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 .
Status of Claims
This office action is in response to the patent application filed on February 11, 2026. Claims 1-2, 4, 6, 8-20 are currently pending.
Response to Amendment
The amendments to the claims submitted February 11, 2026 do not overcome the prior art of record for the reasons shown below.
The amendments to the claims submitted on February 11, 2026 also overcome the Claim objection, Double patenting rejection, and 35 USC 112(b) rejection in the non-final office action. A new claim objection is added.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments pgs. 9-13 filed February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that the final amended limitation is not disclosed by Liu, however, as shown below, a prior art rejection is made by Liu by disclosing providing guidance after landing using an offset from a runway centerline.
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites …wherein proceeding with a landing procedure comprises providing projected aircraft trajectory offset data. wherein the… there is a stray period in the middle of the limitation which is expected to be a typo, the examiner will assume it is meant to be a comma.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
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.
Claims 1-2, 4, 6, 8-16 & 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0315242 A1, to Liu et al., hereafter Liu (previously of record) in view of US 2023/0023069 A1, to Gariel et al., hereafter Gariel (previously of record) and US 2012/0326923 A1, to Oehler et al., hereafter Oehler (previously of record).
Regarding Claim 1, as shown above, Liu discloses A system, comprising: at least one processor, the at least one processor configured to (Liu [0030], Examiner Note: Liu discloses a processor (e.g. a controller)):
obtain data of an aircraft, the aircraft performing an approach procedure, the data including and/or associated with flight path information, the flight path information including at least one of a flight path vector (FPV) or a flight path predictor (FPP) (Liu [0032], [0038], & Fig 2, Examiner Note: Liu discloses visual-based landing aid system to determine if the aerial vehicle is on final approach (i.e. aircraft performing an approach procedure) to a runway using aerial vehicle status information (i.e. data of an aircraft). Liu further discloses determining the aerial vehicle’s final approach using flight path angle (i.e. flight path information));
obtain image sensor data output by at least one image sensor of the aircraft, the image sensor data including data associated with at least one image of a view from the aircraft, the view at least partially in front of the aircraft (Liu [0032], [0049] & Fig. 4A, Examiner Note: Liu discloses visual-based landing aid system to determine if the aerial vehicle is on final approach (i.e. image sensor where the image shows at least in front of the aircraft);
identify features associated with a runway based on the image sensor data output (Liu [0033], Examiner Note: Liu discloses using a voting algorithm to determine whether an identified an assigned runway for landing);
determine that the identified features are indicative of the runway (Liu [0033], Examiner Note: Liu discloses using a voting algorithm to determine whether an identified an assigned runway for landing);
determine a touch down zone on the runway as determined by the identified features, wherein the touch down zone is defined by toleranced boundary locations representing an acceptable touch down dispersion for the aircraft (Liu [0035] & [0073], Examiner Note: Liu discloses predicting whether the glide path of the vehicle will result in vehicle touch down inside an expected landing zone. It was also determined if the touch down is predicted outside the expected landing zone (e.g. undershooting or overshooting) (i.e. toleranced));
compare the FPV and/or the FPP with the touch down zone to determine whether the FPV and/or the FPP is in the touch down zone and/or is predicted to be in the touch down zone once the touch down zone is determined by the identified features (Liu [0073] & Fig. 8b, Examiner Note: Liu discloses compares the predicted glad path will touch down inside a box (i.e. touch down zone), 820); and
by the at least one processor, at least one of: (a) upon a determination that the FPV and/or the FPP is in and/or predicted to be in the touch down zone, perform an operation configured to cause the aircraft to proceed with a landing procedure based on the image sensor data output (Liu [0073], Examiner Note: Liu discloses alerting the vehicle operator whether the projected flight path is within the box (i.e. proceed to land) or not (i.e. make corrections));
… and upon landing, provide lateral rollout guidance, wherein providing lateral rollout guidance comprises using the projected trajectory offset data based on an offset from a centerline that extends down a runway after touchdown (Liu [0084] & Figs. 6-8b, Examiner Note: Liu discloses providing guidance when an aircraft is not parallel to the centerline (i.e. offset) after landing by providing a rotatable camera to view the center line to help the vehicle make a stable track after a correction maneuver. Liu further discloses [0064]-[0069] which, in part, calculating the center line which also has the vehicle’s relative position with regards to the runway center line (i.e. offset)).
