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 .
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 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.
Introduction
Claims 1-9, 11, and 12 are pending and have been examined in this Office Action. Claim 10 has been cancelled since the last Office Action.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular paragraphs / columns and line numbers or figures in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. Applicant is reminded that the Examiner is entitled to give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the language of the claims. Furthermore, the Examiner is not limited to Applicants' definition which is not specifically set forth in the disclosure.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 11, and 12 are objected to because of the following informalities: The claims recite “when the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is less than or equal to a predetermined reference distance and the speed of the host vehicle” in lines 20-22, 20-22, and 19-21, respectively, which is unclear what “and the speed of the host vehicle” means or how it fits into the claim. The Office is interpreting this limitation as “when the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is less than or equal to a predetermined reference distance and based on the speed of the host vehicle” similar to the equivalent sentence later in the claims. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, and 7-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2024/0116509 to Hori et al. in view of JP Patent Application Publication 2017-087923 to Tanaka et al.
As per claim 1, Hori discloses a vehicle control device for a host vehicle being an autonomous vehicle (Hori; At least the abstract), the vehicle control device comprising:
a processor (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 42) configured to:
determine whether there is a merging terrain where an adjacent lane adjacent to a traveling lane in which the host vehicle is traveling disappears by merging with the traveling lane within a first predetermined range from a current position of the host vehicle toward a traveling direction based on map information (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 61 and 94),
recognize an area between a merging start position and a merging end position as the merging terrain (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 61),
determine whether there is a front vehicle traveling in the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle within a second predetermined range from the host vehicle and determine whether there is an adjacent vehicle traveling in the adjacent lane within a third predetermined range from the host vehicle based on surrounding environment information of the host vehicle and map information, when it has been determined that there is the merging terrain (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 46, 70, 94, and 95),
estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle in the merging terrain based on distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, and speed of the host vehicle, when it has been determined that there is the front vehicle and there is the adjacent vehicle (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 71, 77, and 86, and figure 3A),
set a first inter-vehicle distance between the front vehicle and the host vehicle in the traveling lane when [the adjacent vehicle is not expected to merge] and the speed of the host vehicle or set a second inter-vehicle distance between the adjacent vehicle and the host vehicle in the traveling lane when [the adjacent vehicle is expected to merge] based on the speed of the host vehicle, when it has been estimated that the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle, the first inter-vehicle distance being a distance from the front vehicle that is less than the distance from the front vehicle in the second inter-vehicle distance to ensure that the distance between the host vehicle and the front vehicle permits the adjacent vehicle to merge between the merging start position and the merging end position (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 4, 46, and 72, and figure 2; when the host vehicle expects an adjacent vehicle to merge in front of it, it transfers ACC target to the adjacent vehicle, which would cause the host vehicle to have a larger distance between it and the front vehicle in order to make room for the merging vehicle, then if the front vehicle is set or maintained as the ACC target. This can be seen in at least figure 2 where dZ will be set to the target ACC distance and dZP will increase. It is noted in at least paragraph(s) 90, 137, 158, and the document as a whole, that Hori discloses that every merging decision is based on the speed of the vehicle); and
Hori discloses numerous tests to determine if the adjacent vehicle is expected to merge in front of the host vehicle (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 75-79, 86, and 87), but does not explicitly disclose using the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is less than or equal to a predetermined reference distance and the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is above the predetermined reference distance.
However, [determining an adjacent vehicle is expected to merge] when the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is less than or equal to a predetermined reference distance and [determining an adjacent vehicle is expected to merge] when the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is above the predetermined reference distance is taught be Tanaka (Tanaka; At least paragraph(s) 46 and 47). At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have incorporated the teachings of Tanaka into the invention of Kume with a reasonable expectation of success with the motivation of simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results. Using the distance between the host vehicle and the front vehicle would be another obvious way to determine if there is adequate spacing for a vehicle to be expected to merge into, similar to the TTC calculations (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 137-138) or distance comparisons (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 168-170) of Hori. Using the distance could result in an adequate gauge with little computation, resulting in a faster analysis.
Hori further discloses in response to the setting of the first inter-vehicle distance between the front vehicle and the host vehicle in the traveling lane or the setting of the second inter-vehicle distance between the adjacent vehicle and the host vehicle in the traveling lane based on the speed of the host vehicle, control the host vehicle to maintain the first inter-vehicle distance and the second inter-vehicle distance (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 20).
