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 .
Response to Applicant’s Arguments/Remarks
Amendments and Remarks filed on 07/29/2026 have been fully considered and are addressed as follow:
Regarding the Claim Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. § 103: Applicants “Amendment and Remarks” have been fully considered. Applicant has amended the independent claim and these amendments have changed the scope of the original application and the Office has supplied new grounds for rejection attached below in the FINAL office action, and therefore the prior arguments are considered moot.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-2, 4-5, 7-16, 18 and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodrigues (US PGPub 2023/0221136) in view of Cheng (US PGPub 2025/0042435) and in further view of Vladimerou (US PGPub 2015/0367778).
With respect to claim 1: Rodrigues teaches a method comprising:
receiving probe data of an autonomous vehicle traveling on a roadway [Rodrigues ¶ 0025 and Fig. 1 element 120];
based on classification of each slice, generating a trajectory for the autonomous vehicle [Rodrigues ¶ 0051 “The shapefiles are layered in order to determine vectors for traveling along a network of roadways. The shapefiles are usable in app such as navigation systems and autonomous driving for identifying directions of travel for vehicles.”]; and
adjusting autonomous control of the autonomous vehicle based on the generated trajectory [Rodrigues ¶ 0051].
Rodrigues does not teach discretizing the probe data into a plurality of lateral slices of the roadway; grouping a portion of the plurality of lateral slices into a lane group based on lane transitions or creations in the roadway; classifying each slice based on the lane group;
However, in a related field of invention, Cheng teaches discretizing the probe data into a plurality of lateral slices of the roadway [Cheng ¶ 0073 “A way bar 522 is oriented perpendicular to a way 504 such that a way bar 522 may represent a width or span of the corresponding lane of the vehicle transportation network.”]; grouping a portion of the plurality of lateral slices into a lane group based on lane transitions or creations in the roadway [Cheng ¶ 0085 – 0086 “Referring again to FIG. 4, process 400 groups consecutive way bars into way bar sections based on the lane count assigned at operation 410.”; classifying each slice based on the lane group [Cheng ¶ 0077 “the way bars are categorized based on a cardinality (e.g., a number) of lanes counted within the way bars.”] ;
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation method taught by Rodrigues with way bars (lateral slices) that are grouped together based on the number of lanes as taught in Cheng in order to improve accuracy of lane information.
Rodrigues and Cheng do not teach wherein the lane transitions or creations are detected based on a changing width of one or more affected lanes within a respective lane group and wherein a slice is classified as a start or end of a lane transition or lane creation based on the changing width.
However, in a related field of invention, Vladimerou does wherein the lane transitions or creations are detected based on a changing width of one or more affected lanes within a respective lane group [Vladimerou ¶ 0002 “A lane width increase can be computed to detect a lane split or lane merge based on differences between the look-ahead and near lane widths.” And Figures 5A-5D] and wherein a slice is classified as a start or end of a lane transition or lane creation based on the changing width [Vladimerou ¶ 0002 “A lane width increase can be computed to detect a lane split or lane merge based on differences between the look-ahead and near lane widths.” And Figures 5A-5D];
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation method as taught by Rodrigues and Cheng with determining lane transitions or creations based on a changing width as taught by Vladimerou in order to improve the accuracy and detail of the lane network.
With respect to claim 2: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Rodrigues further teaches wherein a CNN network groups the portion of the plurality of lateral slices into the lane group [Rodrigues ¶ 0056].
With respect to claim 4: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou do not each that the wherein each lateral slice comprises five meters of the roadway.
However, Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou at least suggest the idea of wherein each lateral slice comprises five meters of the roadway [Cheng ¶ 0073]. Further, the “mere scaling up” or “limitations relating to the size” or “recitation of relative dimensions” are generally not patentably distinguishable from a prior art device with both functioning in the same manner. See MPEP 2144.04 IV. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to achieve such dimensions in order to process discrete and manageable chunks of data.
With respect to claim 5: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Cheng further teaches wherein each slice of the portion of the plurality of lateral slices is classified as a start of the lane group, an interior of the lane group, or an end of the lane group [Cheng ¶ 0087-0088 “The way bar sections may be assigned a link node to a beginning of the way bar section and an end of the way bar section. Once the way bar sections have a link node assigned to the beginning of the way bar section and the end of the way bar section, driveline nodes are assigned corresponding to the associated drivelines of the poses contained in the first way bar and last way bar of each section.”].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation method taught by Rodrigues with way bars (lateral slices) that are grouped together based on the number of lanes as taught in Cheng in order to improve accuracy of lane information.
