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
Status of Claims
The following is a final office action in response to the communication filed on 03/13/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
Claims 1-20 are either amended directly or via a claim they depend from.
Claims 1-20 are rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 03/13/2026 have been fully considered and are addressed as follows.
Regarding the claims rejections under 35 USC § 103: Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 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. The new ground of rejection in response to Applicant’s amendments to independent claims 1, 11, and 20 has been applied over Zhang (US 2022/0044564 A1, hereinafter Zhang), in view of Sehoon (KR 102112684 B1, hereinafter Sehoon), further in view of newly cited reference Pfadler et al. (US 11,912,312 B2, hereinafter Pfadler) The rejections has been applied in the following, Claim Rejections 35 USC § 103, section on Page 4 of the office action for the Applicant’s consideration.
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper content of an abstract of the disclosure.
A patent abstract is a concise statement of the technical disclosure of the patent and should include that which is new in the art to which the invention pertains. The abstract should not refer to purported merits or speculative applications of the invention and should not compare the invention with the prior art.
If the patent is of a basic nature, the entire technical disclosure may be new in the art, and the abstract should be directed to the entire disclosure. If the patent is in the nature of an improvement in an old apparatus, process, product, or composition, the abstract should include the technical disclosure of the improvement. The abstract should also mention by way of example any preferred modifications or alternatives.
Where applicable, the abstract should include the following: (1) if a machine or apparatus, its organization and operation; (2) if an article, its method of making; (3) if a chemical compound, its identity and use; (4) if a mixture, its ingredients; (5) if a process, the steps.
Extensive mechanical and design details of an apparatus should not be included in the abstract. The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph within the range of 50 to 150 words in length.
See MPEP § 608.01(b) for guidelines for the preparation of patent abstracts.
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because the Abstract filed on 10/25/2023 is less than 50 words. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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.
Claims 1-5, 10-15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 2022/0044564 A1, hereinafter Zhang), in view of Sehoon (KR 102112684 B1, hereinafter Sehoon), further in view of Pfadler et al. (US 11,912,312 B2, hereinafter Pfadler)
Claim 1 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“A vehicle control method performed by at least one processor,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0021-0023]) “According to an aspect of the present application, an electronic device is provided, where the electronic device may include: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively connected to the at least one processor; where the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor, where the instructions are executed by the at least one processor, so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described first aspect; or so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described second aspect.”
“the method comprising: receiving vehicle information from a vehicle; establishing a communication connection with a roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045], Lines 13-27) “the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
“receiving, after establishing the communication connection with the roadside device,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0077], Lines 1-3) “Continuing to combine with FIG. 5, after entering a communication area of the roadside device, the vehicle can actively send to the roadside device its traveling parameters.”
“roadside information from the roadside device, wherein the vehicle is within a coverage area of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0055]) “Based on the above-described conception, the embodiments of the present application provide a vehicle control method. When the vehicle is controlled to travel, road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device can be filtered firstly to obtain the filtered target road perception information, and effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs is determined; then a roadside perception message including the target road perception information, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device are sent to the vehicle, so that the vehicle can control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information,” and further that, (Paragraph [0086]) “Exemplarily, when controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information, and the vehicle perception information, the vehicle can firstly determine area information of a blind zone in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the effective area information and the area information; control the vehicle to travel in an effective area according to the target road perception information and the vehicle perception information; and control the vehicle to travel in the blind zone according to the vehicle perception information.”
“establishing a configuration for performing remote driving for the vehicle by at least generating, according to the vehicle information and the roadside information, uplink configuration information to remotely control the vehicle,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0013-0018]) “According to another aspect of the present application, a roadside device is provided, where the roadside device may include: a processing unit, configured to filter road perception information acquired in a coverage area of the roadside device to obtain target road perception information, and determine effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information; and a sending unit, configured to send a roadside perception message to a vehicle, wherein the roadside perception message comprises the target road perception information, the effective area information, and area information of the average area of the roadside device, and the roadside perception message is used to indicate that the vehicle is controlled to travel based on the target road perception information, the effective area information and the area information. According to another aspect of the present application, an automatic driving vehicle is provided, where the automatic driving vehicle may include: a receiving unit, configured to receive a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs, and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and a processing unit, configured to control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Therefore, the disclosure of Zhang is capable of transmitting data corresponding to autonomous control instructions, but is silent towards transmitting specific uplink configuration information.
Sehoon does explicitly teach using uplink configuration information.
Sehoon teaches a, (Paragraph [0289]), “remote driving system [which] may include a vehicle (1210), a remote control device (1220), one or more surrounding vehicles (1230), one or more server devices (e.g., cloud servers) (1240), one or more road side units (RSU) (1250), etc. These devices (1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250) can exchange information with each other via wireless communication (e.g., 5G communication),” and that, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle; determining a remote driving type based on the request information; requesting vehicle information from the vehicle based on the remote driving type; receiving the vehicle information from the vehicle,” and well as, (Paragraph [0050], Lines 1-3) “The UE, which has performed the process described above, can then perform PDCCH/PDSCH reception (S207) and physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (S208) as a general uplink/downlink signal transmission process.”
“… transmitting, to the vehicle, information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving, wherein the information comprises the uplink configuration information;”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0118]) “the autonomous vehicle performs a random access procedure with the 5G network for UL synchronization acquisition and/or UL transmission. Additionally, the 5G network may transmit a UL grant to schedule transmission of specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant. And, the 5G network transmits a DL grant to schedule transmission of the 5G processing result for the specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the 5G network can transmit information (or signals) related to remote control to the autonomous vehicle based on the DL grant.”
“and receiving additional information from the vehicle, wherein the additional information is selected based on the uplink configuration information.”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0125], Lines 3-7) “Here, the UL grant includes information about the number of repetitions for transmission of the specific information, and the specific information can be repeatedly transmitted based on the information about the number of repetitions. That is, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant,” and that, (Paragraph [0303], Lines 3-4) “vehicle diagnostic information (diagnostic information) may be included in a remote driving request and transmitted to a remote control device.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of transmitting/receiving uplink configuration information regarding vehicle remote control as taught by Sehoon, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of having a safer and more effective remote driving system by curating relevant situational driving information through a particular uplink configuration. As Sehoon describes, (Paragraph [0386]) “the present invention can implement a safer and more effective remote driving system by distinguishing and transmitting/receiving necessary information according to the remote driving request type and/or remote driver type.”
“wherein the uplink configuration information is dynamically adjusted to reduce or stop reporting of road environment information from the vehicle such that occupation of an upstream bandwidth of the vehicle is reduced
Zhang and Sehoon do not explicitly teach the preceding limitations. However, Sehoon does teach capability to stop providing road information and capability to adjust the information it supplies dynamically. The system of Sehoon also supports transmission for relatively low traffic size, all within the context of an uplink configuration for controlling an autonomous vehicle.
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraphs [0036], Lines 1-5) “The remote control device (or remote driver) can request the vehicle and information collection devices (e.g., vehicle peripheral devices) to stop providing information when the vehicle reaches its destination. Vehicles and information collection devices may stop providing information after receiving a stop request,” and that, (Paragraph [0099], Line) “dynamic resource sharing between eMBB and URLLC is supported,” as well as (Paragraph [0098], Lines 1) “URLLC transmission [which] as defined in NR can mean transmission for (1) relatively low traffic size.”
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the preceding limitations in light of Pfadler. Pfadler is relevant to the Applicant’s disclosure due to its teachings regarding the methodology of dynamically changing upstream bandwidth transmitted from an autonomously driven vehicle.
Pfadler teaches a, (Abstract, Lines 3-9) “method for a transportation vehicle to determine a route section includes operating the transportation vehicle in an automated driving mode and determining an exceptional traffic situation. The method also includes transmitting information related to the exceptional traffic situation to a network component using a mobile communication system,” and that, “Transportation vehicles controlled via remote control are uploading high data streams in the uplink (UL) to the CC 200.” Note: The Examiner is interpreting traffic situation data as an example of road environment information under broadest reasonable interpretation.
Pfadler teaches, (Page 14, Column 12, Lines 17-22) “Different stages can be identified, in some of which a full uplink data flow is required and in others a slim uplink data flow can be used. Disclosed embodiments may offer a management process of the data rate supplied to the CC 200 with the premises to reduce redundant data, which occupies a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL.”
Therefore, it would have been additionally obvious to a person or ordinary skill in the art to combine the uplink configuration of Sehoon, with the methodology of applying full or slim uplink data flow depending on the desired autonomous vehicle control situation which reduces redundant data as taught by Pfadler, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of reducing occupied bandwidth in the uplink by removing redundant data, the rationale of which would be applied by a person of ordinary skill in the art interchangeably between either multiple vehicles as taught in Pfadler, or a vehicle and roadside device as taught in Zhang/Sehoon. As Pfadler describes, (Page 14, Column 11, Lines 11-19) “The data steams provided by a remotely or tele-operated transportation vehicle may comprise radar images, lidar and camera data. Close by driving cars are “seeing” the same environment around them. This redundant data is occupying a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL. For current technologies such as 4G, the UL is expected to be a bottleneck as the network was designed to support high downlink (DL) and low UL data rates,” and further provides context that, (Page 11, Column 6, Lines 9-11) “The mobile or wireless communication system 400 may correspond to a mobile communication system of the 5th Generation (5G, or New Radio).”
