DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after 16 March 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This Office action is in response to the application received on 26 August 2024. Claims 2-21 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS received on 02 January 2025 has been considered.
Priority
The claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. The prior art of record in the parent application has been reviewed.
Drawings
The drawings received on 26 August 2024 included some figures having grayscale elements. The drawings were automatically converted into a black-and-white format and placed in the application file. If the appearance of the converted drawings is not acceptable, replacements may be filed in accordance with 37 CFR 1.121(d).
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.
Claims 5, 7, 16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for not particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
As to claims 5 and 16, the claims recite steps of generating the identifiers and storing them in the database, where the identifier database is recited by preceding claims 2 and 13, however it is not clear where the steps of claims 5 and 16 should fit in the order of the steps of claims 2 and 13. In other words, claims 5 and 16 are ambiguous because they may be interpreted as reciting steps for building a new database or steps for adding information to an existing database. Paragraph [0046] of the specification is understood to be relevant to claims 5 and 16 but does not support either possible interpretation over the other.
As to claims 7 and 18, the claims recite using map information to insert a point into the plurality of trip points, however it is not clear where the steps of claims 7 and 18 should fit in the order of the steps of preceding claims 2 and 13. Paragraphs [0038] and [0065] of the specification are understood to be relevant to claims 7 and 18, but they do not support any particular interpretation that resolves the ambiguity of the claims, because they describe inserting points corresponding to omitted roads after the trip points are obtained and inserting points after determining a tile is missing from the trip.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6, 8-15, 17, and 19-21 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: whether alone or in combination, the prior art of record does not disclose or teach every limitation recited by independent claims 2, 13, and 21. Claims 3-4, 6, 8-12, 14-15, 17, and 19-20 are allowable at least for their dependence from one of the independent claims.
US 8,768,734 B2 (Gryan et al.) discloses collecting GPS data for routes traveled by a vehicle and determining whether the routes are similar, where similarity may be measured by comparing the geographic "boxes" covered by each route, where the boxes correspond to latitude and longitude ranges, but does not disclose using a database of geographic tiles to determine route similarity.
"Grid-Based Method for GPS Route Analysis for Retrieval" by Mariescu-Istodor et al. (cited by the IDS received on 06 September 2023 in the parent application) discloses an algorithm for determining route similarity that uses a geographic tile database such as the MGRS (Military Grid Reference System), but does not disclose updating the vehicle's GPS route data using information from similar previous trips.
Any comments considered necessary must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Todd Melton whose telephone number is (571)270-3871. The examiner can normally be reached weekdays, 9:30am - 6:00pm (Eastern time). 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, Navid Mehdizadeh can be reached at 571-272-7691. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TODD MELTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3669