DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
Applicant presents a request for continued examination dated 15 December 2025 responsive to the 9 July 2025 final office action (the “Final Office Action”) as well as the 1 October 2025 advisory action.
With the request, Applicant amends claims 1, 9 and 17.
Claim 1, 3-9, 11-17 and 19-20 remain pending. Claims 1, 9 and 17 are the independent claims.
Any unpersuasive arguments are addressed in the “Response to Arguments” section 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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 15 December 2025 has been entered.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
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 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection below, necessitated by Applicant’s amendments.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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, 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.
Claims 1, 8-9 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zheng (US 2025/0060737) (art of record – hereinafter Zheng) in view of Doshi et al. (US 9,292,423) (art made of record – hereinafter Doshi) in view of Evans et al. (US 10,146,893) (art made of record – hereinafter Evans).
As to claim 1, Zheng discloses an apparatus comprising:
a processor configured to: (e.g., Zheng, par. [0124]: when computer programs are executed the processor, the steps of the test method of the above embodiments are implemented) to
dynamically configure a subset of electronic control units (ECUs) from among a plurality of ECUs interconnected by a bus, (e.g., Zheng, par. [0103]: there are a plurality of target ECUs to which the application is applied [dynamically configuring the ECUs]; par. [0027]: each simulated ECU performs communication via a selected CAN bus or a simulated DoIP network; par. [0073]: running the application on the target simulated ECU includes: [0074]: parsing a file generated by the ECU based on the application and [0075] broadcasting a message; par. [0076]: parsing makes it possible to test, the message sent on the CAN bus).
execute the test using the subset of ECUs (e.g., Zheng, par. [0082]: the application to be tested involves to data interaction between multiple target ECUs, it can be tested through this multi-ECU simulation environment).
Zheng does not explicitly disclose to receive a request to perform a software test, wherein the subset is selected via user input using a user interface or wherein, during execution of the software test, messages are exchanged only within the subset of ECUs and not with other ECUs of the plurality
However, in an analogous art, Doshi discloses:
to receive a request to perform a software test; (e.g., Doshi, col. 7 ll. 20-21: developer may submit a test request 112 to the testing service) and
wherein the subset is selected via a user input using a user interface (e.g., Doshi, col. 6 ll. 46-51: developer 102 might be selected to select one or more computing device 118 that are to be utilized for testing the operation of one or more applications 152. For example, a list of available devices 118 may be presented to the developer 102 via the user interface 104; col. 13 ll. 25-33: once the application 152 has been installed on the computing devices, the application 152 may be tested. The testing is configured to test various aspects of an application 152 on the target computing devices).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the testing on target devices taught by Zhen such that a request to perform the test is received and the subset if selected via a user input using a user interface, as taught by Doshi, as Doshi would provide the advantages of a means of instructing the system to perform the test (see Doshi, col. 5 ll. 63-65) and a means for a developer to perform the test on the devices he or she desires. (See Doshi, col. 6 ll. 46-59).
Further, in an analogous art, Evans discloses:
wherein, during execution of the software test, messages are exchanged only within the subset of ECUs and not with other ECUs of the plurality (e.g., Evans, col. 8 ll. 49-55: the related network traffic may include emulations of electronic control units associated with a specific field, functionality, area and/or interconnected set of components without including emulations of other electronic control units that are not directly associated with that particular field or functionality; col. 7 ll. 25-30: network traffic back and forth between the emulated electronic control unit and the actual electronic control unit ).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the testing using a pre-built simulation environment of with a configured subset of ECUs, such that during execution of the software test, messages are exchanged only within the subset of ECUs and not with other ECUs of the plurality, as taught by Evans, as Evans would provide the advantage of a means of emulating only traffic related to ECUs of a particular vehicle system. (See Evans, col. 8 ll. 49-63).
As to claim 8, Zheng/Doshi/Evans discloses the apparatus of claim 1 (See rejection of claim 1 above), but Zheng does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to: select the subset of ECUs based on topics assigned to the subset of ECUs.
However, in an analogous, Evans discloses
wherein the processor is configured to: select the subset of ECUs based on topics assigned to the subset of ECUs (e.g., Evans, col. 8 ll. 49-55: the related network traffic may include emulations of electronic control units associated with [assigned] a specific field [topic], functionality [topic], area and/or interconnected set of components without including emulations of other electronic control units that are not directly associated with that particular field or functionality).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the testing of Zheng/Doshi to include selecting the subset of ECUs based on topics assigned to the subset of ECUs as taught by Evans, as Evans would provide the advantage of a means of emulating only traffic related to ECUs of a particular vehicle system. (See Evans, col. 8 ll. 49-63).
As to claim 9, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 1. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 16, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 8. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 17, it is a medium claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 1. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons. Further limitations, disclosed by Zheng, include:
a nontransitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when read by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method (e.g., Zheng, pars. [0124], [0132]) comprising (see rejection of claim 1 above)
Claims 3, 11 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zheng (US 2025/0060737) in view of Doshi (US 9,292,423) in view of Evans (US 10,146,893) in further view of BS et al. (US 2018/0018680) (art of record – hereinafter BS).