Claim 2 Discloses:
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, further comprising establishing the communication connection to the roadside device through a wired connection.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045]) “In combination with FIG. 1, in the embodiments of the present application, the roadside device may be various types of roadside devices. In a systematic architecture of intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination, a roadside device arranged on the road, a server device (not shown) connected to the roadside device, and at least one automatic driving vehicle connected to the server device are included, where the roadside device includes a roadside perceiving device and a roadside computing device, the roadside perceiving device (for example a roadside camera for collecting images) is connected to the roadside computing device (for example a roadside computing unit (RSCU)), the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
Claim 3 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, wherein: the roadside information comprises a sensing coverage area of the roadside device”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0026], Lines 1-10) “According to the technical solutions of the present application, when a vehicle is controlled to travel, road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device is firstly filtered to obtain the filtered target road perception information, and effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs is determined; and then the target road perception information obtained by filtering, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device are sent to the vehicle together.”
“and sensing capability information of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0049], Lines 1-15) “For example, with reference to FIG. 2 which is a schematic diagram of an intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination scenario provided by an embodiment of the present application, it is assumed that a coverage area of a roadside device at a crossroad includes a triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located, a quadrangular area where a pedestrian 2 is located and a triangular area where a non-motorized vehicle is located, but since a certain sensor in the roadside device fails, thus causing that only the triangular area where the pedestrian 1 is located and the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located can be perceived, while the quadrangular area where the pedestrian 2 is located cannot be perceived, a road perception message in the effective perception area is sent to an automatic driving vehicle.”
“and the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information and location information of the vehicle.”
Applicant’s disclosure provides a non-limiting example of vehicle status information. The disclosure describes, (Paragraph [0069], Lines 3-6) “The vehicle status information of the vehicle may be a speed, acceleration, a direction angle, and other information of the vehicle.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0075], Lines 1-5) “Exemplarily, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle within the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle may firstly send traveling parameters including a traveling direction and a traveling lane to the roadside device;” Under broadest reasonable interpretation, a traveling direction is additionally an example of location data as it provides additional information about a device’s position beyond latitude and longitude, and is a major component of tacking movement and navigation functions. Additionally, Fig 1 of Zhang portrays a roadside device identifying the location of a vehicle, represented by a grey cone on the left side of the image. This grey cone represents the roadside device perception range.
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Claim 4 Discloses:
“The vehicle control method according to claim 3, wherein the uplink configuration information further indicates reduction of data transmission of the vehicle.”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of uplink configuration information corresponding to performing remote driving. However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078]) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering. In this way, the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle can be sent to the vehicle in a targeted manner, thus avoiding sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle, thereby reducing the transmission amount of data.” Therefore, Zhang incorporates the advantageous effects of reducing the amount of data transmission.
Sehoon does not explicitly teach a reduction of data transmission, but does explicitly teach using uplink configuration information.
Sehoon teaches a, (Paragraph [0289]), “remote driving system [which] may include a vehicle (1210), a remote control device (1220), one or more surrounding vehicles (1230), one or more server devices (e.g., cloud servers) (1240), one or more road side units (RSU) (1250), etc. These devices (1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250) can exchange information with each other via wireless communication (e.g., 5G communication),” and that, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle; determining a remote driving type based on the request information; requesting vehicle information from the vehicle based on the remote driving type; receiving the vehicle information from the vehicle,” and well as, (Paragraph [0050], Lines 1-3) “The UE, which has performed the process described above, can then perform PDCCH/PDSCH reception (S207) and physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (S208) as a general uplink/downlink signal transmission process.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which avoids sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of transmitting/receiving an uplink configuration information regarding vehicle remote control as taught by Sehoon, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of providing an uplink configuration as a mechanism to reduce the transmission of data by avoiding sending ineffective perception data. As Zhang describes, (Paragraph [0071], Lines 19-23) “the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle can be sent to the vehicle in a targeted manner, thus avoiding sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle, thereby reducing the transmission amount of data,” and Sehoon further provides rationale for controlling/mitigating the rate of which data is sent, describing, (Paragraph [0125], Lines 3-7) “Here, the UL grant includes information about the number of repetitions for transmission of the specific information, and the specific information can be repeatedly transmitted based on the information about the number of repetitions. That is, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant,” and further describes using, (Paragraph [0098], Lines 1) “URLLC transmission [which] as defined in NR can mean transmission for (1) relatively low traffic size.”
Claim 5 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 3, further comprising: obtaining road environment information of the vehicle sensed by the roadside device, and receiving vehicle status data transmitted by the vehicle;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.
Zhang additionally provides an example of roadside environment information, (Paragraph [0077], Lines 7-18) “As shown in conjunction with FIG. 7 which is a schematic diagram of vehicle traveling area provided by Embodiment II of the present application, it can be seen that the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device is a rectangular area in front in the vehicle traveling direction; after the rectangular traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device is determined, the road perception information corresponding to the rectangular traveling area can be determined, in its acquired road perception information including the perception information of the triangular area where the pedestrian 1 is located and the perception information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located.”
“generating a remote control instruction based on the vehicle status data and the road environment information; and transmitting the remote control instruction to the vehicle, the remote control instruction being used for remotely controlling the vehicle to travel.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0006-0010]) “According to a first aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: filtering road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device to obtain target road perception information, and determining effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs; and sending a roadside perception message to a vehicle, wherein the roadside perception message includes the target road perception information, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device, and the roadside perception message is used to indicate that the vehicle is controlled to travel based on the target road perception information, the effective area information and the area information. According to another aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: receiving a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Claim 10 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, wherein road environment information of the vehicle is received through structured data.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0064]) “The target road perception information can be understood as road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle. Exemplarily, a description mode of the effective area information of the area to which the target road perception information belongs can refer to the shape of the area. For example, when the area is a circular area, the area can be described by means of a center and a radius, or the area can be described by means of a center and a diameter; when the area is a polygonal area, the area can be defined by means of the various vertexes of the polygon, and the vertexes need to be coded in adjacent orders; of course, the area can also be described in combination with a high-precision map, which can be specifically set according to actual needs. Here, for the description mode of the effective area information, the embodiments of the present application do not make further restrictions. A high precision map and its corresponding defined area is an example of structured data because it stores information in a well-defined format, with unique key vertexes that correspond to a specific value.
Claim 11 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“A vehicle control apparatus comprising: at least one memory containing program code; and at least one processor configured to execute the program code,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0021-0023]) “According to an aspect of the present application, an electronic device is provided, where the electronic device may include: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively connected to the at least one processor; where the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor, where the instructions are executed by the at least one processor, so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described first aspect; or so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described second aspect.”
“the program code comprising: first receiving code configured to cause the at least one processor to receive vehicle information from a vehicle; first establishing code configured to cause the at least one processor to establish a communication connection with a roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0129], Lines 1-9) “The program codes used to implement the method of the present application can be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. These program codes can be provided to the processors or controllers of general-purpose computers, special-purpose computers, or other programmable data processing devices, so that when the program codes are executed by the processors or controllers, the functions/the operation specified in the flowcharts and/or the block diagrams are implemented.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0045], Lines 13-27) “the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-6) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device.”
“second receiving code configured to cause the at least one processor to receive, after the communication connection with the roadside device is established, roadside information from the roadside device, wherein the vehicle is within a coverage area of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0077], Lines 1-3) “Continuing to combine with FIG. 5, after entering a communication area of the roadside device, the vehicle can actively send to the roadside device its traveling parameters.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0055]) “Based on the above-described conception, the embodiments of the present application provide a vehicle control method. When the vehicle is controlled to travel, road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device can be filtered firstly to obtain the filtered target road perception information, and effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs is determined; then a roadside perception message including the target road perception information, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device are sent to the vehicle, so that the vehicle can control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0086]) “Exemplarily, when controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information, and the vehicle perception information, the vehicle can firstly determine area information of a blind zone in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the effective area information and the area information; control the vehicle to travel in an effective area according to the target road perception information and the vehicle perception information; and control the vehicle to travel in the blind zone according to the vehicle perception information.”
“second establishing code configured to cause the at least one processor to establish a configuration for performing a remote driving for the vehicle based on the vehicle information and the roadside information, wherein the second establishing code comprises first generating code to cause the at least one processor to generate, according to the vehicle information and the roadside information, uplink configuration information to remotely control the vehicle,”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving. However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0013-0018]) “According to another aspect of the present application, a roadside device is provided, where the roadside device may include: a processing unit, configured to filter road perception information acquired in a coverage area of the roadside device to obtain target road perception information, and determine effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information; and a sending unit, configured to send a roadside perception message to a vehicle, wherein the roadside perception message comprises the target road perception information, the effective area information, and area information of the average area of the roadside device, and the roadside perception message is used to indicate that the vehicle is controlled to travel based on the target road perception information, the effective area information and the area information. According to another aspect of the present application, an automatic driving vehicle is provided, where the automatic driving vehicle may include: a receiving unit, configured to receive a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs, and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and a processing unit, configured to control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Therefore, the disclosure of Zhang is capable of transmitting data corresponding to autonomous control instructions, but is silent towards transmitting specific uplink configuration information.
