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 .
Claims 1-8 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on December 12, 2023 has been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the drawing use improper shading that makes the figures unclear, this applies to Figs 1-4.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Status
Claims 1-8 are pending.
The pending claims are one group:
1) Method: 1-8.
As of 12/12/2023, independent claim 1 is as follows:
1.(Original) A method of route management including the steps of:
providing a plurality of vehicles;
providing pathways along which the vehicles may travel;
(1)determining the current position of each of the vehicles;
(2)associating a destination with each of the vehicles; and
(3)determining a first optimal route and speed profile for each vehicle from their current position to the destination, which first optimal route and speed profile for each vehicle is:
determined to avoid collision between vehicles; and
based on a total efficiency rating for all the vehicles.
Note: for referential purpose, numerals (1)-(3) are added to the beginning of each element.
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 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: when considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e.,
(1) process,
(2) machine,
(3) manufacture or product, or
(4) composition of matter.
Step 2A, Prong 1: If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception, i.e.,
1) law of nature,
2) natural phenomenon, and
3) abstract idea.
and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Examples of abstract ideas include:
(1) Mathematical concepts -- mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations;
(2) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
(3) Certain methods of organizing human activities.
(i) fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk);
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
(iii) managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).
For instance, in Alice Corp. (Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014)), the Court found that “intermediated settlement” was a fundamental economic practice, which is considered as (1) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
Step 1:
In the instant case, with respect to claims 1-8:
Claim categories:
1) Method: 1-8.
Analysis of Step 1:
Method: claims 1-8 are directed to a process; i.e., a series of steps or acts, for a method of route management for vehicles. (Step 1:Yes).
Thus, the claims 1-8 are generally directed towards one of the four statutory categories under 35 USC § 101.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A,
(1) Prong One: Does the claim recite a judicial exception?
(2) Prong Two: Are there any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, then proceeds to step 2B.
Step 2B: Are there any additional elements that adds an inventive concept to the claim? Determine whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, and conventional” in the field (see MPEP 2106.05(d)); or
(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
A. Step 2A, Prong One:
Claim 1, recites a method of route management for vehicles using a determining step and an associating step which is a fundamental economic principle or business practice, which is considered as (i) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
Furthermore, independent claim 1 recites an abstract idea related to determining position and determining a first optimal route for a vehicle, which constitutes an abstract idea based on “Mental Processes” related to concepts performed in the human mind including observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion.
(2) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
B. Step 2A, Prong Two:
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical applications because it deals with a method for planning movements for transporting devices, by carrying out steps of:
The claims recites the additional elements of:
Steps: Types
[1] determining current position step. Human activity.
[2] associating a destination. Human activity.
[3] determining a first optimal route. Mental step.
Step [1] is human activity for determining current position.
Step [2] is human activity for associating a destination.
Step [3] is determining a first optimal route based on collision avoidance and efficiency for all vehicles. These mental steps or well known business activities for analyzing and creating optimal routes for vehicles to travel.
The claim does not result in an improvement to the functioning of the computer system or to any other technology or technical field. Further, the claim limitations are not indicative of integration into a practical application by applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic device. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mental processes) for evaluating / analyzing an optimal route of vehicle based on its current position and desired destination and does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
C. Step 2B:
The claim recites the additional elements of steps [1]-[3] above.
Steps [1]- [3] are for determining routes for vehicles.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because as discussed above, the additional elements, step [3], when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea(s). The claim does not result in an improvement to the functioning of the computer system or to any other technology or technical field. As for the system claims, mere instructions to apply an exertion using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. These generic computer components are claimed at high level of generality to perform their basis functions which amount to no more than generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the particular technological environment of field of use and further see insignificant extra-solution activity MPEP 2106.05 (f), (g) and (h). The Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs, court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicate that mere receipt or transmission of data over a network, sorting data, analyzing data, and transmitting the data is a well-understood, routine and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here). The claims are basically collect data, analyze data, and provide set of results, which are not patent eligible, see Electric Power Group, LLC. For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus the claim is not patent eligible.
As for dep. claims 2-8, which deal with further details of the efficiency of the routes, these further limit the abstract idea of the maintenance analysis options, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 2-8 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
Therefore, claims 2-8 are not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. step 2B: NO
The examiner suggests that claim 1 be amended to include a step where a controller actively controls the vehicles to move in accordance with the previous steps to overcome the 101 rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 11,813,751 to Butterfoss et al.
Regarding claim 1, the Butterfoss patent teaches a method of route management including the steps of: providing a plurality of vehicles; providing pathways along which the vehicles may travel; determining the current position of each of the vehicles (column 4 line 4); associating a destination with each of the vehicles (column 4, lines 9-24); and determining a first optimal route and speed profile for each vehicle from their current position to the destination, which first optimal route and speed profile for each vehicle is: determined to avoid collision between vehicles; and based on a total efficiency rating for all the vehicles. See column 12, lines 41-67 and column 14, lines 1-54.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Patent No. 11,993,281 to Wray et al. teaches route planning for a vehicle.
Norwegian Patent No. NO20191379 to Hatteland teaches a route planner for vehicle.
Chinese Patent No. CN1121837 to Wu et al. teaches route planning.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUSTIN HOLMES whose telephone number is (571)272-3448. The examiner can normally be reached 10AM-6PM EST M-F.
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/JUSTIN HOLMES/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3655