DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang ( WO2022/092682), in view of Min (EP4365050).
Claim 1 ,
“A vehicle comprising:”
YANGteaches a vehicle capable of autonomous driving.
YANG, page 2
“Referring to FIG. 1, a vehicle 100 may support autonomous driving… the vehicle may perform steering, acceleration, braking, shifting, or parking without a driver's manipulation.”
“a sensor unit configured to detect surrounding environment of the vehicle, generate surrounding environment information, monitor a state of the vehicle, and generate vehicle state information;”
teaches sensing the surrounding environment of the vehicle.
YANG, page 2
“The sensor 110 may sense an environment around the vehicle 100 and generate data related to the surroundings of the vehicle 100.”
YANG, page 3
“The camera may detect the front, rear, and/or side of the vehicle and generate image data for other objects… lanes and obstacles.”
“and a processor configured to control autonomous driving of the vehicle based on one or both of the surrounding environment information and the vehicle state information,”
YANG teaches a processor controlling vehicle operations based on sensor information.
YANG, page 3
“The processor 130 may receive data from the sensor and generate a control command for controlling the controller based on the received data.”
“detect whether a failure occurs in a function required for autonomous driving of the vehicle based on the vehicle state information,”
YANG teaches monitoring components to determine failures.
YANG, page 6
“The vehicle may monitor the state of each of the components of the vehicle and identify the faulty component.”
“determine one or both of a movable time and a movable distance, for indicating a fail-operational capability (FOC) of the vehicle, based on one or both of the vehicle state information and the surrounding environment information,”
YANG does not explicitly teach determining a movable time and movable distance indicating fail-operational capability.
MIN teaches this limitation.
MIN, para [0009]
“The processor may determine a movable time and/or a movable distance which indicate a fail-operational capability (FOC) of the vehicle based on the vehicle state information and/or the surrounding environment information.”
It would have been obvious to incorporate the fail-operational capability determination of MIN into the system of YANG in order to improve the safety decision-making process when selecting a minimal risk maneuver after a failure occurs. Both references address the same problem of safely transitioning an autonomous vehicle to a minimal risk condition when a failure occurs.
“and control the vehicle to be emergency stopped by performing a minimal risk maneuver based on one or both of the movable time and the movable distance.”
YANG teaches performing a minimal risk maneuver.
YANG, page 6
“The vehicle may initiate the minimum risk operation by using the selected minimum risk operation type.”
MIN further teaches determining the maneuver based on movable time or distance.
MIN, para [0019]
“The processor may determine a minimal risk maneuver strategy based on the movable time and/or the movable distance and control the vehicle such that the vehicle is emergency stopped.”
Claim 2 , determining a fault type and determining movable time/distance based on the fault type.
YANG teaches determining the failure state and cause.
YANG, page 6
“The vehicle may determine a failure state and a cause of the failure state.”
YANG does not explicitly teach determining movable time or distance based on fault type.
MIN teaches this feature.
MIN, para [0010]
“The processor may determine a fault type of the failure based on the vehicle state information and determine the movable time and/or movable distance based on the fault type.”
It would have been obvious to determine fail-operational capability parameters based on fault type because different faults require different safety responses, which is a well-known principle in vehicle functional safety systems.
Claim 3 , that movable time includes FTTI and FOTI.
YANG does not explicitly teach these safety intervals.
MIN teaches these intervals.
MIN, para [0011]
“The movable time may include a fault tolerant time interval (FTTI) and/or a fail operational time interval (FOTI).”
It would have been obvious to incorporate these safety intervals into the failure handling system of YANG because such safety timing metrics are commonly used in functional safety standards such as ISO-26262 to evaluate safe operation following a system failure.
Claim 4 , that the safety algorithm performs failure handling and emergency operation.
YANG teaches performing risk-mitigation operations after failure.
YANG, page 6
“When a failure occurs in the control system, the vehicle may perform a minimum risk operation.”
MIN explicitly teaches safety algorithms performing failure handling and emergency operation.
MIN, para [0012]
“The safety algorithm may perform a failure handling function and/or an emergency operation.”
Combining the references would have been obvious because both references describe safety handling of failures during autonomous driving.
Claim 5 , movable distance ranges corresponding to FTTI and FOTI.
YANG does not explicitly disclose these ranges.
MIN teaches this feature.
MIN, para [0013]
“The movable distance may include an FTTI range indicating a movable distance during the FTTI and/or an FOTI range indicating a movable distance during the FOTI.”
The modification would have been obvious because calculating safe travel distance after a fault improves the selection of a safe stopping maneuver.
Claim 6 , comparing FOTI and FTTI to determine a minimal risk maneuver strategy.
MIN teaches this comparison.
MIN, para [0014]
“The processor may compare the FOTI and the FTTI and determine a minimal risk maneuver strategy in consideration of only the FTTI when the FOTI is greater than or equal to the FTTI.”
The use of safety timing intervals to determine maneuver strategy would have been an obvious design improvement for the failure handling system taught in YANG.
Claim 7 , selecting the highest priority minimal risk maneuver type.
MIN teaches this selection.
MIN, para [0015]
“The processor may select a first minimal risk maneuver type having a highest priority among the minimal risk maneuver types which are performable within the FTTI.”
Claim 8 , determining whether the failure is temporarily resolved and selecting another maneuver.
MIN teaches this logic.
MIN, para [0016]
“The processor may determine whether the function in which the failure occurred is normally at least temporarily operated by the safety algorithm.”
Claim 9 , maneuver types including straight stop, in-lane stop, half-shoulder stop, and full-shoulder stop.
YANG teaches similar maneuver types.
YANG, page 6–7
“The types of minimum risk operation include a straight stop, a current lane stop, and an out-of-lane stop including a shoulder stop.”
MIN also explicitly teaches the same maneuver types.
MIN, para [0018]
“The minimal risk maneuver type may include a straight stop type, an in-lane stop type, a half-shoulder stop type, and a full-shoulder stop type.”
Claims 10–20
Claims 10–20 recite method versions of the system limitations already discussed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MASUD AHMED whose telephone number is (571)270-1315. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-8:30 PM PST with IFP.
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MASUD . AHMED
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3657A
/MASUD AHMED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3657