieved data group (Inoue: ¶ 0091, “Referring back to FIG. 6A, in the subsequent step S404, the history statistical processing unit 27 refers to the combined route generated by combining the plurality of traveling routes stored in the traveling history storage unit 26, Search and determine similar synthetic routes which are identical or similar synthetic routes.”, ¶ 0092, “Here, FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing a composite route, in which three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A1 are shown by dotted lines, three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A2 are shown by alternate long and short dashed lines, and the vehicle A3 travels Four running routes are indicated by fine dotted lines, and three synthetic routes 1, 2, and 3 are shown. As shown in FIG. 8, the history statistical processing unit 27 extracts the information of the synthetic route 1, 2, 3... Obtained by synthesizing a plurality of traveling routes on which the same vehicle has traveled, and sets in step S403 described above A synthetic route having a start point in the departure area RO and an end point in the destination area RD is extracted as a similar synthetic route. Note that such a synthetic route is extracted when the history statistical processing unit 27 searches for a similar synthetic route as shown in the subroutine of FIG. It may be stored in the same way as the travel route.”, ¶ 0095, “In the example shown in FIG. 9A, the case of combining two traveling routes has been illustrated, but the number of combined traveling routes is not limited to two when obtaining a combined route, and three or more may be used. It is also good. That is, for example, as in the example shown in FIG. 9 (B), the end of “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1” is a combined route consisting of “traveling route 1 of vehicle A1” and “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1”. Further combining "the travel route 3 of the vehicle A1 having the start point within the combined point range RS" with a circular range having a radius rS from the point, "the travel route 1 of the vehicle A1" and "the travel route of the vehicle A1 It is possible to generate a composite route consisting of “2” and “travel route 3 of vehicle A1”. In addition, in the synthetic | combination route obtained in this way, the start point of "the driving | running route 1 of vehicle A1" becomes a start point of a synthetic | combination route, and the finish point of "the driving | running route 3 of vehicle A1" is a synthetic | combination route End point of”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, data regarding previously traveled routes are used to connect these said routes together to form a new recommend travel route from the departure point PO to the destination point PD. Paragraphs 0061 and 0064 shows that the departure area RO and the destination area RD are set using the departure point PO and destination point PD respectively.);
output the one or more recommendable routes (Inoue: ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, once the presentation route is determined, it is subsequently displayed on the display unit.);
record, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person (Inoue: ¶0116, “In step S405, when it is determined that the presentation route (similar route or similar combined route) is determined, the process proceeds to step S406, and in step S406, the history statistical processing unit 27 stores the traveling history storage unit 26.”. The cited passage clearly shows that when the presentation route is determined, the system stores the route and its corresponding information.),
wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0039, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S104, and the traveling history recording unit 19 records the information on the vehicle speed, the information on the accelerator opening degree, and the information on the air conditioner usage output from the detection units 4, 8, 9, 10 as vehicle state information. . When the traveling history recording unit 19 completes traveling along the guidance route guided by the navigation device 18, information on power consumption consumed when traveling the guidance route (hereinafter also referred to as power consumption information) Also included in the vehicle status information and recorded.”, ¶ 0040, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S105, and the travel history recording unit 19 uses the travel time basic information, travel information, and vehicle status information recorded in the travel history recording unit 19 as the first travel history information as a vehicle information provision device.”. As can be seen from the cited passage additional information is stored along with the traveling route, this information includes: travel time, vehicle speed, air conditioner use, power consumption, and altitude information.),
the processor outputs, with the one or more recommendable routes, display data for a display screen image to display, on a display, the plurality of achieved routes forming each recommendable route in association with the travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, the power consumption associated with the route is displayed along with the route itself.),
the achieved route includes a plurality of roads (Inoue: ¶ 0028, “The map information storage unit 25 stores in advance map information of the area where the vehicle A travels. As map information, for example, a node or link representing a road network, a position of a charging facility C for charging the traveling battery 14 provided to the vehicle A, a position of a facility attached to a toll road or a toll road Information etc. can be mentioned.”, ¶ 0061, “The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the achieved route consists of a plurality of roads.), and
the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes (Inoue: Figure 2A, ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route In addition to drawing on the map the charging via point PC passed when traveling R, the screen also displays the power consumption (kW · h) consumed when traveling the presentation route R and the numerical information of the reachable distance (km) Display in the corner of As a result, the user of the terminal device 2 can confirm in advance the power consumption when traveling the vehicle A to the destination point PD, the cruising distance, and the charging via point PC.”, ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. The cited figure and passage clearly shows that the distance to be traveled and the amount of power consumed when traveling the route are displayed when displaying the route.).
Inoue does not teach acquire selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes;
the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route,
and a used date and time of the experienced person.
