DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to application number 18/436,618 filed on February 8th 2024. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements (IDS), submitted on January 20th, 2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Priority
The later-filed application must be an application for a patent for an invention which is also disclosed in the prior application (the parent or original nonprovisional application or provisional application). The disclosure of the invention in the parent application and in the later-filed application must be sufficient to comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, except for the best mode requirement. See Transco Products, Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 32 USPQ2d 1077 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The disclosure of the prior-filed application, Application No. US-2023-0182789-A1, fails to provide adequate support or enablement in the manner provided by 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph for one or more claims of this application. Lack of support in the prior filled application is provided for limitations of claim 1 to terms such as “Assign”, “Relay” and “Pathways”.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 11,15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Satoshi (JP2021034867 A).
Regarding claims 11 and 19, Satoshi discloses a system comprising: a first communication controller configured to communicate with a vehicle system, the first communication controller configured to operate in different modes, the modes including: a first mode in which the first communication controller operates at least one vehicle in the vehicle system without repeating any signals communicated between vehicles of the vehicle system (JP2021034867 A Page 6 Paragraph 2 discloses “Further, the inter-vehicle communication unit 200 of the leading vehicle 120 does not have to have a function related to communication with the immediately preceding vehicle such as the front communication unit 220, and has the same function as the intermediate vehicle 110 and the trailing vehicle 130. The operation may be stopped above. Similarly, the inter-vehicle communication unit 200 of the trailing vehicle 130 does not have to have a function related to communication with the immediately following vehicle such as the rear communication unit 230, and has the same function as the intermediate vehicle 110 and the leading vehicle 120. The operation may be stopped above.”; and a second mode in which the first communication controller monitors different frequencies for receipt of the control signals, receives and relays a first control signal of the control signals at a first frequency, and receives and relays a second control signal of the control signals at a second frequency (JP2021034867 A Page 17 Paragraph 2 discloses “Further, when establishing wireless communication between vehicles, the first communication is established between the first vehicle at the beginning or the end and the second vehicle adjacent to the vehicle by using the first frequency channel, and the first communication is established. After the communication is established, the communication is established between the second vehicle and the adjacent third vehicle using the second frequency channel, so that duplication can be reliably eliminated and the channel can be allocated.” Additionally Page 5 Paragraphs 4 and 5);.
Regarding claim 15 and 20, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 11, wherein the first communication controller is configured to: communicate a first identification signal to a second communication controller of the vehicle system; and receive a second identification signal from the second communication controller (JP2021034867 A Page 4 Paragraph 3 discloses “Further, the internal interface processing 212 processes the information addressed to the own vehicle transferred from the front reception processing 215 or the rear reception processing 217 and transfers it to the control network or the information network inside the vehicle”).
Regarding claim 16, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the first communication controller is configured to: monitor an identification frequency for the second identification signal (JP2021034867 A Page 18 Paragraph 2 discloses “Further, the data to be transmitted / received includes a first area in which an identifier indicating an information type is stored and a second area in which a number indicating the time order of the data (for example, a sequence number or a time stamp) is stored. When adding the duplicated received data to the transmission waiting area for transmitting to another vehicle, if the data having the same identifier of the first area is already stored in the transmission waiting area, the second area is described.”).
Regarding claim 17, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the first identification signal includes a first vehicle identification, and the second identification signal includes a second vehicle identification (JP2021034867 A Page 4 Paragraph 3 discloses “Further, the internal interface processing 212 processes the information addressed to the own vehicle transferred from the front reception processing 215 or the rear reception processing 217 and transfers it to the control network or the information network inside the vehicle”).
