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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the applicant’s filing on October 28, 2025. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Amendment and Arguments
In response to applicant's amendments, claims rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 is hereby withdrawn.
In respond to applicant's arguments based on the filed amendment with respect to 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections of said previous office action have been fully considered; however, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made.
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoh et al. US2022/0306122 (“Hoh”) in view of Kourous-Harrigan et al. US2021/0043075 (“Kourous-Harrigan”) further in view of Shida US2013/0116909 (“Shida”).
Regarding claim(s) 1, 15. Hoh discloses a system comprising a remote computer, the remote computer including a processor and a memory (fig. 1,), the memory storing instructions executable by the processor to:
determine a vehicle density over a predefined segment of a road, the vehicle density being a number of vehicles per road length over the predefined segment, the vehicles being remote from the remote computer (para. 19-24, FIG. 1, an example system 100 for controlling vehicle traffic is depicted. The system 100 may include a server 102, a distracting event 104, connected vehicles 106, non-connected vehicles 108, wireless connectivity 110, a rubbernecking region 112, and a congestion region 114.);
determine a target speed based on the vehicle density, the target speed being a speed at which an ego vehicle of the vehicles attempts to travel when unimpeded in a forward direction by remaining vehicles of the vehicles (para. 42-para. 46, Vehicle speed can be determined by the sensor component 216 of the connected vehicles 106. The speed data can be stored and/or shared between the connected vehicles 106 and/or the server 102. The connected vehicles 106 and/or server 102 having the speed data can then calculate the average speed of the connected vehicles 106. The average speed is compared against the predetermined speed of the road, which may have been stored on the connected vehicle 106 and/or server 102 in advance or determined on the fly by the sensor component 216 of the connected vehicle 106.); and
Hoh does not explicitly discloses transmit the target speed to the ego vehicle (e.g. broadcasting.)
Kourous-Harrigan another vehicle traffic management that transmit the target speed to the ego vehicle (para. 21-25 the server 134 senses that the traffic density on the road 101 is above a predetermined traffic threshold and/or that the average vehicle speed is below a predetermined traffic speed threshold, the disclosed systems can configure the server 134 to broadcast messages to the vehicles on the road 101 in the affected area. In particular, the disclosed systems can configure the server 134 to broadcast messages to indicate that a managed lane (e.g., a toll lane and/or a carpool lane) has been opened in one of the lanes of the road 101 (e.g., one of lanes 103, 105, 107, and/or 109).)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system and method of Hoh by incorporating the applied teaching of Kourous-Harrigan to improve traffic flow and management.
Hoh also silent to determining a target speed as a function of vehicle density and updating a setting of an adaptive cruise control based on the target speed.
Shida teaches a traffic flow management system and method that determining a target speed as a function of vehicle density and updating a setting of an adaptive cruise control based on the target speed (para. 11, para. 32-35, para. 60-63, fig. 6, the information related to the running state may include an amount of traffic on the road, and the target speed may be set determined on a relationship between a running speed and an amount of traffic able to travel on the road.).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the combination of Hoh and Kourous-Harrigan with Shida teaching above to improve the vehicle speed control system based on the density of the traffic condition and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable with a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claim(s) 2, 17. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the vehicles are traveling at respective actual speeds, and the instructions further include instructions to determine the target speed based on optimizing a combination of a mean of the actual speeds and a spread of the actual speeds, the spread being a difference between a highest speed of the actual speeds and a lowest speed of the actual speeds (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49. A speed calculation 406 may be a calculation of the average speed in a rubbernecking region 112 as calculated by one or more connected vehicles 106. This calculation may be performed in ways such as vehicles monitoring the speed of surrounding vehicles, gathering speed information reported by other connected vehicles 106 via their vehicle connectivity component 218, requesting speed information from traffic infrastructure monitoring vehicle speed, etc.).
Regarding claim(s) 3, 18. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the combination of the mean and the spread is a difference between the mean and the spread with at least one of the mean and the spread weighted by a tradeoff parameter (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49A speed calculation 406 may be a calculation of the average speed in a rubbernecking region 112 as calculated by one or more connected vehicles 106.).