An, in the same field of endeavor, teaches acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “After the user examines the searched driver preferred routes, he or she decides whether to apply the driver preferred route (S560). If you decide not to apply the driver's preferred route, guidance will continue to the destination along the recommended route (S540, S580).”, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “However, when a specific driver preferred route is selected by deciding whether to apply the driver preferred route (S570), the preferred route processing unit (180) starts route guidance by applying the selected driver preferred route to the recommended route (S580), thereby efficiently and effectively guiding the vehicle to the destination (S580).”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the user can select another user’s preferred route and use said route.);
the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “In addition, the route storage unit (130) stores the preferred route of other users received from the navigation server (40) through the communication unit (600). The driver preference route data of other users' driver preference routes received from the above navigation server (40) may include driver preference route identification information (ID).”. The cited passages clearly shows that the information regarding routes traveled by other users include a driver preference route identification information, which is clearly a method of including a person who has used said route in the travel specificity.),
and a used date and time of the experienced person (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 1, “Information indicating that it is the driver preferred route and information indicating the driver preferred route setting date can be arbitrarily assigned by the preferred route processing unit (180).”, Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “Additionally, the above driver preference reason is an item that requires user input. It is possible to have users directly input their driver preference reasons, but this is likely to be very cumbersome for users, so it is preferable to provide users with several examples for each item and have them input their driver preference reasons in the direction of selecting one. Some examples of driver preference reasons include day of the week (Mon-Fri, weekends, holidays, long weekends), time (commuting, returning from work, lunch, late at night), season (spring-winter), weather (snow, rain, yellow dust, clear), and others (fast route, fuel saving, avoiding surveillance cameras, view, toll, children's zone, accident-prone area), and the driver preference reasons can be saved by having the user select and save the desired example for each item (day of the week, time, etc.).”. As can be seen from the cited passages and from Table 1, the path driven by each driver is stored with a date and additional information that can include the time.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine information processing device taught in Inoue with method of storing data that associates a route with another driver and the date and time said driver used the route taught in An with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because by using the information of routes used by experienced drivers to recommend a route to users, a more efficient and effective recommended route can be determined (An: Description Page 2 Paragraph 3, “Another object of the present invention is to provide a navigation terminal and a navigation system capable of collecting experienced driver preferred route information of multiple drivers so that a recommended route can be efficiently and effectively improved from the driver's perspective.”).
Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Dennerline, in the same field of endeavor, teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (Dennerline: Figure 8, Column 21 lines 42-67, “FIG. 8 depicts an example display of a unit 10 after a pilot user selects selectable item for “Great pie trip!” from menu 70a below item departure airport KPWK. The selectable item from menu 70a expands to show in display 40a, in this example, three entries for “Great pie trip!” and the identity of pilot user who entered the route, as well as comments and/or replies to a route and identity of pilot users who have made comments and/or replies, and related dates.”. The cited passage and figure clearly shows that the recommended route includes the name of the user who traveled said route.).
Inoue in view of An teaches an information processing device for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used one of the achieved routes forming the recommendable route and a used date and time of the experienced person. Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route. Dennerline teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities required to have modified the device taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline. Furthermore, even though the method taught in Dennerline is for displaying the recommended route and information of the pilot who flew said route for a pilot of a plane, such a method of displaying the name of the person who traveled the recommended route could easily be applied to the device taught in Inoue in view of An, as both involve the determination of a recommended travel route for a vehicle based on the routes of other vehicle operators. Additionally, the device taught in Inoue in view of An is already configured to associate a driver ID with the route said driver has traveled, so modifying this ID to be the driver’s name as taught in Dennerline would not change or introduce new functionality. No inventive effort would have been required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of an information processing device for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the device taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because the combination would have yielded predictable results.
Regarding claim 12, Inoue teaches non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing a program for causing a computer to serve as an information processing device that creates a route, the program causing the computer to:
acquire, from an achieved record database, an achieved data group having recordation of achieved route information associating a first start point, a first finish point, and an achieved route being a past travel route between the first start point and the first finish point with one another (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0061, “As shown in FIG. 6A, first, in step S401, the history statistical processing unit 27 acquires the departure point PO and the destination point PD from the received presentation route search request. Subsequently, based on the map information stored in the map information storage unit 25, the history statistical processing unit 27 searches (acquires) a planned route from the acquired departure point PO to the destination point PD. The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can be seen from the cited passages, the system is configured to store information regarding previously traveled routes and then retrieves this information later when determining a new route.);
acquire a query including a second start point and a second finish point (Inoue: ¶ 0023, “The destination point input unit 22 receives from the user of the terminal device 2 the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery charge (for example, the remaining battery charge of the traveling battery 14 of the vehicle A owned by the user) and the driver It accepts an input of an ID (for example, a driver ID that identifies the user). Then, the destination point input unit 22 outputs the received information of the departure point PO, the destination point PD, the remaining battery amount, and the driver ID to the route calculation unit 23.”);
