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
The office action is being examined in response to the amendments filed by the applicant on July 8, 2026.
Claims 3–6 are original.
Claims 7–9 and 11 are as previously presented.
Claims 2 and 10 were previously cancelled by applicant.
Claims 1, 12, and 13 were amended by applicant and are hereby entered.
Claims 1, 3–9, and 11–13 are pending and have been examined.
This action is made FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed July 8, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With regard to Applicant’s assertion that the claims are analogous to USPTO Subject Matter Eligibility Example 38, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. In Example 38, the claim recited a specific digital signal processing technique applied to actual audio signals to produce a modified audio output — i.e., it operated on a technological article (digital audio data) and produced a technological result (replicated analog sound quality). Here, the claims do not operate on any technological article nor produce a technological output. The claims compute a path — an informational result — without any claimed use of that path to control, navigate, or display anything. The claims terminate at “generating a path,” which remains data. Example 38 is distinguishable because there the digital simulation produced an actual transformed output (processed audio), whereas here the claims produce only a computational plan.
With regard to Applicant’s assertion that the claims are analogous to USPTO Subject Matter Eligibility Example 4 (Diamond v. Diehr), the Examiner respectfully disagrees. In Example 4, the mathematical operations were embedded within a physical process — continuously measuring temperature in a mold, computing cure time, and opening the mold press. The claim included physical steps on both sides of the mathematical computation. Here, the claims lack any analogous physical step. Receiving battery data is pre-solution data gathering; “generating a path” is an informational output. There is no physical actuation, no vehicle routing, no display, and no charging initiated. The “meaningful limitations” in Example 4 were physical process steps — not merely using physical-world data as inputs to a computation.
With regard to Applicant’s argument that the amendment ties the computation to “EV-specific battery and charging behavior” and therefore integrates the abstract idea into a practical application, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Specifying the source of input data (battery characteristics from the EV’s computer system) does not transform a mental process into a practical application. Under MPEP 2106.05(g), data gathering — regardless of the specificity of the source — is insignificant extra-solution activity. The nature of the computation does not change because the input data comes from an EV computer system rather than a manual entry or database. The claims still perform the same mental process (planning a route based on charging constraints) and still produce the same informational output (a generated path as data).
With regard to Applicant’s argument that the claims “improve an existing technology (EV navigation) by improving the accuracy of charging functions as they relate to real battery states,” the Examiner notes that the claims do not recite any navigation step. A claim that computes a path but does not navigate, display, or otherwise use the path in a technological system does not improve EV navigation technology — it improves trip planning, which is the abstract idea itself. Any improvement resides within the abstract idea (a better mathematical method for computing routes) rather than in any additional element. See BSG Tech LLC v. BuySeasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“It has been clear since Alice that a claimed invention’s use of the ineligible concept to which it is directed cannot supply the inventive concept that renders the invention ‘significantly more’ than that ineligible concept.”).
With regard to the interview held June 24, 2026, the Examiner notes that the discussion included a suggestion to add a limitation tying the generated path to a practical output (e.g., providing the path to a navigation system of the electric vehicle for routing). The amendments as filed specify a data source but do not add the practical output step discussed. The § 101 rejection is maintained accordingly.
The 102 and 103 rejections have been previously withdrawn due to applicant’s amendments and arguments.
Priority
The present application, filed November 22, 2023, claims the benefit of provisional application No. 63/038,080, filed [6-11-2020], and provisional application No. 63/193,471, filed [5-26-2021], under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e).
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of the prior-filed provisional applications is acknowledged. The examiner has reviewed the disclosures of both provisional applications to determine the earliest effective filing date for the pending claims.
Provisional Application No. 63/038,080, filed [6-11-2020]): The '080 provisional is directed to user interfaces for displaying customized navigation routes based on vehicle characteristics and does not provide written description support under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) for the subject matter of claims 1, 3–9, and 11–13. Specifically, the '080 provisional does not disclose: inverted state of charge functions, propagation of inverted state of charge functions through graph nodes from a destination node to an origin node, inverted charging functions that map a state of charge before charging to a time required to achieve a predetermined state of charge after charging, generation of a starting charge map that maps an initial state of charge to a recommended feasible path, or the graph-based computational methodology recited in the pending claims. The ‘080 provisional discloses route determination only at a high level of abstraction (e.g., “the device determines one or more suggested routes”) without disclosing the specific algorithmic technique now claimed.