However, Liu does not specifically disclose wherein proceeding with a landing procedure comprises providing projected aircraft trajectory offset data. wherein the at least one processor is further configured to generate at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data, wherein the at least one display is configured to: display the at least one display image to a user, wherein the at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data comprises a glide slope image and a localizer image;…or (b) upon a determination that the FPV and/or the FPP is not in and/or is not predicted to be in the touch down zone, perform an operation configured to cause the aircraft to perform a go-around procedure…
Oehler, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein proceeding with a landing procedure comprises providing projected aircraft trajectory offset data (Oehler [0082], Examiner Note: Oehler teaches displaying the relative offset of the vehicle to the intended landing spot), wherein the at least one processor is further configured to generate at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data, wherein the at least one display is configured to: display the at least one display image to a user (Oehler [0082]-[0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches displaying the relative offset with crosses 112 & 114 (i.e. image)), wherein the at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data comprises a glide slope image and a localizer image (Oehler [0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches crosses, vertical and horizontal, (i.e. glide slope & localizer) to represent offset data)…
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the filing date of the claimed invention and with a reasonable likelihood of success, to modify the system for visual aided landing of Liu in view of Gariel with the offset display of Oehler in order to follow standard pilot visualization concepts (Oehler [0082]).
Gariel, in the same field of endeavor, teaches or (b) upon a determination that the FPV and/or the FPP is not in and/or is not predicted to be in the touch down zone, perform an operation configured to cause the aircraft to perform a go-around procedure (Gariel [0051], Examiner Note: Gariel discloses that if a landing attempt is aborted, the flight management system will define a new flight pattern and subsequent landing procedure (i.e. go-around procedure))…
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the filing date of the claimed invention and with a reasonable likelihood of success, to modify the system for visual aided landing of Liu with the aborting and retry procedure of Gariel in order to prevent crashes in the case of malfunctioning equipment (Gariel [0052]).
Regarding Claim 2, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses wherein proceeding with a landing procedure comprises providing vertical and horizontal guidance during an approach or a landing (Liu [0058], Examiner Note: Liu discloses the landing prediction system providing lateral (i.e. horizontal) and vertical guidance)).
Regarding Claim 4, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses wherein proceeding with a landing procedure comprises performing an operation configured to cause the aircraft to land (Liu [0029] & Fig. 1, Examiner Note: Liu discloses landing the vehicle safely following the aerial vehicle landing operations)).
Regarding Claim 6, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
The modification does not specifically teach wherein the projected aircraft trajectory offset data provides vertical and horizontal guidance during approach and landing.
Oehler further teaches wherein the projected aircraft trajectory offset data provides vertical and horizontal guidance during approach and landing (Oehler [0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches crosses (i.e. vertical and horizontal) to represent offset data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the filing date of the claimed invention and with a reasonable likelihood of success, to modify the system for visual aided landing of Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler with the offset display of Oehler in order to follow standard pilot visualization concepts (Oehler [0082]).
Regarding Claim 8, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
However, the modification does not specifically teach wherein the at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data comprises an output configured to mimic an instrument landing system (ILS) display output, wherein the output mimicking the ILS display output does not include ILS data.
Oehler, as shown above, teaches wherein the at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data comprises an output configured to mimic an instrument landing system (ILS) display output, wherein the output mimicking the ILS display output does not include ILS data (Oehler [0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches crosses, vertical and horizontal, (i.e. glide slope & localizer which are a part of an ILS display) to visually represent offset data which does not include actual values (i.e. does not include ILS data)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the filing date of the claimed invention and with a reasonable likelihood of success, to modify the system for visual aided landing of Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler with the visual display of Oehler in order to not overwhelm the pilot with too much information (Oehler [0084]).
Regarding Claim 9, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses wherein the at least one display image based on the projected aircraft trajectory offset data comprises an output configured to mimic a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) display output, wherein the output mimicking the GNSS display output does not include GNSS data) (Liu [0024]-[0026], Examiner Note: Liu discloses showing GNSS information in a visually clear and compact way (i.e. not including data)).
Regarding Claim 10, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses further comprising the aircraft (Liu [0070] & Fig. 8A, Examiner Note: Liu discloses a fixed wing vehicle (i.e. aircraft)), the aircraft comprising: the at least one processor (Liu [0030], Examiner Note: Liu discloses a processor),… the at least one image sensor (Liu [0029] & Fig. 1, Examiner Note: Liu discloses onboard visual equipment, 106, which includes a camera), and the at least one display (Liu [0036], Examiner Note: Liu discloses display equipment 112); wherein the user is a pilot (Liu [0028], Examiner Note: Liu discloses the operator of the vehicle being a pilot); wherein the at least one processor is configured to: upon the determination that the FPV and/or the FPP is in and/or is predicted to be in the touch down zone, at least one of: (a) output a notification to the pilot to proceed with a landing procedure (Liu [0035], Examiner Note: Liu discloses an alerting system for the operator while attempting to land in the touch down zone) or (b) perform an operation configured to cause the aircraft to perform a landing procedure (Liu [0071], Examiner Note: Liu discloses an Auto-flight Control System for automatic landing).
