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) 1-4, 6, 8-11, 13 and 15-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2021/0170812 A1) in view of Zhu (CN 106274307 A) (herein after rejections rely on provided equivalent English machine translation) and Enoki et al. (US 2015/0180386 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Chen discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium (e.g. [0077]), a method and a system (e.g. Abstract & [0001]) comprising: at least one computing device comprising at least one processor (e.g. [0029]); and at least one memory (e.g. [0077]) comprising instructions, when executed, cause the at least one computing device to at least:
receive, by a vehicle management service (e.g. Fig. 1: 22), tire temperature values for a set of tire sensor devices (e.g. [0022, 0024]) that are assigned to a vehicle that is managed by a vehicle management service,
wherein a respective tire sensor device provides a tire-specific subset of the tire temperature values (e.g. Fig. 1 & [0062]);
identify, by the vehicle management service, that a vehicle configuration of the vehicle includes a dual tire setup for an axle (e.g. Fig. 1 & [0020, 0024, 0031]: tire characteristic message include wheel locations that identifies dual tire setup for an axle since each tire has one tire sensor);
input, by the vehicle management service, the tire temperature values into a tire position classification process (e.g. Fig. 2 & [0040-0043, 0064]: machine learning); and
assign, by the vehicle management service, an inner tire position or an outer tire position to the respective tire sensor device based at least in part on an output from the tire position classification process (e.g. Abstract & [0040-0043, 0064]: auto-locating positions of sensors on a vehicle).
Chen fails to disclose, but Zhu teaches:
Receive vehicle sensor values for the vehicle (i.e. p. 2-4: vehicle speed);
identify, based at least in part on the vehicle sensor values, that the tire temperature values correspond to at least one rule for the tire position classification process (e.g. p. 2-4: the one rule is broadly consider as whether considering the tire pressure and temperature value based on vehicle speed value).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chen with the teachings of Zhu to set tire sensor in different working modes based on vehicle speed so as to reduce power consumption of the tire sensors.
In addition, Enoki teaches it is known to determine vehicle speed based on rotation position of the rotor. The combination of Zhu and Enoki discloses the vehicle sensor values of Zhu are based on position values.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chen and Zhu with the teachings of Enoki to determine speed value based on position value, since it is well-known method in the art to determine speed based on position and the modification would have yielded predictable results to one skilled in the art since it is merely utilizing well-known method in a well-known device to simple substituting a sensing method (i.e. replacing speed sensor method of Zhu with speed sensing based on position as taught by Enoki).
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, Chen discloses the vehicle management service monitors the tire temperature values until the tire temperature values correspond to at least one rule for the tire position classification process, the at least one rule indicating at least one of a time threshold, a temperature threshold, or a speed threshold (e.g. [0024, 0051]: limit, threshold).
Regarding claims 3, 10 and 17, Chen discloses the instructions, when executed, cause the at least one computing device to at least: generate a user interface that displays the inner tire position or the outer tire position in association with the respective tire sensor device (e.g. [0033, 0066]).
Regarding claims 4, 11 and 18, Chen discloses the tire position classification process comprises a machine learning process (e.g. [0040-0043, 0064]).
Regarding claims 6 and 13, Chen teaches the tire position classification process assigns a first plurality of tire sensor devices to the inner tire position and assigns a second plurality of tire sensor devices to the outer tire position, wherein a count of the first plurality of tire sensor devices matches a count of the second plurality of tire sensor devices (e.g. Fig. 1: equal number of tire sensor on each tire).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 02/04/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. A new ground of rejection(s) has been issued due to new prior art found upon update search.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 14 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAM WAN MA whose telephone number is (571) 270-3693. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-6pm.
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/KAM WAN MA/Examiner, Art Unit 2688
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