Regarding claim 18, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 11, further comprising: a second communication controller configured to communicate with the vehicle system, the second communication controller configured to operate in different modes (JP2021034867 A Page 3, Paragraph 9 discloses “FIG. 2 is a schematic view of an inter-vehicle communication unit 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 200 includes a communication relay unit 210, a front communication unit 220, and a rear communication unit 230.” Page 4 Paragraphs 1 and 3 respectively disclose “The communication relay unit 210 has each of the control process 211, the internal interface process 212,…” and “The internal interface processing 212 connects to a control network inside the vehicle such as CAN (Control Area Network) or an information network such as an in-vehicle LAN (Local Area Network), extracts information for vehicle-to vehicle communication, and performs vehicle-to-vehicle communication.”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-10 and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Satoshi (JP2021034867 A translation used) in view of Gee et al. (US20180158335 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Satoshi discloses a system comprising: a first communication controller configured to: communicate with a vehicle system; monitor different frequencies to receive signals related to the vehicle system (JP2021034867 A Page 3, Paragraph 9 discloses “FIG. 2 is a schematic view of an inter-vehicle communication unit 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 200 includes a communication relay unit 210, a front communication unit 220, and a rear communication unit 230.” Page 4 Paragraphs 1 and 3 respectively disclose “The communication relay unit 210 has each of the control process 211, the internal interface process 212,…” and “The internal interface processing 212 connects to a control network inside the vehicle such as CAN (Control Area Network) or an information network such as an in-vehicle LAN (Local Area Network), extracts information for vehicle-to vehicle communication, and performs vehicle-to-vehicle communication.”); relay a first signal of the signals at a first frequency of the different frequencies and relay a second signal of the signals at a second frequency of the different frequencies (JP2021034867 A Page 17 Paragraph 2 discloses “Further, when establishing wireless communication between vehicles, the first communication is established between the first vehicle at the beginning or the end and the second vehicle adjacent to the vehicle by using the first frequency channel, and the first communication is established. After the communication is established, the communication is established between the second vehicle and the adjacent third vehicle using the second frequency channel, so that duplication can be reliably eliminated and the channel can be allocated.” Additionally Page 5 Paragraphs 4 and 5);
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose assigning the first signal and the second signal to one of a first communication pathway or a second communication pathway.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches assigning the first signal and the second signal to one of a first communication pathway or a second communication pathway (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0023 discloses “In addition to being coupled to memory devices 204, the computer 202 is also coupled to a first conventional multiplexer 208. The single output 207 of the first multiplexer 208 can thus provide to the computer 202, various signals 210 input to the multiplexer inputs from multiple different types of sensors, not shown but well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and therefore omitted in the interest of brevity.” Whereby the first and second signals can be transmitted through either/both the front/rear communication units as indicated by Satoshi ).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., to assign the first signal and the second signal to one of a first communication pathway or a second communication pathway, thereby providing greater signal transmission path diversity and reduced interference, thus ensuring with greater probability that the transmitted signal reaches the desired location.
Regarding claim 2, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the first communication controller is further configured to vary a first signal characteristic of the first signal or vary a second signal characteristic of the second signal (JP2021034867 A Page 13 Paragraph 1 discloses “In the embodiment of the present invention, a channel is selected so that the channel used by the front communication unit 220 and the channel used by the rear communication unit 230 of each vehicle are different, and the front communication and the rear communication are performed.”).
Regarding claim 3, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 2.
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose wherein to vary the first signal or second signal the first communication controller is further configured to multiplex the first signal or the second signal.
However in an analogous Gee et al. teaches wherein to vary the first signal or second signal the first communication controller is further configured to multiplex the first signal or the second signal (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0023 discloses “In addition to being coupled to memory devices 204, the computer 202 is also coupled to a first conventional multiplexer 208. The single output 207 of the first multiplexer 208 can thus provide to the computer 202, various signals 210 input to the multiplexer inputs from multiple different types of sensors, not shown but well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and therefore omitted in the interest of brevity.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., to vary the first signal or second signal the first communication controller is further configured to multiplex the first signal or the second signal, in order to achieve efficiency, reliability and redundancy through multiplexing.
Regarding claim 4, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 2, wherein to vary the first signal or second signal the first communication controller is further configured to vary a first frequency of the first signal or vary a second frequency of the second signal (JP2021034867 A Page 13 Paragraph 1 discloses “In the embodiment of the present invention, a channel is selected so that the channel used by the front communication unit 220 and the channel used by the rear communication unit 230 of each vehicle are different, and the front communication and the rear communication are performed.” Whereby page 14 paragraph 3 discloses “the channel is a unit that can communicate independently in different frequency ranges, such as a wireless LAN channel.”).