create one or more recommendable routes each having a start point and a finish point respectively agreeing with the second start point and the second finish point of the query by connecting a plurality of achieved routes recorded in the achieved data group (Inoue: ¶ 0091, “Referring back to FIG. 6A, in the subsequent step S404, the history statistical processing unit 27 refers to the combined route generated by combining the plurality of traveling routes stored in the traveling history storage unit 26, Search and determine similar synthetic routes which are identical or similar synthetic routes.”, ¶ 0092, “Here, FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing a composite route, in which three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A1 are shown by dotted lines, three traveling routes traveled by the vehicle A2 are shown by alternate long and short dashed lines, and the vehicle A3 travels Four running routes are indicated by fine dotted lines, and three synthetic routes 1, 2, and 3 are shown. As shown in FIG. 8, the history statistical processing unit 27 extracts the information of the synthetic route 1, 2, 3... Obtained by synthesizing a plurality of traveling routes on which the same vehicle has traveled, and sets in step S403 described above A synthetic route having a start point in the departure area RO and an end point in the destination area RD is extracted as a similar synthetic route. Note that such a synthetic route is extracted when the history statistical processing unit 27 searches for a similar synthetic route as shown in the subroutine of FIG. It may be stored in the same way as the travel route.”, ¶ 0095, “In the example shown in FIG. 9A, the case of combining two traveling routes has been illustrated, but the number of combined traveling routes is not limited to two when obtaining a combined route, and three or more may be used. It is also good. That is, for example, as in the example shown in FIG. 9 (B), the end of “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1” is a combined route consisting of “traveling route 1 of vehicle A1” and “traveling route 2 of vehicle A1”. Further combining "the travel route 3 of the vehicle A1 having the start point within the combined point range RS" with a circular range having a radius rS from the point, "the travel route 1 of the vehicle A1" and "the travel route of the vehicle A1 It is possible to generate a composite route consisting of “2” and “travel route 3 of vehicle A1”. In addition, in the synthetic | combination route obtained in this way, the start point of "the driving | running route 1 of vehicle A1" becomes a start point of a synthetic | combination route, and the finish point of "the driving | running route 3 of vehicle A1" is a synthetic | combination route End point of”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, data regarding previously traveled routes are used to connect these said routes together to form a new recommend travel route from the departure point PO to the destination point PD. Paragraphs 0061 and 0064 shows that the departure area RO and the destination area RD are set using the departure point PO and destination point PD respectively.);
output the one or more recommendable routes (Inoue: ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, once the presentation route is determined, it is subsequently displayed on the display unit.);
record, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person (Inoue: ¶0116, “In step S405, when it is determined that the presentation route (similar route or similar combined route) is determined, the process proceeds to step S406, and in step S406, the history statistical processing unit 27 stores the traveling history storage unit 26.”. The cited passage clearly shows that when the presentation route is determined, the system stores the route and its corresponding information.),
wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0038, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S103, and the traveling history recording unit 19 receives information on latitude and longitude and information on altitude output from the position detecting unit 5 and the altitude detecting unit 8, and information on a traveling route (hereinafter also referred to as traveling position information). Is recorded as movement information. That is, in the present embodiment, the movement information is information including information of latitude and longitude, information of altitude, and information of traveling route (traveling position information). As the traveling route, for example, since it is considered that the vehicle A travels along the guidance route presented by the navigation device 18, the information (guidance route) output by the navigation device 18 can be adopted.”, ¶ 0039, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S104, and the traveling history recording unit 19 records the information on the vehicle speed, the information on the accelerator opening degree, and the information on the air conditioner usage output from the detection units 4, 8, 9, 10 as vehicle state information. . When the traveling history recording unit 19 completes traveling along the guidance route guided by the navigation device 18, information on power consumption consumed when traveling the guidance route (hereinafter also referred to as power consumption information) Also included in the vehicle status information and recorded.”, ¶ 0040, “Subsequently, the process proceeds to step S105, and the travel history recording unit 19 uses the travel time basic information, travel information, and vehicle status information recorded in the travel history recording unit 19 as the first travel history information as a vehicle information provision device.”. As can be seen from the cited passage additional information is stored along with the traveling route, this information includes: travel time, vehicle speed, air conditioner use, power consumption, and altitude information.),
the computer outputs, with the one or more recommendable routes, display data for a display screen image to display, on a display, the plurality of achieved routes forming each recommendable route in association with the travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. As can be seen from the cited passage, the power consumption associated with the route is displayed along with the route itself.),
the achieved route includes a plurality of roads (Inoue: ¶ 0028, “The map information storage unit 25 stores in advance map information of the area where the vehicle A travels. As map information, for example, a node or link representing a road network, a position of a charging facility C for charging the traveling battery 14 provided to the vehicle A, a position of a facility attached to a toll road or a toll road Information etc. can be mentioned.”, ¶ 0061, “The planned route may be any route that can reach from the departure point PO to the destination point PD, and is not particularly limited. For example, a traveling route that can travel the departure point PO and the destination point PD in the shortest time, or the shortest A traveling route traveling at a distance, a traveling route using an expressway and a toll road, and a traveling route using a general road are set as necessary.”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the achieved route consists of a plurality of roads.), and
the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes (Inoue: Figure 2A, ¶ 0027, “FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of display content by the display unit 24 of the terminal device 2. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display unit 24 adds the departure point PO input by the user and the destination point PD according to the control command output from the route calculation unit 23, and provides a presentation route R between them, the presentation route In addition to drawing on the map the charging via point PC passed when traveling R, the screen also displays the power consumption (kW · h) consumed when traveling the presentation route R and the numerical information of the reachable distance (km) Display in the corner of As a result, the user of the terminal device 2 can confirm in advance the power consumption when traveling the vehicle A to the destination point PD, the cruising distance, and the charging via point PC.”, ¶ 0050, “If it is determined that the information on the presentation route has been received, the process proceeds to step S205, and in step S205, the route calculation unit 23 obtains the information acquired in step S203 described above (information on presentation route, information on power consumption, and charging via point Of the information on the presentation route and the information on the charging waypoint are output to the display unit 24. In the subsequent step S206, the route calculation unit 23 displays a control command for displaying the information of the power consumption among the information (the information of the presentation route, the information of the power consumption, and the information of the charge passing point) acquired in the above-mentioned step S203. After outputting to the unit 24, the route provision processing is ended. As a result, the display shown in FIG. 2A is performed on the display screen.”. The cited figure and passage clearly shows that the distance to be traveled and the amount of power consumed when traveling the route are displayed when displaying the route.).
