DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The claims filed on 2/17/2026 are entered and acknowledge. Claims 2-7, 10-11, 14, 16, 21, 26-45 and 47-49 have been cancelled. Claims 1, 8-9, 12-13, 15, 17-20, 22-25, 46 and 50-53 are currently pending in the instant application.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 6/2/2023 have been considered.
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group 1 in the reply filed on 2/17/2026 is acknowledge.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 10/30/2023 and 3/24/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 9, 18-20, 22-25 and 51-52 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, provided that all other rejections under 35 USC 101/112 (if any) are obviated upon upcoming amendments/arguments without raising new issue that necessitate further consideration/searches.
Claim Objections
Claim 13 recite in part "… a plurality of multiplexers arranged at at least a subset…” and appears to be a typographical error.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 17 recites the limitation “the secondary wheel topology”. However, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims.
Appropriate action is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 8, 12, 15 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bauer et al Pub. No.: (US 2020/0125858 A1) (hereinafter “Bauer”) in view of Ditty et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0176577 A1) (hereinafter "Ditty”).
With respect to claim 1: Bauer discloses a cyber-physical system for a vehicle capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous moving, wherein the cyber-physical system comprises a network with a plurality of units distributed therein, wherein the plurality of units includes sensors, actuators and embedded systems, wherein the plurality of units are distributed in the network in a network topology (an automotive electrical and electronic system comprises: a plurality of computing platforms coupled together in a multi-ring, self-healing network, wherein at least one computing platform provides autonomous driving functionality for a vehicle, a vehicle that includes the smart E/EA is divided into zones (e.g., placed at each corner of the vehicle chassis), where each zone includes one or more PDCs and one or more sensors (e.g., radar, LIDAR, stereo/mono cameras, sonars) that are coupled to and powered by their zone PDC(s), one or more actuators in each zone are coupled to their respective zone PDC, and receive their control data from the PDC over a highspeed data bus or data link, the PDC(s) for each zone feed or transmit their collected sensor data (e.g., data packets) into a ring network. In some embodiments, the ring network is a multi-ring (e.g., dual ring), self-healing data network. The ring network includes the PDCs and one or more computing platforms for performing various vehicle functions (e.g., computing platform for providing autonomous driving functionality) [0006-0007], [0083-0084], [0101]);
However, Bauer does not explicitly disclose a fault tolerant network topology;
Ditty discloses a fault tolerant network topology (the advance SoC is connected to various sensors and sub-systems (e.g. fault tolerance braking and steering system [0266], [0281]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer in view of Ditty in order to distribute in a fault tolerant network topology;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would identify faults and provide corrections with error correction techniques [Ditty: 0281].
With respect to claim 8: Bauer-Ditty discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 1 as set forth above.
Bauer discloses at least three embedded computational systems communicatively coupled with respect to each other (a vehicle that includes the smart E/EA is divided into zones (e.g., placed at each corner of the vehicle chassis), where each zone includes one or more PDCs and one or more sensors (e.g., radar, LIDAR, stereo/mono cameras, sonars) that are coupled to and powered by their zone PDC(s), one or more actuators in each zone are coupled to their respective zone PDC, and receive their control data from the PDC over a highspeed data bus or data link, the PDC(s) for each zone feed or transmit their collected sensor data (e.g., data packets) into a ring network [0006-0007], [0083-0084], [0101]);
However, Bauer does not explicitly disclose wherein the network includes a central vertex arranged at the center of the wheel, wherein the central vertex is a central computing unit comprising at least three embedded computational systems communicatively coupled with respect to each other;
Ditty discloses wherein the network includes a central vertex arranged at the center of the wheel, wherein the central vertex is a central computing unit comprising at least three embedded computational systems communicatively coupled with respect to each other (sensors placed to measure tire vibration, speed, tire pressure, etc. on center of each wheel [0123-0124], [Fig. 4]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer in view of Ditty in order to have a central vertex arranged at the center of the wheel, wherein the central vertex is a central computing unit comprising at least three embedded computational systems communicatively coupled with respect to each other;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would provide real time data for vehicle safety [Ditty: 0120-0121].
With respect to claim 12: Bauer-Ditty discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 8 as set forth above.
