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 (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.
Joint Inventors
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.
Response to Arguments and Amendments
Applicant’s arguments amendments, filed March 23rd, 2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1, 3-7 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, these rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments amendments, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-8 and 17-20 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, these rejections have been withdrawn. However, upon further search and consideration of amended limitations, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Li et al. (WO Patent Pub. No. 2016/112902 A1).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-8 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Natanzon (US Patent No. 10,909,782 B1) in view of Goldfarb et al. (EP Patent No. 3 485 421 B1), herein “Goldfarb”, and Li et al. (WO Patent Pub. No. 2016/112902 A1), herein “Li”.
Regarding Claims 1 and 17, Natanzon discloses an electronic device and a method of operating an electronic device configured to be mounted on an autonomous vehicle (See Col. 1 Lines 49-67, “[…] provide a context and risk-based data management system for vehicle EDR data […] an information processing system comprising at least one vehicle wherein the at least one vehicle comprises an event data recorder and a data management module resident in the at least one vehicle […]”), comprising:
a first interface circuit configured to communicate with a plurality of storage devices (See Col. 4 Lines 55-60, “[…] an EDR data management system that is part of a vehicle writes data synchronously to an on-vehicle EDR, and any data written the on-vehicle EDR is replicated asynchronously over network 104 […] to the data recorder storage platform 105.”);
a second interface circuit configured to communicate with a plurality of zones of the autonomous vehicle (See Col. 6 Lines 11-15, “[…] sensors used in connection with determining vehicle characteristics, environment and/or collisions. Data from the sensors 220 is written to the EDR 230 during operation of the vehicle 202 and/or before, during and after an event, such as an accident.” Examiner notes sensors determine vehicle characteristics and collisions; therefore, the sensor data represents the zones of the vehicle);
an event detector configured to output an event signal in response to detecting event data received through the second interface circuit (See Col. 7 Lines 62-66, “The data management module 240 includes a network detection component 246 to determine whether there is an available network connection that can be maintained to transfer EDR data from the EDR 230 to the data recorder storage platform […]” See also Col. 10 Lines 50-53, “[…] evaluating comprises assigning a value to each of the plurality of data elements. The value of a data element is based on whether the data element has been determined to at least contribute to a vehicle event […]” Examiner notes the value of a data element being based on contribution to a vehicle event, and being further transferred to the storage platform from the event data recorder (EDR), is the same as an event signal being output in response to detecting event data);
an event manager configured to output a data division signal in response to the event signal (See Col. 6 Lines 32-33, “The data management module 240 includes a data evaluation component 242 […]” See also Col. 10 Lines 33-39, “[…] each of the plurality of data elements is evaluated, for example, using a data evaluation component 242 of the data management module 240, to determine which of the plurality of data elements to maintain in a memory region (e.g., storage component 234) of the event data recorder and which of the plurality of data elements to delete from the memory region […]” Examiner notes the data evaluation component determining which data elements are to be maintained and which are to be deleted is the same as dividing the initial signal).
But does not explicitly disclose an interface manager configured to: divide the event data into a plurality of data fragments in response to the data division signal, allocate the plurality of data fragments to two or more storage devices among the plurality of storage devices, respectively, and control the first interface circuit such that the plurality of data fragments are respectively transmitted to the allocated two or more storage devices,
wherein the event manager is further configured to transmit a copy of the event data to a spare space storage device among the plurality of storage devices.
Goldfarb, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches an interface manager configured to: divide the event data into a plurality of data fragments in response to the data division signal, allocate the plurality of data fragments to two or more storage devices among the plurality of storage devices, respectively, and control the first interface circuit such that the plurality of data fragments are respectively transmitted to the allocated two or more storage devices (See 0006, “[…] segmenting, with one or more processors, a first value in the first subset of values into a plurality of segments, each segment having a subset of information in the first value and different segments having different subsets of the information in the first value […] instructing, with one or more processors, via a network, a first computing device to store a first subset of segments among the plurality of segments in memory […] a second computing device to store a second subset of segments among the plurality of segments in memory […] the second computing device does not have access to the first subset of segments; and causing, with one or more processors, the relational database to store the second subset of the values and one or more pointers to at least some of the segments […]” Examiner notes the first and second computing devices allocate their respective subsets of data segments into their respective segments of memory, which are distinct from each other since the second computing device does not access the first subset of segments).
