DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to amendments filed 12/5/2025.
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claims 1-4 are pending.
Response to Arguments
On page 7 of Remarks filed 12/5/2025, the Applicant contends that Kindo is silent regarding the second cancellation requirement and how to cancel automated driving with respect to an elapse of a predetermined time in paragraph [0017].
The Examiner agrees that disclosure regarding how to cancel automated driving with respect to an elapse of a predetermined time is not provided entirely in paragraph [0017] of Kindo; however, one of ordinary skill in the art would consider the full scope of the disclosure of Kindo when interpreting paragraph [0017]. The embodiment in which the cancellation requirement is defined as fulfilling a predetermined motion of a steering wheel operation in paragraph [0017] of Kindo is applied in combination with embodiments described in paragraph [0019] of Kindo to teach the limitations directed to how to cancel automated driving with respect to an elapse of a predetermined time.
On page 7 of Remarks, the Applicant contends that paragraph [0019] of Kindo does not explicitly describe increasing the threshold for the override operation of the first cancellation requirement.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Paragraphs [0019] and [0017] of Kindo have been applied in combination to teach the limitation of “increasing the predetermined override threshold.” Specifically, paragraph [0019] of Kindo teaches that a second cancellation requirement is associated with a time after the predetermined time is elapsed, where the second cancellation requirement includes a constraint on the cancellation operation that is more severe than the first cancellation requirement, thus, being more difficult to be fulfilled by cancellation operation of the driver than the first cancellation requirement, and paragraph [0017] of Kindo teaches that override operations by the driver fulfill predetermined conditions, e.g., predetermined motion of steering wheel operation. With respect to the cancellation operation of the driver being associated with a motion of the steering wheel, it is clear that a “more difficult” cancellation operation would require more driver motion to the steering wheel. Similarly, one of ordinary skill in the art would interpret less driver motion to a steering wheel as being less difficult. Therefore, the “predetermined override threshold” may be reasonably interpreted as being increased by transitioning from the first cancellation requirement to the second cancellation requirement, such that the override operation performed by the driver is required to fulfill a greater predetermined motion. This feature in which override is made more difficult after a period of time is similar to the Applicant’s invention, described in at least paragraph [0007] of the specification filed 5/31/2023 and original claim 1.
Braunagel has also been applied in combination with Kindo to further teach the well-known feature of “increasing the predetermined override threshold.” See the rejection of claim 1 below. No arguments directed to the application of Braunagel have been made.
On page 8 of Remarks, the Applicant further contends that Kindo’s “larger in number of times” of the cancellation operation does not mean that the second cancellation requirement is equivalent to “increasing the threshold” of the first cancellation requirement.
The Examiner agrees; however, this particular embodiment of Kindo described by the Applicant has not been applied in the rejections of the claims. As previously discussed in the Response to Arguments in the Office Action mailed 9/16/2025, the Examiner has applied the embodiment in which a constraint on the cancellation (override) operation is greater for the second cancellation requirement than the first cancellation requirement, described in paragraph [0019], where the cancellation requirement is defined as a predetermined motion of a steering wheel operation in paragraph [0017]. By applying a greater constraint on the second cancellation requirement, defined as requiring a “more difficult” cancellation operation by the driver in paragraph [0019], a greater predetermined motion of steering wheel operation is required to be fulfilled for override operations using the second cancellation requirement, in comparison to the first cancellation requirement.
Braunagel has also been applied in combination with Kindo to further teach the well-known feature of “increasing the predetermined override threshold.” See the rejection of claim 1 below. No arguments directed to the application of Braunagel have been made.
Key to Interpreting this Office Action
For readability, all claim language has been underlined.
Citations from prior art are provided at the end of each limitation in parentheses.
Any further explanations that were deemed necessary by the Examiner are provided at the end of each claim limitation.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kindo et al. (WO 2010/131102), hereinafter Kindo, in view of Mere et al. (US 2016/0187879 A1), hereinafter Mere, and Braunagel et al. (US 2018/0370542 A1), hereinafter Braunagel.
Claim 1
Kindo discloses the claimed autonomous driving control device (i.e. driving assist device 1, depicted in Figure 1) that performs an autonomous driving control of a vehicle (see ¶0013, regarding that driving assist device 1 controls the vehicle to carry out automated driving, which may include entirely automated driving), said autonomous driving control device is configured to perform setting a predetermined override threshold during a first period from an start of the autonomous driving control (see ¶0019, regarding that a first cancellation requirement is associated with a predetermined time elapsed from the start of automated driving, where the automated driving is cancelled in response to a cancellation operation by the driver fulfilling the first cancellation requirement; ¶0017, regarding that override operations by the driver fulfill predetermined conditions, e.g., predetermined motion), wherein the predetermined override threshold is an amount of steering of the vehicle (see ¶0017, regarding that override operations fulfill predetermined conditions, e.g., predetermined motion, pertaining to driving operations that include steering wheel operation).