However, Bauer does not explicitly disclose wherein the central vertex comprises a central validator, wherein each of the embedded systems of the central computing unit is configured to transmit its processing results to the validator, wherein the validator is configured to check whether the at least three embedded system of the central computing unit generate the same processing results;
Ditty discloses a central validator, wherein each of the embedded systems of the central computing unit is configured to transmit its processing results to the validator, wherein the validator is configured to check whether the at least three embedded system of the central computing unit generate the same processing results (to guard against false positive, evaluating the signals from various sensors [0671], cross validation [0557]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer in view of Ditty in order to the validator is configured to check whether the at least three embedded system of the central computing unit generate the same processing results;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would prevent false positive results [Ditty: 0671].
With respect to claim 15: Bauer-Ditty discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 8 as set forth above.
Bauer discloses wherein the vehicle is a moving wheeled vehicle, and wherein the redundant subsets are allocated to at least one of each wheel of the vehicle or each physical or virtual axle of the vehicle (a vehicle that includes the smart E/EA is divided into zones (e.g., placed at each corner of the vehicle chassis), where each zone includes one or more PDCs and one or more sensors (e.g., radar, LIDAR, stereo/mono cameras, sonars) that are coupled to and powered by their zone PDC(s), one or more actuators in each zone are coupled to their respective zone PDC, and receive their control data from the PDC over a highspeed data bus or data link, the PDC(s) for each zone feed or transmit their collected sensor data (e.g., data packets) into a ring network [0006-0007], [0083-0084], [0101]);
Additionally, Ditty also discloses wherein the vehicle is a moving wheeled vehicle, and wherein the redundant subsets are allocated to at least one of each wheel of the vehicle or each physical or virtual axle of the vehicle (sensors placed to measure tire vibration, speed, tire pressure, etc. on center of each wheel [0123-0124], [Fig. 4]).
With respect to claim 17: Bauer-Ditty discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 15 as set forth above.
Bauer discloses wherein the secondary wheel topology arrangement is arranged at physical or virtual axles of the vehicle (a vehicle that includes the smart E/EA is divided into zones (e.g., placed at each corner of the vehicle chassis), where each zone includes one or more PDCs and one or more sensors (e.g., radar, LIDAR, stereo/mono cameras, sonars) that are coupled to and powered by their zone PDC(s), one or more actuators in each zone are coupled to their respective zone PDC, and receive their control data from the PDC over a highspeed data bus or data link, the PDC(s) for each zone feed or transmit their collected sensor data (e.g., data packets) into a ring network [0006-0007], [0083-0084], [0101]).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bauer et al Pub. No.: (US 2020/0125858 A1) (hereinafter “Bauer”) in view of Ditty et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0176577 A1) (hereinafter "Ditty”) as applied to claim 1, 8, 12, 15 and 17 above, further in view of Wang et al Pub. No.: (US 2021/0096566 A1) (hereinafter "Wang”).
With respect to claim 13: Bauer-Ditty discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 8 as set forth above.
However, Bauer-Ditty does not explicitly disclose wherein the network includes a plurality of multiplexers arranged at least a subset of the embedded computational systems arranged in redundancy arrangement, wherein validators of the subset of the embedded computational systems are arranged at or integrated with the multiplexers;
Wang discloses wherein the network includes a plurality of multiplexers arranged at least a subset of the embedded computational systems arranged in redundancy arrangement, wherein validators of the subset of the embedded computational systems are arranged at or integrated with the multiplexers (sensor data is transmitted to a validation, wherein the validation comprises a multiplexer [0027]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer-Ditty in view of Wang in order to have validators of the subset of the embedded computational systems arranged at or integrated with the multiplexers;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would prevent collision with accident avoidance [Wang: 0027].
Claim 46 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bauer et al Pub. No.: (US 2020/0125858 A1) (hereinafter “Bauer”) in view of Ditty et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0176577 A1) (hereinafter "Ditty”), further in view of Van Der Geer et al Pub. No.: (US 2018/0278474 A1) (hereinafter "Geer”).