Regarding claim(s) 4, 19. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the actual speeds of the vehicles for each value of the mean and of the spread are from a same time (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49, A speed calculation 406 may be a calculation of the average speed in a rubbernecking region 112 as calculated by one or more connected vehicles 106.).
Regarding claim(s) 5, 20. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the instructions further include instructions to optimize the combination of the mean and the spread over a time horizon (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49, A speed calculation 406 may be a calculation of the average speed in a rubbernecking region 112 as calculated by one or more connected vehicles 106.).
Regarding claim(s) 6. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the vehicles are traveling at respective actual speeds, and the instructions further include instructions to determine the target speed based on minimizing a spread of the actual speeds, the spread being a difference between a highest speed of the actual speeds and a lowest speed of the actual speeds (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49, the average speed of vehicles in the rubbernecking region 112 is determined and compared against a predetermined speed. In one example, the predetermined speed may be a speed lower than a normal speed on the road. For example, if the average speed of the vehicles on the road without traffic is 40 miles per hour, the predetermined speed may be set as 35 miles, 30 miles, or less. In another example, the predetermined speed may be set as a speed lower than the speed limit of the load by a certain amount. ).
Regarding claim(s) 7. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the actual speeds of the vehicles for each value of the spread are from a same time (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49).
Regarding claim(s) 8. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the vehicles are traveling at respective actual speeds, and the instructions further include instructions to determine the target speed based on maximizing a mean of the actual speeds (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49).
Regarding claim(s) 9. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the actual speeds of the vehicles for each value of the mean are from a same time (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49).
Regarding claim(s) 10. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the vehicle density is a mean over a plurality of timesteps of an instantaneous vehicle density at the timesteps (Hoh: para. 43-para. 49, para. 56-57, Additionally or alternatively, the command itself may have a lifespan timer. This way, when the command is issued to each connected vehicle 106, each connected vehicle knows how long to follow the command. For example, previously at step 310, a connected vehicle 106 may have determined that the conditions in steps 306 and 308 are satisfied such that a command should be issued to the other connected vehicles 106.).
Regarding claim(s) 11, 16. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches further comprising the ego vehicle, the ego vehicle including a vehicle computer, the vehicle computer being programmed to execute an adaptive cruise control based on the target speed (Hoh: FIG. 4 depicts a connected vehicle reporting traffic conditions and a server directing connected vehicles in a rubbernecking region to activate cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC)/adaptive cruise control (ACC), according to one or more embodiments shown and described herein;).
Regarding claim(s) 12. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the target speed is a posted speed limit for the road (Hoh: para. 24, The road of system 100 is a multi-directional roadway where one direction contains a distracting event 104 (e.g., collision, construction, etc.) and a congestion region 114).
Regarding claim(s) 13. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the instructions further include instructions to broadcast the target speed over the predefined segment of the road (FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of an example system 200 is depicted. In particular, two connected vehicles 106 and a server 102 are depicted. The connected vehicle 106 may include a processor component 208, a memory component 210, a user gaze monitoring component 212, a driving assist component 214, a sensor component 216, a vehicle connectivity component 218, a network connectivity component 220, a satellite component 222, and an interface 226. The connected vehicle 106 also may include a communication path 224 that communicatively connects the various components of the connected vehicle 106.).
Regarding claim(s) 14. Hoh in view of Kourous-Harrigan and Shida further teaches wherein the remote computer is communicatively coupled to the ego vehicle, and the remote computer is not communicatively coupled to at least one of the remaining vehicles (FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of an example system 200 is depicted. In particular, two connected vehicles 106 and a server 102 are depicted. The connected vehicle 106 may include a processor component 208, a memory component 210, a user gaze monitoring component 212, a driving assist component 214, a sensor component 216, a vehicle connectivity component 218, a network connectivity component 220, a satellite component 222, and an interface 226. The connected vehicle 106 also may include a communication path 224 that communicatively connects the various components of the connected vehicle 106.).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TRUC M DO whose telephone number is (571)270-5962. The examiner can normally be reached on 9AM-6PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ramón Mercado, Ph.D. can be reached on (571) 270-5744. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/TRUC M DO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658
Prosecution Insights