DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant has elected Group 1 (Claim 1 - 10) in the response filed on 2/12/2026. Examiner’s amendment has thus updated in response to the election.
EXAMINER'S AMENDMENT
An examiner’s amendment to the record appears below. Should the changes and/or additions be unacceptable to applicant, an amendment may be filed as provided by 37 CFR 1.312. To ensure consideration of such an amendment, it MUST be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee.
Authorization for this examiner’s amendment was given in an interview with applicant’s agent ANDREW LAGATTA on 5/29/2026.
To clarify the claimed invention, the application has withdrawn Claim 12 – 15 and 17 – 22 for consideration as non-elect species.
Status of Claims
This action is in response to the application filed on 10/10/2023 for application 18/378,420. Claim 1 – 10 are pending and have been examined.
Claim 12 – 15 and 17 – 22 are withdrawn.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/27/2024, 6/26/2024, 2/18/2025, 6/18/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Luo, US20190250610.
Claim 1. Luo teaches: A control unit for a vehicle(0002, “The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for … various functions in electrical vehicle”), the control unit comprising:
a processing system comprising:
an application domain (0082, “the systems and methods described above can be provided as one or more computer-readable programs or executable instructions”); and
a real-time domain (0015, “the overall EV operation can be increasingly reliant on real-time communication between cross-domain ECUs through the EE architecture network”, i.e., the ECU’s operates in real-time) comprising:
a general-purpose core; and a special-purpose core; and
domain control logic (refer to the mapping above & 0018 – 0019, “the present solution provides intelligent load balancing and distribution across heterogeneous subsystems (e.g., ECUs) available within an automotive configuration, which can help achieve certain functionality (e.g., ADAS features) that is presently not possible or handled only by specialized, dedicated devices in conventional systems”, “Instead of directing all of these various data to ADAS ECUs for handling, which can overwhelm or be limited by existing ADAS ECU capabilities and resources, the present EE architecture can provide intelligent load balancing and distribution of certain less-specialized ( or low level) processing (e.g., GPS data processing) to/across non-ADAS ECUs or resources, and manage these processing to be completed in parallel or in a coordinated fashion, so that various results from the distributed processing can be received and combined within defined time limits (e.g., at an ADAS ECU) to perform the specialized automotive function”, “The vehicle's EE architecture can include a plurality of ECU domains of the vehicle, including a domain for ADAS and a plurality of non-ADAS domains including a telematics domain and an infotainment domain, each of the ECU domains including at least one ECU”; i.e., the system performs load balancing on tasks across multiple ECUs, thus the method is the domain control logic. From ADAS perspective, the ADAS domain ECUs are the general-purpose ECUs that perform ADAS related tasks; the non-ADAS domain ECUs are the specialized ECUs that are specialized to performs tasks of their own domains (other than ADAS). From ADAS perspective, the ADAS tasks are general-purpose tasks.) that, when executed by the processing system, performs a set of operations comprising:
determining, based on a context for the vehicle, to perform a general-purpose computing task using the special-purpose core; configuring the special-purpose core to perform general-purpose processing, thereby causing the special-purpose core to process the general-purpose computing task (refer to the mapping above & 0018 – 0019, in this case, when ADAS is turned on during driving (context of the vehicle), the system performs load balancing and use non-ADAS ECUs of less busy domains to process ADAS related task (from the ADAS perspective, these are general-purpose computing task)); and
receiving, from the special-purpose core, a general-purpose processing result (refer to the mapping above & 0018 – 0019, in this case, the results for the ADAS functions processed by the non-ADAS ECUs are combined and received at ADAS ECU to perform ADAS functions).
Claim 2. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim1. Luo further teach: the general-purpose core contemporaneously generates a second general-purpose processing result for the general-purpose computing task (refer to the mapping in Claim 1, the ADAS function are real-time function that performs constantly during driving, thus the ADAS ECUs and non-ADAS ECUs are contemporaneously generating results for ADAS tasks (general purpose computing task) through the period that ADAS system is turned on).