Sehoon does explicitly teach using uplink configuration information.
Sehoon teaches a, (Paragraph [0289]), “remote driving system [which] may include a vehicle (1210), a remote control device (1220), one or more surrounding vehicles (1230), one or more server devices (e.g., cloud servers) (1240), one or more road side units (RSU) (1250), etc. These devices (1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250) can exchange information with each other via wireless communication (e.g., 5G communication),” and that, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle; determining a remote driving type based on the request information; requesting vehicle information from the vehicle based on the remote driving type; receiving the vehicle information from the vehicle,” and well as, (Paragraph [0050], Lines 1-3) “The UE, which has performed the process described above, can then perform PDCCH/PDSCH reception (S207) and physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (S208) as a general uplink/downlink signal transmission process.”
“… first transmitting code configured to cause the at least one processor to transmit, to the vehicle, information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving, wherein the information comprises the uplink configuration information;”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0118]) “the autonomous vehicle performs a random access procedure with the 5G network for UL synchronization acquisition and/or UL transmission. Additionally, the 5G network may transmit a UL grant to schedule transmission of specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant. And, the 5G network transmits a DL grant to schedule transmission of the 5G processing result for the specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the 5G network can transmit information (or signals) related to remote control to the autonomous vehicle based on the DL grant.”
“and third receiving code configured to cause the at least one processor to receive additional information from the vehicle, wherein the additional information is selected based on the uplink configuration information.”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0125], Lines 3-7) “Here, the UL grant includes information about the number of repetitions for transmission of the specific information, and the specific information can be repeatedly transmitted based on the information about the number of repetitions. That is, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant,” and that, (Paragraph [0303], Lines 3-4) “vehicle diagnostic information (diagnostic information) may be included in a remote driving request and transmitted to a remote control device.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of transmitting/receiving uplink configuration information regarding vehicle remote control as taught by Sehoon, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of having a safer and more effective remote driving system by curating relevant situational driving information through a particular uplink configuration. As Sehoon describes, (Paragraph [0386]) “the present invention can implement a safer and more effective remote driving system by distinguishing and transmitting/receiving necessary information according to the remote driving request type and/or remote driver type.”
“wherein the uplink configuration information is dynamically adjusted to reduce or stop reporting of road environment information from the vehicle such that occupation of an upstream bandwidth of the vehicle is reduced
Zhang and Sehoon do not explicitly teach the preceding limitations. However, Sehoon does teach capability to stop providing road information and capability to adjust the information it supplies dynamically. The system of Sehoon also supports transmission for relatively low traffic size, all within the context of an uplink configuration for controlling an autonomous vehicle.
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraphs [0036], Lines 1-5) “The remote control device (or remote driver) can request the vehicle and information collection devices (e.g., vehicle peripheral devices) to stop providing information when the vehicle reaches its destination. Vehicles and information collection devices may stop providing information after receiving a stop request,” and that, (Paragraph [0099], Line) “dynamic resource sharing between eMBB and URLLC is supported,” as well as (Paragraph [0098], Lines 1) “URLLC transmission [which] as defined in NR can mean transmission for (1) relatively low traffic size.”
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the preceding limitations in light of Pfadler. Pfadler is relevant to the Applicant’s disclosure due to its teachings regarding the methodology of dynamically changing upstream bandwidth transmitted from an autonomously driven vehicle.
Pfadler teaches a, (Abstract, Lines 3-9) “method for a transportation vehicle to determine a route section includes operating the transportation vehicle in an automated driving mode and determining an exceptional traffic situation. The method also includes transmitting information related to the exceptional traffic situation to a network component using a mobile communication system,” and that, (Page 13, Column 10, Lines 62-64) “Transportation vehicles controlled via remote control are uploading high data streams in the uplink (UL) to the CC 200.” Note: The Examiner is interpreting traffic situation data as an example of road environment information under broadest reasonable interpretation.
Pfadler teaches, (Page 14, Column 12, Lines 17-22) “Different stages can be identified, in some of which a full uplink data flow is required and in others a slim uplink data flow can be used. Disclosed embodiments may offer a management process of the data rate supplied to the CC 200 with the premises to reduce redundant data, which occupies a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL.”
Therefore, it would have been additionally obvious to a person or ordinary skill in the art to combine the uplink configuration of Sehoon, with the methodology of applying full or slim uplink data flow depending on the desired autonomous vehicle control situation to reduce redundant data as taught by Pfadler, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of reducing occupied bandwidth in the uplink by removing redundant data, the rationale of which would be applied to a person of ordinary skill in the art interchangeably between either multiple vehicles as taught in Pfadler, or a vehicle and roadside device as taught in Zhang/Sehoon. As Pfadler describes, (Page 14, Column 11, Lines 11-19) “The data steams provided by a remotely or tele-operated transportation vehicle may comprise radar images, lidar and camera data. Close by driving cars are “seeing” the same environment around them. This redundant data is occupying a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL. For current technologies such as 4G, the UL is expected to be a bottleneck as the network was designed to support high downlink (DL) and low UL data rates,” and further provides context that, (Page 11, Column 6, Lines 9-11) “The mobile or wireless communication system 400 may correspond to a mobile communication system of the 5th Generation (5G, or New Radio).”
Claim 12 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the communication connection to the roadside device is established through a wired connection.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045]) “In combination with FIG. 1, in the embodiments of the present application, the roadside device may be various types of roadside devices. In a systematic architecture of intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination, a roadside device arranged on the road, a server device (not shown) connected to the roadside device, and at least one automatic driving vehicle connected to the server device are included, where the roadside device includes a roadside perceiving device and a roadside computing device, the roadside perceiving device (for example a roadside camera for collecting images) is connected to the roadside computing device (for example a roadside computing unit (RSCU)), the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
Claim 13 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 11, wherein: the roadside information comprises a sensing coverage area of the roadside device”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0026], Lines 1-10) “According to the technical solutions of the present application, when a vehicle is controlled to travel, road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device is firstly filtered to obtain the filtered target road perception information, and effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs is determined; and then the target road perception information obtained by filtering, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device are sent to the vehicle together.”
“and sensing capability information of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0049], Lines 1-15) “For example, with reference to FIG. 2 which is a schematic diagram of an intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination scenario provided by an embodiment of the present application, it is assumed that a coverage area of a roadside device at a crossroad includes a triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located, a quadrangular area where a pedestrian 2 is located and a triangular area where a non-motorized vehicle is located, but since a certain sensor in the roadside device fails, thus causing that only the triangular area where the pedestrian 1 is located and the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located can be perceived, while the quadrangular area where the pedestrian 2 is located cannot be perceived, a road perception message in the effective perception area is sent to an automatic driving vehicle.”
“and the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information and location information of the vehicle.”
Applicant’s disclosure provides a non-limiting example of vehicle status information. The disclosure describes, (Paragraph [0069], Lines 3-6) “The vehicle status information of the vehicle may be a speed, acceleration, a direction angle, and other information of the vehicle.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0075], Lines 1-5) “Exemplarily, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle within the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle may firstly send traveling parameters including a traveling direction and a traveling lane to the roadside device;” Under broadest reasonable interpretation, a traveling direction is additionally an example of location data as it provides additional information about a device’s position beyond latitude and longitude, and is a major component of tacking movement and navigation functions. Additionally, Fig 1 of Zhang portrays a roadside device identifying the location of a vehicle, represented by a grey cone on the left side of the image. This grey cone represents the roadside device perception range.
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Claim 14 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the uplink configuration information further indicates reduction of data transmission of the vehicle.”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of uplink configuration information corresponding to performing remote driving. However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078]) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering. In this way, the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle can be sent to the vehicle in a targeted manner, thus avoiding sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle, thereby reducing the transmission amount of data.” Therefore, Zhang incorporates the advantageous effects of reducing the amount of data transmission.
Sehoon, does not explicitly teach a reduction of data transmission, but does explicitly teach using uplink configuration information.
Sehoon teaches a, (Paragraph [0289]), “remote driving system [which] may include a vehicle (1210), a remote control device (1220), one or more surrounding vehicles (1230), one or more server devices (e.g., cloud servers) (1240), one or more road side units (RSU) (1250), etc. These devices (1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250) can exchange information with each other via wireless communication (e.g., 5G communication),” and that, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle; determining a remote driving type based on the request information; requesting vehicle information from the vehicle based on the remote driving type; receiving the vehicle information from the vehicle,” and well as, (Paragraph [0050], Lines 1-3) “The UE, which has performed the process described above, can then perform PDCCH/PDSCH reception (S207) and physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (S208) as a general uplink/downlink signal transmission process.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which avoids sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of transmitting/receiving an uplink configuration information regarding vehicle remote control as taught by Sehoon, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of providing an uplink configuration as a mechanism to reduce the transmission of data by avoiding sending ineffective perception data. As Zhang describes, (Paragraph [0071], Lines 19-23) “the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle can be sent to the vehicle in a targeted manner, thus avoiding sending ineffective perception information to the vehicle, thereby reducing the transmission amount of data,” and Sehoon further provides rationale for controlling/mitigating the rate of which data is sent, describing, (Paragraph [0125], Lines 3-7) “Here, the UL grant includes information about the number of repetitions for transmission of the specific information, and the specific information can be repeatedly transmitted based on the information about the number of repetitions. That is, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant,” and further describes using, (Paragraph [0098], Lines 1) “URLLC transmission [which] as defined in NR can mean transmission for (1) relatively low traffic size.”