As to claim 3, Zheng/Doshi/Evans discloses the apparatus of claim 2 (see rejection of claim 2 above), and further discloses a subset of ECUs and the plurality of ECUs (see rejection of claim 1 above) but does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is further configured to dynamically configure a different subset of ECUs from among the plurality of ECUs based on an additional input received via the user interface.
However, in an analogous art, BS discloses:
wherein the processor is further configured to dynamically configure a different subset from among the plurality for executing the software test based on an additional input received via the user interface (e.g., BS, par. [0022]: to display a user interface; par. [0021]: user-defined information received via the user interface. The device identifier 126 and the testing tool identifier 128 may respectively select a set of devices on which the product 140 us to be tested and select a set of testing tools to be implemented on the selected set of devices [implementing a tool a device being configuring it] based on the user-defined information; par. [0020]: various sets of devices may be selected).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the selection and configuration of ECUs to test taught by Zheng/Doshi/Evans to include selecting various sets for reconfiguration based on a received selection from a displayed user interface, as taught by BS, as BS would provide the advantage of a means for a user to test multiple subsets of devices as desired. (See BS, par. [0020-0021]).
As to claim 11, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 3. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 19, it is a medium claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 3. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 4-7, 12-15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zheng (US 2025/0060737) in view of Doshi (US 9,292,423) in view of Evans (US 10,146,893) in further view of Mesde et al. (US 2024/0330170) (art of record – hereinafter Mesde).
As to claim 4, Zheng/Doshi/Evans discloses the apparatus of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above), but does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to establish a virtual private network (VPN), and assign network addresses of the VPN to two sets of ECUs on two different systems, via the bus.
However, in an analogous art, Mesde discloses:
wherein the processor is configured to establish a virtual private network (VPN), and assign network addresses of the VPN to two sets of ECUs, via the bus (e.g., Mesde, Fig. 1 and associated text, par. [0022]: configuring the vECUs in a virtual private cloud that implements a virtual bus connectivity configuration. The system may provide instructions for implementing the virtual bus connectivity configuration by providing restive private network addresses to the vECUs [and see figure, virtual ECUs #1 and 2 being one set, vECUs #3 and 4 being another, for example]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the network of ECUs of two different systems tested by Zheng/Doshi/Evans to include establishing a virtual private network (VPN) and assigning network addresses of the VPN to two sets of ECUs, respectively, via the bus, as taught by Mesde, as Mesde would provide the advantage of a means or providing a secure and isolated environment for executing the test. (See Mesde, par. [0047]).
As to claim 5, Zheng/Doshi/Evans/Mesde discloses the apparatus of claim 4 (see rejection of claim 4 above), Zheng further discloses:
wherein when the processor dynamically configures the subset of ECUs, the processor is configured to:
dynamically configure the subset of ECUs from a combination of the two sets of ECUs (e.g., Zheng, Fig. 3 and associated text, par. [0054]: there are a plurality of target ECUs to which the application is applied [dynamically configuring the ECUs], and there are two or more IP addresses for the plurality of target ECUs [since there 8 nodes (vECUs) in the network of Fig. 3, two are a subset, the ECUs of any branch being a set]).
As to claim 6, Zheng/Doshi/Evans/Mesde discloses the apparatus of claim 4 (see rejection of claim 4 above), but Zheng does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to: control a simultaneous execution of the software test on the two sets of ECUs via the bus and the VPN.
However, in an analogous art, Mesde discloses:
wherein the processor is configured to:
control a simultaneous execution of the software test on the two sets of ECUs via the bus and the VPN (e.g., Mesde, par. [0052] to simulate a subset of ECUs [i.e., multiple simultaneously]; Fig. 1 and associated text, par. [0022]: configuring the vECUs in a virtual private cloud that implements a virtual bus connectivity configuration. The system may provide instructions for implementing the virtual bus connectivity configuration by providing restive private network addresses to the vECUs [and see figure, virtual ECUs #1 and 2 being one set, vECUs #3 and 4 being another, for example]; par. [0023]: once the test environment has been generated, the test environment management system may perform a test).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the network of ECUs of two different systems tested by Zheng/Doshi/Evans to include establishing a virtual private network (VPN) and assigning network addresses of the VPN to two sets of ECUs, respectively, via the bus, as taught by Mesde, as Mesde would provide the advantage of a means of providing a secure and isolated environment for executing the test. (See Mesde, par. [0047]).
As to claim 7, Zheng/Doshi/Evans/Mesde disclose the apparatus of claim 4 (see rejection of claim 4 above), Zheng further discloses:
wherein the bus relays CAN frames between ECUs on the two sets of ECUs on two different systems via an Ethernet channel between the two different systems (e.g., Zheng Fig. 3 and associated text discloses [see figure], certain nodes [ECUs] are connected via CAN to a DoIP edge node which then communicate to the other nodes via ETH (Ethernet)).
As to claim 12, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 4. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 13, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 5. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 14, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 6. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 15, it is a method claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 7. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As to claim 20, it is a medium claim having limitations substantially the same as those of claim 4. Accordingly, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Conclusion
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/TODD AGUILERA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2192