DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-9 have been submitted for examination and are pending further prosecution by the United States Patent & Trademark Office.
Allowable Subject Matter
With respect to independent claim 1, the prior art of record does not teach or suggest, either solely or in combination, the limitations "modifying the bytecode representation of the application at least with regard to at least one input and/or output interface of the application, the at least one input and/or output interface enabling a communication to at least one other application and/or to at least one other automotive electronic control unit; and deploying the modified bytecode representation of the application on the automotive electronic control unit and/or on the at least one other automotive electronic control unit." when considered in combination with the other limitations of claim 1.
With respect to independent claim 8, the prior art of record does not teach or suggest, either solely or in combination, the limitations "modify the bytecode representation of the application at least with regard to at least one input and/or output interface of the application, the at least one input and/or output interface enabling a communication to at least one other application and/or to at least one other automotive electronic control unit; and deploy the modified bytecode representation of the application on the automotive electronic control unit and/or on the at least one other automotive electronic control unit." when considered in combination with the other limitations of claim 8.
With respect to independent claim 9, the prior art of record does not teach or suggest, either solely or in combination, the limitations "modifying the bytecode representation of the application at least with regard to at least one input and/or output interface of the application, the at least one input and/or output interface enabling a communication to at least one other application and/or to at least one other automotive electronic control unit; and deploying the modified bytecode representation of the application on the automotive electronic control unit and/or on the at least one other automotive electronic control unit." when considered in combination with the other limitations of claim 9.
Note, however, that claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 USC § 112(b) as being indefinite.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "deploying the bytecode representation of the application on the automotive electronic control unit and/or on the at least one other automotive electronic control unit." It's unclear whether the deployed bytecode representation refers to the pre-modified bytecode representation or the modified bytecode representation. In the interest of compact prosecution, and for purposes of examination, the limitation will be interpreted as "deploying the modified bytecode representation of the application on the automotive electronic control unit and/or on the at least one other automotive electronic control unit." If this is the intended interpretation, Applicants should also replace all instances of "bytecode representation" with "modified bytecode representation" as appropriate in the dependent claims.
Dependent claims 2-7 inherit the deficiency of claim 1 and, therefore, are also rejected.
Claims 8 and 9 recite analogous limitations and, therefore, are also rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. DE 102020111051 A1 discloses a method for executing a reloadable program on an electronic control (ECU) unit of a vehicle. In one embodiment, code in a high-level programming language is translated into an intermediate representation, such as WebAssembly bytecode. The WebAssembly bytecode is transmitted to a Trusted Computing Base (TCB) for validation. Upon passing validation, the WebAssembly bytecode is stored in a flash memory of the ECU for execution by an interpreter. WO 9819237 A1 discloses, in one embodiment, a microcontroller mounted in an electrical subsystem of an automobile, the microcontroller used for various purposes including controlling access to the automobile, paying tolls via wireless communication, or interfacing with a global positioning system (GPS). The microcontroller includes a memory storing an application in bytecode format and an interpreter for executing the application. During operation, specific bytecodes can be modified into generic bytecodes for compatibility with a particular virtual machine. The NPL paper "WebAssembly: Paving the Way Towards a Unified and Distributed Intra-Vehicle Computing-and Data-Acquisition-Platform?" discusses the potential of an efficient, scalable and unified distributed onboard computing-and data-acquisition-platform based on WebAssembly.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEOFFREY R ST LEGER whose telephone number is (571)270-7720. The examiner can normally be reached M-F (IFP) ~9:00-5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hyung S Sough can be reached at 571-272-6799. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GEOFFREY R ST LEGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2192
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