DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This action is in response to the applicant’s filing on July 31, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and examined below.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because:
Fig. 6A, at current time position T3, there are two vehicles labeled as “606D”. The vehicle moving toward right side direction should be labeled as “602D”.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Specification [0108] line 5, the number “602” should be --622--;
Specification [0130], the last sentence of the paragraph should end with a period;
Specification [0131] line 5, a comma should be inserted after the word “mitigation”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-13 and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Schier et al., US 2024/0208531 A1.
As to claim 1, Schier teaches a method, comprising:
establishing an evidence grid in a map frame based on a pose of an autonomous vehicle (¶ 38 and Figs. 2-4; e.g. unified measurement grids);
accumulating hazard data in the evidence grid by (¶ 38 and Figs. 2-4; e.g. accumulating static obstacles, dynamic particles and newly spawned dynamic particles in the unified measurement grids):
accumulating visible grid cells in the evidence grid, wherein each visible grid cell is associated with a respective visibility probability indicating a history of visibility determinations associated with the visible grid cell (¶ 38, 41-45 and Figs. 4-5; e.g. the detected information are classified based on the probability and then are allocated on grid cells of the unified measurement grids accordingly); and
accumulating hazard presence in the evidence grid, wherein each grid cell associated with a presence of a hazard is associated with a hazard presence probability indicating a history of hazard presence determinations with respect to the each grid cell (¶ 38, 41-47 and Figs. 4-7; e.g. static obstacles, dynamic obstacles and newly detect obstacles are presented in the unified measurement grids); and
providing the hazard data to a process within the autonomous for further decision-making or risk mitigation (¶ 24, 38; e.g. autonomous vehicle’s operation is adjusted based on the obstacle data on the grids).
As to claim 2, Schier teaches wherein accumulating the hazard data in the evidence grid further comprises: accumulating non-drivable points in the evidence grid, wherein each non-drivable point is associated with a respective non-drivable probability indicating a history of non-drivability determination associated with the each non-drivable point (¶ 29, 46, 52-52 and Figs. 4-6).
As to claim 3, Schier teaches wherein accumulating the hazard data in the evidence grid comprises: adding to the hazard data an interaction area with respect to a dynamic object, wherein the interaction area is defined by a series of predicted future time steps of the dynamic object relative to a path or a speed plan of the autonomous vehicle (¶ 24, 38).
As to claim 4, Schier teaches wherein the evidence grid is divided into a plurality of grid tiles, each grid tile containing multiple grid cells, the method further comprising: storing, in association with each of the multiple grid cells within a grid tile, data of a hazard including object identifiers, hazard types, and visibility probabilities (¶ 38 and Figs. 2-6).
As to claim 6, Schier teaches wherein accumulating the hazard data in the evidence grid comprises: sharing data among grid cells occupied by a same hazard (Figs. 3-5; e.g. static particles allocation 470).
As to claim 7, Schier teaches classifying hazards into static hazards and dynamic hazards. (¶ 8 and Fig. 4)
As to claim 8, Schier teaches wherein classifying the hazards comprises: sub-classifying, based on a reference path of the autonomous vehicle, a moving vehicle into at least one of a parallel vehicle, an oncoming vehicle, a leading vehicle, or a follower vehicle (¶ 24, 35).
As to claim 9, Schier teaches publishing the accumulated hazard data through shared custom message formats in inter-process communication systems (¶ 70 and Fig. 11).
Claims 10-13 and 15-20 are rejected based on the same rationale as used for claims 1-4 and 6-8 above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schier et al., US 2024/0208531 A1 in view of Gutmann, US 11,720,116 B1.
As to claims 5 and 14, Schier teaches maintaining and updating grid-based environmental representation, including removing grid cells associated with older timestamps (¶ 54). However, Schier does not specifically teach deleting grid tiles behind the autonomous vehicle and creating new grid tiles ahead of the autonomous vehicle as the autonomous vehicle moves. Gutmann, on the other hand, expressly teaches this concept (see abstract and column 11 line 61 – column 12 line 8 and column 15 claim 9). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the addition or removal of the grid tiles taught by Gutmann in Schier’s teaching to efficiently utilize display screen space as well as for memory space.
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mary Cheung whose telephone number is (571) 272-6705. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Christian Chace, can be reached on (571) 272-4190.
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The fax phone numbers for the organization where this application or proceedings is assigned are as follows:
(571) 273-8300 (Official Communications; including After Final Communications labeled “BOX AF”)
(571) 273-6705 (Draft Communications)
/MARY CHEUNG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665 February 5, 2026