Claim 15 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 13, wherein , the program code further comprises: first obtaining code configured to cause the at least one processor to obtain the road environment information of the vehicle sensed by the roadside device after the uplink configuration information is transmitted to the vehicle, fourth receiving code configured to cause the at least one processor to receive vehicle status data transmitted by the vehicle;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.
Zhang additionally provides an example of roadside environment information, (Paragraph [0077], Lines 7-18) “As shown in conjunction with FIG. 7 which is a schematic diagram of vehicle traveling area provided by Embodiment II of the present application, it can be seen that the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device is a rectangular area in front in the vehicle traveling direction; after the rectangular traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device is determined, the road perception information corresponding to the rectangular traveling area can be determined, in its acquired road perception information including the perception information of the triangular area where the pedestrian 1 is located and the perception information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located.”
“third generating code configured to cause the at least one processor to generate a remote control instruction based on the vehicle status data and the road environment information; and second transmitting code configured to cause the at least one processor to transmit the remote control instruction to the vehicle, the remote control instruction being used for remotely controlling the vehicle to travel.”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0006-0010]) “According to a first aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: filtering road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device to obtain target road perception information, and determining effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs; and sending a roadside perception message to a vehicle, wherein the roadside perception message includes the target road perception information, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device, and the roadside perception message is used to indicate that the vehicle is controlled to travel based on the target road perception information, the effective area information and the area information. According to another aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: receiving a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Claim 20 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“A non-transitory computer-readable medium for vehicle control containing program code that when executed by at least one processor,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0021-0024]) “According to an aspect of the present application, an electronic device is provided, where the electronic device may include: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively connected to the at least one processor; and a memory communicatively connected to the at least one processor; where the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor, where the instructions are executed by the at least one processor, so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described first aspect; or so that the at least one processor is capable of executing the vehicle control method according to the above-described second aspect. According to an aspect of the present application, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stored with computer instructions is provided, where the computer instructions are used to enable a computer to execute the vehicle control method according to the above-described first aspect; or, to execute the vehicle method according to the above-described second aspect.”
“causes the at least one processor to: receive vehicle information from a vehicle; establish a communication connection with a roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045], Lines 13-27) “the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
“receive, after the communication connection is established with the roadside device,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0077], Lines 1-3) “Continuing to combine with FIG. 5, after entering a communication area of the roadside device, the vehicle can actively send to the roadside device its traveling parameters.”
“roadside information from the roadside device, wherein the vehicle is within a coverage area of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0055]) “Based on the above-described conception, the embodiments of the present application provide a vehicle control method. When the vehicle is controlled to travel, road perception information acquired in a coverage area of a roadside device can be filtered firstly to obtain the filtered target road perception information, and effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs is determined; then a roadside perception message including the target road perception information, the effective area information and area information of the coverage area of the roadside device are sent to the vehicle, so that the vehicle can control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.” Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0086]) “Exemplarily, when controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information, and the vehicle perception information, the vehicle can firstly determine area information of a blind zone in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the effective area information and the area information; control the vehicle to travel in an effective area according to the target road perception information and the vehicle perception information; and control the vehicle to travel in the blind zone according to the vehicle perception information.”
“establish a configuration for performing a remote driving for the vehicle by at least causing the at least one processor to generate, according to the vehicle information and the roadside information, uplink configuration information to remotely control the vehicle,”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving. However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0013-0018]) “According to another aspect of the present application, a roadside device is provided, where the roadside device may include: a processing unit, configured to filter road perception information acquired in a coverage area of the roadside device to obtain target road perception information, and determine effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information; and a sending unit, configured to send a roadside perception message to a vehicle, wherein the roadside perception message comprises the target road perception information, the effective area information, and area information of the average area of the roadside device, and the roadside perception message is used to indicate that the vehicle is controlled to travel based on the target road perception information, the effective area information and the area information. According to another aspect of the present application, an automatic driving vehicle is provided, where the automatic driving vehicle may include: a receiving unit, configured to receive a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs, and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and a processing unit, configured to control the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.”
Therefore, the disclosure of Zhang is capable of transmitting data corresponding to autonomous control instructions, but is silent towards transmitting specific uplink configuration information.
Sehoon does explicitly teach using uplink configuration information.
Sehoon teaches a, (Paragraph [0289]), “remote driving system [which] may include a vehicle (1210), a remote control device (1220), one or more surrounding vehicles (1230), one or more server devices (e.g., cloud servers) (1240), one or more road side units (RSU) (1250), etc. These devices (1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250) can exchange information with each other via wireless communication (e.g., 5G communication),” and that, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle; determining a remote driving type based on the request information; requesting vehicle information from the vehicle based on the remote driving type; receiving the vehicle information from the vehicle,” and well as, (Paragraph [0050], Lines 1-3) “The UE, which has performed the process described above, can then perform PDCCH/PDSCH reception (S207) and physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission (S208) as a general uplink/downlink signal transmission process.”
“… transmit, to the vehicle, information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving, the information comprising the uplink configuration information;”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0118]) “the autonomous vehicle performs a random access procedure with the 5G network for UL synchronization acquisition and/or UL transmission. Additionally, the 5G network may transmit a UL grant to schedule transmission of specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant. And, the 5G network transmits a DL grant to schedule transmission of the 5G processing result for the specific information to the autonomous vehicle. Accordingly, the 5G network can transmit information (or signals) related to remote control to the autonomous vehicle based on the DL grant.”
“and receiving additional information from the vehicle, wherein the additional information is selected based on the uplink configuration information.”
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0125], Lines 3-7) “Here, the UL grant includes information about the number of repetitions for transmission of the specific information, and the specific information can be repeatedly transmitted based on the information about the number of repetitions. That is, the autonomous vehicle transmits specific information to the 5G network based on the UL grant,” and that, (Paragraph [0303], Lines 3-4) “vehicle diagnostic information (diagnostic information) may be included in a remote driving request and transmitted to a remote control device.”
“wherein the uplink configuration information is dynamically adjusted to reduce or stop reporting of road environment information from the vehicle such that occupation of an upstream bandwidth of the vehicle is reduced
Zhang and Sehoon do not explicitly teach the preceding limitations. However, Sehoon does teach capability to stop providing road information and capability to adjust the information it supplies dynamically. The system of Sehoon also supports transmission for relatively low traffic size, all within the context of an uplink configuration for controlling an autonomous vehicle.
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraphs [0036], Lines 1-5) “The remote control device (or remote driver) can request the vehicle and information collection devices (e.g., vehicle peripheral devices) to stop providing information when the vehicle reaches its destination. Vehicles and information collection devices may stop providing information after receiving a stop request,” and that, (Paragraph [0099], Line) “dynamic resource sharing between eMBB and URLLC is supported,” as well as (Paragraph [0098], Lines 1) “URLLC transmission [which] as defined in NR can mean transmission for (1) relatively low traffic size.”
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the preceding limitations in light of Pfadler. Pfadler is relevant to the Applicant’s disclosure due to its teachings regarding the methodology of dynamically changing upstream bandwidth transmitted from an autonomously driven vehicle.
Pfadler teaches a, (Abstract, Lines 3-9) “method for a transportation vehicle to determine a route section includes operating the transportation vehicle in an automated driving mode and determining an exceptional traffic situation. The method also includes transmitting information related to the exceptional traffic situation to a network component using a mobile communication system,” and that, (Page 13, Column 10, Lines 62-64) “Transportation vehicles controlled via remote control are uploading high data streams in the uplink (UL) to the CC 200.” Note: The Examiner is interpreting traffic situation data as an example of road environment information under broadest reasonable interpretation.
Pfadler additionally teaches, (Page 14, Column 12, Lines 17-22) “Different stages can be identified, in some of which a full uplink data flow is required and in others a slim uplink data flow can be used. Disclosed embodiments may offer a management process of the data rate supplied to the CC 200 with the premises to reduce redundant data, which occupies a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL.”
Therefore, it would have been additionally obvious to a person or ordinary skill in the art to combine the uplink configuration of Sehoon, with the methodology of applying full or slim uplink data flow depending on the desired autonomous vehicle control situation to reduce redundant data as taught by Pfadler, in order to yield predictable results.
