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 Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: a calculating unit, a determining unit and a generating unit in claims 15. In light of specification, [0050][0146-148], the various units can be implemented in a processor.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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.
Claims 1-11, 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Mach (GB 2583726) in view of Santos (US 6684247).
Regarding claim 1, Mach discloses a method of generating a vehicle-to-everything message (p.22, V2X communication) based on a significance of information on a communication channel in a cooperative intelligent transport system using a wireless communication channel (p.14, based on channel congestion level) for transmitting, receiving, processing and/or discarding a plurality of collective perception messages containing information about on-board sensors and/or objects detected by said on-board sensors within a traffic environment (fig. 2, fig. 5),
said method comprising:
determining a significance index of an entire collective perception message based on individual objects within a collective perception message, the significance index of the entire collective perception message being referred to as CSI and the collective perception message being referred to as CPM (p. 14, relevancy formula ( or perception message significance index (CPM-SI)) may be defined or determined based on a combination of different perceived object parameters such as: Distance -e.g. objects closer to the vehicle could be more relevant from the safety point of view: and/or Speed -e.g. fast moving objects could be more relevant etc.: and/or Acceleration: and/or Object dimensions: and/or Dynamic status -stationary or dynamic: and/or Classification: and/or Confidence: and/or Object age);
calculating an information significance level on the channel (p. 3, based on channel occupancy level, p. 6, measured channel occupancy, p. 34, a first channel load metric, for example a channel busy ratio, CBR, of a set of channel load metrics of a first channel of a set of channels of the network is determined; p. 39, the determining the first channel load metric comprises measuring, by the first UE, the first channel load metric, for example a CBR);
determining at least one message generation rule based on the information significance level (p5., the generation frequency or rule is determined taking into account the dynamic behavior of the detected object status, e.g. change of position, speed or direction, sending of CPMs for the same (perceived) object by another ITS-S, as well as the radio channel load as determined by Decentralized Congestion Control, p. 8, to reduce the CPM generation according to the channel usage requirements); and
generating the vehicle-to-everything message based on said at least one message generation rule (p. 39, a first channel load metric, for example a channel busy ratio, CBR, of a set of channel load metrics of a first channel of a set of channels of the network is determined; p5., the generation frequency or rule is determined taking into account of the radio channel load or congestion level, fig. 5).
Mach does not explicitly disclose calculating an information significance level on the channel based on CSI values for all received collective perception messages.
Santos discloses calculating an information significance level on the channel based on CSI values for all received collective perception messages (Santos, col. 6, 4th para., accordingly, monitoring program 260 may determine that a congestion exists in a link when the determined p-value associated with the average is smaller than the predetermined statistical significance .alpha. Here, the p-value can be considered as the significance index of an entire collective perception message taught by Mach).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of calculating an information significance level on the channel as given by Mach with the teachings given by Santos. The motivation for doing so would have been to assure the quality of services provided by the service provides (Santos, col. 1, 2nd para.).
Claims 15 and 16 are rejected similarly with claim 1 noting that Mach discloses a processor and memory, a transmitter and receiver, a control unit, fig. 5, corresponding to the calculating module, generating module, the determining module.
Regarding claim 2, Mach discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein said at least one message generation rule determined based on the information significance level dictates a generation rate (p.5, the generation frequency or rate is determined taking into account of the radio channel load or congestion level and/or composition of a message, and includes at least one of an implicit rate-based rule, an explicit rate- based rule (p. 5, the generation frequency or rate is determined), a priority-based rule, a staggered rate-based rule, or a combination of such rules. It is noted that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claim 4, Mach discloses the method according to claim 2, wherein, for said explicit rate-based rule, said method is arranged to transmit a CPM with a generation rate determined based on its CSI, channel information significance level, and a congestion level of the channel (p5., the generation frequency or rate is determined taking into account the dynamic behavior of the detected object status, e.g. change of position, speed or direction, sending of CPMs for the same (perceived) object by another ITS-S, as well as the radio channel load or congestion level).
Claims 3, 5-7 are rejected same as claims 2 and 4 noting that the applicant uses selective language in this claim and the examiner is only showing one of the claimed options.
Regarding claim 8, Mach discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the determining of a significance index of an object includes:
detecting a plurality of objects present within a field of view of at least one sensor provided at a respective intelligent transport system station or included in a shared message received from another intelligent transport system station as being present in a communication range of the station (Mach, page 58, lines14-21, page 14 lines 20-31, page 8 lines 9-19, page 35 lines 15-18, page 46 line 24- page 48 line 10);
obtaining object data of each detected object from said at least one sensor and/or said shared message (Mach, page 58, lines14-21, page 14 lines 20-31, page 8 lines 9-19, page 35 lines 15-18, page 46 line 24- page 48 line 10); and
calculating an object significance index for each detected object based on said object data (Mach, page 58, lines14-21, page 14 lines 20-31, page 8 lines 9-19, page 35 lines 15-18, page 46 line 24- page 48 line 10).
Regarding claim 9, Mach discloses the method according to claim 8, wherein the determining of CSI includes: filling a CPM with the objects in accordance with their calculated object significance indices; and calculating the CSI for each CPM filled with objects (Mach, page 58, lines14-21, page 14 lines 20-31, page 8 lines 9-19, page 35 lines 15-18, page 46 line 24- page 48 line 10).
Regarding claim 10, Mach discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the calculating of the information significance level comprises determining a local information significance level on the channel from the CSI values for all received CPMs as a local zero-hop value by averaging the CSI values of all received CPMs within a predetermined time interval (Mach, page, 47, CBR_L_O_Hop Local channel busy ratio for a specific frequency channel for ego ITS station; steps 1-5).
Regarding claim 11, Mach discloses the method according to claim 10, wherein first and second hop information significance levels are calculated, the first hop information significance level is a highest received value calculated in a single-hop radius within the predetermined time interval from the local information significance level, and the second hop information significance level is a highest received value calculated in a two-hop radius within the predetermined time interval from the first hop information significance level. (Mach, page, 47, CBR_L_O_Hop Local channel busy ratio for a specific frequency channel for ego ITS station; steps 1-5, CBR_L_O_Hop_Previous the second most recent CBR_L_O_Hop; page 46 line 24- page 48 line 10).
Regarding claim 13, Mach discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the intelligent transport system station is a vehicle or a roadside unit (p. 1, Vehicle to Everything Communication (V2X), including Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle to Infrastructure (V21), Vehicle to Network (V2N) and Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P) is typically used in C-ITS. p. 20, between vehicle and roadside communication).
Regarding claim 14, Mach discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the wireless communication is direct vehicle-to-everything communication (p. 1, Vehicle to Everything Communication (V2X), including Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle to Infrastructure (V21), Vehicle to Network (V2N) and Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P) is typically used in C-ITS).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 12 is 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 ZHENSHENG ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1985. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8:00am-6:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Thier can be reached at 571-272-2832. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ZHENSHENG ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474