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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 10, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Suganuma et al. (US20020099487A1), which was cited by Applicant.
Regarding claim 1, Suganuma discloses:
An in-vehicle electronic device connected to a plurality of calculation units mounted on a vehicle, the in- vehicle electronic device comprising {paragraph [0013]: a plurality of structural-element control portions for driving and controlling the actuators on the basis of the state quantities detected by the sensors according to preset control programs}:
a communication unit configured to communicate with the plurality of calculation units {[0013]: a communication line}; and
a control unit configured to issue an instruction of substitution control to a second calculation unit when an abnormality occurs in a first calculation unit that is one of the plurality of calculation units {[0013]: a manager control portion for storing one or more substitute programs designed to implement functions of ones among the structural-element control portions which are necessary for travel of the vehicle… when the failure detecting means detects a failure of one of the structural-element control portions which is necessary for travel of the vehicle, selecting one from non-failed ones of the structural-element control portions as a download destination in accordance with the priority degrees and downloading the substitute program corresponding to the failed structural-element control portion into the selected download-destination structural-element control portion},
wherein when an abnormality occurs in the first calculation unit, the control unit acquires substitute capability information indicating whether the second calculation unit can substitute execution content of the first calculation unit {[0076]: The memory in the manager ECU 10 stores information about the minimum processing speeds necessary for the execution of the basic programs corresponding to the basic functions of the ECU’s. [0077]: The substitute ECU is required to have a capacity of storing the basic program on a downloading basis and an ability to execute the basic program. In more detail, the substitute ECU is required to have a processing speed equal to or higher than the minimum processing speed (5 MIPS) and a storage capacity equal to or greater than the basic program size (16 KB)}.
Regarding claim 2, which depends from claim 1, Suganuma discloses: wherein based on the acquired substitute capability information, the control unit determines a functional level of substitute execution content of the first calculation unit {[0075] discloses priority degrees (function levels)}.
Regarding claim 3, which depends from claim 2, Suganuma discloses: wherein the functional level is a level of control content of the vehicle {[0075]}.
Regarding claim 4, which depends from claim 3, Suganuma discloses: wherein the control unit includes a data table that determines the functional level according to the substitute capability information {Fig. 4}.
Regarding claim 5, which depends from claim 4, Suganuma discloses: wherein the control unit: identifies a second calculation unit capable of substituting an execution unit of the first calculation unit based on the substitute capability information, and transmits a substitute program for substituting an execution program of the first calculation unit to the second calculation unit through the communication unit {Fig. 4, [0075], [0076], [0013]: downloading the substitute program corresponding to the failed structural-element control portion into the selected download-destination structural-element control portion}.
Regarding claim 6, which depends from claim 5, Suganuma discloses: wherein the control unit transmits a substitute program of the first calculation unit to the second calculation unit according to a level of the data table {Fig. 4, [0075], [0076], [0013]}.
Regarding claim 7, which depends from claim 5, Suganuma discloses: wherein the substitute program is stored in a storage mounted in vehicle in advance, and the control unit acquires a substitute program from the storage after the functional level is determined {[0013]: a manager control portion for storing one or more substitute programs designed to implement functions of ones among the structural-element control portions}.
Regarding claim 8, which depends from claim 5, Suganuma discloses: wherein the control unit calculates a substitute capability according to an operation mode of the vehicle {Fig. 3, [0075]}.
Regarding claim 10, which depends from claim 4, Suganuma discloses: wherein the control unit determines a substitutable functional level according to at least one of a substitute capability, a ROM free space, and a RAM free space for each of the calculation units stored in the data table {[0076], [0077]}.
Regarding claim 11, which depends from claim 1, Suganuma discloses: wherein when receiving a problem occurrence notification from the first calculation unit, the control unit considers the substitution control {[0013]}.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Suganuma in view of Kawakami (US 20200290641 A1).
Regarding claim 9, which depends from claim 6, Suganuma does not disclose:
wherein the control unit first acquires the substitute program in a state of being set to a low functional level and causes the second calculation unit to execute the substitute program based on a traveling status of the vehicle, and then, re-acquires a substitute program at a level based on the traveling status and causes the second calculation unit to execute the substitute program.
Kawakami teaches re-acquiring a substitute program at a level based on the traveling status in paragraph [0057]: when the anomaly component has successfully recovered to the normal state, the state of the vehicle transitions to the safety state S3, and the vehicle control device 10 maintains the autonomous driving mode. [0058]: The anomaly detection ECU 13 tries to execute a recovery operation also in the period T2. When the anomaly component has successfully recovered to the normal state in the period T2, the state of the vehicle transitions to the safety state S3. [0136]: an alternative operation is defined in addition to reactivation and a degraded operation (low functional level) as operations to be executed. [0138]: the alternative operation 1 that takes over the function of the recognition/determination ECU 11 at the time of occurrence of an anomaly in the recognition/determination ECU 11, and an alternative operation 2 that takes over the function of the integrated control ECU 12 at the time of occurrence of an anomaly in the integrated control ECU 12 are defined.
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 re-acquiring feature of Kawakami with the described invention of Suganuma in order to restore functionality based on the current traveling status.
Conclusion
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/C.P./Examiner, Art Unit 3661
/RAMYA P BURGESS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3661