Combining the references would yield the benefits of reducing occupied bandwidth in the uplink by removing redundant data, the rationale of which would be reasonably applied to a person of ordinary skill in the art interchangeably between either multiple vehicles as taught in Pfadler, or a vehicle and roadside device as taught in Zhang/Sehoon. As Pfadler describes, (Page 14, Column 11, Lines 11-19) “The data steams provided by a remotely or tele-operated transportation vehicle may comprise radar images, lidar and camera data. Close by driving cars are “seeing” the same environment around them. This redundant data is occupying a considerable amount of bandwidth in the UL. For current technologies such as 4G, the UL is expected to be a bottleneck as the network was designed to support high downlink (DL) and low UL data rates,” and further provides context that, (Page 11, Column 6, Lines 9-11) “The mobile or wireless communication system 400 may correspond to a mobile communication system of the 5th Generation (5G, or New Radio).”
Claims 6-8 and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Sehoon, further in view of Pfadler, further in view of Fei et al., (US 2024/0244410 A1, hereinafter Fei).
Claim 6 Discloses: (Previously Presented)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, further comprising establishing the communication connection with the roadside device through a wired connection,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045]) “In combination with FIG. 1, in the embodiments of the present application, the roadside device may be various types of roadside devices. In a systematic architecture of intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination, a roadside device arranged on the road, a server device (not shown) connected to the roadside device, and at least one automatic driving vehicle connected to the server device are included, where the roadside device includes a roadside perceiving device and a roadside computing device, the roadside perceiving device (for example a roadside camera for collecting images) is connected to the roadside computing device (for example a roadside computing unit (RSCU)), the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
“wherein the vehicle information is received from the vehicle via the roadside device,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.”
“and wherein the configuration for performing the remote driving is established via the roadside device.”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving. Additionally, Sehoon and Pfadler do not explicitly state that their configurations for remote driving are established via the roadside device.
However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0010-0012]) “According to another aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: receiving a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.” Therefore, the instructions for performing remote driving in the disclosure of Zhang are formulated by the roadside device.
Fei does explicitly teach transmitting to the vehicle information corresponding to the configuration of remote driving for the vehicle from the roadside device.
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0424], Lines 3-7) “the coverage capability information may indicate at least one of the following content (or indicators): a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, or signal strength.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0420], Lines 2-4) “the second data processing apparatus may be the vehicle 702 (the roadside device 701).”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0421]) “Step S1304: The second data processing apparatus updates a map or controls an action of a vehicle based on the coverage information, that is, generates a control signal used to control the vehicle.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of sending a configuration from a roadside device to a vehicle comprising autonomous vehicle control signals, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to achieve the autonomous driving of a vehicle that is at least partially determined by a configuration comprising coverage information, improving safety overall. As Fei describes, (Abstract, Lines 9-12) “The coverage information can be used to generate a control signal for controlling a vehicle, so that safety of autonomous driving or assisted driving can be improved.”
Claim 7 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, wherein: the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information of the vehicle, the roadside information comprises the road environment information of the vehicle, and the vehicle status information of the vehicle is transmitted by the vehicle to the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.
“and the establishing the configuration for performing the remote driving comprises: generating a remote control instruction according to the vehicle status information and the road environment information; and transmitting the remote control instruction to the roadside device, the remote control instruction being used for transmitting a control instruction to the vehicle by the roadside device based on the remote control instruction.”
Sehoon and Pfadler do not explicitly state their configuration for remote driving going through the roadside device. However, Sehoon does teach the following.
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle;” and that, (Paragraph [0291], Lines 4-9) “The remote control device (1220) can collect information by communicating with the RSU, surrounding vehicles, and/or ITS around the vehicle based on the location of the vehicle. The remote control device (1220) can reconstruct the environment around the vehicle based on the collected information (e.g. navigation, maximum/minimum speed on the road, traffic lights ahead, obstacles, traffic congestion, operation of emergency vehicles (ambulance, 119, police car), etc.).”
Fei does explicitly teach transmitting to the vehicle information from the roadside device corresponding to the configuration of remote driving for the vehicle.
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0424], Lines 3-7) “the coverage capability information may indicate at least one of the following content (or indicators): a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, or signal strength.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0420], Lines 2-4) “the second data processing apparatus may be the vehicle 702 (the roadside device 701).”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0421]) “Step S1304: The second data processing apparatus updates a map or controls an action of a vehicle based on the coverage information, that is, generates a control signal used to control the vehicle.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang with the explicit teachings of sending a configuration from a roadside device to a vehicle comprising autonomous vehicle control signals as taught by Fei, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to achieve the autonomous driving of a vehicle that is at least partially determined by a configuration comprising coverage information, improving safety overall. As Fei describes, (Abstract, Lines 9-12) “The coverage information can be used to generate a control signal for controlling a vehicle, so that safety of autonomous driving or assisted driving can be improved.”
Fei additionally goes on to describe a particular scenario, wherein coverage information as part of an autonomous control configuration is utilized to actively determine an autonomous control that doesn’t waste processing resources of the vehicle, wherein (Paragraph [0398]) “the data processing apparatus may obtain a dead zone based on the coverage information, to control an action of the vehicle. For example, refer to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a possible dead zone scope according to an embodiment. When a vehicle is located in a communication dead zone of the communication device 902, a communication connection to the communication device 902 may be actively cut off, to prevent unstable connections from occupying communication and processing resources of the vehicle. When the vehicle is located in a sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, or a detection result used by the vehicle is located in the sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, confidence of a sensing result of the sensing device 901 may be reduced, or the sensing result from the sensing device 901 may not be used.”
Claim 8 Discloses: (Original)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 7, wherein the roadside information further comprises sensing coverage area and communication capability information of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches (Paragraph [0044], Lines 10-14) “A roadside device detects road perception information in its coverage area, and sends the detected road perception information to an automatic driving vehicle, so that the automatic driving vehicle controls the automatic driving vehicle to travel in combination with the road perception information.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0086]) “Exemplarily, when controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information, and the vehicle perception information, the vehicle can firstly determine area information of a blind zone in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the effective area information and the area information; control the vehicle to travel in an effective area according to the target road perception information and the vehicle perception information; and control the vehicle to travel in the blind zone according to the vehicle perception information.”
Zhang, Sehoon, and Pfadler do not explicitly teach the switching of communication with the vehicle to communication between the vehicle and the roadside device. However, Fei does explicitly teach the newly introduced limitations of claim 8.
“The vehicle control method according to claim 7, wherein the roadside information further comprises sensing coverage area and communication capability information of the roadside device;”
Fei teaches, (Paragraphs [0005-0008]) “Embodiments provide a data processing method and apparatus. A new type of map information, such as coverage information of a roadside device, is added to a map, so that richness of map information is improved, and a higher-level map use requirement can be met. According to a first aspect, an embodiment provides a data processing method, and the method includes: obtaining coverage information of a roadside device, where the coverage information includes coverage region information that indicates at least one coverage region of the roadside device and coverage capability information that indicates a coverage capability of the roadside device in the at least one coverage region; and storing the coverage information as map data.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraphs [0038-0039]) “In still another possible implementation, when the coverage capability is a coverage capability of the roadside device in a communication coverage region, the coverage capability information indicates at least one of the following content: a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, and signal strength.”
“further comprising, in a case that it is determined according to the sensing coverage area and the communication capability information of the roadside device that the roadside device is capable of assisting in remote driving, switching communication with the vehicle to communication between the vehicle and the roadside device.”
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0024]) “The foregoing describes a possible case in which a plurality of communication coverage regions are included. Because different regions correspond to different coverage capabilities, different communication coverage regions are obtained through classification based on levels of the different coverage capabilities, to facilitate capability boundary determining. In addition, when the plurality of communication coverage regions are classified based on levels of capabilities, a structure of the coverage information is clearer, and management and use are facilitated.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “For example, during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraphs [0050-0051]) “In still another possible implementation, information processing is performed or a control signal is generated for controlling the vehicle based on the coverage information. The following is an example. When a vehicle is located in a coverage region, based on the coverage region indicated by the coverage information and a coverage capability in the coverage region, a safety level of the vehicle is determined, or confidence of a sensing result from the roadside device is determined, or a first notification message is triggered to remind a user to enable an autonomous driving function of the vehicle or enable an assisted driving function of the vehicle, or a second notification message is triggered to remind the user to take over the vehicle. Therefore, based upon the previously cited disclosure of Fei, a person of ordinary skill if the art would understand the prior art contains a device that is capable of switching communication to the vehicle and a particular roadside device based on the coverage area and communication capability information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle-road coordination system of Zhang and Sehoon, which are mapped to the limitations of claim 7, and additionally obtains coverage information, with the explicit switching of a communication requirement of the vehicle to a particular roadside device based upon the communication capability information and the coverage area taught by Fei, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to successfully and predictably utilize coverage capability information to maintain planned reliable autonomous driving control. As Fei describes, (Paragraphs [0129-0132]) “In still another possible implementation, when the coverage capability is a coverage capability of the roadside device in a communication coverage region, the coverage capability information indicates at least one of the following content: a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, and signal strength. In embodiments, several types of content (or indicators) indicated by the coverage capability information are provided as an example. The coverage capability information indicates one or more of the foregoing content, so that design rationality of the coverage information can be improved, to facilitate subsequent use. For example, during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Claim 16 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 11, the program code further comprising third establishing code configured to cause the at least one processor to establish the communication connection with the roadside device through a wired connection,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0045]) “In combination with FIG. 1, in the embodiments of the present application, the roadside device may be various types of roadside devices. In a systematic architecture of intelligent transportation vehicle-road coordination, a roadside device arranged on the road, a server device (not shown) connected to the roadside device, and at least one automatic driving vehicle connected to the server device are included, where the roadside device includes a roadside perceiving device and a roadside computing device, the roadside perceiving device (for example a roadside camera for collecting images) is connected to the roadside computing device (for example a roadside computing unit (RSCU)), the roadside computing device is connected to the server device, the server device can communicate with an automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside computing device; in another systematic architecture, a roadside perceiving device itself has a computing function, then the roadside perceiving device is directly connected to the server device, where the server device can communicate with the automatic driving or assisted driving vehicle in various ways based on a result computed by the roadside perceiving device. The above connection can be wired or wireless; the server device in the present application is, for example, a cloud control platform, a vehicle-road coordination management platform, a central subsystem, an edge computing platform, a cloud computing platform, etc.”