Inoue does not teach acquire selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes;
the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route,
and a used date and time of the experienced person.
An, in the same field of endeavor, teaches acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “After the user examines the searched driver preferred routes, he or she decides whether to apply the driver preferred route (S560). If you decide not to apply the driver's preferred route, guidance will continue to the destination along the recommended route (S540, S580).”, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “However, when a specific driver preferred route is selected by deciding whether to apply the driver preferred route (S570), the preferred route processing unit (180) starts route guidance by applying the selected driver preferred route to the recommended route (S580), thereby efficiently and effectively guiding the vehicle to the destination (S580).”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the user can select another user’s preferred route and use said route.);
the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “In addition, the route storage unit (130) stores the preferred route of other users received from the navigation server (40) through the communication unit (600). The driver preference route data of other users' driver preference routes received from the above navigation server (40) may include driver preference route identification information (ID).”. The cited passages clearly shows that the information regarding routes traveled by other users include a driver preference route identification information, which is clearly a method of including a person who has used said route in the travel specificity.),
and a used date and time of the experienced person (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 1, “Information indicating that it is the driver preferred route and information indicating the driver preferred route setting date can be arbitrarily assigned by the preferred route processing unit (180).”, Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “Additionally, the above driver preference reason is an item that requires user input. It is possible to have users directly input their driver preference reasons, but this is likely to be very cumbersome for users, so it is preferable to provide users with several examples for each item and have them input their driver preference reasons in the direction of selecting one. Some examples of driver preference reasons include day of the week (Mon-Fri, weekends, holidays, long weekends), time (commuting, returning from work, lunch, late at night), season (spring-winter), weather (snow, rain, yellow dust, clear), and others (fast route, fuel saving, avoiding surveillance cameras, view, toll, children's zone, accident-prone area), and the driver preference reasons can be saved by having the user select and save the desired example for each item (day of the week, time, etc.).”. As can be seen from the cited passages and from Table 1, the path driven by each driver is stored with a date and additional information that can include the time.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine information processing device taught in Inoue with method of storing data that associates a route with another driver and the date and time said driver used the route taught in An with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because by using the information of routes used by experienced drivers to recommend a route to users, a more efficient and effective recommended route can be determined (An: Description Page 2 Paragraph 3, “Another object of the present invention is to provide a navigation terminal and a navigation system capable of collecting experienced driver preferred route information of multiple drivers so that a recommended route can be efficiently and effectively improved from the driver's perspective.”).
Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Dennerline, in the same field of endeavor, teaches teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (Dennerline: Figure 8, Column 21 lines 42-67, “FIG. 8 depicts an example display of a unit 10 after a pilot user selects selectable item for “Great pie trip!” from menu 70a below item departure airport KPWK. The selectable item from menu 70a expands to show in display 40a, in this example, three entries for “Great pie trip!” and the identity of pilot user who entered the route, as well as comments and/or replies to a route and identity of pilot users who have made comments and/or replies, and related dates.”. The cited passage and figure clearly shows that the recommended route includes the name of the user who traveled said route.).
Inoue in view of An teaches a non-transitory computer readable recording medium for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used one of the achieved routes forming the recommendable route and a used date and time of the experienced person. Inoue in view of An does not teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route. Dennerline teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities required to have modified the medium taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline. Furthermore, even though the method taught in Dennerline is for displaying the recommended route and information of the pilot who flew said route for a pilot of a plane, such a method of displaying the name of the person who traveled the recommended route could easily be applied to the medium taught in Inoue in view of An, as both involve the determination of a recommended travel route for a vehicle based on the routes of other vehicle operators. Additionally, the medium taught in Inoue in view of An is already configured to associate a driver ID with the route said driver has traveled, so modifying this ID to be the driver’s name as taught in Dennerline would not change or introduce new functionality. No inventive effort would have been required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of a non-transitory computer readable recording medium for creating a route wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity, the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the non-transitory computer readable recording medium taught in Inoue in view of An with the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route taught in Dennerline with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because the combination would have yielded predictable results.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2015148550 A1 ("Inoue") in view of KR 20100001470 A ("An") in further view of US 10885794 B2 ("Dennerline") in further view of US 10024675 B2 ("Schlesinger").