Regarding claim 5, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 1, further comprising: a second communication controller configured to: communicate with the vehicle system and the first communication controller; monitor the different frequencies to receive the signals related to the vehicle system; (JP2021034867 A Page 3, Paragraph 9 discloses “FIG. 2 is a schematic view of an inter-vehicle communication unit 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 200 includes a communication relay unit 210, a front communication unit 220, and a rear communication unit 230.” Page 4 Paragraphs 1 and 3 respectively disclose “The communication relay unit 210 has each of the control process 211, the internal interface process 212,…” and “The internal interface processing 212 connects to a control network inside the vehicle such as CAN (Control Area Network) or an information network such as an in-vehicle LAN (Local Area Network), extracts information for vehicle-to vehicle communication, and performs vehicle-to-vehicle communication.”); relay the first signal of the signals at the first frequency of the different frequencies and relay the second signal of the signals at the second frequency of the different frequencies (JP2021034867 A Page 17 Paragraph 2 discloses “Further, when establishing wireless communication between vehicles, the first communication is established between the first vehicle at the beginning or the end and the second vehicle adjacent to the vehicle by using the first frequency channel, and the first communication is established. After the communication is established, the communication is established between the second vehicle and the adjacent third vehicle using the second frequency channel, so that duplication can be reliably eliminated and the channel can be allocated.”);
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose assigning the first signal and the second signal to at least one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway based at least in part on communications received from the first communication controller.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches assigning the first signal and the second signal to at least one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway based at least in part on communications received from the first communication controller (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0023 discloses “In addition to being coupled to memory devices 204, the computer 202 is also coupled to a first conventional multiplexer 208. The single output 207 of the first multiplexer 208 can thus provide to the computer 202, various signals 210 input to the multiplexer inputs from multiple different types of sensors, not shown but well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and therefore omitted in the interest of brevity.” Whereby the first and second signals can be transmitted through either/both the front/rear communication units as indicated by Satoshi).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., to assign the first signal and the second signal to one of a first communication pathway or a second communication pathway, thereby providing greater signal transmission path diversity and reduced interference, thus ensuring with greater probability that the transmitted signal reaches the desired location.
.
Regarding claim 6, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 5.
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose wherein the first communication controller is further configured to assign the first signal and the second signal to both the first communication pathway and the second communication pathway.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches wherein the first communication controller is further configured to assign the first signal and the second signal to both the first communication pathway and the second communication pathway. (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0023 discloses “In addition to being coupled to memory devices 204, the computer 202 is also coupled to a first conventional multiplexer 208. The single output 207 of the first multiplexer 208 can thus provide to the computer 202, various signals 210 input to the multiplexer inputs from multiple different types of sensors, not shown but well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and therefore omitted in the interest of brevity.” Whereby the first and second signals can be transmitted through either/both the front/rear communication units as indicated by Satoshi).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., wherein the first communication controller is further configured to assign the first signal and the second signal to both the first communication pathway and the second communication pathway, thereby providing greater signal transmission path diversity and reduced interference, thus ensuring with greater probability that the transmitted signal reaches the desired location.
Regarding claim 7, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 5, wherein the first communication controller is within a first vehicle and the second communication controller is within a second vehicle; wherein the first vehicle and the second vehicle are within a fleet (JP2021034867 A Page 3 Paragraph 8 discloses “Each vehicle has a vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 200 that notifies another vehicle of its own vehicle information via wireless communication and receives information of the other vehicle via wireless communication.” Paragraph 7 and FIG.1 discloses “…a schematic view of a group of vehicles running in a platoon to which the wireless communication system of the embodiment of the present invention is applied.”).
Regarding claim 8, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 5, wherein the first communication controller is within a first vehicle and has an identifier and the second communication controller is within a second vehicle and the second communication controller is configured to detect the identifier and assign the first signal and the second signal to the at least one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway in response to detecting the identifier (JP2021034867 A Page 4 Paragraph 3 discloses “Further, the internal interface processing 212 processes the information addressed to the own vehicle transferred from the front reception processing 215 or the rear reception processing 217 and transfers it to the control network or the information network inside the vehicle”).
Regarding claims 9, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 1.