The modification does not specifically teach at least one inertial system, the examiner is taking official notice that it is well known for an airplane to have an inertial system using sensors such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, and the like. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention and with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the aircraft of Liu in view of Gariel and further in view of Oehler with in order to determine the position of the aircraft.
Regarding Claim 11, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
As shown above, Oehler teaches wherein the flight path information includes the FPV (Oehler [0082]-[0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches displaying the relative offset with cross 112 (flight path vector))
Regarding Claim 12, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
As shown above, Oehler teaches wherein the flight path information includes the FPP (Oehler [0082]-[0084] & Fig. 6, Examiner Note: Oehler teaches displaying the relative offset with cross 114 (flight path predictor))
Regarding Claim 13, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses of an approach light system, a threshold, threshold markings, threshold lights, runway end identifier lights, a visual glidescope indicator, a touchdown zone, touchdown zone markings, touchdown zone lights, a runway, runway markings, or runway lights (Liu [0045], Examiner Note: Liu discloses runway lights, see 14 CFR § 91.175(c)(3)(x)).
Regarding Claim 14, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: compare the FPV and/or the FPP with the touch down zone to determine whether a center of the FPV and/or the FPP is in the touch down zone and/or is predicted to be in the touch down zone once the touch down zone is determined by the identified features (Liu [0073], Examiner Note: Liu discloses defining an expected landing box (i.e. touch down zone determining) and then comparing, using the visual-based landing aid system, if the vehicle will land inside or outside the touch down zone).
Regarding Claim 15, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu discloses wherein the aircraft is an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) (Liu [0028], Examiner Note: Liu discloses the aircraft being an unmanned aerial vehicle (i.e. uncrewed aerial system)).
Regarding Claim 16, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
Liu discloses wherein the aircraft is a remote-piloted aircraft (Liu [0028], Examiner Note: Liu discloses the aircraft being a remotely piloted aircraft).
Regarding Claim 18, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teaches The system of claim 1,
However, the modification does not specifically teach wherein the aircraft includes at least one global navigation satellite system (GNSS) device, wherein the at least one GNSS device is compromised or determined to be inaccurate during the performance of the approach procedure.
Gariel teaches wherein the aircraft includes at least one global navigation satellite system (GNSS) device, wherein the at least one GNSS device is compromised or determined to be inaccurate during the performance of the approach procedure (Gariel [0029] & [0054], Examiner Note: Gariel teaches a GNSS receiver, 404-1, and a validation system, 110, in order to detect if the systems of the aircraft are working. If a device is not working during a landing approach, other systems are used as back up).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the filing date of the claimed invention and with a reasonable likelihood of success, to modify the system for visual aided landing of Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler with the aborting and retry procedure of Gariel in order to prevent crashes in the case of malfunctioning equipment (Gariel [0052]).
Regarding Claim 19, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teach The system of claim 1,
Liu further discloses wherein the aircraft lacks a Category IIIB landing system (Liu [0002], Examiner Note: Liu describes as one of the motivations of the claimed invention, is for use for planes to not use an instrument landing system due to their complexity and cost. Therefore, no instrument landing system is included).
With respect to Claim 20, all the limitations have been analyzed in view of claim 1, and it has been determined that claim 20 does not teach or define any new limitations beyond those previously recited in Claim 1. Therefore, claim 20 is also rejected over the same rationale as claim 1.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0315242 A1, to Liu et al. (hereafter Liu) in view of US 2023/0023069 A1, to Gariel et al. (hereafter Gariel) and US 2012/0326923 A1, to Oehler et al., hereafter Oehler (previously of record) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 11,532,237 B2, to Tiana et al. (hereafter Tiana).
Regarding Claim 17, Liu in view of Gariel and Oehler teach The system of claim 1,
However, the modification does not specifically teach wherein the at least one image sensor is at least one electromagnetic (EM) image sensor.
Tiana, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the at least one image sensor is at least one electromagnetic (EM) image sensor (Tiana Col. 16 Rows 9-20, Examiner Note: Tiana teaches using electromagnet frequencies to determine the position of various objects in the process of landing).
The modification does not specifically teach at least one inertial system, the examiner is taking official notice that it is well known for an airplane to have an inertial system using sensors such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, and the like. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention and with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the aircraft of Liu in view of Gariel with the electromagnetic sensor of Tiana in order to determine the position of the aircraft and runway (Tiana Col. 16 Rows 9-20).
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 MICHAEL T DOWLING whose telephone number is (703)756-1459. The examiner can normally be reached M-T: 8-5:30, First F: Off, Second F: 8-4:30.
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/MICHAEL T DOWLING/Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669