DETAILED ACTION
Status of Application
The following is a Final Office Action. In response to Examiner's communication on 10/20/2025, Applicant on 03/20/2026, amended Claims 1-4, 7-8, 12-14, 17 and 20. Claims 1-20 are now pending in this application and have been rejected below.
Response to Amendment
Applicants’ amendments are insufficient to overcome the 35 USC 101 rejections set forth in the previous action. The rejections are maintained below.
Applicants’ amendments are sufficient to overcome the 35 USC 103 rejections set forth in the previous action. Therefore, these rejections have been withdrawn below.
Response to Arguments – 35 USC § 103
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC 103 rejections have been fully considered and are found to be persuasive.
Per MPEP 2142, “To reach a proper determination under 35 U.S.C. 103, the examiner must step backward in time and into the shoes worn by the hypothetical “person of ordinary skill in the art”. That time is “before the effective filing date of the claimed invention” for 35 U.S.C. 103 or “at the time the invention was made” for pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103. In view of all factual information, the examiner must then make a determination whether the claimed invention “as a whole” would have been obvious at that time to a hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art….The tendency to resort to “hindsight” based upon applicant's disclosure is often difficult to avoid due to the very nature of the examination process. However, impermissible hindsight must be avoided and the legal conclusion must be reached on the basis of the facts gleaned from the prior art”. In light of the specificity of the claims and the inordinate number of references that would be required to reject independent Claims 1, 13 and 14 as currently amended under 35 USC 103, Examiner considers a rejection on said grounds to necessarily rely on impermissible hindsight, and accordingly, the rejection is withdrawn. Relevant prior art is noted below for posterity.
Response to Arguments – 35 USC § 101
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejections have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that at least the limitation “wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in response to determining that the predetermined condition is satisfied, create a new transportation plan comprising reserving the charging facility so that the SOC of the vehicle does not drop below the reference value” cannot practically be performed in the human mind, and therefore Claim 1 cannot be directed to an abstract idea. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The concept of determining whether a condition is satisfied is expressly a mental judgment, while the creation of a transportation plan is the product of mental evaluations and judgments that can be effectuated with a pen and paper. That a processor is performing this mental process, or that a vehicle is the subject of the mental process, is secondary to the abstract idea at the heart of the claims.
The updated rejections in light of newly amended limitations are as outlined below.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
The claims are directed to a method and apparatus. Therefore, the claims are directed to at least one of the four statutory categories.
101 Analysis – Step 2A
Regarding Prong 1 of the Step 2A analysis in the MPEP, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether they recite subject matter that is directed to a judicial expectation, namely a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or one of the follow groups of abstract ideas: a) mathematical concepts, b) certain methods of organizing human activity, and/or c) mental processes.
Independent Claim 1 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea and will henceforth be used as a representative claim for the 101 rejection until otherwise noted. Claim 1 recites:
A transportation plan creation support apparatus comprising: at least one memory configured to store one or more instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the one or more instructions to: acquire a transportation plan including an address of a transportation destination, an order of transportation, and a weight of a cargo to be delivered to each transportation destination; acquire a SOC (state of charge) of a vehicle at a time of departure from a terminal; predict a change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to an end point based on the transportation plan; determine whether a point where the SOC drops below a reference value exists in a predicted result of the change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to the end point based on the transportation plan; and output a result of the determination, wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in the predicting of the change of the SOC of the vehicle: divide a route from the terminal to the end point into a plurality of sections using the transportation destination as a delimiter; identify a load of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on a weight of the cargo to be delivered to each transportation destination; calculate electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on the load of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections; and predict the change of the SOC of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on the SOC of the vehicle at the time of departure from the terminal and the electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections, on an assumption that electric power is consumed at a rate indicated by the electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections while traveling in each of the plurality of sections, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in the determining of whether the point where the SOC drops below the reference value exists: determine whether a predetermined condition is satisfied when the point where the SOC drops below the reference value exists in a predicted result of the change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to the end point based on the transportation plan, wherein the predetermined condition is that: the SOC of the vehicle at the time of departure from the terminal is not 100%;a time between an arrival time of a worker and a time of departure from the terminal is equal to or more than a threshold value; and there is availability of reservation for a charging facility between the arrival time of the worker and the time of departure from the terminal, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in response to determining that the predetermined condition is satisfied, create a new transportation plan comprising reserving the charging facility so that the SOC of the vehicle does not drop below the reference value and control the vehicle according to the new transportation plan.
The examiner submits that the foregoing bolded limitation(s) constitute an abstract idea because under its broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim covers a mental process.
“acquire a transportation plan...”, “acquire an SOC (state of charge)…”, “determine…a load”, “predict…a change of an SOC”, “determine whether a point where an SOC drops…”, “output a result of the determination”, “determine whether a predetermined condition is satisfied…”, “create a new transportation plan…” recite abstract ideas - namely, mental processes that could be performed by a human with a pen and paper, per the MPEP, merely adapting them into the context of a technological environment with computing parts does not preclude them from being abstract.
“calculate electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on the load…” recites a Mathematical Concept, namely a Mathematical Calculation.
The broadest reasonable interpretation of “control the vehicle according to the new transportation plan” recites a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity, as without specification that the vehicles have autonomous capabilities or are self-driving, this can be construed as an instruction to a human driver to operate the vehicle in a prescribed manner.