Santhosh fails to explicitly disclose wherein the signals are control signals and operational signals.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches wherein the signals are control signals and operational signals (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0031 discloses “Signals from the various sensors provided to the multiplexer 208 are provided there through to the computer 202 via the bus 206, responsive to control signal sent to the multiplexer 208 from the computer 202. Stated another way, the computer 202 selects which sensor information to “read” by way of control signal sent to the multiplexer 208 from the computer 202 via the bus 206.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., wherein the signals are control signals and operational signals, in order to reduce complexity.
Regarding claim 10, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 9.
Satoshi fails explicitly to disclose wherein to assign the first signal and the second signal to one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway is based on whether the first signal or second signal is a control signal or an operational signal.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches wherein to assign the first signal and the second signal to one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway is based on whether the first signal or second signal is a control signal or an operational signal (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0023 discloses “In addition to being coupled to memory devices 204, the computer 202 is also coupled to a first conventional multiplexer 208. The single output 207 of the first multiplexer 208 can thus provide to the computer 202, various signals 210 input to the multiplexer inputs from multiple different types of sensors, not shown but well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and therefore omitted in the interest of brevity.” Whereby the first and second signals can be transmitted through either/both the front/rear communication units as indicated by Satoshi Page 5 Paragraphs 4 and 5 and Page 17 Paragraph 2 and ).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., to assign the first signal and the second signal to one of the first communication pathway or the second communication pathway is based on whether the first signal or second signal is a control signal or an operational signal, in order to optimize path selection based on the priority of the signal.
Regarding claim 12, Satoshi discloses the system of claim 11.
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose the first communication controller further configured to communicate with a wayside device wherein a communication to the wayside device includes a current mode of the first communication controller.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches the first communication controller further configured to communicate with a wayside device wherein a communication to the wayside device includes a current mode of the first communication controller (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0025 discloses “One of the sensors is a pedestrian sensor 212. It is coupled to the first multiplexer 208 and detects the presence of a human in front of or adjacent a motor vehicle by measuring one or more characteristics of a human, such as shape and surface temperature.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., the first communication controller further configured to communicate with a wayside device wherein a communication to the wayside device includes a current mode of the first communication controller, in order to acquire information about the surrounding environment.
Regarding claim 13, Santhosh discloses the system of claim 12.
Satoshi fails to explicitly disclose wherein the communication includes at least one of a distance of the at least one vehicle from the wayside device, a direction of the at least one vehicle, a speed of the at least one vehicle, or a vehicle type of the at least one vehicle.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches wherein the communication includes at least one of a distance of the at least one vehicle from the wayside device, a direction of the at least one vehicle, a speed of the at least one vehicle, or a vehicle type of the at least one vehicle (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0025 discloses “Distances between the vehicle and a detected human, cyclist, motor vehicle or other object can be measured using RADAR, SONAR or LIDAR, a prior art remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light, all of which are part of the pedestrian sensor 212. The pedestrian sensor 212 thus detects humans and provides signals indicating the presence of pedestrians, i.e., whether a human is walking, cyclists riding on motor-driven bicycles, cyclists riding on pedal-powered bicycles and provides signals that indicate the direction of their travel, including the direction that a curb-side pedestrian is facing, as well as the distance between them and the vehicle, in real time.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., wherein the communication includes at least one of a distance of the at least one vehicle from the wayside device, a direction of the at least one vehicle, a speed of the at least one vehicle, or a vehicle type of the at least one vehicle, in order to acquire information about the surrounding environment.
Regarding claim 14, Satoshi, discloses the system of claim 11.
Santhosh fails to explicitly disclose wherein the signals include control signals and operational signals.
However in an analogous art Gee et al. teaches wherein the signals include control signals and operational signals. (US20180158335 A1 Paragraph 0031 discloses “Signals from the various sensors provided to the multiplexer 208 are provided there through to the computer 202 via the bus 206, responsive to control signal sent to the multiplexer 208 from the computer 202. Stated another way, the computer 202 selects which sensor information to “read” by way of control signal sent to the multiplexer 208 from the computer 202 via the bus 206.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Satoshi to incorporate the teachings of Gee et al., wherein the signals include control signals and operational signals, in order to reduce complexity.
Conclusion
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471