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 . Claims 1-27 are pending and elected claims 1, 2, 19, and 25 are examined below. This action is in response to the claims filed 1/6/26.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant Remarks 35 USC § 103. filed on 1/6/26, regarding 35 USC § 103 rejections are persuasive in view of amendments filed 1/6/26.
However, upon further consideration, new grounds of rejection are made in view of further citations to the art of record below.
Examiner’s Note
Please note Additional References Cited section at the end of the action for additional relevant art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 19, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Beehroozi (US 2016/0226573) in view of Foland (US 2023/0206772).
Regarding claims 1, 19, and 25, Behroozi discloses a system of adjusting positioning of air to ground communications in the atmosphere including an information processing apparatus/program that causes a computer to function/ information processing method executed by a computer comprising (¶5-6):
a prediction result obtainment unit which obtains a result of prediction of weather in stratosphere and a result of prediction of weather in troposphere (¶90, ¶115-116, and ¶133 – predicting weather conditions in both the stratosphere and troposphere); and
a flight path determination unit which determines a flight path of a flight vehicle based on the result of prediction of weather in stratosphere and the result of prediction of weather in troposphere such that the flight vehicle flies through an area in stratosphere that has been predicted to satisfy a predetermined stratospheric path condition and further flies through an area in troposphere that has been predicted to satisfy a predetermined tropospheric path condition ... wherein the flight path determination unit further determines the flight path by setting, based on [flight] through the area in the stratosphere that has been predicted to satisfy the predetermined stratosphere path condition, and the area in the troposphere that has been predicted to satisfy the tropospheric path condition (¶90, ¶115-116, and ¶133 – movements of the balloon corresponding to the recited flight vehicle are determined based on the predicted weather patterns and forecasts in the stratosphere and troposphere to specific positions requiring predetermined path conditions at different altitudes),
the flight vehicle functions as a stratospheric platform, and forms a wireless communication area by emitting a beam and provides a wireless communication service to a user terminal in the wireless communication area (¶23 - an aerial communication network using a plurality of balloons with communication equipment to facilitate wireless communication among the balloons and with ground-based stations and/or other ground subscribers).
While Behroozi does disclose a system of adjusting a positioning of air to ground communications in the atmosphere including specific areas within different levels of altitude, it does not explicitly disclose prioritizing different paths over other paths, however Foland discloses an electric aircraft flight path planning system utilizing predicted battery temperature thresholds including wherein the flight path determination unit further determines the flight path by setting, based on a lower predicted wind speed, priority levels on each of a plurality of different flight paths ... and selects one of the plurality of different flight paths as the flight path of the flight vehicle based on a highest priority (¶26, ¶48-52, and ¶81 – machine learning algorithm seeks to find one or more mathematical relations relating inputs to outputs, where each of the one or more mathematical relations is optimal according to some criterion specified to the algorithm using some scoring function for specific flight elements corresponding to the recited priority levels on each of a plurality of different flight paths where the machine learning model is utilized to generate the battery model and the flight plan/updated flight plan corresponding to the recited plurality of different flight paths based on different conditions including weather/wind datum where optimizing flight path based on wind datum specifically including wind forces acting on an electric vehicle implicitly prioritizes minimum impact on the vehicle and therefore lower wind speed when planning or revising the flight path corresponding to the recited selecting the highest priority flight path), and
the flight path determination unit further determines the flight path based on a predicted weather temperature in relation to a predetermined external temperature threshold external to a battery mounted on the flight vehicle that would not affect operation of the battery mounted on the flight vehicle (¶24-29 and ¶48 – planning and revising the flight plan utilizing the battery model as compared to a “threshold temperature” which is a specified temperature associated with a risk of harm to battery pack corresponding to the recited predetermined temperature threshold that would not affect operation of a battery mounted on the flight vehicle where the battery model utilizes weather datum in the flight plan/revised flight plan to determine if the battery would exceed the threshold temperature where the temperature sensor may sense one or more environmental conditions or parameters outside electric vehicle including ambient temperature),
While Foland does not explicitly disclose exclusively utilizing the ambient external temperature when comparing to the temperature threshold, it does disclose the threshold temperature is specified temperature associated with a risk of harm to battery pack 112, electric vehicle 108, and/or electrical subsystems of the electric vehicle 108 and does not limit the temperature threshold exclusively to the temperature of the battery. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date to utilize the environmental ambient temperature relative to the threshold temperature for route planning in order to avoid harm to battery pack 112, electric vehicle 108, and/or electrical subsystems of the electric vehicle 108 and not exclusively to the battery pack itself.
The combination of the system of adjusting a positioning of air to ground communications in the atmosphere including specific areas within different levels of altitude of Behroozi with the flight planning optimization system utilizing wind datum and battery models including environmental ambient temperature relative to a temperature threshold of Foland fully discloses the elements as claimed.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date to have combined the system of adjusting a positioning of air to ground communications in the atmosphere including specific areas within different levels of altitude of Behroozi with the flight planning optimization system utilizing wind datum and battery models including environmental ambient temperature relative to a temperature threshold of Foland in order to avoid the risk of harm to a battery associated with specific temperature thresholds during operation (Foland - ¶28).
Regarding claim 2, Behroozi further discloses the flight path determination unit determines the flight path based on a predicted wind speed in stratosphere included in the result of prediction of weather in stratosphere and on a predicted wind speed in troposphere included in the result of prediction of weather in troposphere, such that the flight vehicle flies through an area in stratosphere where the predicted wind speed in stratosphere is lower than a predetermined stratospheric wind speed threshold and flies through an area in troposphere where the predicted wind speed in troposphere is lower than a predetermined tropospheric wind speed threshold (¶90 and ¶132-133 – flight paths are derived based on identified wind speeds at the different elevations corresponding to the recited predicted weather in the stratosphere and the troposphere where the wind conditions must be precise wind speeds in order to control the balloons in a predictable manner therefore corresponding to the recited predetermined wind speed thresholds).
Additional References Cited
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Morrison et al. (US 2022/0106060) discloses a system for monitoring and assessing the health of an electric vehicle including monitoring outside air temperature relative to battery temperatures (¶112).
Nubbe (US 2023/0187730) discloses an active thermal control system for UAV energy storage units including specific upper and lower temperature thresholds for optimized battery life (¶19).
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 Matthew J Reda whose telephone number is (408)918-7573. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7-4 ET.
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/MATTHEW J. REDA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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