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 .
In the response to this office action, the Examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the Examiner in prosecuting this application.
Examiner’s Remark and response to the amendment filed on 5/19/2026
The amendment filed May 19, 2026, overcomes the rejections in the previous Office action. However, additional § 101 issues in independent claims 1, 9, and 17 were inadvertently omitted. The Office proposed amendments to address these issues, but Applicant’s representative preferred to consider them after receiving an Office action. Accordingly, the following rejections are set forth.
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 1-4, 6-12 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding independent claim 9, the claim recites “matching the latent space vector to a cluster group stored in a database, the cluster group representing a previously encountered reference condition”.
This claim limitation is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. That is, other than reciting “by one or more processors,” nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind.
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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites a memory coupled to a processor to perform the matching function. The memory and processor are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The step of “receiving a set of reference signals representing a current reference condition for a vehicle, the set of reference signals being defined in m dimensions; compressing the set of reference signals to a latent space vector being defined in n dimensions, wherein m is greater than n” are insignificant extra-solution activities (i.e., these steps are insignificant pre-solution activities such as information gathering and using a specific mathematical concept to arrange the information gathered in a particular format before the information matching step). The step of “retrieving configuration properties associated with the matched cluster group; and generating an anti-noise signal based on the retrieved configuration properties” are mere insignificant extra-solution activities (i.e., post-solution activities) in high-level of generality without any technical detail.
The claim does 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 additional elements of using a memory and processor to perform the matching step and the extra-solution activities amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
The claim is not patent eligible.
Independent claims 1 and 17 recite similar limitations as that of independent claim 9 and thus they are rejected for the similar reason as that of claim 9.
Dependent claims 2-4, 6-8, 10-12, 14-16 and 18-20 which directly or indirectly depend on claims 1 or 9 are not patent eligible for the similar reasons as that of claim 1 since they also fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application: e.g., the steps recited in these dependent claims are just some insignificant extra-solution activities in high level of generality.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 13 and 21 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the claim objections set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Supervisory Patent Examiner VIVIAN CHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-7848. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9am--5pm.
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/VIVIAN C CHIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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