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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 6, 18, 27 and 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jeong et al. Distributed Urban Platooning towards High Flexibility, Adaptability, and Stability, Sensors, Published: 10 April 2021 (Jeong) in view of Ong et al. US 2022/0046381 (Ong).
Regarding claims 1, 18, 27 and 29, Jeong teaches a method of wireless communication and a transmitter or a receiver mobile station associated with a member vehicle of a vehicle platoon (note abstract and see Figs. 1 and 3), transmit or receive at least one platoon control message (PCM) having a flexible structure (see Fig.3 on page 10 and abstract, and page 11 described in Section 3.2 of Flexible and Autonomous Platooning), the at least one PCM comprising a first part and a second part that is different from the first part (first part of Vehicle Information and second part of Platoon information, Fig.3), wherein the first part comprises non-platoon- specific data elements (first part of Vehicle Information, Fig.3) and the second part comprises platoon-specific data elements (second part of Platoon information, Fig.3); and transmit or receive at least one basic safety message (BSM) (note page 3, broadcasting BSMs, also page 10 of BSM, “a candidate node obtains position information from the BSM…” on page 12).
However, Jeong does not explicitly teach a transmitter or a receiver mobile station associated with a member vehicle of a vehicle platoon wherein Ong teaches the limitation (see Fig.1 and note [0082]), comprising: a memory; and one or more processors, coupled to the memory, configured to, based in part on information stored in the memory (note [0022], [0054], [0059]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Ong into the system of Jeong for the purpose of performing software instructions using processor and memories that are well-known in the industry for effective operation.
Regarding claim 2, Jeong further teaches wherein the non-platoon-specific data elements (first part of Vehicle Information, Fig.3) comprise at least one of: a set of basic data elements, a set of motion data elements associated with the member vehicle, or a set of vehicle dynamic data elements associated with the member vehicle (Identity, Position and Motion of the member vehicle, see Fig.3 and note pages 10-11).
Regarding claim 6, Jeong further teaches wherein the platoon-specific data elements comprise at least one of: a set of platoon vehicle state data elements associated with the member vehicle, or a set of platoon control data elements (Maneuver field in Fig.3, note page 11).
Claim(s) 7-9, 16, 17 and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jeong et al. Distributed Urban Platooning towards High Flexibility, Adaptability, and Stability, Sensors, Published: 10 April 2021 (Jeong) in view of Ong et al. US 2022/0046381 (Ong) and ETSI TR 103 439 V2.1.1 (ETSI) (Publication Date is Oct 11, 2021 as shown when retrieved from google.com).
Regarding claim 7, Jeong further teaches wherein PCM having platoon information comprising Vehicle IDs (see Fig.3). However, Jeong in view of Ong does not explicitly teach wherein the PCMs are transmitted using a cooperative transmission scheme. Although such implementation is well-known in the art, ETSI teaches that the platoon control messages are transmitted using V2X communication wherein V2X schemes are implemented to manage PCMs (note section 7.2 on page 67, LTE-V2X or 5G NR V2X that are well-known to transmit using a cooperative transmission scheme). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of ETSI in the system of Jeong for the purpose of using frequency bands for European Intelligent Transport Systems as defined in the ETSI standard (note lines 1-2 on page 18).
Jeong further teaches wherein the PCM has vehicle IDs (see Fig.3). However, Jeong does not explicitly teach wherein BSM also has the identical vehicle IDs. Ong teaches wherein V2X message ID for BSM message type and also for PSM message type may include “information identifying a particular vehicle or Vehicle ID. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Ong into the system of Jeong in view of ETSI for the purpose of properly identifying particular vehicles by using Vehicle IDs for PCM and also for BSM as suggested by Ong (note [0101]. Thus, based on the teachings of Jeong in view of ETSI and Ong, one of ordinary skilled in the art would recognize the limitation of at least one data element of the first part of the PCM is identical to at least one data element of the BSM, and wherein the one or more processors, to transmit the at least one PCM, are configured to transmit the at least one PCM using a cooperative transmission scheme to transmit the at least one PCM and the at least one BSM. The motivation to combine the teachings would be effectively implement transmission of platoon control message related information by properly identifying vehicles through vehicle ID in order to ensure that intended vehicles are properly identified and controlled and create a system with reduced road accidents (note [0016]).
Regarding claim 8, the claim is rejected as applied to claim 7 wherein the combination of Jeong, ETSI and Ong would teach all of the claim limitation. Ong further teaches wherein the V2X technology is implemented to transmit signals. And although Ong does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more processors, to transmit the at least one PCM, are configured to transmit the at least one PCM using a first transmission frequency, and wherein the one or more processors, to transmit the at least one BSM, are configured to transmit the at least one BSM using a second transmission frequency that is different than the first transmission frequency, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art. One of ordinary skilled in the art would recognize that depending on channel conditions, different transmission frequency may be implemented. On paragraph 0019 of Ong, it teaches usage of 20 Mhz band to support communication. This would allow the system to use different transmission frequencies. Thus, PCM may be transmitted using a first transmission frequency. At a later time, when there is more noise or interference in that frequency, the system may use a different second transmission frequency within that 20 Mhz spectrum to allow more effective transmission of signals with minimal interruption due to noise or interference. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate as such for the purpose of effective transmission of intended signals to respective receivers.
Regarding claim 9, Jeong further teaches wherein the at least one PCM comprises a vehicle temporary identifier (ID) associated with the member vehicle IDs (see Fig.3). The further limitation of wherein the at least one BSM comprises the vehicle temporary ID is rejected as applied to claim 7.
Regarding claim 16, the claim is rejected as applied to claim 7.
Regarding claim 17, Jeong further wherein the member vehicle is a lead vehicle of the vehicle platoon (lead vehicle is identified in Fig.1 of Jeong as leader node), and wherein the at least one PCM comprises a specified set of data elements based at least in part on the member vehicle being the lead vehicle (the PCM or a beacon message of a leader node has the specified set of data elements in a set order as illustrated in Fig.1 as the first bar in the Beacon period, and the first bar in the Contention-free period).
Regarding claim 28, the claim is rejected as applied to claim 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 10-15, 19-26 and 30 are 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
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/SAM K AHN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2633