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 action is in response to the application filed on 04/01/2024.
Claims 1-10 are pending.
Examiner’s Note
Please note that Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers 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 that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in entirely 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.
Drawings
The drawings (Figs. 1 and 5) are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a) because they fail to show labels names as described in the specification (for example see paragraph [0012-0016 and 0059, 0060]). Any structural detail that is essential for a proper understanding of the disclosed invention should be shown in the drawing. MPEP § 608.02(d). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
Claim(s) 1-7 and 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 20210149659 to Abe et al. in view of USPN 12001825 to Sangameswaran et al.
Per claim 1:
Abe discloses:
1. A software updating server comprising one or more processors configured to execute:
transmitting, to a vehicle (Paragraph [0048] “transmits a wired rewrite request to the rewrite target ECU 20”), one or more campaign notices among a plurality of campaign notices that notifies that (note here plurality of campaign notices are S1-S5, see Paragraph [0052] “FIG. 2, phases including campaign notice (S1), download (S2), installation (S3), activation (S4), and update complete confirmation (S5) are sequentially performed”) software for a control device mounted in the vehicle is updatable (Paragraph [0031] “electronic control device (hereinafter referred to as an ECU (Electronic Control Unit)) are updatable/rewritable”); and
transmitting, to the vehicle (Paragraph [0048] “transmits a wired rewrite request to the rewrite target ECU 20”), the software (Paragraph [0057,0058] “the download acceptance screen 103, displays a “START DOWNLOAD” button 103 a… the CGW 14 starts downloading the delivery package”), corresponding to the one or more campaign notices after transmitting the one or more campaign notices (Paragraph [0055] “a campaign notice is issued from such a state, the CGW 14 displays a campaign notice icon 101 a indicating an issuance of a campaign notice”), wherein
the plurality of campaign notices includes
a first campaign notice that requires approval (Paragraph [0053] “the campaign notice phase, the user can proceed to the download phase by performing a download acceptance operation”) as an update condition for an update to the software (Paragraph [0053] “a target vehicle of the program update is delivered… to the user, basically, the user can proceed to the next phase by performing an acceptance operation in the phase”), and
a second campaign notice that requires the approval in a different manner from the first campaign notice (Paragraph [0053] “the campaign notice phase, the user can proceed to the download phase by performing a download acceptance operation… the user can proceed to the activation phase by performing the activation accepting operation”), as the update condition for the update to the software, or that does not require the approval as the update condition for the update to the software (Since this appears to be MARKUSH type language requiring at a minimum just one from the list, Abe teaches Paragraph [0053] “the user can proceed to the activation phase by performing the activation accepting operation. Even after the target vehicle for program update is delivered… in case of emergency situation or if the user has left/postponed the accepting operation for along time, or even in other cases, it may be possible to proceed to the next phase without accepting operation performed by the user”).
Abe does not explicitly disclose a new version of the software.
However, Sangameswaran discloses in an analogous computer system a new version of the software (Col. 8, lines 28-33 “vehicles having version 2.0.3, for example, to which a new update 2.0.4 (i.e., new version) is to be applied… all vehicles having versions at or lower than 2.0.3 might be identified as candidates for updating to 2.0.4, depending, for example, on the particular update”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the method of a new version of the software as taught by Sangameswaran into the method of a program update progress control as taught by Abe. The modification would be obvious because of one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to add/incorporate the features of a new version of the software to provide an efficient technique to update the program to a newer version so as to overcome and /or avoid any errors in the older version and have the ECU system function as expected as suggested by Sangameswaran (col. 1, lines 32-37).
Per claim 2:
Abe discloses:
2. The software updating server according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute:
acquiring, from the vehicle, user information indicating whether or not a specific user is registered for the vehicle (Paragraph [0038] “management server 10 is a server that manages personal information of users registered in the application program rewriting service”);
transmitting the first campaign notice to the vehicle for which the specific user is registered (Paragraph [0038] “web server 9 transmits web data managed by itself in response to a request from a web browser… personal information of users registered in the application program rewriting service”).
Abe does not explicitly disclose transmitting the second campaign notice to the vehicle for which the specific user is not registered.
However, Sangameswaran discloses in an analogous computer system transmitting the second campaign notice to the vehicle for which the specific user is not registered (here the VIN number considered as registered user since car belongs to a user. Col. 8, lines 46-49 “VINs remain 309 for approval verification… VINs that have approved OTA updates have all been verified, the process can send update instructions, notifications, etc. 311 to the vehicles having the associated VINs”).
The feature of providing transmitting the second campaign notice to the vehicle for which the specific user is not registered would be obvious for the reasons set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Per claim 3:
Abe discloses:
3. The software updating server according to claim 2, wherein the update condition corresponding to the second campaign notice has a smaller number of times to seek the approval than the update condition corresponding to the first campaign notice (Paragraph [0077] “program update campaign information… program update campaign information (t1, which corresponds to a campaign information obtaining procedure)… required campaign execution time is a time/duration from the start to the completion of the program update, including a download time of the delivery package from the center device 3 and a write time of the write data”).