Kindo does not further disclose the “start of the autonomous driving control” as automatic. However, automatically starting autonomous driving operations is a well-known alternative to manually starting autonomous driving operations and would be obvious to modify in light of Mere.
Specifically, Mere teaches the known technique of providing an automatic start to full autonomous controlled driving (similar to the start of the autonomous driving control taught by Kindo) based on detected lane edges or a driver state (see ¶0029, regarding that the autonomous vehicle interface transitions from non-autonomous controlled driving to autonomous controlled driving without user activations, taking into account the user’s state and surrounding environmental conditions while driving; ¶0050, with respect to Figure 5, regarding the automatic activation of autonomous control based on the user state; ¶0055, with respect to Figure 7, regarding the automatic activation of autonomous control based on the determination of whether a lane is crossed).
In Kindo, manual operations of a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake are performed by the driver to meet cancellation requirements (i.e. “override thresholds”) for exiting autonomous driving control. In Mere, detected states of the driver and lanes are compared with predefined conditions for exiting autonomous driving control. However, it is the technique of starting autonomous driving control automatically, as an alternative to manually, that is modified by Mere; therefore, the particular methods in which the autonomous control is overridden does not influence this combination.
Since the systems of Kindo and Mere are directed to the same purpose, i.e. transitioning between manual driving control and autonomous driving control, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the start of the autonomous driving control of Kindo to be automatic, in the same manner that Mere automatically transitions from non-autonomous controlled driving to autonomous controlled driving without user activations, with the predictable result of not requiring the user to activate an autonomous mode, which may be inconvenient or impossible at times (¶0004 of Mere).
Kindo further discloses the claimed autonomous driving control device is configured to perform increasing the predetermined override threshold after the first time period has elapsed (see ¶0019, regarding that a second cancellation requirement is associated with a time after the predetermined time is elapsed, where the second cancellation requirement includes a constraint on the cancellation operation that is more severe than the first cancellation requirement, thus, being more difficult to be fulfilled by cancellation operation of the driver than the first cancellation requirement; ¶0017, regarding that override operations by the driver fulfill predetermined conditions, e.g., predetermined motion). In light of the cancellation operation of the driver being associated with a motion of the steering wheel (see ¶0017), it is clear that a “more difficult” cancellation operation would require more driver motion to the steering wheel. Similarly, one of ordinary skill in the art would interpret less driver motion to a steering wheel as being less difficult. Therefore, the “predetermined override threshold” may be reasonably interpreted as being increased by transitioning from the first cancellation requirement to the second cancellation requirement, such that the override operation performed by the driver is required to fulfill a greater predetermined motion, in light of ¶0017.
Kindo further discloses the claimed autonomous driving control device is configured to perform detecting an override operation by a driver during execution of the autonomous driving control for automatically controlling at least one of a plurality of driving operations including acceleration, deceleration, and steering of the vehicle (see ¶0025-0026, with respect to step S03 in Figure 2, regarding that override detection portion 5 detects override of the driver, defined as driving operations by the driver during automated driving, such as steering wheel operation, accelerator operation, and brake operation in ¶0017), and terminating the autonomous driving control when the override operation is equal to or greater than the predetermined override threshold (see ¶0026-0027, with respect to step S04 of Figure 2, regarding that driving control portion 61 makes a changeover from automated driving mode to manual driving mode in response to detecting an override of the driver in step S03, where the detection of an override is defined as fulfilling a predetermined motion of a steering wheel, as described in ¶0017). Kindo teaches the limitation of “the override operation being equal to a predetermined override threshold is detected,” where the “predetermined override threshold” is taught by the predetermined motion described in ¶0017.
As discussed in ¶0019 of Kindo, the manner of canceling automated driving may be changed by changing a cancellation requirement (i.e. “predetermined override threshold”) to be fulfilled, where a constraint on the cancellation operation is made more severe after the elapse of a period of time from the start of automated driving. In case the changed constraint on a cancellation requirement of Kindo does not clearly represent an increase in a threshold, Braunagel is applied in combination with Kindo to more clearly teach the known technique of increasing a threshold for overriding autonomous driving control after an elapse of a period of time, where the threshold of Braunagel is made more difficult to deactivate (see ¶0024) similar to the constraint on the cancellation operation for the second cancellation requirement of Kindo (see ¶0019).
Specifically, Braunagel teaches a similar autonomous driving control device (see ¶0010, regarding that a driver assistance system for the autonomous driving operation of a vehicle carries out the inventive method of Braunagel) that deactivates an automated driving function (similar to terminating the autonomous driving control taught by Kindo) when a driver requests a steering torque (similar to the override operation taught by Kindo) greater than a deactivation threshold (similar to the predetermined override threshold taught by Kindo) (see ¶0013-0014). As depicted in Figure 1, with respect to ¶0021, Braunagel further teaches that the deactivation threshold Es(t) is set to a low value E0 between times t1 and t2 and a higher value E3 after time t2, thus, increasing the deactivation threshold after time period t1 to t2.