Provisional Application No. 63/193,471, filed [5-26-2021]: The '471 provisional provides adequate written description support under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) for the subject matter of claims 1, 3–9, and 11–13. See specifically ¶¶ [0481]–[0527] (describing the Reverse Charging Function Propagation (RCFP) algorithm, Starting Charge Maps (SCM), inverted charging functions, graph-based path representations with nodes corresponding to charging stations, backward propagation from a target node to a source node, and Buffer Maps (BM)).
Accordingly, the effective filing date of claims 1, 3–9, and 11–13 is the filing date of provisional application No. 63/193,471, filed [5-26-2021].
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 and 3-9, and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1 and 3-9, and 12-13 are directed to a system, method, or product, which are one of the statutory categories of invention. (Step 1: YES).
The Examiner has identified independent method Claim 1 as the claim that represents the claimed invention for analysis and is similar to independent apparatus Claim 12 and CRM Claim 13.
Claim 1 recites the limitations of:
at an electronic device:
determining a required initial state of charge for an electric vehicle for a trip from a first location to a second location, wherein the determining is performed by the electronic device based at least in part on information about battery characteristics of the electric vehicle received by the electronic device from a computer system of the electronic vehicle, the determining including:
identifying a first path from the first location to the second location, wherein the first path includes one or more intermediate locations between the first location and the second location, the first path is represented by a plurality of nodes, the first location corresponds to a first node representing a starting location for the trip in the plurality of nodes, the second location corresponds to a second node in the plurality of nodes, and the one or more intermediate locations correspond to one or more intermediate nodes in the plurality of nodes;
providing a starting inverted state of charge function that corresponds to a first state of charge at the second node;
propagating the starting inverted state of charge function from the second node to a first intermediate node of the one or more intermediate nodes, wherein the first intermediate node is associated with a first charging function;
generating a first inverted state of charge function based on an inverted first charging function and the propagated starting inverted state of charge function, wherein the inverted first charging function maps a state of charge of the electric vehicle before charging based on the first charging function to a time required to achieve a predetermined state of charge for the electric vehicle after charging based on the first charging function;
generating a starting charge map associated with the first location and the second location based on the starting inverted state of charge function, the propagating of the starting inverted state of charge function from the second node to the first intermediate node, and the generating of the first inverted state of charge function, wherein the starting charge map maps a respective initial state of charge to a recommended feasible path from the first location to the second location based on the respective initial state of charge; and
generating a path from the first location to the second location based on the starting charge map.
These limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind. The limitation of determining an appropriate path and stops during traveling to avoid running out of charge, as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Specifically, the steps of identifying a path with intermediate locations, providing and propagating state of charge functions, generating inverted state of charge functions, generating a charge map that maps initial state of charge to a recommended path, and generating a path based on the charge map, are observations, evaluations, and judgments that a person could perform mentally or with pen and paper — i.e., a person with knowledge of charging station characteristics and battery constraints could plan a trip by evaluating routes, determining where to stop and charge, and selecting the best path given an initial charge level. The newly added limitation of receiving “information about battery characteristics of the electric vehicle…from a computer system of the electric vehicle” constitutes mere data gathering — it specifies the source of input data for the mental process but does not change the nature of the abstract idea being performed. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea. Claims 12 and 13 are also abstract for similar reasons. (Step 2A-Prong 1: YES. The claims recite an abstract idea).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of: an electronic device (Claim 1), processor and memory (Claim 12), and processor and storage medium (Claim 13), as well as receiving information about battery characteristics of the electric vehicle from a computer system of the electric vehicle (Claims 1, 12, and 13). The computer hardware/software is/are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The receiving of battery characteristics from a computer system of the electric vehicle amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity, specifically pre-solution data gathering that merely specifies a source of input data for the mental process. The claims terminate at “generating a path,” which is an informational output. Accordingly, these additional elements, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and are at a high level of generality. Therefore, claims 1 and 12-13 are directed to an abstract idea without a practical application. (Step 2A-Prong 2: NO. The additional claimed elements are not integrated into a practical application).
