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 .
2. 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. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Status of Claims
1. The following is a non-final office action in response to the applicant’s submission received on 11/22/2024.
2. Claims 1 – 15 are currently pending and have been examined.
Foreign Priority/Domestic benefit
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed under 35 U.S.C. §119 for Korean Application No. 10-2022-0112998, filed on September 6, 2022, and also claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/388,657, filed on July 13, 2022.
Domestic benefit has been claimed for National Stage filing under 35 U.S.C. 371 of International Application No. PCT/KR2023/008180, filed on June 14, 2023.
Oath/Declaration
1. The applicant’s oath/declaration filed on 12/02/2024 has been reviewed by the examiner and is found to conform to the requirements prescribed in 37 C.F.R. 1.63.
Information Disclosure Statement
1. The information disclosure statement filed on 03/03/2025 or 08/27/2026 are in compliance with the provision of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609. It has been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Objection to the Drawings
The drawings submitted on 12/02/2024 are objected to for the following reasons(s):
Regarding figure 8, the texts located within the figure are illegible, at the same time the drawing of figure 8 appears incomplete since the last boxes on the time axes are missing their respective boundaries.
The line representing the vertical axis of figure 18 is not clear.
Figures 19 and 20 are missing lines that represent the vertical and horizontal axes.
In figure 1, the boxes enclosing the terms “Vehicle Platooning” and “Extended Sensors” appears incomplete. At the same time there is a line below figure 1 with an misaligned arrowhead, it’s not clear as to what this line represents.
The plus (+) sign between the boxes of sensor 1 information and sensor 2 information in figure 13 the sum of which represents the sensor fusion and aggregation appears blurred.
The box enclosing the words of item 400 in figure 21 appears incomplete. At the same time the word “Hand” in box 100d of figure 21 is not clear. At the top of figure 21 appears the number “1” by itself, its not clears what this number represents in the diagram.
The top boundaries of the boxes that encloses the first and second devices in figure 22 appears to be missing.
Some of the boundaries of the boxes in figures 23 are missing, that is the entire device itself and “transceiver(S) (114)”.
The boundary around the box that represents vehicle 100 component is missing in figure 24, there is also a vertical line missing in the representation of antenna 208.
The sheets of drawings should be numbered in consecutive Arabic numerals, starting with 1. These numbers, if present, must be placed in the middle of the top of the sheet, but not in the margin. The numbers can be placed on the right-hand side if the drawing extends too close to the middle of the top edge of the usable surface. The drawing sheet numbering must be clear and larger than the numbers used as reference characters to avoid confusion. The number of each sheet should be shown by two Arabic numerals placed on either side of an oblique line, with the first being the sheet number and the second being the total number of sheets of drawings, with no other marking
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Objection to the specification
Regarding ¶ 0113 of the specification submitted on 12/02/2024, figure 10 mentions ITS-S (100) being present, from the drawings of figure 10 it is not clear as to which element is ITS-S(100).
Claim interpretation
1. Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim should not be read into the claim. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369, 67 USPQ2d 1947, 1950 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (claims must be interpreted "in view of the specification" without importing limitations from the specification into the claims unnecessarily) [MPEP 2106 Sec I, C]. “Though understanding the claim language may be aided by explanations contained in the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations that are not part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment.” Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875, 69 USPQ2d 1865, 1868 (Fed. Cir. 2004). [MPEP 2111.01 Sec II]. Thus, the Examiner interprets Applicant’s claims "in view of the specification" and does not “import into a claim limitation that are not part of the claim”.