Li, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the event manager is further configured to transmit a copy of the event data to a spare space storage device among the plurality of storage devices (See 0012, “[…] the procedure includes determining a time period based on the event indicator and subsequently copying the sensor data received within that time period from the rewritable storage element to another storage element […] event data can also be stored in the additional storage element, or in any other storage location. Rapid copying from the buffer to the next storage element/intermediate storage, as is necessary for sensor data due to a continuous sensor data stream with the ongoing overwriting of the oldest sensor data in the buffer storage, is not necessary when storing event data.”).
In view of Goldfarb and Li’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, a process for fragmenting data and distributing fragments across multiple storage nodes and transmitting a copy of the event data to a spare storage space, with a reasonable expectation of success, since the data management system already includes the necessary electronic components and communication channels to establish data fragmentation, and integrating known event-driven logic with multi-device fragment storage architecture results in predictable improvements in system reliability, throughput and fault tolerance. Furthermore, copying the event data into spare storage space increases efficiency of data load within the plurality of storage spaces by overwriting buffered data to free up storage in the event of large amounts of event data, as taught by Li.
Regarding Claim 2, Natanzon does not explicitly disclose the electronic device of Claim 1, wherein the plurality of data fragments are divided in units of reference data size and are written in event data spaces respectively included in the two or more storage devices.
Goldfarb, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the plurality of data fragments are divided in units of reference data size and are written in event data spaces respectively included in the two or more storage devices (See 0006 as referenced above. Examiner notes the data fragments between the first and second subset of segments are distinct and differentiated by data size, and since each computing device stores their respective data segment into a respective segment of memory, it is the same as event data spaces included in the storage devices).
In view of Goldfarb’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, a process for fragmenting data and distributing fragments across multiple storage nodes on the basis of reference data size, with a reasonable expectation of success, since the data management system already includes the necessary electronic components and communication channels to establish data fragmentation using reference data size, and integrating known event-driven logic with multi-device fragment storage architecture results in predictable improvements in system reliability, throughput and fault tolerance.
Regarding Claim 3, Natanzon does not explicitly disclose the electronic device of Claim 2, wherein the first interface circuit adds a same stream identifier to each of the plurality of data fragments.
Goldfarb, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the first interface circuit adds the same stream identifier to each of the plurality of data fragments (See 0026-0028, “[…] based on a prefix or suffix of a hash based on the data or identifiers of data to the appropriate computing device or host. For instance, some embodiments may implement a load balancer that routes requests to storage compute nodes 26 based on a prefix of a node identifier […] records may be mapped to the below-describe segment identifiers (or other pointers, such as other node identifiers) in the secure distributed storage 16.” See also 0069, “[…] the identifier may be a segment identifier of the type described below, or in some cases the identifier may be an identifier within a namespace of the directed acyclic graph […] the identifier may be arranged hierarchically […] the identifier of a node is content-base […]”).
In view of Goldfarb’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, providing identifiers across each segment of a multi-segment value, with a reasonable expectation of success, since it would enable downstream reconstruction, indexing, or grouping of related data fragments, which enhances traceability of distributed storage.
Regarding Claim 4, Natanzon does not explicitly disclose the electronic device of Claim 2, wherein the event manager is further configured to generate the copy of the event data by combining the data fragments stored in the event data spaces.
Li, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the event manager is further configured to generate the copy of the event data by combining the data fragments stored in the event data spaces (See 0012 as referenced above).
In view of Li’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, generating a copy of the event data through data fragments, with a reasonable expectation of success, since this is a well-known application of distributed-storage redundancy, and would provide predictable improvements in data reliability and recovery.
Regarding Claims 5 and 18, Natanzon further discloses the electronic device of Claim 1 and method of Claim 17, wherein the event manager is configured to output a monitoring signal based on the event signal (See Col. 7 Line 62 to Col. 8 Line 13, “[…] to determine whether there is an available network connection that can be maintained to transfer EDR data from the EDR 230 to the data recorder storage platform […] If there is an available network connection […] part of the EDR […] can serve as a buffer for the remote replication of less important data […] the data that would have been transferred is valued relatively low, and may be deleted in favor of data determined to be more valuable […] data management module 240 can make a determination to transfer data determined to be of relatively higher value […]”);
wherein the electronic device further comprises a workload analyzer configured to identify an available capacity of each of the plurality of storage devices in response to the monitoring signal (See Col. 6 Lines 41-46, “In a situation where replication is prevented due to network connectivity from the vehicle 202 to the data recorder storage platform 105 being intermittent or unavailable, and free storage space being limited or not available on the storage component 234, the data evaluation component 242 determines the relative importance of EDR data.”);
wherein the interface manager divides the event data into the plurality of data fragments based on the available capacity of each of the plurality of storage devices (See Col. 6, Col. 7 and Col. 8 as referenced above); and
(per Claim 18 only) wherein the transmitting includes transmitting the plurality of data fragments in parallel to the two or more storage devices (See Col. 6, Col. 7 and Col. 8 as referenced above. See also Col. 11 Lines 46-51, “[…] the ordering of the process steps may be varied […] or certain steps may be performed at least in part concurrently with one another rather than serially […] one or more of the process steps may be repeated periodically, or multiple instances of the process can be performed in parallel with one another.”).
