DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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 Arguments
2. Applicant’s contention (see pages 2-6 filed 11 May 2026) with respect to the rejection of independent claims 2 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. 103 has been fully considered and is persuasive in view of the arguments provided. Therefore, the rejection of independent claims 2 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. 103 has been withdrawn.
Subsequently, the prior art rejections of all claims dependent therefrom are withdrawn.
However, upon further consideration, new grounds of rejection are warranted (see below).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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 2, 3, 8-13, and 18-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Glaab (US 2018/0114450), and further in view of Liu (US 2016/0068267) and Gordon (US 2017/0320569).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Glaab discloses a method and UAV performed in an unmanned aerial vehicle for alerting about a malfunctioning (health monitoring and failure diagnostic onboard a UAV and alerting; Glaab at abstract, 0022, 0026, Fig. 5), the method comprising:
Identifying a malfunctioning in the unmanned aerial vehicle, wherein the malfunctioning comprises low battery voltage or lack of fuel (vehicle component or system failure identified can include low fuel or battery failures; Glaab at 0026, 0030).
Sending a warning signal to alert about the malfunctioning (sends notification to owner terminal regarding malfunctioning; Glaab at 0026).
Glaab discloses malfunction determination and subsequent actions including informing the operator where the UAV has landed; it cannot be ascertained from the detail of the disclosure if this is equivalent to transmitting to a network node a failure report.
Glaab is also silent as to wherein the warning signal comprises an audible signal and/or light signal1.
Liu, in a similar invention in the same field of endeavor, teaches the UAV detecting a malfunction, transmitting to a network node a failure report (UAV malfunction diagnosed, failure diagnostic transmitted via network to end user, wherein the malfunction diagnostic causes an audible alert or light signal alert; Liu at 0095, 0097, 0127).
Gordon, in a similar invention in the same field of endeavor, teaches the UAV is configured with an external alert system utilizing status indicators such as light displays and speakers to warn proximate entities to the situation of the UAV (Gordon at 0056-0057, 0063-0064).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the claimed invention to augment the base UAV diagnostic of Glaab with the alert and reporting of Liu and Gordon. Doing so would draw the owner’s immediate attention to the malfunctioning UAV while providing detailed information regarding the malfunction as well as alert any proximate pedestrians of a potential hazard.
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Glaab discloses wherein the identifying a malfunctioning in the unmanned aerial vehicle, comprises: detecting that a function is not working as expected, or that a measurement value differs from a reference value (battery level insufficient for level flight, expected to be a value higher; Glaab at 0030).
Regarding claim 22-25, the combination teaches onboard diagnostics for a drone, wherein when a malfunction is detected, a report is transmitted to the and user for display, wherein the display includes a warning message (Liu at 0088, 0095).
Regarding claims 8 and 18, the combination teaches wherein the warning message appears as a text on the display with warning sound (warning text and audible alarm; Liu at 0095).
Regarding claims 9 and 19, the combination teaches wherein the warning message appears as a text on a map (warning text appears on map; Liu at 0095, 0098, 0099).
Regarding claims 10 and 20, the combination teaches wherein the failure report further comprising at least one of: the malfunctioning, position, altitude of the unmanned aerial vehicle, velocity of the unmanned aerial vehicle, weight of the unmanned aerial vehicle, data related to the unmanned aerial vehicle, temperature (warning text regarding data related to the unmanned aerial vehicle sensors and state data; Liu at 0056, 0088, 0089, 0095, 0124).
Regarding claims 11 and 21, the combination teaches wherein the failure report further comprises: flying capability or status of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV malfunction status; Liu at 0095) wherein the flying status comprises one of: free falling or semi-controlled landing (user provided flight mode information including landing; Liu at 0053, 0095).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN M DAGER whose telephone number is (571)270-1332. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 0830-1730.
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/JONATHAN M DAGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3663 04 August 2026
1 While the published application does provide for an audible warning, it cannot be ascertained if this facet of the claim is supported in the provisional application 62/274,816.
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