2. When multiple limitations are connected with “OR”, one of the limitations does not have any patentable weight since both limitations are optional.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 1 – 2, 9 - 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Delooz et al. (“Network Load adaptation for collective perception in V2X communication”, November, 2019) in view of Gosh et al. (US 2017/0019853 A1) in view of ETSI (ETSI TR 103 562 V2.1.1 (2019-12), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS); Vehicular Communications; Basic Set of Applications; Analysis of the Collective Perception Service (CPS); Release 2,December 2019) and Baghel et al. (US 2019/0362631 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Delooz discloses: A method performed by a first station (STA), [In the first paragraph of the introduction on the first page discloses at least two V2X vehicle with sensors can exchange sensor information, the specification of this application defines a station in ¶ 0019 in view of ¶ 0106 (vehicle/RSU) to possess a plurality of sensors which is equivalent in the reference of Delooz to be a vehicle that has multiple sensors as seen in the introduction on the first page of Delooz] the method comprising:
[see the second page right column, section III, whereby three filters are being discusses “CPF1-V2x technology capabilities filter”, “CPF2-Local dynamics perception filter and “CPF3 – V2X dynamics perception filter” : the filter does the job of filtering(discarding) objects before it is included in the collective perception message (CPM). See also the last two steps in figure 1]
acquiring a plurality of detection data sets for each object through a plurality of sensors; and [see the 3rd page, right column: “For object detection, the vehicles have local sensors mounted on them. In our simulations, each vehicle has two radars with a range of 60 and 174 m, and a field of view of +/-45 ° and +/-10 °, respectively. Both radars are located in front of the vehicle and are facing ahead. The method to detect objects is the same as explained in [7]. In brief, each V2X node mounted with sensors detects an object if one of the four corners of the object is in the line of sight of one of the sensors.”]
transmitting a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) message including the perceived object information to the second STA, based on the acquired plurality of detection data sets and the filter information, [see the first paragraph under the introduction on the first page: “Vehicular communications allow vehicles to exchange information with other vehicles, the roadside infrastructure or with other traffic participants, e.g., pedestrians, and is commonly referred to as vehicle-to-everything communications (V2X). Based on V2X, vehicles can exchange sensor information such that they enhance the local sensors’ range of perception and acquire a more accurate knowledge of the local environment. In the context of standardized V2X systems – ETSI C-ITS [1]– this collective perception can be regarded as a V2X service that supplements other services such as cooperative awareness.”].
Delooz does not disclose wherein the first STA determines, based on the filter information, whether to configure the perceived object information through fusion of the acquired plurality of detection data sets or configure the perceived object information with a detection data set for each sensor without the fusion. Also, Delooz does not disclose the filter information that is acquired by the first station from a second station. However, in the same field of endeavor, ETSI discloses the above missing feature, it should be noted first, that the filtering has been done in the first reference along with fusion (see figure 1 of Delooz and the second paragraph under “II. Related work” of the second page), here the secondary reference is used to show whether fusion is needed or not in view of the detected data set, see the third paragraph on the 19th page where fusion is being done “…V2X information (e.g. CAMs) from other vehicles may additionally be fused with locally perceived information...”, and in the second to last paragraph of the 18th page, provides the idea that fusion is not needed (transmission of raw data): “…with increasing number of sensors attached to vehicles or RSUs. Nevertheless, if the channel resource permits, the transmitting ITS-S may attach the raw data to the CPM.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Delooz’s view of ETSI. The motivation for making the above modification would have been to solve the problem whereby simply broadcasting raw sensor data is not a viable solution, as this imposes very high requirements regarding data rates and transmission frequencies, especially with increasing number of sensors attached to vehicles or RSUs. [see section 4.2 on the 18th page of ETSI].
Delooz in view of ETSI does not disclose the filter information was acquired by the first station from a second station. Such difference is seen in the reference of Baghel, see figure 4, label 418, this request is see in step 506 of figure 5 as a filter information since certain parameters (¶ 0070) are sent from a second station (402) and acquired by the first station (404). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Delooz’s view of ETSI and Baghel. The motivation for making the above modification would have for the vehicle to obtain sensed information from other sensors in the vicinity of the vehicle [see ¶ 0004 of Baghel].
Claims 9 and 10 recite similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 1. Such elements as a transceiver, plurality of sensors and processor are disclosed by Delooz, see the abstract, and the first paragraph of the introduction on the first page, see also figure 1 whereby a processor and transceiver must be present (implied) to carry out the complex steps as disclosed. See also the reference of Bhagel, figure 9 and 11 which discloses the various components of claim 10 and the non-transitory CRM (¶0009) as claimed in independent claim 9.
Claim 2, Delooz further discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the filter information includes information regarding a processing capability of the second STA. [see the last 4 lines in the right column of the 4th page].
Claim 11 recite similar features using respective language and are also rejected by the applied references for similar reasons as claim 2.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 – 8, 12 – 15 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR whose telephone number is (571)270-7909. The examiner can normally be reached 6:00 AM - 3:00 PM.
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, Joseph Ustaris can be reached at 571-272-7383. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
MAHARISHI V. KHIRODHAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2463
/MAHARISHI V KHIRODHAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2428
Prosecution Insights