DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This action is in response to the application No. 18/425950 filed on 1/29/2024. Claims 1-20 are pending for examination.
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 .
Claim Objections
The claims are objected to because they include reference characters which are not enclosed within parentheses.
Reference characters corresponding to elements recited in the detailed description of the drawings and used in conjunction with the recitation of the same element or group of elements in the claims should be enclosed within parentheses so as to avoid confusion with other numbers or characters which may appear in the claims. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
The present claim 14 currently recites “the first vehicle 106.” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-7 and 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea of a mental process without significantly more.
Independent claims 1, 19, and 20 (although not verbatim, but contain the same concept) recite the following:
A first vehicle comprising:
a transceiver configured to:
transmit a surveillance request to at least one of a first set of vehicles or a first set infrastructure sensors located within a first radius from the first vehicle; and
receive first inputs from at least one of a second vehicle from the first set of vehicles or a first infrastructure sensor from the first set of infrastructure sensors responsive to transmitting the surveillance request; and
a processor communicatively coupled with the transceiver, wherein the processor is configured to:
determine that a first predefined condition is met based on the first inputs; and
cause the transceiver to transmit the surveillance request to at least one of a second set of vehicles or a second set of infrastructure sensors located within a second radius from the first vehicle responsive to determining that the first predefined condition is met, wherein the second radius is greater than the first radius.
The aforementioned bolded steps have been determined to be an abstract idea of a mental process that transmits a request for surveillance assistance to other vehicles and/or road-side cameras which in turn supply data or video to the first vehicle to analyze and make determinations on whether or not to request further surveillance assistance from another group of vehicles or road-side units in a larger radius from the first vehicle. Essentially, the claims are gathering and analyzing data from sensors around the first vehicle and making a determination to whether a first condition is met. When the condition is met, the system then requests more data from more sensors around the first vehicle. These concepts, at their root, are similar to the concepts deemed by the courts to be abstract such as collecting, analyzing, and displaying available data in Electric Power Group.
Each of the steps can be performed in the mental realm or by using pen and paper to send and receive data from disparate sources and analyze the data for conditions being met or not. The claims are currently claimed at a high level and not requiring particular details that, under BRI, are undiscernible or incalculable in the human mind or with pen and paper.
The claims do contain the additional elements of a first vehicle, a processor, a transceiver, and a group of cars and/or set of infrastructure sensors. However, each of the additional elements are claimed at such a high generality that they merely function as tools to apply the abstract idea, or more particularly, as insignificant extra-solution activity.
The courts have determined that additional elements merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field do not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. For at least the reasons above, the additional elements, in combination with the abstract idea of itself, are not integrated into a practical application.
Furthermore, dependent claims 2-7 and 9-18 do not recite and further limitations that cause the claims to be patent eligible. The limitations of the dependent claims are directed towards additional aspects of the judicial exception and/or well-understood, routine, and convention additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Therefore, claims 1-7 and 9-20 are ineligible under §101.
It should be noted that claim 8 is NOT rejected under 101 because the final limitation of claim 8 pertains to causing the vehicle to relocate from a current location to another location responsive to determining that the first predefined condition is met, which positively recites tangible vehicle control based on the output of the predefined condition.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 stands objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Additionally, claims 1-7 and 9-20 do not currently have any prior art rejections attached to them. If the outstanding 101 rejection for claims 1-7 and 9-20 were to be overcome either by persuasive argument or amendment then claims 1-20 would stand as allowable.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS P INGRAM whose telephone number is (571)272-7864. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6 ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fadey Jabr can be reached at 571-272-1516. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Thomas Ingram/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668