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 application filed 04/03/2024. Claims 1-14 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 04/03/2024 has been considered. An initialed copy of the Form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 05/30/2025 has been considered. An initialed copy of the Form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. DE10 2021 211 164.5, filed on 10/04/2021.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 and 3-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a mental process, and therefore an abstract idea. The claim recites “A method for planning a trajectory of a driving maneuver of a motor vehicle, the method comprising: 1) evaluating a current driving situation; 2) ascertaining an adapted driving maneuver on the basis of the evaluated driving situation;” which, under the broadest reasonable interpretation is a mental process provided the vantage of the vehicle. The claim does not meaningfully limit how the analysis (evaluation and ascertaining) is performed, and there is nothing about performing the analysis of the driving situation itself that would limit how it can be performed. For example, nothing in the claims limits the scope of performing the mental process. The claim does not provide any details about how the output of the analysis is used to effectuate any operation of the vehicle, and the plain meaning of “evaluating” or “ascertaining” encompasses performing a mental process, e.g., collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis. See Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016);.
Under step 2A, prong 2 claim 1 does not include additional elements that are sufficient enough to amount the abstract idea into a practical application, because the recitations “3) calculating a number of working points of the trajectory on the basis of the evaluated driving situation and the ascertained driving maneuver; 4) discretizing at least one of current surroundings information and/or vehicle information at each of the working points of the trajectory; 5) selecting and integrating relevant surroundings data for each working point on the basis of domain-specific information; 6) linearizing the selected and integrated surroundings data; 7) using the linearized surroundings data in order to formulate a QP model; 8) solving the QP model by a QP solver; 9) repeating 1) to 8), on the basis of a convergence of the solution of the QP model, wherein upon repeating 1) to 8), the solution of the QP solver is taken into consideration.” are directed to insignificant extra solution activity data gathering/outputting, merely reciting steps for gathering the data used for performing steps of the mental process and outputting a solution to a QP model as a result of performing steps of the mental process. For example, reciting steps to acquire a number of working points of the trajectory as a result of performing steps of the mental process and outputting the working points for performing discretizing, selecting and integrating to further output data, the data amounting to nothing more than a mere solution to a QP model, and lacking any recitation to incorporate an output of performing the mental process as a control step, see MPEP 2106.05(g).
Under step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient enough to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because for “3) calculating a number of working points of the trajectory on the basis of the evaluated driving situation and the ascertained driving maneuver; 4) discretizing at least one of current surroundings information and/or vehicle information at each of the working points of the trajectory; 5) selecting and integrating relevant surroundings data for each working point on the basis of domain-specific information; 6) linearizing the selected and integrated surroundings data; 7) using the linearized surroundings data in order to formulate a QP model; 8) solving the QP model by a QP solver; 9) repeating 1) to 8), on the basis of a convergence of the solution of the QP model, wherein upon repeating 1) to 8), the solution of the QP solver is taken into consideration.” again is directed to insignificant extra solution activity data gathering and outputting under step 2B, as the gathering of data pertaining to a number of working points of the trajectory as a result of performing steps of the mental process ,or any data provided for/or as a result of performing a mental process, or merely outputting a solution to a QP model as a result of performing data gathering steps of the mental process requires no more than ordinary skill in the art, and therefore is directed to well understood, routine, and conventional activity in the art, see MPEP 2106.05(d), II, i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information); OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network); Accordingly, the claims are not patent eligible.
Additionally, claims 3-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 by virtue of their dependency on claim 1.
Claim 2 is objected to on the basis of dependency of claim 1.
Claims 3-14 do not include additional elements that are sufficient enough to amount the abstract idea into a practical application, because claims recite steps to defining additional data, steps, and structures in the environment of the abstract idea, and therefore directed to generic linking. See claims 3-6 defining when/how data is ascertained as a result of performing steps of the mental process, claim 7 further defining how the working point data is evaluated to output object data to the QP model, claim 8 defining the structures provided for gathering vehicle and surroundings data, claim 9 defining the trajectory planning, claims 10-13 defining generically recited structures in the environment of the mental process, and claim 14 further defining how vehicle parameters are ascertained. Defining a technological environment of the mental process, merely links the process to generic data, steps or structure, lacking any element reciting how an output of performing the process is integrated to impact the operation of the vehicle or effectuate any control, see MPEP, 2106.05(f) & 2106.05(e). These additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Accordingly, these claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 2 does include additional elements that are sufficient enough to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and would overcome the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C 101 if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 1 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Regarding claim 1
The recitation “9) repeating 1) to 8), on the basis of a convergence of the solution of the QP model, wherein upon repeating 1) to 8), the solution of the QP solver is taken into consideration.” overcomes the methods disclosed in the closest prior art Landolfi Enrico et. al. “Model-Based Design and Processor-In-the-Loop Validation of a Model Predictive Control for Coupled Longitudinal-Lateral Vehicle Dynamics of Connected and Automated Vehicles”-IDS. The claim specifically overcomes the art of record, because of the limitation directed to performing the repetition of steps 1-3. For example, Landolfi Enrico discloses MPC with an iterative constant planning horizon and a QP-based solution to the optimization problem with a repetition of steps 6-8, however the repetition of steps 1-3 to adaptively reduce the computational effort while taking into consideration more up-to-date surroundings information. The subject matter of the claims is therefore allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Quirynen et. al. (U.S. Publication No. 2021/0221386) discloses adaptive control of autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle using a probabilistic motion planner and an adaptive predictive controller to produce a sequence of parametric probability distributions over a sequence of target states for the vehicle with parameters defining a first and higher order moments, and optimization of a cost function over a prediction horizon to produce a sequence of control commands to one or multiple actuators of the vehicle, see Abstract, Fig. 3C, and [0096]-[0100].
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/JERROD IRVIN DAVIS/Examiner, Art Unit 3656