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 .
Status of the Claims
This Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s amendments and remarks filed December 23, 2025. Claims 1-3, 5-14, and 16-20 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending and are examined below.
Response to Remarks/Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendments filed December 23, 2025 with respect to the previous 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections have been fully considered.
Applicant argues the claimed invention is eligible subject matter because the present amendments are directed to a positive recitation of controlling a vehicle’s movement. Examiner agrees such an amendment renders the claimed invention eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101, however, it is unclear this language finds support in Applicant’s original disclosure as further discussed below with respect to 35 U.S.C. 112.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments filed December 23, 2025 with respect to the previous 35 U.S.C. 102 rejections have been fully 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As to claim 1, the recitation “based on the outputted tracks, controlling, by the control circuit, a travel of the vehicle” appears to be new matter. Applicant’s Specification discusses providing an output based on the claimed management index (See at least ¶128 and Fig. 2 of Applicant’s PGPUB), and performing non-specific control (See at least original Claim 20), however, fails to describe positive control of a vehicle’s movement in response to the claimed management index as currently claimed, which establishes grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112 as new matter.
As to claim 12, the recitation “based on the outputted tracks, control a travel of the vehicle” appears to be new matter. Similar to the discussion above regarding claim 1, Applicant’s Specification fails to describe positive control of a vehicle’s movement in response to the claimed management index as currently claimed, which establishes grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112 as new matter.
Claims 2-11 depend from claim 1, and claims 13-20 depend from claim 12.
Additionally, as to claim 20, the recitation “outputting, based on the management index, a signal to control autonomous driving operation of the vehicle” appears to be new matter. Applicant’s Specification briefly mentions autonomous driving, and appears to indicate if autonomous driving occurs, then the management index track may be used as information for a sensor fusion track (See at least ¶202 of Applicant’s PGPUB), however, there appears to be no discussion in Applicant’s disclosure directly drawing a causal connection that autonomous control is based on the management index as claimed.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 12, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wyffels et al., US 20240185434 A1, hereinafter referred to as Wyffels.
As to claim 1, Wyffels discloses a method performed by an apparatus of a vehicle, the method comprising:
detecting, via one or more sensors of the vehicle, a plurality of objects in a surrounding environment of the vehicle (LiDAR, and camera perform object detection – See at least Abstract);
based on sensing information from the one or more sensors, identifying, by a control circuit of the vehicle, a plurality of tracks each associated with one of the plurality of objects (Object detection tracks – See at least ¶38, 60-61, and Fig. 1);
outputting, by the control circuit, tracks among the plurality of tracks based on a management index for each of the plurality of tracks, wherein the management index for each of the plurality of tracks is based on at least one of:
a maintenance time of the corresponding track
a risk of collision between the vehicle and the corresponding object (Risk of collision with respect to object trajectories/tracks – See at least ¶38); and
based on the outputted tracks, controlling, by the control circuit, a travel of the vehicle (Responsive emergency maneuvers – See at least ¶38).
Independent claim 12 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1 because the claims recite nearly identical subject matter but for minor differences due to the claims being directed to different statutory categories of invention.
As to claim 20, Wyffels discloses outputting, based on the management index, a signal to control autonomous driving operation of the vehicle (Actuate various vehicle systems in response to object detection – See at least ¶6).
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wyffels et al., US 20240185434 A1, in view of Gade et al., US 20230061682 A1, hereinafter referred to as Wyffels, and Gade, respectively.
As to claim 2, Wyffels fails to explicitly disclose the management index for each of the plurality of tracks is based on the corresponding track being created in association with corresponding prior track information previously created, wherein the corresponding track is created based on updated sensing information of the one or more sensors within an update period of time. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Wyffels and include the feature of the management index for each of the plurality of tracks is based on the corresponding track being created in association with corresponding prior track information previously created, wherein the corresponding track is created based on updated sensing information of the one or more sensors within an update period of time, with a reasonable expectation of success, because Gade teaches it is well-known and routine in the object tracking arts to perform object tracking over time to continuously update an object track to have a more accurate determination of the object’s track (Tracks generated continuously over time period, i.e., epoch, and updated accordingly – See at least ¶28-29 of Gade).
Claims 8, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wyffels et al., US 20240185434 A1, hereinafter referred to as Wyffels, respectively.
As to claims 8, and 19, Wyffels fails to explicitly disclose a third management index value that is based on the risk of collision, and wherein the risk of collision is determined based on at least one of: a distance between the vehicle and the corresponding object, or a predicted time remaining until the vehicle collides with the corresponding object. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Wyffels and include the feature of a third management index value that is based on the risk of collision, and wherein the risk of collision is determined based on at least one of: a distance between the vehicle and the corresponding object, or a predicted time remaining until the vehicle collides with the corresponding object, with a reasonable expectation of success, because Wyffels discloses the above features without designating them third (Time to collision within threshold period of time – See at least ¶38 of Wyffels; LiDAR data set includes distance at given time – See at least ¶135).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wyffels et al., US 20240185434 A1, in view of Clawson et al., US 11807233 B1, hereinafter referred to as Wyffels, and Clawson, respectively.
As to claim 9, Wyffels fails to explicitly disclose the third management index value increases as the distance between the vehicle and the corresponding object decreases, or wherein the third management index value increases as the predicted time to the collision decreases. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Wyffels and include the feature of the third management index value increases as the distance between the vehicle and the corresponding object decreases, or wherein the third management index value increases as the predicted time to the collision decreases, with a reasonable expectation of success, because Clawson teaches it is well-known and routine in the object tracking arts that a relationship exists between evaluating an object’s track and a distance between the object and the host/ego vehicle (See at least Abstract and Col. 17 Lines 61-67 of Clawson), like the object tracking of Wyffels.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7, 10, 11, and 14-18 recite allowable subject matter subject to their dependency on a rejected base claim and the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 above.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lail Kleinman whose telephone number is (571)272-6286. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fadey Jabr can be reached at (571)272-1516. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAIL A KLEINMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
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