Accordingly, the claim recites at least one abstract idea.
Independent Claims 13, 14 recite abstract ideas by virtue of presenting substantially similar limitations as Claim 1.
Dependent Claims 2-12, 15-20 recite abstract ideas by virtue of their dependency on independent claims reciting abstract ideas.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong II
Regarding Prong II of the Step 2A analysis in the MPEP, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether the claim, as a whole, integrates the abstract into practical application. As noted in the MPEP, it must be determined whether any additional elements in the claim beyond the judicial exception integrate the exception into a practical application in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The courts have indicated that additional elements, such as merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use do not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application.
In the present case, the additional limitations beyond the above-noted abstract idea are as follows (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations” while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”):
A transportation plan creation support apparatus comprising: at least one memory configured to store one or more instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the one or more instructions to: acquire a transportation plan including an address of a transportation destination, an order of transportation, and a weight of a cargo to be delivered to each transportation destination; acquire a SOC (state of charge) of a vehicle at a time of departure from a terminal; predict a change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to an end point based on the transportation plan; determine whether a point where the SOC drops below a reference value exists in a predicted result of the change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to the end point based on the transportation plan; and output a result of the determination, wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in the predicting of the change of the SOC of the vehicle: divide a route from the terminal to the end point into a plurality of sections using the transportation destination as a delimiter; identify a load of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on a weight of the cargo to be delivered to each transportation destination; calculate electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on the load of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections; and predict the change of the SOC of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections based on the SOC of the vehicle at the time of departure from the terminal and the electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections, on an assumption that electric power is consumed at a rate indicated by the electricity consumption [km/kWh] of the vehicle when traveling in each of the plurality of sections while traveling in each of the plurality of sections, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in the determining of whether the point where the SOC drops below the reference value exists: determine whether a predetermined condition is satisfied when the point where the SOC drops below the reference value exists in a predicted result of the change of the SOC of the vehicle when moving from the terminal to the end point based on the transportation plan, wherein the predetermined condition is that: the SOC of the vehicle at the time of departure from the terminal is not 100%;a time between an arrival time of a worker and a time of departure from the terminal is equal to or more than a threshold value; and there is availability of reservation for a charging facility between the arrival time of the worker and the time of departure from the terminal, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to, in response to determining that the predetermined condition is satisfied, create a new transportation plan comprising reserving the charging facility so that the SOC of the vehicle does not drop below the reference value and control the vehicle according to the new transportation plan.
For the following reason(s), the examiner submits that the above identified additional limitations do not integrate the above-noted abstract idea into a practical application.
As it pertains to Claim 1, the additional limitations include “at least one memory configured to store one or more instructions”, “at least one processor configured to execute the one or more instructions”, and “wherein the at least one processor is configured to…”. When considered in view of the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the additional elements are generic computing components that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea and/or do no more than generally link the use of the recited abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use under Step 2A Prong Two.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Further, looking at the additional limitation(s) as an ordered combination or as a whole, the limitation(s) add nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. For instance, there is no indication that the additional elements, when considered as a whole, reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to another technology or technical field, apply or use the above-noted judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, implement/use the above-noted judicial exception with a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP § 2106.05). Accordingly, the additional limitation(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing an abstract idea.
Claim 13 recites “a computer”.
Claim 14 recites “a non-transitory storage medium”, “a computer”.
Claims 6,10 recites “transmit”, “a charging planning system”, “a charging facility”, “a creation and registration instruction”.
Claim 7 recites “a charging facility”.
These do not integrate the recited abstract ideas into a practical application by analogous reasoning as above.
Claims 2-5, 8-9, 11-12, 15-20 do not recite additional limitations beyond those recited in claims upon which they are dependent, and therefore do not integrate the recited abstract ideas into a practical application.
101 Analysis – Step 2B
Regarding Step 2B of the MPEP, representative independent claim 1 does not include additional elements (considered both individually and as an ordered combination) that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons to those discussed above with respect to determining that the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount to generic computing components that are merely used
as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea and/or do no more than
generally link the use of the recited abstract idea to a particular
technological environment or field of use. Further, looking at the additional
elements as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already
present when considering the additional elements individually.
Claim 13 recites “a computer”.
Claim 14 recites “a non-transitory storage medium”, “a computer”.
Claims 6,10 recites “transmit”, “a charging planning system”, “a charging facility”, “a creation and registration instruction”.
Claim 7 recites “a charging facility”.
These do not integrate the recited abstract ideas into a practical application or amount to significantly more by analogous reasoning as above.
Claims 2-5, 8-9, 11-12, 15-20 do not recite additional limitations beyond those recited in claims upon which they are dependent, and therefore do not integrate the recited abstract ideas into a practical application or amount to significantly more.
Prior Art of Record
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Espig(US 20220180316 A1):
[0027-0029] disclose the division of a delivery trip into a plurality of stops, predicting vehicle load adjustments after each with real time correction. [0031] connects this prediction to estimating electrical demand.
Satoh(US 20130278214 A1):
[0056] discloses checking if an electric vehicle is at 100% battery capacity prior to attempting to charge.
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 THEODORE L XIE whose telephone number is (571)272-7102. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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, Rutao Wu can be reached at 571-272-6045. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/THEODORE XIE/Examiner, Art Unit 3623 /RUTAO WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3623
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