With respect to claim 7: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Cheng further teaches further comprising determining that a slice of the plurality of lateral slices classifies as a transition between lane groups [Cheng ¶ 0087-0088 “The way bar sections may be assigned a link node to a beginning of the way bar section and an end of the way bar section. Once the way bar sections have a link node assigned to the beginning of the way bar section and the end of the way bar section, driveline nodes are assigned corresponding to the associated drivelines of the poses contained in the first way bar and last way bar of each section.”].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation method taught by Rodrigues with way bars (lateral slices) that are grouped together based on the number of lanes as taught in Cheng in order to improve accuracy of lane information.
With respect to claim 8: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Rodrigues further teaches wherein each lane group comprises a left and right road boundary [Rodrigues ¶ 0098 and Fig. 9B element 930].
With respect to claim 21: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Vladimerou further teaches herein a lane transition comprises a lane of the roadway narrowing until the lane merges with an adjacent lane, and wherein a lane creation comprises a lane of the roadway widening until an additional lane is created on the roadway [Vladimerou ¶ 0002 “A lane width increase can be computed to detect a lane split or lane merge based on differences between the look-ahead and near lane widths.” And Figures 5A-5D lane split = lane creation and lane merge = lane transition].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation method as taught by Rodrigues and Cheng with determining lane transitions or creations based on a changing width as taught by Vladimerou in order to improve the accuracy and detail of the lane network.
With respect to claims 9-14 and 22: all limitations have been examined with respect to the method in claims 1, 2, 4-5, 7-8, and 21. The method taught/disclosed in claims 1, 2, 4-5, 7-8, and 21 can clearly perform on the system of claims 9-14 and 22. Therefore, claims 9-14 and 22 are rejected under the same rationale.
With respect to claims 15-16, 18, 20 and 23: all limitations have been examined with respect to the method in claims 1, 2, 4, 8, and 21. The medium taught/disclosed in claims 15-16, 18, 20, and 23 can clearly perform the method of claims 1, 2, 4, 8, and 21. Therefore, claims 15-16, 18, 20, and 23 are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 3, 6, 17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodrigues in view of Cheng in view of Vladimerou and in further view of Chen (US PGPub 2016/0167582).
With respect to claim 3: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou do not teach wherein the probe data generates a histogram indicating probabilities of lane boundaries across the plurality of lateral slices.
However, in a related field of invention, Chen does teach wherein the probe data generates a histogram indicating probabilities of lane boundaries across the plurality of lateral slices [Chen ¶ 0052-0053].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation using lateral slicing method as taught by Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou with using a histogram indicating probabilities as taught in Chen in order to show the distribution of data and reveal patterns in the data which can correlate to road lanes [Chen ¶ 0052].
With respect to claim 6: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the method of claim 1. Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou do not teach wherein the features comprise hard lane boundaries and soft lane boundaries.
However, in a related field of invention, Chen does teach wherein the features comprise hard lane boundaries and soft lane boundaries [Chen ¶ 0008].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation using a lateral slicing method as taught by Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou with having hard and soft lane boundary features as taught in Chen in order to analyze the road markings and provide better lane positioning for the navigation system.
With respect to claim 17: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou teach the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou do not teach wherein the probe data generates a histogram indicating probabilities of lane boundaries across the plurality of lateral slices.
However, in a related field of invention, Chen does teach wherein the probe data generates a histogram indicating probabilities of lane boundaries across the plurality of lateral slices [Chen ¶ 0052-0053].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation using lateral slicing method as taught by Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou with using a histogram indicating probabilities as taught in Chen in order to show the distribution of data and reveal patterns in the data which can correlate to road lanes [Chen ¶ 0052].
With respect to claim 19: Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou do not teach wherein the one or more processors are further configured to determine hard lane boundaries and soft lane boundaries associated with the plurality of lateral slices.
However, in a related field of invention, Chen does teach wherein the features comprise hard lane boundaries and soft lane boundaries [Chen ¶ 0008].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success to combine the road geometry representation using a lateral slicing method as taught by Rodrigues, Cheng, and Vladimerou with having hard and soft lane boundary features as taught in Chen in order to analyze the road markings and provide better lane positioning for the navigation system.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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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/J.E.R./Examiner, Art Unit 3666
/SCOTT A BROWNE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3666
