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 § 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.
Claims 1-4, 6-14 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rider et al. (US PGPUB 2015/0179066) in view of Larsson et al. (US PGPUB 2025/0058770).
Regrading claim 1, Rider teaches a computer implemented method when executed on data processing hardware causes the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
receiving road data including one or more of sensor data detected by a sensor system of a vehicle and third-party data, the road data indicating a road hazard moving toward the vehicle (Fig. 3, 350);
determining, based on the road data, that the road hazard is within a roadway of the vehicle (Paragraph [--52]);
determining a distance between the vehicle and the road hazard (Fig. 2A and Fig. 2B);
receiving driver features of a driver of the vehicle from a driver tracker system (Fig. 1A, #24 and #26);
simultaneously displaying a graphical alert alerting the driver of the vehicle to the road hazard, the graphical alert including an augmented reality image overlay and a virtual image, the augmented reality image overlay different from the virtual image (paragraph [0056]).
Rider et al. fails to teach a head-up display. However, in the same field of the invention, Larsson et al. teaches a selectively visualizing safety margins that uses a head-up display (paragraph [0100]}. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to replace the display as taught by Rider by a head-up display as taught by Larsson in order to enabling improved road safety learning and driver coaching for the drivers.
regarding claim 2, Rider in view of Larsson further teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the head-up displays include an augmented reality head-up display and a blackout head-up display (Larsson, Fig. 9).
Regarding claim 3, Rider in view of Larsson further teaches the method of Claim 2, wherein simultaneously displaying, via the head-up displays, the graphical alert alerting the driver of the vehicle to the road hazard comprises:
generating the augmented reality image overlay;
generating the virtual image; and
projecting the augmented reality image overlay and the virtual image on a windshield of the vehicle simultaneously (Rider, Paragraphs [0049]-[0050]).
Regarding claim 4, Rider in view of Larsson further teaches the method of Claim 3, wherein projecting the augmented reality image overlay and the virtual image on the windshield of the vehicle simultaneously comprises projecting the augmented reality image overlay on a clear portion of the windshield and projecting the virtual image on a blackout portion of the windshield (Larsson, paragraph [0100] and Fig. 9).
Regarding claim 6, Rider in view of Larsson further teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the sensor system comprises one or more of:
cameras;
radio detection and ranging (RADAR); and
light detection and ranging (LIDAR) (Larsson, paragraph [0100]).
Regarding claim 7, further teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving vehicle data;
calculating, based on the vehicle data, a trajectory of the vehicle; and
determining whether the road hazard and the vehicle will interact (Larsson, paragraph [0113]).
Regarding claim 8, further teaches the method of Claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise:
determining, based on the distance between the vehicle and the road hazard and the trajectory of the vehicle, a time to interaction between the road hazard and the vehicle; and
generating the graphical alert based on the time to interaction between the road hazard and the vehicle (Larsson, paragraph [0028]).
Regarding claim 9, further teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein displaying, via the head-up displays, the graphical alert alerting the driver of the vehicle to the road hazard comprises displaying the graphical alert on a windshield of the vehicle to indicate a location of the road hazard (Larsson, paragraph [0055]).
Regarding claim 10, further teaches the method of Claim 1, wherein the graphical alert is configured to convey one or more of:
a distance to the road hazard;
a rate of approach of the road hazard;
a severity of the road hazard; and
a type of the road hazard (Larsson, paragraph [0005] and [0006]).
Regarding claims 11-14 and 16-20, the limitations of the claims are rejected for similar corresponding rejections of claims 1-4 and 6-10 above.
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rider et al. (US PGPUB 2015/0179066) in view of Larsson et al. (US PGPUB 2025/0058770), and further in view of Chang et al. (US PGPub 2025/0362490).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Rider in view of Larsson fails to teach the method of Claim 3, wherein projecting the augmented reality image overlay and the virtual image on a windshield of the vehicle simultaneously comprises:
determining, based on the driver features, a location of the windshield that corresponds to a line of sight of the driver; and
projecting the augmented reality image overlay on the location of the windshield that corresponds to the line of sight of the driver.
However, Chang et al. teaches a programmable freeform optics for head-up display where information projected onto the head-up display patch is presented near or along a normal forward facing line of sight of the operator (paragraph [0024]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to incorporate the feature include a line of sign fo the driver as taught by Chang et al. into the method disclosed by Rider in view of Larsson in order to allow the driver easy and non-distracted viewing of the displayed information.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Garrett et al. (US PGPub 2020/0164796) teaches a method for visual hazard avoidance of a road hazard is provided. The visual hazard avoidance is implemented by an on-road projection system, which is integrated into a vehicle. The on-road projection system includes a projector and a computing device.
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/BENNY Q TIEU/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2682