Claim 3. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim1. Luo further teach: the domain control logic is executed within the application domain (refer to the mapping in Claim 1 & 0082, the controlling methods (domain control logics) can be implemented in computer program or instructions (application)).
Claim 6. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim1. Luo further teach: configuring, in response to a change to the context for the vehicle, the special-purpose core to perform special-purpose processing (refer to the mapping in Claim 1 & fig. 1 & 0040, “The ECUs of the scalable EE architecture 100 can be divided into one or more ADAS domains and non-ADAS domains (sometimes collectively or generally referred to as domains or ECU domains). Various domains or ECU domains are described further below. Each domain or ECU domain can refer to a defined functionality or grouping of related functionalities, such as for infotainment, ADAS, powertrain management and control, cabin climate control, security, traction control, battery management, telematics, gateway operations, etc.”; 0016, “in-vehicle infotainment system, an interactive entertainment display, a user interface for different user experience, navigation with voice recognition and audio applications”; i.e., each of the non-ADAS domain are associated a specific vehicle functions. In the event/context that the vehicle is stopped and changed “Park” gear, the door lock/unlock control domain ECUs would perform the door lock/unlock function and output command to actuator to unlock the door; In the event/context that the user turns on music, the infotainment ECUs performs audio/video encoding/decoding and graphic processing to play music and display human interface on the screen.).
Claim 7. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim 6. Luo further teach: the special-purpose processing comprises one or more of: digital signal processing; machine learning processing; controller area network communication processing; audio/video encoding/decoding; or graphics processing (refer to the mapping in Claim 6 & 0016, the infotainment domain performs audio/video encoding decoding and graphics processing tasks).
Claim 9. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim1. Luo further teach: the context for the vehicle comprises one or more of: whether the vehicle is powered on; whether the vehicle is idling; whether the vehicle is in reverse; whether the vehicle is operating under autonomous or semi-autonomous control (refer to the mapping in Claim 1, ADAS is semi-autonomous control); or whether an in-vehicle infotainment system is in-use.
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo, US20190250610 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Yun et al., (hereinafter Yun), US20190384522.
Claim 4. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim 1. Luo do not explicitly teach: it is determined to use the special-purpose core in response to a request to enlist computing resources from software executing in the application domain.
Yun, in the same field of endeavor, explicitly teach:
it is determined to use the special-purpose core in response to a request to enlist computing resources from (Yun, fig. 5A – 5B & 0222 – 0223, “the second microprocessor a21 creates the second lookup table of actual usage times of the memories of the plurality of ECUs, maximum usage times according to the memory classes, whether it is at the warned level, and whether it is at the limited level”, “may send the first and second lookup tables to the CCU 230 upon reception of a request to provide memory information from the CCU 230”; as illustrated in Fig. 5A – 5B, when new tasks are required, the system use ECU availability table/list to allocate the resource for the new tasks. The combination of Luo and Yun renders obviousness of the limitation) software executing in the application domain (Yun, at least fig. 6B – 6C, the table is maintain/created by usage management software, thus is under application domain as described by Luo (See mapping in Claim 1)).
Luo and Yun both teach vehicle signal processing and control using CCU/DCU/ECU architecture and are analogous. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable likelihood of success to further include the details of resource allocation utilizing table/list taught by Yun in the system of Luo to achieve the claimed teaching. One of the ordinary skill in the art would have motivated to make this modification to “control performance of autonomous driving and user safety may be improved by responding to a change in control performance of autonomous driving” (Yun, 0354).
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo, US20190250610, Yun et al., (hereinafter Yun), US20190384522 as applied to claim 4 above, and further in view of Evangelos WO2022046469A1.
Claim 5. Luo and Yun combination renders obviousness of all the limitation of Claim 4. The combination dos not explicitly teach: the request is received via an application programming interface associated with the domain control logic.
