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 .
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 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.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saito (US 2012/0209489) in view of Shiiba (US 2006/0190158), and Hu (US 2022/0250620)
As to claim 1 Saito discloses a vehicle control device comprising:
an accelerator pedal operated by a driver (Paragraph 64 “The accelerator pedal opening detection sensor 5 detects the extent to which the accelerator pedal is stepped on by the driver, and it may be of a common type that turns the above-mentioned extent into an electric signal by means of, for example, a Hall element within the sensor, etc., and outputs it as a voltage.”);
a brake pedal operated by the driver to activate a braking device (Paragraph 139 “A brake pedal 17 quantifies the driver's brake manipulation amount by means of a stroke sensor, etc., and feeds it to the vehicle motion control device 6.”);
a processor (Paragraph 65 “The vehicle motion control device 6 comprises an electric circuit and a microcomputer, or just a microcomputer, and it comprises, as control elements:”) and
a detector that detects data related to an operation state of a vehicle by the driver, and a traveling state of the vehicle, wherein:
the processor is configured to enable acceleration by the driver operating the accelerator pedal, and to enable braking by the driver operating the brake pedal (Paragraph 185 “Furthermore, with respect to a vehicle motion control device of the present invention, the vehicle speed control device calculates a driver's requested braking/driving torque, which is converted from at least one of the vehicle's accelerator opening, brake manipulation amount, and lateral motion-coordinated acceleration/deceleration, and a given vehicle speed torque that is required to keep the current vehicle speed constant, and outputs the greater of the absolute values of the two if both torques are of the same sign, or the driver's requested braking/driving force if they are of different signs.”); and
when the driver releases the brake pedal and depresses the accelerator pedal in a process of decelerating the vehicle at an entrance of a curve and then accelerating the vehicle while turning in the curve, deceleration of the vehicle is set in accordance with a lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle detected by the detection unit at time of releasing the brake pedal (Abstract “There is provided a vehicle motion control device that defines a pre-curve entry deceleration amount taking the deceleration amount that occurs while traveling a curve into consideration. A vehicle motion control device 6 comprises: a lateral motion-coordinated acceleration/deceleration calculation means 11 that calculates lateral motion-coordinated acceleration/deceleration Gx_dGy, which is the longitudinal acceleration/deceleration of a vehicle 0 that is coordinated with lateral motion, in accordance with lateral jerk Gy_max that acts on the vehicle 0 at curve entry; and a vehicle speed control device 12, which calculates pre-curve entry deceleration Gx_preC that is to be generated with respect to the vehicle 0 before entering the curve, taking lateral motion-coordinated acceleration/deceleration Gx_dGy calculated by the lateral motion-coordinated acceleration/deceleration calculation device 11 into consideration.”).
accelerate the vehicle by the driver operating the accelerator pedal, and brake the vehicle by the driver operating the brake pedal (Paragraph 139 “] A brake pedal 17 quantifies the driver's brake manipulation amount by means of a stroke sensor, etc., and feeds it to the vehicle motion control device 6.”, 171 “FIG. 21(c) shows accelerator pedal opening. FIG. 21(d) shows brake pedal opening. Since flag f_CC_On is 0 in the zone between t0 and ta, the vehicle 0 is in a normal state. If the driver is not manipulating the accelerator or the brake, the vehicle speed decreases due to travel resistance and engine braking”),
Saitao does not explicitly disclose acquire brake operation amounts from the detector during a brake operation, and calculate a maximum brake operation amount based on the brake operation amounts, and
Shiiba teaches acquire brake operation amounts from the detector during a brake operation, and calculate a maximum brake operation amount based on the brake operation amounts (Paragraph 90 “In step S4, the control circuit 130 selects the maximum value from among the representative decelerations Greqi corresponding to the nodes in the scope of the search (selects the value at which the degree of deceleration is the highest), as expressed by the following equation 6, and sets a representative required deceleration GreqALL in the scope of the search to the thus selected value. After step S4 is completed, step S5 is performed. GreqALL=max {Greq1, Greq2, . . . , Greqi} (6)”), and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Saito to calculate the maximum deceleration of the vehicle for the purpose of safely controlling the vehicle along the road while the vehicle is turning along a curve.