Regarding Claims 6 and 19, Natanzon further discloses the electronic device of Claim 5 and method of Claim 18, wherein the workload analyzer is further configured to identify states of a plurality of queues respectively corresponding to the plurality of storage devices in response to the monitoring signal (See Col. 6, Col. 7 and Col. 8 as referenced above); and
wherein the interface manager is configured to divide the event data into the plurality of data fragments based on the available capacity of each of the plurality of storage devices (See Col. 6, Col. 7 and Col. 8 as referenced above).
Regarding Claims 7 and 20, Natanzon further discloses the electronic device of Claim 1 and method of Claim 17, wherein the interface manager is configured to: identify a type of the event data, and set a priority of the plurality of data fragments to a highest value in response to the event data being identified to be of a first type (See Col. 6, Col. 7, Col. 8 and Col. 10 as referenced above. See also Col. 12 Lines 33-30, “[…] the embodiments of the present invention advantageously provide a data management system that accounts for different data types and their effect on vehicle events […]” Examiner notes the data management module determines and sets priorities by assigning value to data segments based on contribution to a vehicle event, along with different types of data from the EDR that may determine risk and provide context to the event); and
(per Claim 20 only) changing an order of transmitting the plurality of data fragments to the two or more storage devices based on the priority (See Col. 6, Col. 7, Col. 8 and Col. 10 as referenced above. See also Col. 6 Lines 65-66, “The valuation of specific data may also change due to one or more events.”).
Regarding Claim 8, Natanzon further discloses the electronic device of Claim 7, wherein the first interface circuit is configured to change an order of data to be transmitted to each of the plurality of storage devices based on the priority (See Col. 6, Col. 7, Col. 8 and Col. 10 as referenced above. See also Col. 6 Lines 65-66, “The valuation of specific data may also change due to one or more events.” Examiner notes the order of writing or transmitting data based on priority is supported, and can also be changed in response to different event-data types that may be assigned a higher priority or value).
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Natanzon (US Patent No. 10,909,782 B1) in view of Goldfarb et al. (EP Patent No. 3 485 421 B1) and Li et al. (WO Patent Pub. No. 2016/112902 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Haler (US Patent Pub. No. 2016/0236621 A1).
Regarding Claim 9, Natanzon in view of Goldfarb and Li does not explicitly teach the electronic device of Claim 1, wherein the second interface circuit includes an Ethernet interface.
Haler, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the second interface circuit includes an Ethernet interface (See 0006, “[…] a vehicle-mounted video and audio recording system using distributed processing, including encoding the video and audio at their source(s), and a high-speed, e.g., Ethernet, bus connecting the various system components and external devices.”).
In view of Haler’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, Ethernet-based sensor interfaces, with a reasonable expectation of success, since Ethernet is the dominant standard for high-bandwidth automotive sensor networks, and integrating this interface into the event data management system enables higher throughput and interoperability with existing vehicle sensor stacks.
Regarding Claim 10, Natanzon in view of Goldfarb and Li does not explicitly teach the electronic device of Claim 9, wherein the event detector is configured to identify the event data based on at least one of fields included in a packet received through the second interface circuit.
Haler, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the event detector is configured to identify the event data based on at least one of fields included in a packet received through the second interface circuit (See 0041, “[…] the system 10 records constantly in a loop of a selected duration of time, such as thirty seconds or sixty seconds, so that when an event triggers recording, the events occurring shortly prior to the initiation of recording are also recorded and stored.” Examiner notes the system received multiple video streams from cameras over the network link, and implies that incoming data packets, the video frames, over the network are inspected and used to trigger the recording).
In view of Haler’s teachings, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include, with the electronic data management system mounted on an autonomous vehicle for detecting events and managing data storage as disclosed by Natanzon, the reception of packet-based sensor data over Ethernet, with a reasonable expectation of success, since using packet metadata to identify event-related information is a known method for improving detection accuracy and reducing latency.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Bryant Tang whose telephone number is (571)270-0145. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 CST.
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/BRYANT TANG/Examiner, Art Unit 3658
/JASON HOLLOWAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658
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