Evangelos, in the same field of endeavor, explicitly teach: the request is received via an application programming interface associated with the domain control logic (Evangelos, 0053, “data management system may further comprise a data and metadata management system that is configured to store and manage the data and associated metadata … and process queries and API calls issued against the data and the metadata”; i.e., the data and metadata of each ECU/DCU (table/list of ECU resource), can be managed by data management application and be requested by API calls from the resource management application of other ECUs; refer to the mapping in Claim 1, Luo & Yun combination teaches requesting the ECU availabilities for the load balancing between domain ECUs; Evangelos teaches requesting and transmitting data using API, the combination renders obviousness that the API is for and associated with the domain control logic).
Luo (in view of Yun) and Evangelos both teach vehicle signal processing and communication and are analogous. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable likelihood of success to further include the details of data communication between components using API taught by Evangelos in the system of (Luo in view of Yun) to achieve the claimed teaching. One of the ordinary skill in the art would have motivated to make this modification to enable “communication between various software components” (Bettilyou “What is an API and Why Should I Use One?”).
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo, US20190250610, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of STM32MotorControl, “6-step Firmware Algorithm”.
Claim 8. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim 1. Luo further teach: the special-purpose core that defines: a first operating mode for special-purpose processing; and a second operating mode for general-purpose processing (refer to the mapping in Claim 1, in the example, non-ADA ECUs are dedicated to perform their own domain processing functions (first operating mode for special-purpose processing), however, under request, they can also perform other tasks of other domain (second operating mode for general-purpose processing) )
Luo does not explicitly teach: firmware for the special-purpose core that defines modes
STM32MotorControl, in the same field of endeavor, explicitly teach:
firmware for the special-purpose core that defines modes (STM32MotorControl, page 4 – 9, sec 3 “firmware algorithms”, sec. 3.1, “sensor-less driving mode”, “sensor driving mode”, “voltage mode”, “current mode”; i.e., the firmware recognizes/defines different modes of operation and performs/outputs different operation results. Examiner notes that one of reasonable skilled in the art knows that almost all of modern processing devices have embedded firmware as middleware handling between hardware and software/application. Such understanding can be easily found online. For example: Fortinet, “What is firmware?”).
Luo and STM32MotorControl both teach electric signal processing and control for hardware devices and are analogous. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable likelihood of success to further predefined operation modes in firmware as taught by STM32MOtorControl in the system of Luo to achieve the claimed teaching. One of the ordinary skill in the art would have motivated to make this modification to help hardware “function smoothly” (Fortinet, page 1).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo, US20190250610 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Fang et al., (hereinafter Fang), WO2021178979.
Claim 10. Luo teaches all the limitation of Claim 1. Luo do not explicitly teach: the domain control logic processes a remote indication to configure processing by the special-purpose core.
Fang, in the same field of endeavor, explicitly teaches: : the domain control logic processes a remote indication to configure processing by the special-purpose core (0040 - 0041, “example apparatus includes a remote access execution circuit structured to interpret a remote access request value from a requesting device”, “remote access request value includes a policy. The policy includes at least one value selected from the values consisting of: an authorization value of the requesting device; a data collection description including the at least one requested vehicle property; a trigger description value including a trigger condition and a trigger response value, and wherein the parameter acquisition circuit is further structured to generate at least a portion of the vehicle property data from the plurality of vehicle parameter values further in response to the trigger description value; or a policy priority value”; i.e., the remote access request includes policy of how and when a specific vehicle function/domain ECU to perform its related data collection for the remote request).
Luo and Fang both teach vehicle signal processing and control system and are analogous. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable likelihood of success to further include the remote access request taught by Fang in the system of Luo to achieve the claimed teaching. One of the ordinary skill in the art would have motivated to make this modification to provide remote assistance to vehicle (Fang, 00648 & fig. 147).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: Shigehara et al., WO2010106403, which teaches a system that defines different mode of operation of processors either operate its designed function or function that is assigned externally.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHIEN MING CHOU whose telephone number is (571)272-9354. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 9 am - 5 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, HITESH PATEL can be reached on (571) 270-5442. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHIEN MING CHOU/Examiner, Art Unit 3667
/Hitesh Patel/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3667
6/4/26
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