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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/4/2026 has been entered.
Claim Objections
Claim 15 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 15 lines 21-22 read “to the vehicle from, and” which appears to be a typographical error and should read “to the vehicle, and” to improve clarity.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh et al. US 20130116908 A1 (hereinafter Oh), Lee et al. US 20240353851 A1 (hereinafter Lee), and Patil et al.US 20180374126 A1 (hereinafter Patil).
Regarding claims 1 and 15, Oh teaches a marshaling system for guiding an autonomously operated vehicle (paragraph 0044 "autonomous platooning vehicles"), the marshaling system comprising:
a positioning system configured to communicate with a base station and the vehicle (Abstract discloses GPS communicates with both vehicle and base station);
the base station (Abstract “base station”) configured to:
in response to the vehicle being within range of the base station, onboard the vehicle to the marshaling system (paragraph 0010 discloses a mobile base station communicating with a vehicle, i.e. within range, through V2X communication);
transmit location information to the vehicle from the positioning system (Abstract discloses that a base station transmits DGPS correction data to the vehicle; examiner considers DGPS correction data applicable to both location information and positioning related-corrections),
transmit one or more positioning-related corrections to the vehicle (Abstract discloses that a base station determines DGPS correction data and transmits it to the vehicle), and
cause, based on the location information and the one or more positioning-related corrections (Figure 2B ST24 shows performing traveling control based on received DGPS corrective data ST21 and received GPS information ST22), a current position of the vehicle (Abstract discloses vehicle speed is corrected; paragraphs 0042-0043 detail an example of correcting vehicle speed to adjust relative position between vehicles which examiner considers equivalent to correcting current vehicle position), an orientation of the vehicle (Abstract discloses vehicle direction is corrected), or a combination thereof to be adjusted (Abstract); and
the vehicle configured to:
receive the location information (Abstract discloses vehicle receives GPS data),
receive the one or more positioning-related corrections (Abstract discloses vehicle receives DGPS data), and
adjust the current position (Abstract discloses vehicle adjusts its speed; paragraphs 0042-0043 detail an example of correcting vehicle speed to adjust relative position between vehicles which examiner considers equivalent to correcting current vehicle position) and the orientation of the vehicle (Abstract discloses vehicle adjusts its direction).
Oh does not explicitly teach at least one marshaling server; identifying a vehicle to onboard to the marshaling system for marshaling; establishing a secure data connection between the vehicle and the vehicle marshaling system; onboarding the vehicle to the vehicle marshaling system based on the secure data connection, wherein the onboarding comprises pairing the secure data connection with the vehicle so that the vehicle can act upon marshaling commands issued by the at least one marshaling server, and wherein the base station is separate from the at least one marshaling server.
Lee teaches at least one marshaling server (Figure 1 server 300); identifying a vehicle to onboard to the marshaling system for marshaling (paragraph 0023-0025, for example, discloses a vehicle to be transported, which may be a vehicle waiting for transport, may have a communication with a server established for remote control; the existence of vehicles to be transported suggests an identification step of determining which vehicles are to be transported);
establishing a secure data connection between the vehicle and the vehicle marshaling system (paragraph 0028 discloses establishing a connection with a vehicle to be transported; paragraph 0036 discloses using mobile communication which examiner understands as a secure data connection);
onboarding the vehicle to the vehicle marshaling system based on the secure data connection, wherein the onboarding comprises pairing the secure data connection with the vehicle (paragraph 0028 discloses establishing a connection with a vehicle to be transported) so that the vehicle can act upon marshaling commands issued by the at least one marshaling server (paragraph 0025-0026, for example, discloses that the server provides commands to the vehicle which the vehicle can drive according to).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of Lee such that a vehicle to be controlled in Oh can be identified and have communication established with a remote server which provides driving commands for controlling the vehicle as detailed in Lee. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to allow multiple vehicles to be simultaneously controlled by one server as shown in Figure 6 of Lee such that the higher processing power of servers can be leveraged by the system and to further ensure that a vehicle to be controlled is correct, only connecting to vehicles that are to be transported, and to further improve data privacy by communicating to the server with a secure connection.
Oh does not teach establishing a secure data connection between the vehicle and the vehicle marshaling system at a predetermined location of the vehicle, wherein the predetermined location of the vehicle comprises a geographic position of the vehicle determined by a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) of the vehicle; wherein the base station is separate from the at least one marshaling server.