“wherein the vehicle information is received from the vehicle via the roadside device,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.”
“and wherein the configuration for performing the remote driving may be established via the roadside device.”
Zhang does not teach an explicit transmitting of information corresponding to the configuration for performing remote driving. Additionally, Sehoon and Pfadler do not explicitly state that their configurations for remote driving are established via the roadside device.
However, Zhang does teach the following.
Zhang teaches, (Paragraphs [0010-0012]) “According to another aspect of the present application, a vehicle control method is provided, where the vehicle control method may include: receiving a roadside perception message sent by a roadside device, where the roadside perception message includes target road perception information, effective area information of an area to which the target road perception information belongs and area information of a coverage area of the roadside device; and controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information and vehicle perception information.” Therefore, the instructions for performing remote driving in the disclosure of Zhang are formulated by the roadside device.
Fei does explicitly teach transmitting to the vehicle information corresponding to the configuration of remote driving for the vehicle from the roadside device.
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0424], Lines 3-7) “the coverage capability information may indicate at least one of the following content (or indicators): a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, or signal strength.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0420], Lines 2-4) “the second data processing apparatus may be the vehicle 702 (the roadside device 701).”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0421]) “Step S1304: The second data processing apparatus updates a map or controls an action of a vehicle based on the coverage information, that is, generates a control signal used to control the vehicle.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang, with the explicit teachings of sending a configuration from a roadside device to a vehicle comprising autonomous vehicle control signals, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to achieve the autonomous driving of a vehicle that is at least partially determined by a configuration comprising coverage information, improving safety overall. As Fei describes, (Abstract, Lines 9-12) “The coverage information can be used to generate a control signal for controlling a vehicle, so that safety of autonomous driving or assisted driving can be improved.”
Fei additionally goes on to describe a particular scenario, wherein coverage information as part of an autonomous control configuration is utilized to actively determine an autonomous control that doesn’t waste processing resources of the vehicle, wherein (Paragraph [0398]) “the data processing apparatus may obtain a dead zone based on the coverage information, to control an action of the vehicle. For example, refer to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a possible dead zone scope according to an embodiment. When a vehicle is located in a communication dead zone of the communication device 902, a communication connection to the communication device 902 may be actively cut off, to prevent unstable connections from occupying communication and processing resources of the vehicle. When the vehicle is located in a sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, or a detection result used by the vehicle is located in the sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, confidence of a sensing result of the sensing device 901 may be reduced, or the sensing result from the sensing device 901 may not be used.”
Claim 17 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 11, wherein: the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information of the vehicle, the roadside information comprises the road environment information of the vehicle, and the vehicle status information of the vehicle is transmitted by the vehicle to the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.”
“and the first establishing code comprises: second generating code configured to cause the at least one processor to generate a remote control instruction according to the vehicle status information and the road environment information; and second transmitting code configured to cause the at least one processor to transmit the remote control instruction to the roadside device, the remote control instruction being used for transmitting a control instruction to the vehicle by the roadside device based on the remote control instruction.”
Sehoon and Pfadler do not explicitly state their configuration for remote driving going through the roadside device. However, Sehoon does teach the following.
Sehoon teaches, (Paragraph [0011]) “the method performed by a remote control device includes the steps of: receiving request information for remote driving including diagnostic information or type information of the vehicle from a vehicle;” and that, (Paragraph [0291], Lines 4-9) “The remote control device (1220) can collect information by communicating with the RSU, surrounding vehicles, and/or ITS around the vehicle based on the location of the vehicle. The remote control device (1220) can reconstruct the environment around the vehicle based on the collected information (e.g. navigation, maximum/minimum speed on the road, traffic lights ahead, obstacles, traffic congestion, operation of emergency vehicles (ambulance, 119, police car), etc.).”
Fei does explicitly teach transmitting to the vehicle information from the roadside device corresponding to the configuration of remote driving for the vehicle.
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0424], Lines 3-7) “the coverage capability information may indicate at least one of the following content (or indicators): a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, or signal strength.”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0420], Lines 2-4) “the second data processing apparatus may be the vehicle 702 (the roadside device 701).”
Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0421]) “Step S1304: The second data processing apparatus updates a map or controls an action of a vehicle based on the coverage information, that is, generates a control signal used to control the vehicle.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle control method comprising a roadside device which sends its perception information to an autonomous vehicle to make control decisions as taught by Zhang with the explicit teachings of sending a configuration from a roadside device to a vehicle comprising autonomous vehicle control signals a taught by Pfadler, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to achieve the autonomous driving of a vehicle that is at least partially determined by a configuration comprising coverage information, improving safety overall. As Fei describes, (Abstract, Lines 9-12) “The coverage information can be used to generate a control signal for controlling a vehicle, so that safety of autonomous driving or assisted driving can be improved.”
Fei additionally goes on to describe a particular scenario, wherein coverage information as part of an autonomous control configuration is utilized to actively determine an autonomous control that doesn’t waste processing resources of the vehicle, wherein (Paragraph [0398]) “the data processing apparatus may obtain a dead zone based on the coverage information, to control an action of the vehicle. For example, refer to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a possible dead zone scope according to an embodiment. When a vehicle is located in a communication dead zone of the communication device 902, a communication connection to the communication device 902 may be actively cut off, to prevent unstable connections from occupying communication and processing resources of the vehicle. When the vehicle is located in a sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, or a detection result used by the vehicle is located in the sensing dead zone of the sensing device 901, confidence of a sensing result of the sensing device 901 may be reduced, or the sensing result from the sensing device 901 may not be used.”
Claim 18 Discloses: (Original)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the roadside information further comprises sensing coverage area and communication capability information of the roadside device;”
Zhang teaches (Paragraph [0044], Lines 10-14) “A roadside device detects road perception information in its coverage area, and sends the detected road perception information to an automatic driving vehicle, so that the automatic driving vehicle controls the automatic driving vehicle to travel in combination with the road perception information.”
Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0086]) “Exemplarily, when controlling the vehicle to travel according to the target road perception information, the effective area information, the area information, and the vehicle perception information, the vehicle can firstly determine area information of a blind zone in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the effective area information and the area information; control the vehicle to travel in an effective area according to the target road perception information and the vehicle perception information; and control the vehicle to travel in the blind zone according to the vehicle perception information.”
Zhang, Sehoon, and Pfadler do not explicitly teach the switching of communication with the vehicle to communication between the vehicle and the roadside device. However, Fei does explicitly teach the newly introduced limitations of claim 8.
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the roadside information further comprises sensing coverage area and communication capability information of the roadside device;”
Fei teaches, (Paragraphs [0005-0008]) “Embodiments provide a data processing method and apparatus. A new type of map information, such as coverage information of a roadside device, is added to a map, so that richness of map information is improved, and a higher-level map use requirement can be met. According to a first aspect, an embodiment provides a data processing method, and the method includes: obtaining coverage information of a roadside device, where the coverage information includes coverage region information that indicates at least one coverage region of the roadside device and coverage capability information that indicates a coverage capability of the roadside device in the at least one coverage region; and storing the coverage information as map data.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraphs [0038-0039]) “In still another possible implementation, when the coverage capability is a coverage capability of the roadside device in a communication coverage region, the coverage capability information indicates at least one of the following content: a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, and signal strength.”
“and wherein the program code further comprises first switching code configured to cause the at least one processor to switch communication with the vehicle to communication between the vehicle and the roadside device in a case that it is determined according to the sensing coverage area and the communication capability information of the roadside device that the roadside device is capable of assisting in remote driving.”
Fei teaches, (Paragraph [0024]) “The foregoing describes a possible case in which a plurality of communication coverage regions are included. Because different regions correspond to different coverage capabilities, different communication coverage regions are obtained through classification based on levels of the different coverage capabilities, to facilitate capability boundary determining. In addition, when the plurality of communication coverage regions are classified based on levels of capabilities, a structure of the coverage information is clearer, and management and use are facilitated.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0041]) “For example, during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.” Fei additionally teaches, (Paragraphs [0050-0051]) “In still another possible implementation, information processing is performed or a control signal is generated for controlling the vehicle based on the coverage information. The following is an example. When a vehicle is located in a coverage region, based on the coverage region indicated by the coverage information and a coverage capability in the coverage region, a safety level of the vehicle is determined, or confidence of a sensing result from the roadside device is determined, or a first notification message is triggered to remind a user to enable an autonomous driving function of the vehicle or enable an assisted driving function of the vehicle, or a second notification message is triggered to remind the user to take over the vehicle.”
