DETAILED ACTION
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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With respect to claim 1, the applicant claims “cleaning an original data set”. It is not clear to the examiner what the applicant is trying to convey with the term cleaning. Is it filtering data, deleting data, classifying data, or any other action that is unknown to the examiner. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as disclosed in paragraph 0011 “filtering position data reported by users” and as disclosed by paragraph 0034 “deleting duplicate records and filtering”.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the data set" in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. It is not clear to the examiner if said “the data set” is the preprocessed data set or the original data set recited in step 1. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as the preprocessed data set.
With respect to claim 1, in step 3, the applicant claims “using the current velocity X”, and later claims “filling missing velocity data in X”. it is not clear to the examiner what the applicant is trying to convey. The current velocity X is a number and it’s not clear what missing velocity data go into said number. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as using the current velocity X to obtain the filled velocity
X
^
as disclosed in claim 4.
The term “useful” in claim 1 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “useful” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The term useful is mentioned in Paragraph 0009. Paragraph 0009 doesn’t disclose the criteria to consider in order to decide whether the collected neighbor information are useful or not. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as the neighbor information are collected according the equation in claim 5.
With respect to claim 1, the applicant claims “road type”. It is not clear to the examiner what the applicant is trying to convey with said “type”. Are road types defined by width, location, material (asphalt vs cement), region, autonomous vs manual, high occupancy vs country etc. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as disclosed in Table 2 of the specification as “road sections, main road, secondary road, tertiary road and other roads” of a certain place (see Paragraph 0034 and Table 2).
With respect to claim 2, the applicant claims “APP usage” without defining the term APP. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as a mobile application with location-based services as disclosed in Paragraph 0002.
With respect to claim 2, the applicant uses the trademark WIFI. The trademark or trade name is used in the claim as a limitation to identify or describe a particular material or product (signal list). Accordingly, the claim does not comply with the requirements of the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph (MPEP 2173.05(u)).
With respect to claim 3, the applicant claims “cleaning and filtering in the step 1”. The limitation cleaning has been addressed above and is indefinite for the same rational recited supra. For the limitation "filtering", there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim since claim 1 doesn’t recite any kind of filtering. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as “by using the data obtained by cleaning in the step 1”.
With respect to claim 4, the applicant claims Mi,j and Ni,j. While M and N are defined as a mask matrix M and a historical velocity matrix H, “i” and “j” are not defined. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as a road section i and a road section j.
The term “highly” in claim 5 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “highly” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the limitation will be treated as “aggregating information of neighbor road sections .
Claims 2-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being dependent on rejected independent claim 1 and for failing to cure the deficiencies listed above.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) cleaning an original data set, calculating a current velocity, filling missing velocity data using the current velocity and historical velocity, quantizing spatial dependences between different road sections, collecting neighbor information, fusing multi-source velocity data and correlating the fusion velocity to obtain a fine-grained large-scale urban traffic velocity.
The limitation of “cleaning an original data set” as drafted, is a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. The claim doesn’t recite any element that precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind. For example, a user can mentally judge what data to use and what data to discard using observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. The recited limitations of claim 1 identified as step 2 through step 5, i.e. “calculating a current velocity, filling missing velocity data using the current velocity and historical velocity, quantizing spatial dependences between different road sections, collecting neighbor information, fusing multi-source velocity data and correlating the fusion velocity to obtain a fine-grained large-scale urban traffic velocity” encompass mathematical formulas and calculations as detailed in each of claims 3-6. Each of the dependent claims describes each of the steps using an algorithm, or a mathematical calculation. Because each of the recited steps 2-5 explicitly recite performing mathematical calculations, the limitations fall within the “mathematical concepts” grouping of abstract ideas.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. As recited above, all the recited limitations fall under either the “mental processes” or “mathematical concepts” grouping of abstract ideas. For instance, there is no indication of any 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/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in a way to impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Accordingly, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the claims do not recite any elements that provide an inventive concept. Therefore, because of the absence of any additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, Step 2B becomes irrelevant. Accordingly, the claims are ineligible.
Dependent claim(s) 2-6 do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claims are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and/or well-understood, routine and conventional additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application Claim 2 recites filtering the data. As recited above with respect to claim 1, cleaning and filtering as drafted, is a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. The claim doesn’t recite any element that precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind. For example, a user can mentally judge what data to use and what data to discard using observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion. With respect to claims 3-6, as discussed above, said claims define algorithms and mathematical equations to perform steps 2-5 and fall within the “mathematical concepts” grouping of abstract ideas. Therefore, dependent claims 2-6 are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of independent claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
LI, CN 113538898 A, discloses a highway congestion control system based on multi-source data, performing simulation test on the online simulation sub-system; finding the best control scheme suitable for the current traffic flow state; the visual application sub-system used for effect presentation and information distribution.
Scofield et al US 2011/0106416 A1 discloses determining and using information regarding expected road traffic flow conditions information for vehicles traveling on roads in order to generate expected information regarding current and/or future road traffic conditions, such as for use in improving travel over roads in one or more geographic areas..
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMI KHATIB whose telephone number is (571)270-1165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00am-5:30pm.
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, Erin M Piateski can be reached at 571-270 7429. 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.
/RAMI KHATIB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3669