Patil teaches establishing a secure data connection between the vehicle and the server (paragraph 0030-0031 discloses establishing a secure connection between a vehicle and a server using a cellular communications system directly with the server or indirectly through a beacon which is connected to the vehicle through Bluetooth) at a predetermined location of the vehicle, wherein the predetermined location of the vehicle comprises a geographic position of the vehicle (paragraph 0061 discloses that, in response to a vehicle being detected at a predetermined location, a beacon device will confirm initiation of a connection between the vehicle and a server, and a server connection will be established) determined by a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) of the vehicle (paragraph 0091 discloses that a GPS of a vehicle determines the current location of the vehicle);
wherein the base station is separate from the at least one server (Figure 3 shows that the beacon and server are separate).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of Patil such that the vehicle communication of Lee can be established when a vehicle is at a predetermined location as taught by Patil. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to ensure communication to a user is targeted as disclosed in Patil (paragraph 0035). It would have been further prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of Patil since each individual element and its function are shown in the prior art, albeit shown in separate references, the difference between the claimed subject matter and the prior art rests not on any individual element or function, but in the very combination itself, that is in the substitution of the Bluetooth vehicle to beacon to server connection of Patil for the V2X vehicle to base station connection of Oh. Thus, the simple substitution of one known element for another producing a predictable result of allowing communication between a vehicle and a base station renders the claim obvious with a further improvement of allowing the vehicle to communicate with a server to provide targeted further information to the vehicle. It would have been further prima facie obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Oh to incorporate the teachings Patil such that the server and base stations of Lee and Oh respectively can be clearly separate entities as detailed in Patil since it has been held that constructing a formerly separate element in an integral structural involves only routine skill in the art. See MPEP § 2144.04(V)(C) and the court cases cited therein.
Claim(s) 4, 6, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh as modified by Lee and Patil as applied to claims 1 and 15 above, and further in view of DeCabooter et al. US 8884821 B2 (hereinafter DeCabooter).
Regarding claims 4 and 18, the modified Oh reference teaches all of claim 1 and 15 as detailed above.
Oh does not teach re-onboarding, based on a disruption of the secure data connection and a positioning system associated with the base station, the vehicle.
DeCabooter teaches re-onboarding, based on a disruption of the secure data connection and a positioning system associated with the base station, the vehicle (column 8 lines 5-54 discloses a method for providing a vehicle with location data after jamming has occurred between a base station and a vehicle).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of DeCabooter such that upon jamming occurring between the vehicle and base station of Oh, the method of DeCabooter can be performed. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to ensure that a correct location can be associated with the vehicle even during malicious attacks.
Regarding claim 6, the modified Oh reference teaches all of claim 1 as detailed above.
Oh does not teach that the one or more positioning-related corrections are based on a disruption of a secure data connection with the vehicle.
DeCabooter teaches that the one or more positioning-related corrections are based on a disruption of a secure data connection with the vehicle (column 8 lines 5-54 discloses providing a vehicle with location data after jamming has occurred between a base station and a vehicle).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of DeCabooter such that upon jamming occurring between the vehicle and base station of Oh, the method of DeCabooter can be performed. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to ensure that a correct location can be associated with the vehicle even during malicious attacks.
Claim(s) 5 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh as modified by Lee and Patil as applied to claims 1 and 15 above, and further in view of Ghosh et al. US 11,984,034 B2 (hereinafter Ghosh).
Regarding claims 5 and 19, the modified Oh reference teaches all of claims 1 and 15 as detailed above. Oh further teaches that the positioning system is at least one of a global positioning system (Abstract "GPS"), a global navigation satellite system, a differential global positioning system (Abstract "DGPS"), or a combination thereof.
Oh does not explicitly teach validating, based on identifying the vehicle and the positioning system, the current position of the vehicle.
Ghosh teaches validating, based on identifying the vehicle and the positioning system, the current position of the vehicle (Figure 7 discloses verifying a vehicle position 710 based on wireless positioning signals of a vehicle 702 and characteristics thereof 704-708; examiner understands the vehicle has to be identified/detected to perform this method).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of Ghosh such that the location information of Oh can be independently validated as taught by Ghosh. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to prevent malicious GPS spoofing that would destabilize a vehicle formation or trajectory as disclosed in Ghosh (column 10 lines 1-22).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh as modified by Lee, Patil, and DeCabooter as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of Wang US 20220390613 A1 (hereinafter Wang).
Regarding claim 7, the modified Oh reference teaches all of claim 6 as detailed above.
Oh does not teach that the one or more positioning-related corrections include real-time kinematic corrections and are at least one of a correction of a delay in the secure data connection, a clock error, or a combination thereof.
Wang teaches that the one or more positioning-related corrections include real-time kinematic corrections (paragraph 0074 discloses using RTK positioning for transmitted position correction data) and are a correction of a clock error (paragraph 0076 discloses due to reception of positioning correction data from a base station, clock error can be removed).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Oh to incorporate the teachings of Wang such that the location data of DeCabooter can also include RTK positioning data and be utilized to remove clock error as taught by Wang. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to improve precision of positioning to centimeter level precision as disclosed in Wang (paragraph 0073).
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh as modified by Lee and Patil as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of DeCabooter and Wang.
Regarding claim 20, the modified Oh reference teaches all of claim 15 as detailed above. Claim 20 is a mere combination of the disclosed limitations of claims 6 and 7 and therefore the same grounds of rejection apply.
Response to Amendment
Claim amendments filed 5/4/2026 have been received and fully considered and overcome the claim objections for claim of record detailed in the Office Action dated 12/2/2025. These/this objections have/has been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 10-12, filed 5/4/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 and 15 under 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive in light of the claim amendments filed 5/4/2026. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Oh as modified by Lee and Patil.
Documents Considered but not Relied Upon
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sabbaghian et al. US 20160241645 A1 discloses establishing a secure data connection between a vehicle and a sever when a vehicle is located at a predetermined location.
Li et al. CN 115942274 A discloses a remote control server that communicates remote control commands to a vehicle over an established secure connection.
Conclusion
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/A.T.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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