Therefore, based upon the previously cited disclosure of Fei, a person of ordinary skill if the art would understand the prior art contains a device that is capable of switching communication to the vehicle and a particular roadside device based on the coverage area and communication capability information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle-road coordination system of Zhang and Sehoon, which are mapped to the limitations of claim 17, and additionally obtains coverage information, with the explicit switching of a communication requirement of the vehicle to a particular roadside device based upon the communication capability information and the coverage area taught by Fei, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining the references would be to successfully and predictably utilize coverage capability information to maintain planned reliable autonomous driving control. As Fei describes, (Paragraphs [0129-0132]) “In still another possible implementation, when the coverage capability is a coverage capability of the roadside device in a communication coverage region, the coverage capability information indicates at least one of the following content: a data accuracy rate, a packet loss rate, a communication delay, communication stability, and signal strength. In embodiments, several types of content (or indicators) indicated by the coverage capability information are provided as an example. The coverage capability information indicates one or more of the foregoing content, so that design rationality of the coverage information can be improved, to facilitate subsequent use. For example, during traveling, a vehicle may communicate with the roadside device at any time, and a communication status may be indicated based on communication stability of the roadside device, so that a communication requirement between the vehicle and the roadside device can be planned and adjusted in a timely manner.”
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Sehoon, further in view of Pfadler, further in view of Levinson et al. (US 9,612,123 B1, hereinafter Levison)
Claim 9 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control method according to claim 1, wherein: the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information of the vehicle,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0075], Lines 1-5) “Exemplarily, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle within the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle may firstly send traveling parameters including a traveling direction and a traveling lane to the roadside device;”
“the roadside information comprises the road environment information of the vehicle,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.” Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0054], Lines 16-25) “the automatic driving vehicle does not need to acquire the road perception information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located and the area information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located; instead, it only needs to acquire the road area information of the lane 1 in the traveling direction of the automatic driving vehicle, that is, the roadside device only needs to send perceive information of the triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located, and the area information of the triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located to the automatic driving vehicle.”
However, Zhang, Sehoon, and Pfadler do not teach performing scene rendering according to the road environment information or receiving a remote-control instruction from a remote driver based on the rendered road environment information, which is described in the remaining limitations of claim 9. In contrast, Levinson does teach all of the following introduced in Claim 9.
“the vehicle status information and the road environment information are received in a human remote driving mode; and the establishing the configuration for performing the remote driving comprises: performing scene rendering according to the road environment information to obtain a road environment of the vehicle; presenting the road environment of the vehicle; receiving a remote control instruction, the remote control instruction being triggered by a remote driver based on the road environment and the vehicle status information; and transmitting the remote control instruction to the vehicle.”
Levinson teaches, (Page 60, Column 19, Lines 12-33) “FIG. 11 is a diagram depicting an example of a planner configured to invoke teleoperations, according to some examples. Diagram 1100 depicts a planner 1164 including a topography manager 1110, a route manager 1112, a path generator 1114, a trajectory evaluator 1120, and a trajectory tracker 1128. Topography manager 1110 is configured to receive map data, such as 3D map data or other like map data that specifies topographic features. Topography manager 1110 is further configured to identify candidate paths based on topographic-related features on a path to a destination. According to various examples, topography manager 1110 receives 3D maps generated by sensors associated with one or more autonomous vehicles in the fleet. Route manager 1112 is configured to receive environmental data 1103, which may include traffic-related information associated with one or more routes that may be selected as a path to the destination. Path generator 1114 receives data from topography manager 1110 and route manager 1112, and generates one or more paths or path segments suitable to direct autonomous vehicle toward a destination. Data representing one or more paths or path segments is transmitted into trajectory evaluator 1120.”
“presenting the road environment of the vehicle; receiving a remote control instruction, the remote control instruction being triggered by a remote driver based on the road environment and the vehicle status information; and transmitting the remote control instruction to the vehicle.”
Levinson teaches, (Page 62, Column 24, Lines 22-55) “FIG. 15 is an example of a flow diagram to control an autonomous vehicle, according to some embodiments. At 1502, flow 1500 begins. Message data may be received at a teleoperator computing device for managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles. The message data may indicate event attributes associated with a non-normative state of operation in the context of a planned path for an autonomous vehicle. For example, an event may be characterized as a particular intersection that becomes problematic due to, for example, a large number of pedestrians, hurriedly crossing the street against a traffic light. The event attributes describe the characteristics of the event, such as, for example, the number of people crossing the street, the traffic delays resulting from an increased number of pedestrians, etc. At 1504, a teleoperation repository may be accessed to retrieve a first subset of recommendations based on simulated operations of aggregated data associated with a group of autonomous vehicles. In this case, a simulator may be a source of recommendations with which a teleoperator may implement. Further, the teleoperation repository may also be accessed to retrieve a second subset of recommendations based on an aggregation of teleoperator interactions responsive to similar event attributes. In particular, a teleoperator interaction capture analyzer may apply machine learning techniques to empirically determine how best to respond to events having similar attributes based on previous requests for teleoperation assistance. At 1506, the first subset and the second subset of recommendations are combined to form a set of recommended courses of action for the autonomous vehicle. At 1508, representations of the set of recommended courses of actions may be presented visually on a display of a teleoperator computing device. At 1510, data signals representing a selection (e.g., by teleoperator) of a recommended course of action may be detected.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle-road coordination system of Zhang, which obtains vehicle status and road environment information, with the disclosure of Levinson wherein a remote operator determines autonomous control of a vehicle based upon rendered road environment information and vehicle status information, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining these references is to predictably allow safe and confusion free navigation of an autonomous vehicle by a remote operator. For example, a remote operator can utilize rendered road environment information, as well as status information, to make remote decisions that can avoid obstacles well in advance of any potential collision. As Levinson describes, (Page 59, Column 18, Lines 43-67 & Page 60, Column 19, Lines 1-11) “FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a teleoperator interface with which a teleoperator may influence path planning, according to some embodiments. Diagram 1000 depicts examples of an autonomous vehicle 1030 in communication with an autonomous vehicle service platform 1001, which includes a teleoperator manager 1007 configured to facilitate teleoperations. In a first example, teleoperator manager 1007 receives data that requires teleoperator 1008 to preemptively view a path of an autonomous vehicle approaching a potential obstacle or an area of low planner confidence levels so that teleoperator 1008 may be able to address an issue in advance. To illustrate, consider that an intersection that an autonomous vehicle is approaching may be tagged as being problematic. As such, user interface 1010 displays a representation 1014 of a corresponding autonomous vehicle 1030 transiting along a path 1012, which has been predicted by a number of trajectories generated by a planner. Also displayed are other vehicles 1011 and dynamic objects 1013, such as pedestrians, that may cause sufficient confusion at the planner, thereby requiring teleoperation support. User interface 1010 also presents to teleoperator 1008 a current velocity 1022, a speed limit 1024, and an amount of charge 1026 presently in the batteries. According to some examples, user interface 1010 may display other data, such as sensor data as acquired from autonomous vehicle 1030. In a second example, consider that planner 1064 has generated a number of trajectories that are coextensive with a planner-generated path 1044 regardless of a detected unidentified object 1046. Planner 1064 may also generate a subset of candidate trajectories 1040, but in this example, the planner is unable to proceed given present confidence levels. If planner 1064 fails to determine an alternative path, a teleoperation request may be transmitted. In this case, a teleoperator may select one of candidate trajectories 1040 to facilitate travel by autonomous vehicle 1030 that is consistent with teleoperator-based path 1042.”
Claim 19 Discloses: (Currently Amended)
“The vehicle control apparatus according to claim 11, wherein: the vehicle information comprises vehicle status information of the vehicle,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0075], Lines 1-5) “Exemplarily, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle within the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle may firstly send traveling parameters including a traveling direction and a traveling lane to the roadside device;”
“the roadside information comprises the road environment information of the vehicle,”
Zhang teaches, (Paragraph [0078], Lines 1-14) “It can be seen that in this possible implementation, when the roadside device predicts the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device, the vehicle can firstly send the traveling parameters including the traveling direction and the traveling lane to the roadside device; so that the roadside device can determine the traveling area of the vehicle in the coverage area of the roadside device according to the traveling direction and the traveling lane; and determine the road perception information corresponding to the traveling area in the road perception information as the target road perception information, so as to obtain the target road perception information that has an effective reference value on the traveling of the vehicle by filtering.” Zhang additionally teaches, (Paragraph [0054], Lines 16-25) “the automatic driving vehicle does not need to acquire the road perception information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located and the area information of the triangular area where the non-motorized vehicle is located; instead, it only needs to acquire the road area information of the lane 1 in the traveling direction of the automatic driving vehicle, that is, the roadside device only needs to send perceive information of the triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located, and the area information of the triangular area where a pedestrian 1 is located to the automatic driving vehicle.”