Regarding claim 4, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline teaches n-th used date and time of each experienced person, wherein the display screen image shows the experienced person or people who are in the determined top n-th use frequency and the used date and time of each experienced person in association with the plurality of achieved routes forming the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2, “Additionally, the above driver preference reason is an item that requires user input. It is possible to have users directly input their driver preference reasons, but this is likely to be very cumbersome for users, so it is preferable to provide users with several examples for each item and have them input their driver preference reasons in the direction of selecting one. Some examples of driver preference reasons include day of the week (Mon-Fri, weekends, holidays, long weekends), time (commuting, returning from work, lunch, late at night), season (spring-winter), weather (snow, rain, yellow dust, clear), and others (fast route, fuel saving, avoiding surveillance cameras, view, toll, children's zone, accident-prone area), and the driver preference reasons can be saved by having the user select and save the desired example for each item (day of the week, time, etc.).”, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, “At this time, when multiple driver preferred routes are searched, they are presented in a list format, and when the user selects one of them, the user can view an explanation, such as the reason for preference for the selected driver preferred route, and at the same time, the recommended route and the selected driver preferred route can be displayed in different colors so that the user can easily see how they are different”. As can be seen from the cited passages, information regarding the preferred paths of other drivers is displayed and this information can include the date and time.).
Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline does not teach further comprising determining, based on the achieved data group, the experienced person or people who are in a top n-th use frequency of the plurality of achieved routes forming one or more the recommendable routes,
where n is an integer equal to or greater than 1.
Schlesinger, in the same field of endeavor, teaches further comprising determining, based on the achieved data group, the experienced person or people who are in a top n-th use frequency of the plurality of achieved routes forming one or more the recommendable routes (Schlesinger: Column 22 lines 1-14, “Another example of a route preference corresponds to a preference of a user to traverse one or more familiar route components. Familiar route components correspond to route components that on aggregate a particular user traverses more frequently than unfamiliar route components. Routing engine 260 can in some implementations quantify a frequency of traversal of one or more route components by the user using a preference metric. In some cases, routing engine 260 determines the preference metric using by analyzing GPS data from a user device associated with the user.”),
where n is an integer equal to or greater than 1 (Schlesinger: See Column 22 lines 1-14. The system is configured to set the preference to be the route that a user as used the most often on average. One of ordinary skill in the art would see that by taking the most traversed route on average of a user, that this route would naturally fall under the top 1st use frequency. This therefore means that n is equal to 1 is such a case.).
The only difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that the prior art is that the prior art does not combine the information processing method and the method of determining the experienced people who are in the top n-th use frequency of the plurality of achieved routes into a single combine reference. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities to have combine the information processing device taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline with the method of determining the experienced people who are in the top n-th use frequency of the plurality of achieved routes into a single combine reference. Furthermore, the information processing device in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline already teaches displaying the preferences of the routes of other users (including the quality of the route, as well as date and time) and could therefore be easily modified to have the preferences include the people who are the most frequent users of the route. This modification would not change or introduce new functionality. No inventive effort would have been required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of the information processing method being able to determine the top users of the route.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the information processing method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline with the method of determining the experienced people who are in the top n-th use frequency of the plurality of achieved routes taught in Schlesinger with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because the combination would have yielded predictable results.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2015148550 A1 ("Inoue") in view of KR 20100001470 A ("An") in further view of US 10885794 B2 ("Dennerline") in further view of KR 20170034471 A ("Kim") in further view of US 9909885 B2 ("Boss").
Regarding claim 7, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline does not teach wherein, in the outputting of the one or more recommendable routes, in a case where the one or more recommendable routes include a plurality of recommendable routes, the plurality of recommendable routes are classified into a plurality of groups each including a same content,
a number of recommendable routes constituting each of the plurality of groups is determined,
and a recommendable route or routes of the plurality of groups until a top m-th group in the determined number, where m is an integer equal to or greater than 1, are output.
Kim, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein, in the outputting of the one or more recommendable routes, in a case where the one or more recommendable routes include a plurality of recommendable routes, the plurality of recommendable routes are classified into a plurality of groups each including a same content (Kim: ¶ 0027, “Based on the user's food taste result information, recommended restaurant information is generated and final path candidate group information is generated using dd-IBP (step S310). For example, after generating the recommended restaurant information, various routes are generated to generate the final route candidate group information. If the movement distance of the specific path information is greater than the threshold distance than the movement distance of other path information, the path information may be deleted from the final path candidate group information.”. The cited passage clearly shows that the system is configured to classify the potential routes into a final path candidate group based on a threshold distance.),
and a recommendable route or routes of the plurality of groups until a top m-th group in the determined number, where m is an integer equal to or greater than 1, are output (Kim: ¶ 0027, ¶ 0029, “As shown in FIG. 4, the user transmits the selected route information 400 from the final route candidate group information to the integrated restaurant server using the user equipment.”. One of ordinary skill in the art would see that, because there is only one final path candidate group, that m is an integer equal to 1. Furthermore, since the user selects what route to use from the final route candidate group, one of ordinary skill in the art would see that this information would have to be outputted to the user.).
