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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 13 January 2026. In virtue of this communication, claims 1-20 are currently presented in the instant application. In light of a restriction requirement on 20 November 2025, Invention I, claims 1-11 have been elected, and claims 12-20 have been withdrawn without traverse.
Information Disclosure Statement(s)
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 1/17/2024 and 11/21/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because as stated in MPEP 2106.03.I, “Non-limiting examples of claims that are not directed to any of the statutory categories include:
• Products that do not have a physical or tangible form, such as information (often referred to as "data per se") or a computer program per se (often referred to as "software per se") when claimed as a product without any structural recitations”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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) 1-2 and 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Okada et al. (Patent No.: US 6,266,086 B1, herein known as D1).
With respect to claim 1, D1 discloses an inertial measurement device comprising:
an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that detects current angular velocity and acceleration (moving amount detecting unit includes rotational angle acceleration sensors 21 and 22 as described in Column 13 lines 12-14, and can also include angular velocity sensor as described in Column 14 lines 1-6); and
a prediction unit that predicts angular velocity and acceleration in future after a predetermined time on a basis of the current angular velocity and acceleration detected by the IMU (“Thus, the imaging apparatus of the present embodiment can predict the moving amount at a specific time later using the moving amount computed based on the outputs (X-axis rotational angle acceleration and Y-axis rotational angle acceleration) from the X-axis rotational angle acceleration sensor 21 and Y-axis rotational angle acceleration sensor 22, the output (rotational angular velocity) from the angular velocity sensor, and the output (focal length) from the focal length detecting unit 25”; Column 14 lines 37-48).
With respect to claim 2, D1 further discloses a device wherein the prediction unit predicts the future angular velocity and acceleration by an operation on the current angular velocity and acceleration using a predetermined coefficient (see the equations and associated descriptions in Columns 13 and 14, the moving amount is calculated with the focal length of the optical series used, which can be considered the predetermined coefficient).
D3 also teaches prediction correction by a predetermined coefficient which could also be modified into the teaching of D1 as done with D2 below.
With respect to claims 10-11, see the rejection of claim 1 above. For claim 11, see also the 101 rejection above.
Claim(s) 1, 4-5, and 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Jiang et al. (Publication No.: US 2021/0116915 A1, herein known as D2).
With respect to claim 1, D2 discloses an inertial measurement device comprising:
an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that detects current angular velocity and acceleration ([0022]); and
a prediction unit that predicts angular velocity and acceleration in future after a predetermined time on a basis of the current angular velocity and acceleration detected by the IMU ([0030]-[0031] and Figs. 2 and 6 and their associated descriptions, particularly step 604).
With respect to claim 4, D2 further discloses a device wherein the prediction unit includes a neural network having the current angular velocity and acceleration as an input layer and the future angular velocity and acceleration as an output layer (Fig. 2, [0030]-[0031]).
With respect to claim 5, D2 further discloses a device further comprising: a current position/attitude detection unit that detects the current position and attitude on a basis of the current angular velocity and acceleration; a future position/attitude detection unit that detects the future position and attitude on a basis of the future angular velocity and acceleration; and a learning unit that generates the neural network by machine learning based on a prediction error including a difference between the current position and attitude and the future position and attitude ([0029]-[0031] and method of Fig. 6, which in S601 receives a first state of an ADV to be simulated and in S604 a second predicted position of the ADV is made).
With respect to claim 10, see the rejection of claim 1 above.
With respect to claim 11, see the rejection of claim 1 above.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 in view of D2.
With respect to claim 3, D1 appears to disclose a device further comprising:
a current position/attitude detection unit that detects the current position and attitude on a basis of the current angular velocity and acceleration; and a future position/attitude detection unit that detects the future position and attitude on a basis of the future angular velocity and acceleration (the prediction and image shifting done as rejected above in claim 1 would require a previously known position and a predicted calculated position).
D1 does not disclose a device further comprising a learning unit that generates the predetermined coefficient by learning based on a prediction error including a difference between the current position and attitude and the future position and attitude (no learning unit is utilized).
D1 further teaches using experimentation and setting different thresholds and values for different image systems, techniques, and image sensors (Column 16 lines 33-40).
D2 teaches using the values resulting from an IMU unit to predict a position in the future for an object using a neural network ([0028]-[0030]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the device of D1 by incorporating machine learning as taught by D2 as a known method of training a calculation system that would accomplish the settings calculations from the experimentation of D1 in a more efficient and timely way.
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Imada (Publication No.: JP 2018013602 A, herein known as D3, a machine translation is provided with this Office Action).
With respect to claim 2, D2 does not disclose a device wherein the prediction unit predicts the future angular velocity and acceleration by an operation on the current angular velocity and acceleration using a predetermined coefficient (no coefficient is described).
D3 teaches performing prediction correction by multiplying the change by a predetermined coefficient k (S910) to obtain a reference angular velocity.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the device of D2 by utilizing the correction values as taught by D3 when there is a stable speed change to obtain a more accurate result.
Claim(s) 6-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2.
With respect to claims 6-8, D2 does not disclose a device further comprising:
a future output unit that outputs the future angular velocity and acceleration; and a current output unit that outputs the current angular velocity and acceleration, wherein the current output unit adds a time stamp corresponding to the current time to the current angular velocity and acceleration, and outputs the current angular velocity and acceleration, and the future output unit adds a time stamp corresponding to time in the future after the predetermined time to the future angular velocity and acceleration, and outputs the future angular velocity and acceleration (claim 6), wherein the current output unit and the future output unit output the current angular velocity and acceleration and the future angular velocity and acceleration, respectively, via a terminal of a predetermined communication standard (claim 7), or wherein the predetermined communication standard includes a serial peripheral interface (SPI), inter integrated circuits (I2C), improved inter integrated circuits (I3C), and a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) (claim 8).
For claims 7 and 8, D2 discloses in [0069] for example that the data is sent from the autonomous driving vehicle 601 to external systems, such as devices, sensors, other vehicles, etc, through a wireless communication system 612. Any of these devices can be considered a terminal, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize a communication standard to do so.
D2 further teaches recognizing the time of the vehicles travel, incorporating real-time traffic information and trip information ([0071]-[0072]), indicating that time is known from the system.
Combined with the above recitations, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to add time stamps to the data for future processing or review by a user.
It is noted that time stamps are being considered to be as in the present specification the real time stamps, rather than the relative times (t-1) (t), etc, that is utilized and seen in Fig. 2 of D2.
With respect to claim 9, D1 does not explicitly disclose that the IMU is a multi-IMU including a plurality of IMUs.
However, it has been held that a mere duplication of parts is an obvious variant over the prior art of record, in this case, having the IMU be a multi-IMU would have been obvious to incorporate to get a more complete picture of the driving statistics such as desired in [0033] which would be able to record the vehicles states in multiple, rather than a single location, and have more data to be trained by the neural network.
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kilaru et al. (Publication No.: US 2021/0197848 A1)
Green et al. (Publication No.: US 2021/0070286 A1)
Yamazaki (Publication No.: US 2021/0014399 A1)
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DIANA HANCOCK whose telephone number is (571)270-7547. The examiner can normally be reached on 10AM-6PM EST M-F.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Stephanie Bloss can be reached on (571) 272-3555. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/D.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2852
4/4/2026
/STEPHANIE E BLOSS/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852