With respect to claim 46: Bauer discloses a method of arranging a network of a cyber-physical system for a vehicle capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous moving, the method comprising:
receiving an initial network design with a plurality of interconnected distributed units, wherein the plurality of units includes sensors, actuators, and embedded systems (vehicle that includes the smart E/EA is divided into zones (e.g., placed at each corner of the vehicle chassis), where each zone includes one or more PDCs and one or more sensors (e.g., radar, LIDAR, stereo/mono cameras, sonars) that are coupled to and powered by their zone PDC(s) ( ... ) one or more actuators in each zone are coupled to their respective zone PDC, and receive their control data from the PDC over a high-speed data bus or data link [0083]);
interconnecting the redundancy arrangements in a network topology (A plurality of PDCs coupled to a multi-ring self-healing network, the PDCs each including a data interface, a power interface, and a sensor interface, wherein the sensor interface receives sensor data from one or more sensors, an interface for feeding sensor data to a multi-ring self-healing network", "The disclosed PDC includes a combined data concentrator and power distributor that delivers scalable and affordable network/power redundancy into an automotive E/EA that supports partially or fully autonomous vehicles", PDCs are thus redundancy arrangements [0006-0007]);
However, Bauer does not explicitly disclose performing a fault analysis to identify lower reliability items in the initial network design with a reliability lower than a threshold value;
arranging the lower reliability items in redundancy arrangements;
a fault tolerant network topology;
Ditty discloses performing a fault analysis and a fault tolerant network topology (the advance SoC is connected to various sensors and sub-systems (e.g. fault tolerance braking and steering system) [0266], [0281], analyzing faults [0461]);
arranging items in redundancy arrangements (arrangements for providing redundancy and scalability [0300]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer in view of Ditty in order to distribute in a fault tolerant network topology;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would identify faults and provide corrections with error correction techniques [Ditty: 0281];
However, Bauer-Ditty des not explicitly disclose identify lower reliability items in the initial network design with a reliability lower than a threshold value;
Geer discloses identify lower reliability items in the initial network design with a reliability lower than a threshold value (determining the reliability based on a threshold [0048], [0041-0042]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer-Ditty in view of Geer in order to identify lower reliability items in the initial network design with a reliability lower than a threshold value;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would increase quality by identifying unreliable items due to high degree of variability [Geer: 0281].
Claim 50 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bauer et al Pub. No.: (US 2020/0125858 A1) (hereinafter “Bauer”) in view of Ditty et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0176577 A1) (hereinafter "Ditty”) and Wang et al Pub. No.: (US 2021/0096566 A1) (hereinafter "Wang”) as applied to claim 13 above, further in view of Behzadi et al. Pat. No.: (US 2021/0096228 A1) (hereinafter "Behzadi”).
With respect to claim 50: Bauer-Ditty-Wang discloses the cyber-physical system according to claim 13 as set forth above.
However, Bauer-Ditty-Wang does not explicitly disclose wherein the plurality of multiplexers comprises one or more wavelength division multiplexers (WDMs);
Behzadi discloses wherein the plurality of multiplexers comprises one or more wavelength division multiplexers (WDMs) (one or more optical components such as wave division multiplexers [0023-0024]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer-Ditty-Wang in view of Behzadi in order to have one ore more wavelength division multiplexers;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would assist with spatial awareness for automated driver assist systems, or self-driving vehicles [Behzadi: 0023].
Claim 53 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bauer et al Pub. No.: (US 2020/0125858 A1) (hereinafter “Bauer”) in view of Ditty et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0176577 A1) (hereinafter "Ditty”) and Van Der Geer et al Pub. No.: (US 2018/0278474 A1) (hereinafter "Geer”) as applied to claim 46 above, further in view of Erignac et al Pub. No.: (US 2021/0134167 A1) (hereinafter "Erignac”).
With respect to claim 53: Bauer-Ditty-Geer discloses the method of arranging a network of a cyber-physical system for a vehicle capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous moving according to claim 46 as set forth above.
Erignac discloses wherein the embedded systems are vertices of the initial network design (the taxiway network is a graph of centerlines and vertices [0157], [0069], [0075-0076]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Bauer-Ditty-Geer in view of Erignac in order to have the embedded systems are vertices of the initial network design;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would increase computational efficiency[Erignac: 0048].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Hexsel et al Pat. No.: (US 11,287,529 B1). The subject matter disclosed therein is pertinent to that of claims 1, 8-9, 12-13, 15, 17-20, 22-25, 46 and 50-53 (e.g., Techniques for doppler point set registration).
Kim et al. Pub. No.: (US 2022/0171035 A1). The subject matter disclosed therein is pertinent to that of claims 1, 8-9, 12-13, 15, 17-20, 22-25, 46 and 50-53 (e.g., Optical interferometric lidar system to control main measurement range using active selection of reference optical path length).
Lachapelle et al. Pub. No.: (US 2022/0043127 A1). The subject matter disclosed therein is pertinent to that of claims 1, 8-9, 12-13, 15, 17-20, 22-25, 46 and 50-53 (e.g., Lidar system with input optical element).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THAO DUC DUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-2350. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Gillis can be reached on (571)272-7952. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/T. D./
Examiner, Art Unit 2446
/BRIAN J. GILLIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446