NON-FINAL OFFICE ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 7/14/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4, 12-13, 16-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2023/0333973 to Chauhan et al. (hereinafter Chauhan) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2012/0005537 to Chen et al. (hereinafter Chen) and further in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2024/0184691 to Murchison, and further in view of U.S. Patent No. 12,271,290 to Landis et al. (hereinafter Landis), and further in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2024/0281316 to Revanna et al. (hereinafter Revanna).
Chauhan discloses:
1. A system comprising:
a first set of one or more computing devices comprising hardware configured to emulate one or more execution environments (para. [0101] and Fig. 4, computing device 402); and
one or more computing devices configured to implement a software testing service (para. [0101] and Fig. 4, computing device 402) configured to:
perform a test execution of a given instance of software that is to be tested via the software testing service, wherein the test execution comprises a plurality of individual tests (paras. [0036]-[0037], [0047]);
detect a failure occurring with respect to a test of the test execution (para. [0056]);
automatically, in response to detecting the failure, running a plurality of virtualized computing instances using the first set of one or more computing devices, wherein the plurality of virtualized computing instances are configured to emulate test conditions for the test for which the failure occurred (paras. [0048], [0061]-[0066]);
repeat a plurality of executions of the test with relation to which the failure occurred, using the virtualized computing instances, a threshold number of times (paras. [0062], [0086]);
store execution logs for the repeated test (paras. [0057]-[0059]); and
determine, using a trained machine learning model, a root cause of the failure, wherein the stored execution logs are provided to the trained machine learning model for use in generating an inference result used in determining the root cause of the failure (para. [0073]).
Chauhan does not disclose expressly automatically, in response to detecting the failure, instantiate a plurality of computing instances.
Chen teaches automatically, in response to detecting the failure, instantiate a plurality of computing instances (paras. [0025], [0031], [0037]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Chauhan by instantiating the computing instances, as taught by Chen. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to identify inconsistent test results and different potential causes, as discussed by Chen (para. [0018]).
Chauhan further does not disclose wherein the execution environment and software is of a vehicle.
Murchison teaches testing an execution environment and software of a vehicle (paras. [0013], [0016]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Chauhan by implementing the disclosed method in an execution environment and software of a vehicle, as taught by Murchison. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because testing is required when changes are made to the AV stack, as discussed by Murchison (paras. [0018]-[0019]), which relates to testing a new version of software, which is the goal discussed by Chauhan (para. [0003]). In this manner, it would have been obvious to combine Chauhan with Chen and Murchison to achieve the invention as recited in claim 1.
Chauhan further does not disclose concurrently repeating a plurality of executions of the test.
Landis teaches concurrently repeating a plurality of executions of the test (col. 15, lns. 7-17 and lns. 33-35).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Chauhan by concurrently repeating a plurality of executions of the test, as taught by Landis. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to determine the failing test result with increased urgency and priority, as discussed by Landis (col. 15, ln. 60-col. 16, ln. 2).
Chauhan further does not disclose expressly wherein the trained machine learning model was trained using annotated training data provided to a machine learning model, wherein the annotated training data comprises execution logs for prior failures and determined root causes for the prior failures.
Revanna teaches wherein the trained machine learning model was trained using annotated training data provided to a machine learning model, wherein the annotated training data comprises execution logs for prior failures and determined root causes for the prior failures. (paras. [0162], [0293]-[0297]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Chauhan using a model trained by annotated training data, as taught by Revanna. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to automatically find and fix sources of errors without the need for a user, as discussed by Revanna (para. [0272]).
Modified Chauhan discloses:
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle software testing service is further configured to:
automatically expand execution log generation to include execution logs for one or more tasks included in the one or more tests with relation to which the failure occurred (Chauhan - paras. [0057]-[0059] and [0085]-[0087]),
wherein the stored execution logs include bus or network logs for communications between software elements performing the tasks associated with the test and include the automatically expanded execution logs generated with regard to execution of the one or more tasks (Chauhan - para. [0059]).
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle software testing service is further configured to:
determine a reproducibility measure for the failure based on results of the repeated test (Murchison – para. [0021]).
4. The system of claim 3, wherein said determining the root cause is performed in response to determining the reproducibility measure for the failure satisfies a first reproducibility threshold (Landis – col. 15, lns. 7-17).
Claims 12 and 13 are a method identical to the steps performed by the system of claims 1 and 2, and are rejected under the same rationale.
16. The method of claim 12, wherein the given test run comprises an integration test for integration of a plurality of software modules to be deployed to a vehicle (Murchison – para. [0016]).
17. The method of claim 12, wherein the given test run comprises a software module test for a software module to be deployed to a vehicle (Murchison – para. [0016]).
Claims 18 and 20 are a non-transitory, computer-readable, storage media for performing steps identical to the steps performed by the system of claims 1 and 2, and are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-11, 14, and 19 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 Philip Guyton whose telephone number is (571)272-3807. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bryce Bonzo can be reached at (571)272-3655. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PHILIP GUYTON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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