The only difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that the prior art does not combine the information processing method and the method of classifying the recommended routes into a plurality of groups including the same content into a single reference. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities to have combine the method of classifying the recommended routes into a plurality of groups including the same content taught in Kim with the information processing device taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline. Furthermore, modifying the information processing device of Inoue such that it classifies the routes into groups would not change the functionality of the information processing method. The method would still function the exact same when determining the routes. The functionality of the method of classifying the routes into groups would not change, as the method is already used to group travel routes together. No inventive effort would have been required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of the information processing method being able to classify the routes into groups.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the information processing method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline with the method of classifying the recommended routes into a plurality of groups including the same content taught in Kim with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because it would have yielded predictable results.
Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline in further view of Kim does not teach a number of recommendable routes constituting each of the plurality of groups is determined.
Boss, in the same field of endeavor, teaches a number of recommendable routes constituting each of the plurality of groups is determined (Boss: Abstract, “An approach for determining a route is provided. A rule is retrieved, which indicates a number of recommended routes passing through a constrained area is not permitted to exceed a threshold. After a receipt of N requests from N respective users for N routes, N recommended routes passing through the constrained area are determined and presented to the N users.”, Column 10 lines 23-29, “In step 606, the steps 204-214 (see FIG. 2) or steps 304-314 (see FIG. 3) are performed and may be repeated until N routes determined by step 212 (see FIG. 2) or step 312 (see FIG. 3) are recommended and presented in step 214 (see FIG. 2) or step 314 (see FIG. 3), where N≧1, and where each of the N recommended routes pass through the constrained area indicated in step 604.”, Column 10 lines 31-33, “In step 608, steps 204-212 (see FIG. 2) or steps 304-312 (see FIG. 3) are performed to determine an (N+1)-th route that passes through the constrained area whose indication is received in step 604.”. As can clearly be seen from the cited passages, the total number or routes are determined.).
The only difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that the prior art does not combine the information processing method and the method of determining the number of routes in each group into a single reference. One of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities to have combine the method of determining the number of routes in each group taught in Boss with the information processing method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline in further view of Kim. Furthermore, even though Boss only teaches determining the number of routes in general and not for each group, the method could easily be modified to determine the number of routes in each group. This modification would not change or introduce new functionality. No inventive effort would be required. The combination would have yielded the predictable result of the information processing method being able to determine the number of routes in each group.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the information processing method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline in further view of Kim with the method of determining the number of routes in each group taught in Boss with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because it would have yielded predictable results.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2015148550 A1 ("Inoue") in view of KR 20100001470 A ("An") in further view of US 10885794 B2 ("Dennerline") in further view of JP 2019082755 A ("Yamaguchi")
Regarding claim 13, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline does not teach wherein each of the plurality of achieved routes indicates a travel route of a delivery vehicle from a collection and delivery station to a delivery destination or a travel route of the delivery vehicle between delivery destinations.
Yamaguchi, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein each of the plurality of achieved routes indicates a travel route of a delivery vehicle from a collection and delivery station to a delivery destination or a travel route of the delivery vehicle between delivery destinations (Yamaguchi: Figure 2, Abstract, “To effectively support formulation of an optimum delivery plan of packages in accordance with a condition of a road to a delivery destination, and considerably reduce the burden of a driver who delivers each package, in the delivery of the plurality of packages. SOLUTION: In a road learning model generation device 5, a travel history DB 16 stores the travel history of a road at the time of delivery of packages in a delivery vehicle. A road NW/delivery road feature amount storage unit 15 stores a road NW and a road feature amount. A communication unit 17 acquires information about a delivery range of the packages. A travel history learning unit 12 generates a road learning model for calculating a road cost indicating delivery efficiency during traveling on one or more roads contained in the delivery range of the packages for the one or more roads, on the basis of the travel history of the road at the time of delivery of the packages in the delivery vehicle and the road feature amount, corresponding to the delivery range of the packages. A delivery road learning model storage unit 14 saves the generated road learning model, by associating with the information about the delivery range of the packages.”, ¶ 0022, “The traveling history reading unit 11 reads data of traveling history registered in the traveling history DB 16. The travel history data is, for example, one or more roads traveled by a delivery vehicle (for example, a truck) carried by a skilled driver (that is, an experienced driver with considerable experience) when delivering a package to a desired delivery destination It is a history of Specifically, the travel history data is a road ID (an example of road identification information) for identifying one or more roads traveled by the delivery vehicle on which the skilled driver got in delivering the package to the intended delivery destination. It is a set. Details of the road ID will be described later.”, ¶ 0042, “The travel history DB 16 (an example of a travel history storage unit) stores the travel history of the delivery route traveled by the skilled driver. The delivery route of the skilled driver is stored in the memory card by, for example, a vehicle-mounted device (GPS receiver, car navigation system, digital tachograph, etc.). After traveling, a skilled driver may read the