Claim 4 is/are the apparatus/system claim corresponding to server claim 1 and rejected under the same rational set forth in connection with the rejection of claim 1 as noted above. The feature of new version is taught by the combination of Abe and Sangameswaran as applied above to claim 1. Further, Abe discloses by a master device mounted in a vehicle (Fig. 20 element 12 master device and related discussion); and an updating server configured to perform wireless communication with the master device (Paragraph [0079] “FIG. 22, the center device 3 delivers the campaign information to the master device 12 of the target vehicle (t2), and delivers the update data to the master device 12 of the target vehicle (t3), the master device includes one or more second processors configured to execute: acquiring at least one of the first campaign notice and the second campaign notice (Paragraph [0071] “campaign information obtainer 3 a obtains program update campaign information upon having an operation input of the campaign information of the program update”); executing the update to the software after acquiring the first campaign notice (Paragraph [0074] “determined by the execution requirement determiner 3 c that change of the setting of whether the acceptance is required is required”) and when the update condition corresponding to the first campaign notice is satisfied (Paragraph [0072] “campaign information is obtained by the campaign information obtainer 3 a and the vehicle state is obtained by the vehicle information obtainer 3 b, the execution requirement setter 3 c sets the execution requirements of the phase of the program update based on the campaign information and vehicle condition obtained”); and executing the update to the software after acquiring the second campaign notice and when the update condition corresponding to the second campaign notice is satisfied (here the condition is NOT to accept the updates thus, update not provided. Paragraph [0074] “determined by the execution requirement determiner 3 c that change of the setting of whether the acceptance is required is NOT required, the update data deliverer 3 e instructs the master device 12 of the target vehicle of the program update (i) NOT TO change the setting of whether the acceptance of the phase is required and (ii) perform the update of the program”).
Per claim 5:
Abe discloses:
5. The software updating system according to claim 4, wherein
the one or more first processors of the updating server are configured to execute (Paragraph [0096] “a special purpose computer which is configured with a memory and a processor programmed to perform one or more functions embodied in computer programs stored in the memory”) transmitting one campaign notice among the plurality of campaign notices to the master device (Paragraph [0048] “transmits a wired rewrite request to the rewrite target ECU 20”; Paragraph [0052] “FIG. 2, phases including campaign notice (S1), download (S2), installation (S3), activation (S4), and update complete confirmation (S5) are sequentially performed”), and
the one or more second processors of the master device are configured to execute (Paragraph [0096] “a memory and a processor programmed to perform one or more functions and (ii) a processor with one or more hardware logic circuits”) acquiring the first campaign notice or the second campaign notice (Paragraph [0072] “campaign information is obtained by the campaign information obtainer 3 a and the vehicle state is obtained by the vehicle information obtainer 3 b, the execution requirement setter 3 c sets the execution requirements of the phase of the program update based on the campaign information and vehicle condition obtained”).
Claims 6-7 is/are the apparatus/system claim corresponding to server claims 2-3 respectively, and rejected under the same rational set forth in connection with the rejection of claims 2-3 respectively, as noted above.
Claim 9 is/are the method claim corresponding to server claim 1 and rejected under the same rational set forth in connection with the rejection of claim 1 as noted above.
Per claim 10:
Abe discloses:
10. A non-transitory storage medium storing instructions that are executable by one or more processors of an updating server and that cause the one or more processors to execute the software updating method according to claim 9 (Paragraph [0096] “computer program may also be stored on a computer readable non-transitory, tangible recording medium as instructions to be executed by a computer”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Related cited arts:
Mahmud, Syed Masud, Shobhit Shanker, and Irina Hossain. "Secure software upload in an intelligent vehicle via wireless communication links." IEEE Proceedings. Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, 2005. IEEE, 2005. pp. 588-593.
Samuel, Justin, et al. "Survivable key compromise in software update systems." Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer and communications security. 2010.pp. 61-72.
Mugarza, Imanol, et al. "Dynamic software updates to enhance security and privacy in high availability energy management applications in smart cities." IEEE Access 7 (2019): pp. 42269-42279.
US20120167071 A software update apparatus of a vehicle includes: a network unit configured to perform internal communications with a plurality of electronic control devices inside the vehicle; a near field communication (NFC) module configured to wirelessly access a mobile communication terminal; and a client control unit configured to manage software versions of the electronic control devices collected through the network unit, provide the software version information to the mobile communication terminal through the NFC module, download software requiring update, transmits the downloaded software to the electronic control devices through the network unit, and receive an update state to transmit to the mobile communication terminal.
US20220027143 A server configured to transmit update data used in updating software of an in-vehicle device of a vehicle to the vehicle. The server includes: a communication module configured to receive usage information representing a usage state of the vehicle, and transmit the update data to the vehicle; and one or more processors configured to control, based on the usage information, at least one of a timing or a communication speed of transmitting the update data to the vehicle by the communication module.
US20190196806 A method for updating software of at least one sensor in a motor vehicle, which is equipped with a motor vehicle communication system, comprises transmitting the software to be updated to the motor vehicle communication system and to install it from the motor vehicle communication system on the at least one sensor.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Satish Rampuria whose telephone number is 571-272-3732. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chat Do, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-3721. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Satish Rampuria/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2193
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