However, Zhang, Sehoon, and Pfadler do not teach performing scene rendering according to the road environment information or receiving a remote-control instruction from a remote driver based on the rendered road environment information, which is described in the remaining limitations of claim 19. In contrast, Levinson does teach all of the following limitations introduced in Claim 19.
“the vehicle status information and the road environment information are received in a human remote driving mode; and the first establishing code comprises: first performing code configured to cause the at least one processor to perform scene rendering according to the road environment information to obtain a road environment of the vehicle;”
Levinson teaches, (Page 60, Column 19, Lines 12-33) “FIG. 11 is a diagram depicting an example of a planner configured to invoke teleoperations, according to some examples. Diagram 1100 depicts a planner 1164 including a topography manager 1110, a route manager 1112, a path generator 1114, a trajectory evaluator 1120, and a trajectory tracker 1128. Topography manager 1110 is configured to receive map data, such as 3D map data or other like map data that specifies topographic features. Topography manager 1110 is further configured to identify candidate paths based on topographic-related features on a path to a destination. According to various examples, topography manager 1110 receives 3D maps generated by sensors associated with one or more autonomous vehicles in the fleet. Route manager 1112 is configured to receive environmental data 1103, which may include traffic-related information associated with one or more routes that may be selected as a path to the destination. Path generator 1114 receives data from topography manager 1110 and route manager 1112, and generates one or more paths or path segments suitable to direct autonomous vehicle toward a destination. Data representing one or more paths or path segments is transmitted into trajectory evaluator 1120.”
“first presenting code configured to cause the at least one processor to present the road environment of the vehicle; fourth receiving code configured to cause the at least one processor to receive a remote control instruction, the remote control instruction being triggered by a remote driver based on the road environment and the vehicle status information; and first transmitting code configured to cause the at least one processor to transmit the remote control instruction to the vehicle.”
Levinson teaches, (Page 62, Column 24, Lines 22-55) “FIG. 15 is an example of a flow diagram to control an autonomous vehicle, according to some embodiments. At 1502, flow 1500 begins. Message data may be received at a teleoperator computing device for managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles. The message data may indicate event attributes associated with a non-normative state of operation in the context of a planned path for an autonomous vehicle. For example, an event may be characterized as a particular intersection that becomes problematic due to, for example, a large number of pedestrians, hurriedly crossing the street against a traffic light. The event attributes describe the characteristics of the event, such as, for example, the number of people crossing the street, the traffic delays resulting from an increased number of pedestrians, etc. At 1504, a teleoperation repository may be accessed to retrieve a first subset of recommendations based on simulated operations of aggregated data associated with a group of autonomous vehicles. In this case, a simulator may be a source of recommendations with which a teleoperator may implement. Further, the teleoperation repository may also be accessed to retrieve a second subset of recommendations based on an aggregation of teleoperator interactions responsive to similar event attributes. In particular, a teleoperator interaction capture analyzer may apply machine learning techniques to empirically determine how best to respond to events having similar attributes based on previous requests for teleoperation assistance. At 1506, the first subset and the second subset of recommendations are combined to form a set of recommended courses of action for the autonomous vehicle. At 1508, representations of the set of recommended courses of actions may be presented visually on a display of a teleoperator computing device. At 1510, data signals representing a selection (e.g., by teleoperator) of a recommended course of action may be detected.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the vehicle-road coordination system of Zhang, which obtains vehicle status and road environment information, with the disclosure of Levinson wherein a remote operator determines autonomous control of a vehicle based upon rendered road environment information and vehicle status information, in order to yield predictable results.
The rationale for combining these references is to predictably allow safe and confusion free navigation of an autonomous vehicle by a remote operator. For example, a remote operator can utilize rendered road environment information, as well as status information to make remote decisions that can avoid obstacles well in advance of any potential collision. As Levinson describes, (Page 59, Column 18, Lines 43-67 & Page 60, Column 19, Lines 1-11) “FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a teleoperator interface with which a teleoperator may influence path planning, according to some embodiments. Diagram 1000 depicts examples of an autonomous vehicle 1030 in communication with an autonomous vehicle service platform 1001, which includes a teleoperator manager 1007 configured to facilitate teleoperations. In a first example, teleoperator manager 1007 receives data that requires teleoperator 1008 to preemptively view a path of an autonomous vehicle approaching a potential obstacle or an area of low planner confidence levels so that teleoperator 1008 may be able to address an issue in advance. To illustrate, consider that an intersection that an autonomous vehicle is approaching may be tagged as being problematic. As such, user interface 1010 displays a representation 1014 of a corresponding autonomous vehicle 1030 transiting along a path 1012, which has been predicted by a number of trajectories generated by a planner. Also displayed are other vehicles 1011 and dynamic objects 1013, such as pedestrians, that may cause sufficient confusion at the planner, thereby requiring teleoperation support. User interface 1010 also presents to teleoperator 1008 a current velocity 1022, a speed limit 1024, and an amount of charge 1026 presently in the batteries. According to some examples, user interface 1010 may display other data, such as sensor data as acquired from autonomous vehicle 1030. In a second example, consider that planner 1064 has generated a number of trajectories that are coextensive with a planner-generated path 1044 regardless of a detected unidentified object 1046. Planner 1064 may also generate a subset of candidate trajectories 1040, but in this example, the planner is unable to proceed given present confidence levels. If planner 1064 fails to determine an alternative path, a teleoperation request may be transmitted. In this case, a teleoperator may select one of candidate trajectories 1040 to facilitate travel by autonomous vehicle 1030 that is consistent with teleoperator-based path 1042.”
RELEVANT, BUT NOT CITED PRIOR ART
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
US-20210300417-A1 discloses, (Abstract) “The method involves establishing a network connection with an autonomous vehicle (103) by a road assistance system (101), where a request for the network connection is transmitted by the autonomous vehicle on detection of multiple operation failures. The vehicle failure information is received from the vehicle. A type of failure in the vehicle is determined based on the vehicle failure information. The current surrounding environment information is obtained for the vehicle from one of the vehicle and multiple sensing devices (105). A control instruction is generated based on type of the failure and the environment information by the assistance system. The instruction is provided to the vehicle for execution during an emergency failure situation.”
US-20210114616-A1 discloses, (Abstract) “Devices, system, and method of vehicular multiple-link wireless communication. A vehicular communication bonding unit creates a bonded wireless communication connection that transports data-packets of a source data-stream from a remote server to a vehicular transceiver, by transporting the data-packets over at least two wireless communication links. The vehicular communication bonding unit utilizes a vehicular cellular transceiver to receive a first batch of the data-packets over a first cellular communication link that connects between the vehicular cellular transceiver and the remote server. The vehicular communication bonding unit further utilizes least one end-user device, of an occupant of a vehicle, to receive a second batch of the data-packets of the particular data-stream, over a second cellular communication link that connects between the end-user device and the remote server.”
US-20190132709-A1 discloses, (Abstract) “Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are provided for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), including vehicle-based WSNs. A road side unit (RSU) includes one or more fixed sensors covering different sectors of a designated coverage area. The RSU uses the sensors to capture sensor data that is representative of objects in the coverage area, tracks objects (e.g., vehicles) in the coverage area, and determines regions in the coverage area that are not adequately covered by the sensors (e.g., “perception gaps”). When the RSU identifies an object that is in or at a perception gap, then the RSU sends a request to that object for sensor data captured by the object's on-board sensors. The RSU obtains the sensor data from the object, and uses the obtained sensor data to complement the knowledge that the RSU (i.e., “filling the perception gaps”). Other embodiments are disclosed and/or claimed.”
CN-111267866-A discloses, (Abstract) “The invention relates to the technical field of automatic driving, and particularly to an information processing method, an information processing device, a computer readable medium and electronic equipment. The information processing method in the embodiment of the invention comprises: receiving V2X message-based environment information related to a driving environment through a V2X communication network, converting the environment information into simulation perception information of the automatic driving vehicle to the driving environment, acquiring real perception information of the automatic driving vehicle to the driving environment, and generating fusion perception information used for adjusting the vehicle state of the automatic driving vehicle according to the simulation perception information and the real perception information. According to the technical scheme, the utilization rate and the environmental perception effect of the V2X technology can be improved, and the full-system test service can be provided for the automatic driving vehicle without the V2X message fusion perception capability.”
CN-112712719-A discloses, (Abstract) “The invention claims a vehicle control method, a vehicle road cooperative system, a road side device and an automatic driving vehicle, relating to artificial intelligence, automatic driving, intelligent traffic, and computer vision technology field. The specific scheme is as follows: when controlling the automatic driving vehicle driving, firstly screening the road sensing information obtained in the road side device covering area; and determining the effective area information of the area to which the screened target road sensing information belongs; then the target road sensing information, area information of effective area information and road side device covering area is sent to the vehicle, so that the vehicle is combined with the target road sensing information; the effective area information and area information accurately control the vehicle driving; it not only can improve the safety of the vehicle driving; and the target road sensing information with effective reference value for vehicle driving can be sent to the vehicle, reducing the transmission amount of the data.”
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.
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/ALEXANDER V GENTILE/Examiner, Art Unit 3664
/KITO R ROBINSON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3664
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