data of the delivery route stored in the memory card into the road learning model generation device 5 and store it in the traveling history DB 16. In addition, the road learning model generation device 5 communicates with a GPS receiver mounted on a delivery vehicle (truck, etc.) on which a skilled driver rides, sequentially acquires the current position of the delivery vehicle, and delivers it while traveling (real time) The route may be stored in the travel history DB 16.”, ¶ 0044, “FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing an example of the traveling history of the delivery route from the base S to the delivery destination D1 stored in the traveling history DB 16. As shown in FIG. When the delivery vehicle goes from the base S to the delivery destination D1, if the delivery route with the shortest distance is prioritized, three straight roads with road IDs “1000”, “1500”, and “3000” are selected. However, in this shortest distance delivery route, for example, when the road with a road ID “1500” is likely to cause congestion due to the time zone, it is not an optimal delivery route for the driver to deliver packages more smoothly. . General drivers who are not skilled drivers tend to select and drive the three distance-first roads (see above).”, ¶ 0045, “However, when going from the base S to the delivery destination D1, the skilled driver is familiar with the characteristics of the road from the base S to the delivery destination D1 (in other words, the feature quantities). , "2000", "2100", and "3000" are used to select a delivery route diverted using five roads. Although this diverted delivery route is longer than the shortest distance, for example, delivery of packages will be smoother for skilled drivers who are familiar with the congestion of the road with road ID “1500” due to traffic congestion. It is the most suitable delivery route on which to do. Therefore, in the travel history DB 16, a set of road IDs of all roads included in the diverted delivery route selected by the skilled driver as data of travel history between the base S and the delivery destination D1 (specifically, a CSV format The data “1000, 1100, 2000, 2100, 3000” of the above are stored.”, ¶ 0046, “In addition, even if it is the same road, as above-mentioned, when direction of the road which the delivery vehicle traveled differs by the forward direction and the reverse direction, road ID differs as mentioned above. For example, in the case of the detoured delivery route described above, when going from the delivery destination D1 to the base S, the road ID constituting the delivery route is “3001, 2101, 2001, 1101, 1001” and is the same diverted delivery route. However, it is different from the road ID (specifically, “1000, 1100, 2000, 2100, 3000”) which constitutes the delivery route from the base S to the delivery destination D1.”. The cited passages clearly shows that the plurality of previously achieved routes describe the travel route from of a delivery vehicle from a collection and delivery station to a delivery destination or a travel route of the delivery vehicle between delivery destinations.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have combine the method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline with wherein each of the plurality of achieved routes indicates a travel route of a delivery vehicle from a collection and delivery station to a delivery destination or a travel route of the delivery vehicle between delivery destinations taught in Yamaguchi with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification because the combination would have required the simple substitution of one known type of starting point and destination for another. The method taught in Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline teaches a method of determining one or more recommendable routes, wherein the one or more recommendable routes are created by connecting a plurality of previously achieved routes from a start point to an end point. The recommendable route is then displayed on a display to a user, along with travel specificity information regarding the recommendable route. While the start point and end point are not specifically specified in Inoue, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to substitute the start and end points for a collection and delivery station and delivery destination respectively. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the knowledge of collection and delivery station and delivery destination and would have had the technological capabilities required to implement the collection and delivery station and delivery destination as the start and end points. Furthermore, such a substitution would not have changed or introduced new functionality. The method of generating a recommendable route taught in Inoue would function the same regardless of what the start and end points actually are (e.g. the method would function the same if the start and end points were the collection and delivery station and delivery destination versus a house and a restaurant). No inventive effort would have been required.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Pages 10-14, filed January 23rd, 2026, with respect to the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 12 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The independent claims have been amended to recite the limitations “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. The amended limitations recite acquire what route has been selected by a user, which were determined using the abstract idea, wherein the system is further configured record the route based on the selection by the user and display information associated with said selected route. Such a series of limitations clearly shows that the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application. Therefore, 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 12 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed January 23rd, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding Applicant’s arguments on Pages 14-18, Applicant argues that the prior art on record fails to teach the limitations of the amended independent claims 1, 11, and 12. Specifically on Page 16, Applicant argues that the primary reference Inoue fails to teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As stated in above in the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection section, the primary reference Inoue teaches an information processing method for creating a route, by a computer, the information processing method comprising: acquiring, from an achieved record database, an achieved data group having recordation of achieved route information associating a first start point, a first finish point, and an achieved route being a past travel route between the first start point and the first finish point with one another (Inoue: ¶ 0038, ¶ 0061); acquiring a query including a second start point and a second finish point (Inoue: ¶ 0023); creating one or more recommendable routes each having a start point and a finish point respectively agreeing with the second start point and the second finish point of the query by connecting a plurality of achieved routes recorded in the achieved data group (Inoue: ¶ 0091, ¶ 0092, ¶ 0095); and outputting the one or more recommendable routes (Inoue: ¶ 0027), recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person (Inoue: ¶0116), wherein the achieved route information further associates a travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0038, ¶ 0039, ¶ 0040), in the outputting of the one or more recommendable routes, display data for a display screen image is output to display, on a display, the plurality of achieved routes forming each recommendable route in association with the travel specificity (Inoue: ¶ 0050), the achieved route includes a plurality of roads (Inoue: ¶ 0028, ¶ 0061), and the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes (Inoue: Figure 2A, ¶ 0027, ¶ 0050). The secondary reference An teaches acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1); the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2), and a used date and time of the experienced person (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 1, Description Page 4 Paragraph 2). The secondary reference Dennerline teaches the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route (Dennerline: Figure 8, Column 21 lines 42-67). As is clear from paragraphs 0027 and 0050 of Inoue and Figure 2A, Inoue is configured to display the amount of distance to be traveled along the selected route as well as the power consumption along the selected route. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the distance to be traveled along a route and the amount of power consumed along said route are a type of travel specificity of the route. Additionally, as is clear from paragraph 0116 of Inoue, Inoue is configured to save the presentation route (i.e. the recommendable route which is formed from a plurality of previously achieved routes) is saved to the traveling history storage unit. Furthermore, as is clear from Page 8 Paragraph 1 of the Description section of An, An teaches that the system is configured to determine what preferred route of a plurality of preferred routes a driver has selected. Therefore, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline clearly teaches teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”.
Specifically on Pages 16-17 of Applicant’s arguments, Applicant argues that the secondary reference An fails to teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As discussed above with respect to applicant arguments regarding the primary reference, Inoue teaches a method of determining one or more recommendable routes, wherein the one or more recommendable routes are created by connecting a plurality of previously achieved routes. The recommendable route is then displayed on a display to a user, along with travel specificity information regarding the recommendable route. As can be seen from the above discussion and the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection section, An was not relied upon to teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person” and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. An was relied upon to teach acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes (An: Description Page 8 Paragraph 1, Description Page 8 Paragraph 1); the travel specificity includes an experienced person who has used the plurality of achieved routes forming the recommendable route (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 2), and a used date and time of the experienced person (An: Description Page 4 Paragraph 1, Description Page 4 Paragraph 2). As is clear from Page 8 Paragraph 1 of the Description section of An, An teaches that the system is configured to determine what preferred route of a plurality of preferred routes a driver has selected. Therefore, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline clearly teaches teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”.
Specifically on Page 17 of Applicant’s arguments, Applicant argues that Dennerline does not teach the limitations the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As discussed above with respect to applicant arguments regarding the primary reference, Inoue teaches a method of determining one or more recommendable routes, wherein the one or more recommendable routes are created by connecting a plurality of previously achieved routes. The recommendable route is then displayed on a display to a user, along with travel specificity information regarding the recommendable route. An teaches a method of providing road guidance to a driver, wherein the system is configured to determine a plurality of preferred routes for the user based on previously traveled routes of the user and previously traveled routes of other drivers. The preferred routes include travel specificity information which includes the data and time the user or other drivers traveled along said. The system is further configured to determine which of the preferred routes was selected by the user. As can be seen from the above discussion and the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection section, Dennerline was not relied upon to teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”. Dennerline was relied upon to teach the travel specificity includes a name of an experienced person who has used the plurality achieved routes forming the recommendable route (Dennerline: Figure 8, Column 21 lines 42-67). Therefore, Inoue in view of An in further view of Dennerline clearly teaches teach the limitations “recording, in the achieved record database, the certain recommendable route as a new one of the plurality of achieved routes in the achieved data group, and the new one of the plurality of achieved routes and achieved routes forming the certain recommendable route in association with the using person”, “acquiring selection information indicating a certain recommendable route selected by a using person from among the one or more recommendable routes”, and “the travel specificity is displayed on the display in association with each of the plurality of achieved routes”.
Specifically on Page 17 of Applicant’s arguments, Applicant argues that Dennerline is nonanalogous art. In response to applicant's argument that Dennerline is nonanalogous art, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case, Dennerline teaches a method of displaying the name of a user who has traveled along a specific route that is being displayed to a user. Even though Dennerline teaches displaying the name of a pilot who has flown a route previously, such a method of displaying a the name of a person who has traveled a specific route is reasonably pertinent to the problem being solved. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been easily able to apply such a method of displaying the name of a person who traveled a route to a route traveled by a vehicle along a series of roads. The route traveled along consisting of a series of roads and traveled along by a vehicle rather than a route flown by a plane would not change the method of displaying the route traveled along with the name of the person who traveled said route. As such, Dennerline is clearly analogous prior art.
Therefore, for the reasons stated herein and above in the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection section, the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of impendent claims 1, 11, and 12 are maintained.
Conclusion
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/N.W.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3658
/Ramon A. Mercado/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3658