As per claim 2, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set a value obtained by adding the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle with a distance determined based on a relationship between the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the speed of the host vehicle when the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle, as the first inter-vehicle distance (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 46, 77, 137, 158, 168, and 169).
As per claim 3, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set the first inter-vehicle distance so that the adjacent vehicle is positioned between the front vehicle and the host vehicle (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 71).
As per claim 5, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set the first inter-vehicle distance equal to or below a length determined based on a relationship between the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the speed of the host vehicle (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 90).
As per claim 7, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set a length determined based on a relationship between the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the speed of the host vehicle when the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle, as the second intervehicle distance (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 46 and 86).
As per claim 8, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to:
estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle in the merging terrain based on the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, and the speed of the host vehicle, when an absolute value of relative speed of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is equal to or above a first reference speed (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 87 and figure 3B), and
estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle in the merging terrain based on the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, when the absolute value of relative speed of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle is less than the first reference speed (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 86 and figure 3A).
As per claim 9, Hori discloses wherein the processor is further configured to:
estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle in the merging terrain based on the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, and the speed of the host vehicle, when the speed of the host vehicle is equal to or above a second reference speed (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 86), and
estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle in the merging terrain based on the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, when the speed of the host vehicle is less than the second reference speed (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 87).
As per claims 11 and 12, Hori discloses a storage medium storing instructions and method (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 42 and 27) to perform the functions of the vehicle control device of claim 1. Therefore, claims 11 and 12 are rejected using the same citations and reasoning as applied to claim 1.
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.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hori, in view of Tanaka as applied to claim 2, and in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0001977 to Lin et al.
As per claim 4, Hori discloses identifying multiple vehicles (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 120 and figure 3D), but does not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is further configured to:
determine whether there is another adjacent vehicle traveling behind the adjacent vehicle in the adjacent lane within a fourth predetermined range from the host vehicle, and
set the first inter-vehicle distance to be a length at which the another adjacent vehicle cannot be located between the front vehicle and the host vehicle based on the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, distance of the another adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the speed of the host vehicle, when it has been determined that there is the another adjacent vehicle and it is estimated that the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle.
However, the above feature(s) are taught by Lin (Lin; At least paragraph(s) 69 and 72). At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have incorporated the teachings of Lin into the invention of Hori with a reasonable expectation of success with the motivation of using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way with predictable results. Lin teaches adjusting the host vehicle’s position to ensure that the host vehicle stays out of blind spots of the other vehicle and that the other vehicles stay out of a safety boundary of the host vehicle. When using ACC, there would be inadequate room for two vehicles to merge between the host vehicle and the front vehicle. Therefore, the host vehicle would adjust the distance to allow one vehicle to merge, creating a safer and conventional ‘zipper’ merge, as shown in figure 3D of Hori.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hori, in view of Tanaka as applied to claim 1, and in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0329779 to D’sa et al.
As per claim 6, Hori discloses estimating whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane based on the relative distances to the front and adjacent vehicle and the vehicle speed (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 71, 77, and 86), but does not explicitly disclose using a regression equation, i.e., wherein the processor is further configured to estimate whether the adjacent vehicle moves into the traveling lane ahead of the host vehicle using a regression equation in which the distance of the front vehicle with respect to the host vehicle, the distance of the adjacent vehicle with respect to the host vehicle and the speed of the host vehicle are variables.
However, the above feature(s) are taught by D’sa (D’sa; At least paragraph(s) 59-63). At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have incorporated the teachings of D’sa into the invention of Hori with a reasonable expectation of success with the motivation of using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way with predictable results. D’sa teaches a method of estimating a merging vehicle based on naturalistic data, as described in at least paragraph(s) 2-5 and 57-58), to provide a better prediction based on behavior of human drivers.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 9-10, filed 12/19/2025, with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and 101 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and 101 rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments, see page 12, filed 12/19/2025, with respect to the map utilization of the 35 U.S.C. 102 rejection have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. With respect to Applicant's arguments Hori does not use the map information, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Hori discloses using the map information for gathering lane details (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 60, 76, 84) and identifying a start and end point of a merging lane (Hori; At least paragraph(s) 61 and 76).
Applicant’s remaining arguments, see pages 12-13, filed 12/19/2025 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID P MERLINO whose telephone number is (571)272-8362. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 5:30am-3:00pm F 5:30-9:00 am ET.
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/David P. Merlino/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665