DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. Acknowledgment is made of Applicant’s submission of information disclosure statement (IDS), dated on October 15, 2024, September 17, 2025 and August 13, 2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Examiner's Notes
3. Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only: (1) Central Fax which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; (3) EFS WEB; or (4) the service window on the Alexandria campus. EFS web is the recommended way to submit the form since this allows the form to be entered into the file wrapper within the same day (system dependent). Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.03.
Application Status
4. Acknowledgment is made of Applicant’s submission of the instant application, dated August 29, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending. This communication is considered fully responsive and sets forth below.
Double Patenting
5. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
6. Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332.
Claim 1 recites, “A computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining device data for a set of edge devices;
obtaining a predicted travel path of a focal entity;
determining, for a first edge device of the set of edge devices and based on the device data, a first proximity of the first edge device to the predicted travel path;
selecting the first edge device based, at least in part, on the first proximity;
transmitting, in response to the selecting the first edge device, a workload to the first edge device; and
receiving, in response to the transmitting the workload, first captured data obtained by the first edge device.”
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332 recites, “A computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining device data for a set of edge devices;
obtaining a predicted travel path of a focal entity;
determining, for a first edge device of the set of edge devices and based on the device data, a first proximity of the first edge device to the predicted travel path;
selecting the first edge device based, at least in part, on the first proximity;
transmitting, in response to the selecting the first edge device, a workload to the first edge device;
receiving, in response to the transmitting the workload, first captured data obtained by the first edge device; and
transmitting the first captured data to an electronic user device.”
Both claim 1 of the instant application and 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332 are method-step claim having the same preamble, i.e. “A computer-implemented method.” Claim 1 includes similar elements that are a part of the limitations in claim 1 of the patent.
In fact, claim 1 is merely a broader version of the claim 1 of the patent by eliminating “transmitting the first captured data to an electronic user device,” as indicated in italics.
It has been held that the omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same function as before. In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (CCPA).
Same rationale applies to claims 2-25 as follows:
7. Claims 2-7 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 2-7 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332, individually.
8. Claim 8 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332.
9. Claims 9-25 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 9-25 of U.S. Patent No. 12,096,332, individually.
Allowable Subject Matter
10. Claims 1-25 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting, but would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejections/issues.
The following is the reason for examiner’s statement of allowance:
The closest prior art on record, Kalkunte et al. (US 2022/0400533) and Stenneth et al. (US 2023/0141589) are generally directed to various aspects of the first inference server that obtains a subset of information from a connectivity enhanced database of a central cloud server based on a geographical zone served by the first inference server, wherein the first inference server receives a real-time request from a road-side unit (RSU) device within the geographical zone, where the request includes input features corresponding to sensing information from a vehicle, the first inference server further communicates a response to the RSU device, where the response includes wireless connectivity enhanced information including a specific initial access information to bypass an initial access-search on the RSU device, and then the first inference server causes the RSU device to direct one or more specific beams of RF signals to service a first edge device arranged on the vehicle based on the wireless connectivity enhanced information communicated in the response; the method of providing cloud-based verification of edge-based detection, wherein an apparatus generates a result of sensor data that is acquired by a sensor of an edge-based device, and wherein the result is processed by the edge-based device, the result indicates: (i) a confidence at which the sensor data is classified as a category, (ii) a degree at which the sensor data differ from a data point of map data, the data point associated with a location in which the sensor data was acquired, and the apparatus causes a cloud-based device to process the sensor data in response to the confidence indicating uncertainty and the degree exceeding a threshold.
However, in consideration of the claim limitations submitted on August 29, 2024, the information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on October 15, 2024, September 17, 2025 and August 13, 2026, and further search, no prior art reference or a combination of prior art references disclose or suggest the combination of limitations specified in the independent claim(s) including:
“selecting the first edge device based, at least in part, on the first proximity; transmitting, in response to the selecting the first edge device, a workload to the first edge device;” and “receiving, in response to the transmitting the workload, first captured data obtained by the first edge device,” as specified in claim 1.
Similar limitations are included in claims 9 and 17.
“determining, for a subset of the set of edge devices and based on the device data, that the subset is within a threshold distance of the predicted travel path,” and “transmitting, in response to the determining, a workload to the subset; receiving, in response to the transmitting the workload, captured images obtained by the subset,” as specified in claim 24.
“determining, in response to the workload request, that a subset of the set of edge devices is within a threshold distance of the predicted travel path,” and “transmitting, in response to the determining, a workload corresponding to the workload request to the subset; and receiving, in response to the transmitting the workload, captured images obtained by the subset,” as specified in claim 25.
Dependent claims 2-8, 10-16, and 18-23 are also allowable for incorporating the features recited in the independent claim(s).
Conclusion
11. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Stenneth et al. (US 2023/0141589) is cited to show a method of providing cloud-based verification of edge-based detection, wherein an apparatus generates a result of sensor data that is acquired by a sensor of an edge-based device, and wherein the result is processed by the edge-based device, the result indicates: (i) a confidence at which the sensor data is classified as a category, (ii) a degree at which the sensor data differ from a data point of map data, the data point associated with a location in which the sensor data was acquired, and the apparatus causes a cloud-based device to process the sensor data in response to the confidence indicating uncertainty and the degree exceeding a threshold;
Kalkunte et al. (US 2022/0400533) is cited to show a first inference server that obtains a subset of information from a connectivity enhanced database of a central cloud server based on a geographical zone served by the first inference server, wherein the first inference server receives a real-time request from a road-side unit (RSU) device within the geographical zone, where the request includes input features corresponding to sensing information from a vehicle, the first inference server further communicates a response to the RSU device, where the response includes wireless connectivity enhanced information including a specific initial access information to bypass an initial access-search on the RSU device, and then the first inference server causes the RSU device to direct one or more specific beams of RF signals to service a first edge device arranged on the vehicle based on the wireless connectivity enhanced information communicated in the response;
Zhang et al. (US 2019/0013903) is cited to show an application relates to the mobile communications field, and in particular, to an air interface resource scheduling and allocation technology in the wireless communications field, wherein in a resource scheduling and allocation method, a network device allocates, by using a downlink control information, an air interface resource used for N data transmissions to same user equipment, the downlink control information includes information about the air interface resource used for the N data transmissions, and N is an integer greater than 1;
Mondal et al. (US 2021/0168779) is cited to set physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) default beam behavior for single transmission-reception point (TRP), single downlink control information (DCI) multi-TRP and multi-DCI multi-TRP operation, as well as physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) prioritization based on quasi-colocation (QCL) Type-D for multi-panel reception and single panel reception;
Etemad et al. (US 9,572,063) is cited to show the radio resource control (RRC) signaling for configuring the user equipment to obtain and report channel state information for the downlink channels so that a target user equipment experiences enhanced signal reception and reduced interference.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WEI ZHAO whose telephone number is (571)270-5672. The examiner can normally be reached from 8:00AM to 5:00PM Monday through Friday.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JAE Y LEE can be reached on (571) 270-3936. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WEI ZHAO/ Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2479
Prosecution Insights