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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 1/23/2026 has been entered.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-17, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Molinska (US 2024/0115176) in view of Joo (US 11, 926,259), and Sobhany (US 2021/0261050)
As to claim 1 Molinska discloses an immersion system comprising:
one or more processors;
a memory communicably coupled to the one or more processors and storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more
processors to:
acquire occupant data about an occupant in a vehicle (Paragraph 43 “At 302, the method 300 includes receiving initial input from a plurality of monitoring devices when a vehicle operator enters the vehicle. Specifically, the initial input may be received at the in vehicle computing system from one or more the monitoring devices. The monitoring devices may be worn by a vehicle operator and may include one or more sensors such as a heart rate sensor, a forehand temperature sensor, a blood pressure sensor, a blood glucose sensor, a nose area temperature sensor, a blood oxygenation sensor, a brain wave sensor, a perspiration level sensor, and the like. Other examples of monitoring device may include a camera that monitors muscular activity and pupil activity or pupil diameter of the vehicle operator.”);
process the occupant data to determine an occupant preference indicating
proclivities of the occupant in relation to a surrounding environment (Paragraph 67 “The infotainment system may predict stressors by automatically adjusting temperature based on driver preference wherein the temperature may be adjusted by opening windows and temperature based on anxiety levels of the vehicle operator.”); and
responsive to determining that vehicle settings satisfy a change threshold
that is based, at least in part, on a difference between the vehicle settings and the
occupant preference, adjust the vehicle settings according to the occupant
preference (Paragraph 68 “Additionally , the vehicle settings described above may be adjusted to increase the stress level of the vehicle operator that is below the pre-determined stress level threshold to maintain the stress level of the vehicle operator at the desired level. For example, the vehicle operator may not be at a desired awareness level to operate the vehicle optimally. As such, the climate control settings may automatically be adjusted to either increase or decrease the temperature of the vehicle cabin to increase awareness of the vehicle operator. Further, the audio system may play audio and increase the volume of audio that may be playing in the vehicle cabin to increase awareness of the vehicle operator.”).
Molinska does not explicitly disclose processing the occupant data to determine an occupant preference including instructions to identify a physiological reaction that is positive to determine the occupant preference;
Joo teaches processing the occupant data to determine an occupant preference including instructions to identify a physiological reaction that is positive to determine the occupant preference (Column 7 lines 13-21 “Driver preferences may suggest certain alert modalities are more successful for some drivers, while another driver may feel they are more receptive to a different alert modality. While such driver preferences may be helpful, assessments of driver responses to one or more alert modalities under types of conditions that trigger the need for alerts and types of levels of engagement during those conditions may be helpful in selecting an alert modality to which the driver is more likely to be receptive.”, Column 12 lines 1-13 “In scenario 3, the computing device of the vehicle receives information regarding a reaction of the driver to the presented alert, which shows that the driver responded promptly to the alert (e.g., driver woke up quickly and appeared attentive) and did not exhibit any negative emotions (e.g., the driver was smiling). In scenario 3, the computing device may update the historical behavior record to reflect that the driver reacted positively to the alert modalities used in this circumstance. Such a positive reaction by the driver may reinforce a weighting in the historical behavior record to encourage use of the selected one or more alert modalities for similar situations and similar driver level of engagement in the future.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Molinska to include the teachings of determining the reaction of the occupant for the purpose of determining occupant preferences of alerts.
Molinska does not explicitly disclose including data associated with using one or more devices in an environment external to the vehicle..
Sobhany teaches including data associated with using one or more devices in an environment external to the vehicle (Paragraph 25 “Either the user device 150 or remote server 160, or both, can communicate with the vehicle 100 (e.g., through the integrated central control unit 130 or via another system in the vehicle) to receive data captured or generated by the vehicle, to transmit settings or configurations to the vehicle for implementation by the vehicle, or to directly implement lighting configurations in the vehicle”, Paragraph 54 “The user profile 420 stores information associated with a passenger in the vehicle. The user profile 420 can include information explicitly input by the associated passenger or implicitly determined based on habits or behaviors of the passenger. For example, the user profile 420 can identify home and work addresses of the passenger, hours the passenger typically works, or preferences of the passenger.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Molinska to include the teachings of using data for one or more devices external to the vehicle for the purpose of determining occupant preferences.
As to claim 2 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the occupant preference includes an auditory preference, a visual preference, a haptic preference, and a comfort preference, and wherein the vehicle settings include an auditory setting, a visual setting, a haptic setting, and a comfort setting (Paragraph 68).
As to claim 3 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the instructions to acquire the occupant data include instructions to acquire a cognitive state of the occupant that defines a current ability of the occupant to focus (Paragraph 67-68),
wherein the instructions to determine the occupant preference include instructions to determine the occupant preference based, at least in part, on the cognitive state(Paragraph 67-68), and
wherein the instructions to adjust the vehicle settings include instructions to adjust the vehicle settings according to the cognitive state(Paragraph 67-68).
As to claim 4 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the instructions to determine the occupant preference include instructions to determine the vehicle settings that invoke a physiological reaction indicative of a mental state of the occupant(Paragraph 56,67-68), and
wherein the instructions to adjust the vehicle settings include instructions to adjust the vehicle settings to invoke the physiological reaction(Paragraph 56, 67-68).
As to claim 6 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the instructions to determine that the vehicle settings satisfy the change threshold include instructions to determine that the vehicle settings cause a physiological reaction indicative of a mental state of the occupant, wherein the mental state is at least one of: a stressed state and a distracted state (Paragraph 77-78).
As to claim 7 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the instructions to acquire the occupant data include instructions to acquire sensor data about a physiological reaction indicative of a mental state of the occupant to at least one of an auditory output, a visual output, a haptic output, and a comfort output when the occupant is in an environment external to the vehicle to characterize the occupant preference when the occupant is not in the vehicle (Paragraph 87).
As to claim 8 Molinska discloses an immersion system wherein the instructions to adjust the vehicle settings include instructions to adjust the vehicle settings in a region of the vehicle that is associated with a seat that is occupied by the occupant (Paragraph 83).
As to claim 9 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 1.
As to claim 10 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 3.
As to claim 11 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 4.
As to claim 13 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 7.
As to claim 14 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 1.
As to claim 15 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 2.
As to claim 16 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 3.
As to claim 17 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 4.
As to claim 19 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 6.
As to claim 20 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 7.
Claims 5, 12, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Molinska (US 2024/0115176) in view of Joo (US 11, 926,259), Sobhany (US 2021/0261050) as applied to claim 1 above, and in further view of Gangumalla (US 12,280,727)
As to claim 5 Gangumalla teaches an immersion system wherein the instructions to determine the occupant preference include instructions to determine a group preference for occupants in the vehicle,
By determining a collective physiological according to the occupant data about the group that is indicative of positive mental states of the occupants in relation to the vehicle settings (Column 11 lines 30-41); and
Wherein the instructions to adjust the vehicle settings include instructions to adjust the vehicle settings to invoke the collective physiological reaction(Column 11 lines 30-48)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Molinska to include the teachings of determining group preference for the purpose of adjusting vehicle settings based on the preferences of the group.
As to claim 12 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 5.
As to claim 18 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 5.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IMRAN K MUSTAFA whose telephone number is (571)270-1471. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James J Lee can be reached at 571-270-5965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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IMRAN K. MUSTAFA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3668
/IMRAN K MUSTAFA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
4/3/2026
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