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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 2, 6, 18, 27 and 19 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.
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 Prenzel DE 102019208038 (cited in the IDS, please refer to the attached machine translation for reference, hereinafter Prenzel) and 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 platoon control messages (PCMs) (see Fig.3 on page 10 and abstract, and page 11 described in Section 3.2 of Flexible and Autonomous Platooning, also note last paragraph on p.21 where multiple PCMs are transmitted/received “…the local platoon should periodically exchange PCMs with all nodes in a local platoon”) CPM includes a subset of a plurality of sets of data elements (see Fig.3 including Vehicle Information and Platoon Information, wherein the Vehicle Information further includes SecMark Field that is a generated time of the message), each 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 wherein the PCMs are a sequence of platoon control messages (PCMs) including a first PCM that includes a first subset of a plurality of sets of data elements, and a second subset of a plurality of sets of data elements.
Prenzel teaches a sequence of messages (PCM, note second paragraph on page 2, see Fig.2 and note 4th and 5th paragraphs on page 12) wherein including a first message that includes a first subset of a plurality of sets of data elements, (A1 includes tA time stamp, and ID or Platoon Member ID), and a second message includes a second subset of the plurality of sets of data elements (B1 includes its tA time stamp, and ID or Platoon Member 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 Prenzel into the system of Jeong wherein the messages of Prenzel would be transmitted as PCMs of Jeong, as tA could be in the form of SecMark Field of Jeong while Platoon Member ID could be in the ID of Vehicle Information and as part of the Platoon Information in Fig.3 of Jeong. The advantage realized from the combination would be to allow the overall system to have a current time stamp, such as a current GPS time, note last paragraph on page 5.
However, Jeong in view of Prenzel do 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 Prenzel DE 102019208038 (cited in the IDS, please refer to the attached machine translation for reference, hereinafter Prenzel) and Ong et al. US 2022/0046381 (Ong) and in further view of 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 Prenzel and Ong do 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 Prenzel, Ong and ETSI, 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, Prenzel, 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
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 SAM K. AHN whose telephone number is (571)272-3044. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9-5PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James Kramer can be reached at 571-272-6783. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SAM K AHN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2633
Prosecution Insights