In Kindo, autonomous driving control is more easily terminated from the start of the autonomous driving control. In Braunagel, autonomous driving control is more easily terminated after a predetermined time window t0 to t1, depicted in Figure 1. However, it is the technique of increasing an override threshold so that autonomous driving control is more difficult to terminate after a time period has elapsed that is modified by Braunagel; therefore, the particular start time in which the autonomous driving control is more easily terminated does not influence this combination.
Since the systems of Kindo and Braunagel are directed to the same purpose, i.e. terminating autonomous driving control when a steering override operation satisfies a predetermined threshold, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the predetermined override threshold of Kindo to be increased after the first time period has elapsed, in the same manner that Braunagel increases a deactivation threshold after a time period, with the predictable result of setting the deactivation threshold according to a driver’s readiness to take over a driving task (¶0021 of Braunagel), such as in situations where automated driving has been erroneously started immediately after starting automated driving such that the driver is ready to assume manual driving or in situations where a changeover to manual needs to be restrained due to the driver not being sufficiently ready (¶0030 of Kindo).
Claim 2
Kindo further discloses that the claimed device is configured to notify the driver of the start of the autonomous driving control (see ¶0021, regarding driving mode output portion 7 notifies the driver of the current driving mode, including the automated driving mode).
Claim 3
Kindo does not further disclose that the claimed device is configured to perform:
utilizing a monitor device that monitors a state of the driver; and
changing the first time period based on the state of the driver monitored by the monitor device.
However, the technique of adjusting a time period for driver override based on the driver’s detected state is known in the art and would be an obvious modification, in light of Braunagel.
Specifically, as discussed in the rejection of claim 1, Braunagel teaches a similar autonomous driving control device (see ¶0010, regarding that a driver assistance system for the autonomous driving operation of a vehicle carries out the inventive method of Braunagel) that deactivates the driving function when the detected driver intervention (similar to the override operation taught by Kindo) exceeds particular deactivation thresholds (similar to predetermined override threshold taught by Kindo) (see ¶0013-0014). Braunagel further teaches utilizing a monitor device that monitors a state of the driver (see ¶0023, regarding that the responsiveness of the driver is determined using a camera), and changing the period of time in which the deactivation threshold Es(t) is kept constant at the pre-set threshold value E0 (similar to the first time period taught by Kindo) based on the state of the driver monitored by the monitor device (see ¶0021, regarding that the deactivation threshold Es(t) is kept constant at the pre-set threshold value E0 only for as long as the responsiveness of the driver is high, where the responsiveness of the driver is determined using a camera, as discussed in ¶0023).
In Kindo, autonomous driving control is more easily terminated from the start of the autonomous driving control. In Braunagel, the autonomous driving control is more easily terminated after a predetermined time window t0 to t1, depicted in Figure 1. However, it is the technique of adjusting the period of time in which the autonomous driving control is more easily terminated (i.e. lower override threshold) based on a detected state of the driver that is modified by Braunagel; therefore, the particular start time in which the autonomous driving control is more easily terminated does not influence this combination.
Since the systems of Kindo and Braunagel are directed to the same purpose, i.e. terminating autonomous driving control when an override operation satisfies a predetermined condition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Kindo, so as to further perform utilizing a monitor device that monitors a state of the driver, and changing the first time period based on the state of the driver monitored by the monitor device, in the same manner that Braunagel maintains a deactivation threshold for an amount of time based on the responsiveness of a driver determined by a camera, with the predictable result of making a driving task more difficult for the driver to deactivate by an unknowing or unintended action (¶0024 of Braunagel) reflected by a driver’s attentiveness or readiness to take over the driving task (¶0021 of Braunagel).
Claim 4
Kindo further discloses that the claimed device is configured to notify the driver that the override threshold is likely to be satisfied before the first time period is elapsed, and that the override threshold is unlikely to be satisfied after the first time period has elapsed (see ¶0021, regarding that the driving mode output portion 7 notifies the driver of whether manners of canceling automated driving of the vehicle at the current time is easy or difficult). The notification of the canceling being easy in Kindo teaches the notification of the “override condition likely to be satisfied before the first time period is elapsed,” and the notification of the canceling being difficult in Kindo teaches the notification of the “override condition unlikely to be satisfied after the first period has elapsed,” in light of the predetermined time defined with respect to the first and second cancellation requirements in ¶0019 of Kindo.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Fanny et al. (CN 102372004 A) teaches a driver assistance device in which terminations may be performed only in a certain period of time (see ¶0020 of translation), and Oba (US 2017/0364070 A1) teaches switching between autonomous and manual driving modes based on an obtained state of the driver (see abstract).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sara J Lewandroski whose telephone number is (571)270-7766. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ramya P Burgess can be reached at (571)272-6011. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SARA J LEWANDROSKI/Examiner, Art Unit 3661