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 .
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 1-2, 7-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2006-184005 A (Ishikawa) in view of CN 110614999 A (Chen).
Regarding claim 1:
Ishikawa discloses an onboard information processing device for driving assistance for a vehicle traveling on a travel route including a plurality of travel lanes, the onboard information processing device configured to ([0003], [0065]):
store lane information for identifying [[the]] a travel lane of the plurality of travel lanes of the travel route and property information indicating a characteristic of a property (facility information such as department stores and supermarkets, [0022]);
acquire the travel route of the vehicle (acquires road conditions information);
acquire the lane information of the acquired travel route (setting processing means calculates and sets a recommended driving lane based on guided route information indicating whether or not a route is guided at an intersection, giving priority to the recommended driving lane set based on the lane information, [0049]);
acquire the property information (searching data relating to facilities [0020] or vehicles parked on the road within a specified distance [0057]), acquiring information of the property close to the acquired travel route (searching data relating to facilities [0020] or vehicles parked on the road within a specified distance [0057]);
specify recommended travel lane information for specifying a recommended travel lane for the vehicle based on the acquired property information and the acquired lane information (Ishikawa [0011] discloses a road condition information acquisition processing means for acquiring road condition information representing road conditions that change in accordance with the presence of on-street parked vehicles for each road link, and a recommended lane determination processing means for changing the recommended driving lane set based on the road condition information).
However, Ishikawa does not expressly disclose specifying the recommended travel lane according to whether or not a vehicle speed of the vehicle has decreased, wherein the vehicle speed being decreased is indicative of a traveling situation.
Chen (CN 110614999 A) teaches collecting and using the vehicle’s own speed as a condition for lane change control and as an indicator of traveling situations, such as when the running speed of the vehicle is less than a threshold (see Abstract; [S11]; [S20]; Claim 1). Specifically, Chen discloses that lane change control is executed only when the vehicle speed is below a threshold, which is indicative of a traveling situation such as the presence or absence of obstacles or other vehicles.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of Ishikawa to specify the recommended travel lane according to whether or not the vehicle speed has decreased, wherein the vehicle speed being decreased is indicative of a traveling situation, as taught by Chen, in order to improve safety and responsiveness of lane recommendation and control in view of dynamic traveling conditions.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen discloses the onboard information processing device according to claim 1, wherein the recommended lane information setting unit specifies the recommended travel lane as the recommended travel lane information (at least see Ishikawa [0011]).
Regarding claim 7, Ishikawa discloses the onboard information processing device according to claim 3, wherein the recommended lane information setting unit specifies the recommended travel lane by further using an external environment of the vehicle (at least see Ishikawa [0047]).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen discloses the onboard information processing device according to claim 3, wherein the recommended lane information setting unit specifies the recommended travel lane by further using an external environment of the vehicle (at least see Ishikawa [0047]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen disclosed the onboard information processing device according to claim 1, wherein the property information includes at least one of a position of the property, an available time, or a presence or absence of parking information (Ishikawa [0050], [0055] and 0057].
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen disclosed the onboard information processing device according to any one of claims claim 1,
wherein the recommended lane information setting unit outputs the recommended travel lane to an external device [at least see Ishikawa [0002], [0003] and [0016]).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen disclosed an autonomous driving system, comprising:
the onboard information processing device (route guidance system) according to claim 9; and
the external device, but does not disclose wherein the external device is a control unit that controls driving of the vehicle. However, Hashimoto disclose control unit 140 controls the traveling of the host vehicle [0041].
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen disclosed an onboard system, comprising:
the onboard information processing device according to claim 9; and
the external device, wherein the external device is an onboard terminal that outputs the recommended travel lane information (Ishikawa, display unit 35).
Claim(s) 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishikawa in view of Chen and in further view of JP 2018-025989A (Hashimoto).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Ishikawa and Chen discloses the onboard information processing device according to claim 3, but do not disclose wherein the recommended lane information setting unit determines that the vehicle speed has decreased in a case where the vehicle speed from a predetermined time has decreased by a predetermined threshold or more when the vehicle has passed through a predetermined vehicle speed change point. However, Hashimoto discloses if current vehicle speed is lower than the set vehicle speed by a predetermined speed, and keeping to the left is stipulated by law, a lane change to the adjacent lane is selected, [0085].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combination of Ishikawa and Chen to determine if vehicle speed has decreased as taught by Hashimoto to execute a lane change safely based on the vehicle speed and distance between vehicles and obstacles on the way.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Ishikawa, Chen and Hashimoto disclose the onboard information processing device according to claim 4,
wherein the travel route includes at least a first travel lane positioned on an outermost side of the travel route and a second travel lane, and the recommended lane information setting unit specifies the second travel lane as the recommended travel lane in a case where the vehicle is traveling on the second travel lane and the vehicle speed has decreased (at least see Hashimoto [0085]).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Ishikaw, Chen and Hashimoto disclose the onboard information processing device according to claim 4,
wherein the travel route includes at least a first travel lane positioned on an outermost side of the travel route and a second travel lane, and the recommended lane information setting unit specifies each of the travel lanes included in the travel route as the recommended travel lane in a case where the vehicle is traveling on the second travel lane and the vehicle speed does not decrease (at least see Ishikaw [0047] and [0049] and Hashimoto [0078]).
Conclusion
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/HELAL A ALGAHAIM/SPE , Art Unit 3645
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