DETAILED ACTION
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Bartlett (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0016286).
Regarding claim 1, Bartlett discloses a method of controlling an occupant protection device in a motor vehicle (fig. 6c) the method comprising:
determining that a first signal of only one of a signal of a left-hand upfront sensor (60) of the motor vehicle or a signal of a right-hand upfront sensor (62) of the motor vehicle is greater than a second threshold value with respect to a signal of the central sensor (42 are the central sensors and ¶24 states the sensors are compared to each other and ¶27 where it specifically has the sensors compared to the central sensor) while a second signal of the other of the first signal and the second signal is less than a first threshold value with respect to the signal of the central sensor (¶38 discloses the comparison of the sensors to the central sensor) wherein the right-hand upfront sensor and the left-hand upfront sensor are in the region of the bumper (¶63 discloses the sensors can be located by the radiator and fig. 2 shows what is construed as the front sensors in the region of the bumper),
determining that the first signal exceeds a specified characteristic curve (110); and
Note: when one sensor (left sensor) is at a high value in comparison to the other sensors (central sensor) the system knows that it is a side impact. When it matches a certain curve from the fig. 6 it allows for further classification.
triggering the occupant protection device only (¶103 discloses the disbursement of the safety devices based on the OMDB mode that was triggered due to sensors receiving information about impact on one side and not the other side) in response to (i) determining that the first signal is greater than the second threshold value while the second signal is less than the first threshold value (the comparison of the sensors is done to know where the forces are coming from but the vehicle is a solid structure and so any impact will also read on other sensors and so the determination requires the filtering of that data out otherwise all accidents would read on all sensors without distinguishing the primary direction of the accident. Fig. 5 shows how these sensor values are filtered to compare to thresholds) and (ii) determining that the first signal exceeds the specified characteristic curve.
Regarding claim 2 which depends from claim 1, Bartlett discloses wherein(the left side is the dominant section showing that it is not a head on collision as determined in fig. 5d), wherein the triggering comprises triggering(the first section is the left side with the second section, right side, not showing a possible impact as depicted in fig. 1).
Regarding claim 3 which depends from claim 2, Bartlett discloses wherein the triggering comprises triggering a middle section_(fig. 7 disclosed in ¶103-106).
Regarding claim 4 which depends from claim 3, Bartlett discloses further comprising: integrating the signal of the left-hand upfront sensor and the signal of the right- hand upfront sensor are via a short-time integral; double integrating(this is meaningless extrasolution activity that is not integrated into the invention in a meaningful way, i.e. stating that the triggering is somehow effected by this mathematical operation. ¶72 discloses integrating).
Regarding claim 5 which depends from claim 1, Bartlett discloses activation stages of at least one of a driver airbag, a front passenger airbag and a side window airbag (¶22 discloses the different types of devices and ¶70, ¶101 discloses actuation of each safety device as the formulas dicatate not requiring each to deploy every time).
Regarding claim 6 which depends from claim 5, Bartlett discloses further comprising: determining the signal of the central sensor is less than a lower threshold value; and suppressing triggering of the occupant protection system in response to determining the signal of the central senso(¶69-70 discloses how each item in the occupant protection device can be controlled independently where the side airbags are triggered but the front airbags are suppressed because the front impact sensor is lower than a threshold. ¶5 discloses how some of the triggering events will be filtered out due to other sensor data.).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/24/25 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on pages 4 and 5 for the amendments made to the claims which have been addressed above.
Applicant argues on page 5 for the different stages of deployment but only requires a first stage. The reference has been further cited above to show how the algorithms will actuate the devices individually as determined by the sensor data and computations which at least discloses a first stage of deployment.
Conclusion
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GONZALO LAGUARDA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3747 email: gonzalo.laguarda@uspto.gov
/GONZALO LAGUARDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747
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