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 .
Response to Amendment
This Action is in response to the Amendment filed June 3, 2026 (6/3/2026).
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, 10-15, and 17-20 are currently pending.
Claims 3, 5, 9, and 16 are canceled.
Claims 21-24 are newly added and are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed June 3, 2026 (6/3/2026), with respect to Claim 1 (as well as similar claims 12 and 17 along with their respective dependent claims still pending) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The U.S.C. 103 rejection of Claim 1 (as well as similar claims 12 and 17) has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new grounds of rejection is made. Please see the section below regarding rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112.
This action is made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, 10-15, and 17-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite in that it fails to point out what is included or excluded by the claim language.
Regarding Claim 1 (and similar claims 12 and 17), the claim requires five location reports within a set of reports that have been identified. All reports have been claimed in particular relation to one of the other reports of the set. The claim states that it merges “two or more location reports of the set of location reports” and discards “a first location report of the set of location reports” in relation to “a second location associated with a second location report of the set that immediately precedes the first location report” and “a third location associated with a third location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report.” The claim further states it discards “a fourth location report of the set of location reports having a fourth location that is separated by greater than a second threshold distance from a fifth location associated with a fifth location report of the set of location reports.” As disclosed, the claim merges reports and discards reports based on their relation to the set and to other reports of the set.
However, based on the claim language there is no requirement that the recited steps be performed in a particular order, and there is no indication as to how performance of one claim step impacts the others. Specifically, the merging of location reports is disjointed from the discarding of location reports. It is unclear if two reports that are merged continue to be part of the set of reports or if they are now considered separate, and it is also unclear if merging two reports into one report now removes this new singular report from consideration for the discarding process. Furthermore, it is in unclear how the ordering of reports for the discarding process is determined after a merging of reports is performed. In a scenario where there are only five location reports in an identified set, and two reports of the five have been merged together to leave only four total location reports, the discarding of a fourth location report based on a fifth location associated with a fifth location report would be impossible. The claim also states, “subsequent to removing the one or more outlier reports from the set of location reports, generating a location history for the tracked objected based on the set of location reports that includes the merged two or more location reports” but it is unclear if location reports remaining after the removal of “one or more outlier location reports” are also included in this location history or if it is only the merged location reports. Because of these reasons, Claims 1, 12, and 17 as well as their dependent claims (2, 4, 6-8, 10-11, 13-15, and 18-24) are unclear and considered indefinite.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-8, 10-15, and 17-24 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure in view of the amendments.
Yoeli et al. (US 2012/0094683) discloses “Distance filter that calculates the distance between the locations of the unit reported in the current report to the location of the unit in a previous report and determines which reports can be diluted or combined based on the actual location distance between the latest report and the previous one or ones” (Par. [0046]).
Zelinka et al. (US 2015/0079932) discloses “The computing system may then scrub the location history to obscure at least one location report that corresponds to a stop that is detected in the location history, as shown by block 306. The computing system may then export the scrubbed location history to long-term data storage, as shown by block 308” (Par. [0043]).
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground 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 JOSEPH NGHIA DINH whose telephone number is (571)272-7982. The examiner can normally be reached Mon. - Fri. 7:30AM-5PM.
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/J.N.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2641
/CHARLES N APPIAH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2641
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