Saito does not explicitly disclose set deceleration of the vehicle at a time of the driver releasing the brake pedal in a accordance with the maximum brake operation amount and a lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle, the lateral gravitational acceleration being detected by the detector at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal while the vehicle is turning along a curve.
Hu teaches set deceleration of the vehicle at a time of the driver releasing the brake pedal in a accordance with the maximum brake operation amount and a lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle, the lateral gravitational acceleration being detected by the detector at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal while the vehicle is turning along a curve (Paragraph 29 “At operation 106, the controller determines if the active user profile has a lateral acceleration (LA) threshold stored in memory. If no, the controller performs a series of operations to learn the driver's preference for lateral acceleration. When the vehicle is turning (previously established at operation 104), the controller monitors application of the brake pedal. If the brake pedal is pressed during cornering, control passes to operation 110 where the controller measures the lateral acceleration. During operation of the vehicle, the acceleration sensors 48 may continuously measure vehicle accelerations such as the lateral acceleration according to a clock speed of the controller. At operation 110, the controller records the measured lateral acceleration near the instance the brake pedal is applied. Control then passes to operation 112 and the recorded lateral acceleration of operation 110 is stored as the lateral acceleration threshold for the active user profile.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Saito to include the teachings of setting the deceleration of the brake pedal for the purpose of setting the deceleration of the vehicle based on a user preference.
As to claim 2 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration is a target deceleration determined using a map in which a relation between the lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle and a front-rear gravitational acceleration is determined in advance, in a case that a total amount of a first deceleration and second deceleration is larger than the target deceleration, the first deceleration being an original deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal and the second deceleration being a deceleration due to the braking operation (Paragraph 33-34).
As to claim 3 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration is a first deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, in a case that a total amount of the first deceleration and a second deceleration is equal to or less than a target deceleration, the first deceleration being an original deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, the second deceleration being a deceleration due to the braking operation, and the target deceleration being determined based on the lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle and a front-rear gravitational acceleration of the vehicle (Paragraph 29-30).
As to claim 4 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein a change in the deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal set by the processor is equal to or larger than a predetermined value (Paragraph 30).
As to claim 5 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration of the vehicle is at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, followed by depressing the accelerator pedal (Paragraph 29-30).
As to claim 6 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration is a target deceleration determined based on the lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle and a front-rear gravitational acceleration of the vehicle, in a case that a total amount of a first deceleration and a second deceleration is larger than the target deceleration, the first deceleration being an original deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, and the second deceleration being a deceleration due to the braking operation(Paragraph 29-30).
As to claim 7 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration is a first deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, in a case that a total amount of the first deceleration and a second deceleration is equal to or less than a target deceleration, the target deceleration being set using a map in which a relation between the lateral gravitational acceleration of the vehicle and a front-rear gravitational acceleration of the vehicle is determined in advance, the first deceleration being an original deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, and the second deceleration being a deceleration due to the braking operation(Paragraph 28-29).
As to claim 8 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the deceleration is the first deceleration at the time of the driver releasing the brake pedal, in a case that a brake operation amount in front of the curve among the brake operation amounts is below a predetermined level (Paragraph 19).
As to claim 9 Hu teaches a vehicle control device wherein the brake operation amount in front of the curve among the brake operation amounts is at a time in which a steering angle starts to be equal to or greater than a predetermined value (Paragraph 28).
As to claim 10 Shiiba teaches a vehicle e control device according wherein the maximum brake operation amount and the deceleration of the vehicle are longitudinal accelerations (Paragraph 163).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-10 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IMRAN K MUSTAFA whose telephone number is (571)270-1471. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James J Lee can be reached at 571-270-5965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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IMRAN K. MUSTAFA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3668
/IMRAN K MUSTAFA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
10/2//2025