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, they do not add significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) to the exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using computer hardware amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Additionally, receiving or transmitting data over a network (here, receiving battery characteristics from a computer system of the electric vehicle) has been recognized as well-understood, routine, and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) (citing Symantec, 838 F.3d 1307, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2016); OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015)). See MPEP 2106.05(f) where applying a computer as a tool is not indicative of significantly more as well as MPEP 2106.05(d), if applicable. Accordingly, these additional elements do not change the outcome of the analysis, when considered separately and as an ordered combination. Thus, claims 1 and 12-13 are not patent eligible. (Step 2B: NO. The claims do not provide significantly more).
Dependent claims further define the abstract idea that is present in their respective independent claims 1 and 12-13 and thus correspond to performance in the mind and hence are abstract for the reasons presented above. The dependent claims do not include any additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception when considered both individually and as an ordered combination. Therefore, the dependent claims are directed to an abstract idea. Thus, the claims 1 and 3-9, 11-13 are not patent-eligible.
CONCLUSION
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
*Tate (U.S. Pub. No. US 20130024112 A1) is pertinent because it is a navigation system for a vehicle includes a display device and host machine. The host machine communicates with a map database containing information describing a geocoded road network. The network includes nodes each describing a point within the network, with some nodes describing charging waypoints. The host machine executes a method, including recording a destination, determining a remaining state of charge (SOC) of a battery, and calculating a remaining electric vehicle (EV) range of the vehicle using the remaining SOC for every node. The host machine generates a first recommended EV travel route to the destination using a shortest distance or travel time approach when the destination lies within the remaining EV range. The host machine generates a second recommended EV travel route to the destination through a charging waypoint(s) when the destination lies outside of the remaining EV range. The EV route is displayed via the display device.
*Viswanathan (U.S. Pub No. 20210107372 A1) is pertinent because it is a method for the efficient placement of electric vehicle chargers in a target area couples vehicle dynamics and battery dynamics modeling with environmental factors to accurately incorporate the impact that the environment has on the range of the battery into the placement of the chargers by simulating trips of fleets of electric vehicles. The vehicles can be of various types, for example, motorcycles, cars, trucks or aircraft, and will each have their battery state of charge monitored as they traverse a simulated trip through the target area.
*ONOGI (US 20130238230 A1) is pertinent because it is a charge point reachability determination system includes a center device and an in-vehicle device disposed in an electric vehicle. The center device includes road map information that has node information regarding a node. The node information includes a required energy of the electric vehicle for reaching a nearby charge point from the node when the node has at least one nearby charge point. The in-vehicle device generates vehicle information regarding the electric vehicle. When the electric vehicle is positioned close to the node that has the nearby charge point, the system determines, based on the node and vehicle information, the required energy for reaching the node. The system further determines whether the nearby charge point is reachable by the electric vehicle based on a comparison of the required energy determined and a remaining energy of the electric vehicle.
EHARA (US 20230013438 A1) is pertinent because an electric power management system is a system that performs an exchange of electric power with an electric power system of an electric power company that is a counterparty of the exchange of the electric power, and includes a plurality of the vehicles, each including a battery, and a server that manages an exchange of the electric power between the battery of each of the vehicles and the electric power system. The server limits the exchange of the electric power between the electric power system and the battery by an upper limit value or a lower limit value of a state of charge of the battery, and decreases the upper limit value or increases the lower limit value when a period during which the vehicle is continuously parked in a place where the vehicle can exchange the electric power is equal to or longer than a predetermined period.
Konet (US 20160368396 A1) is pertinent because Electric vehicle range prediction may include identifying vehicle transportation network information representing a vehicle transportation network, identifying expected departure temporal information, identifying a route from a first location to a second location in the vehicle transportation network using the vehicle transportation network information, identifying a predicted ambient temperature based on the first location and the expected departure temporal information, identifying vehicle state information for an electric vehicle, identifying an expected efficiency value for the electric vehicle based on the predicted ambient temperature, determining an expected operational range, such that, on a condition that the electric vehicle traverses the vehicle transportation network from the first location to the second location in accordance with the expected departure temporal information and the route, the expected operational range indicates an estimated operational range from the second location, and outputting the expected operational range for presentation at a portable electronic computing and communication device.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W ANDERSON whose telephone number is (571)270-0508. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 9am-4pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tariq Hafiz can be reached at (571) 272-5350. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Mike Anderson
Supervisor Patent Examiner
Art Unit 3693
/Mike Anderson/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3693
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