DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claims 1-8 are presented for examination.
Priority
The Applicants’ claim for priority based upon PCT/JP2023/011472 filed on March 23, 2023 is duly noted by the examiner.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on December 11, 2024 has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 7 is objected to due to grammatical errors. The claim requires edits to make it coherent as it is riddled with errors that make it incomprehensible. Appropriate corrections are required.
Claim 8 is objected to due to a grammatical error. It is noted the word “the” has been removed prior to its occurrence of the word ”assistance”. With the removal of the aforementioned article, no article appears prior to the word “assistance” and creates a grammatical error. Appropriate corrections are required.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 5 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The most similar art of record, Sugie [Japanese Patent Application 2010231776A], discloses the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and the evaluation of monitored vehicle operation parameters to evaluate whether or not the driver is operating the vehicle in a manner which does or does not match the operation values set by the vehicle’s system where a high skill level is determined if the parameter values have not been met nor exceeded (paragraphs 0043 and 0044). However, no art of record discloses the one or more processors being configured to set the target value that further improves a level of a first skill item of the multiple skill items where the level of the first skill item has been improved faster than a level of another skill item of the multiple skill items owing to the past execution of the assistance process.
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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sugie [Japanese Patent Application 2010231776A]
With regard to claim 1, Sugie meets the limitations of:
a driver assistance apparatus configured to assist a driver in driving a vehicle, the driver assistance apparatus comprising one or more processors [the use of a microcomputer for controlling on-board devices and executing operations (paragraphs 0026 and 0060)]
one or more memories communicably coupled to the one or more processors [a microcomputer in communication with a memory storage device (paragraph 0026)]
the one or more processors are configured to execute a target value setting process of setting a target value of at least one vehicle state related to a driving action of the driver in a predetermined driving scene, based on information associated with multiple skill items regarding the driving action of the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033)]
an assistance process of assisting the driver in driving the vehicle, based on the target value [a warning to a driver being issued when he driving operation deviates from the threshold value (paragraph 0034)]
in the target value setting process, the one or more processors are configured to set the target value, based on information on a result of improvement in a driving skill of the driver owing to past execution of the assistance process for the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the determination if a desired driving operation has been carried out for a specific diagnostic item displayed at the start of operation, and to advice provided from the driving support device (paragraph 0035)]
With regard to claim 2, Sugie meets the limitations of:
the information associated with the multiple skill items comprises information on respective levels of the multiple skill items [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033)]
the one or more processors are configured to set the target value based on the information on the respective levels of the skill items [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and the evaluation of monitored vehicle operation parameters to evaluate whether or not the driver is operating the vehicle in a manner which does or does not match the operation values set by the vehicle’s system (paragraphs 0043 and 0044)]
With regard to claim 3, Sugie meets the limitation of:
the one or more processors are configured to gradually bring the target value toward a value of the vehicle state caused by a skilled driver having the driving skill at a high level [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and the evaluation of monitored vehicle operation parameters to evaluate whether or not the driver is operating the vehicle in a manner which does or does not match the operation values set by the vehicle’s system where a high skill level is determined if the parameter values have not been met nor exceeded (paragraphs 0043 and 0044)]
With regard to claim 6, Sugie meets the limitations of:
a level map memory that holds a level map associated with the information on the respective levels of the multiple skill items for each of the at least one predetermined driving scene, the level map including information on the at least one vehicle state related to the driving action of the driver having the respective levels of the multiple skill items [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) where the parameters can be, for example, related to vehicle operation behavior relating to braking and acceleration (paragraph 0043)]
the one or more processors are configured to set the target value, referring to the level map and based on the information on the respective levels of the multiple skill items of the driver and the information on the result of improvement in the driving skill owing to the past execution of the assistance process [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and a warning to a driver being issued when he driving operation deviates from the threshold value meaning the driver’s actions were evaluated and determined to be unsafe as defined by the threshold values by the vehicle system as a warning is issued (paragraph 0034)]
With regard to claim 7, Sugie meets the limitations of:
a driver assistance method of assisting a driver in driving a vehicle, the driver assistance method comprising the driver in driving the vehicle by setting a target value of at least one vehicle state related to a driving action of the driver in a predetermined driving scene, based on information associated with multiple skill items regarding the driving action of the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and the evaluation of monitored vehicle operation parameters to evaluate whether or not the driver is operating the vehicle in a manner which does or does not match the operation values set by the vehicle’s system where a high skill level is determined if the parameter values have not been met nor exceeded (paragraphs 0043 and 0044) where the parameters can be, for example, related to vehicle operation behavior relating to braking and acceleration (paragraph 0043)]
the target value, based on information on a result of improvement in a driving skill of the driver owing to past execution of assistance process for the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and a warning to a driver being issued when he driving operation deviates from the threshold value meaning the driver’s actions were evaluated and determined to be unsafe as defined by the threshold values by the vehicle system as a warning is issued (paragraph 0034)]
With regard to claim 8, Sugie meets the limitation of:
a non-transitory tangible recording medium containing a computer program, the computer program causing one or more processors to assist the driver in driving the vehicle by setting a target value of at least one vehicle state related to a driving action of a driver who drives a vehicle in a predetermined driving scene, based on information associated with multiple skill items regarding the driving action of the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and the evaluation of monitored vehicle operation parameters to evaluate whether or not the driver is operating the vehicle in a manner which does or does not match the operation values set by the vehicle’s system where a high skill level is determined if the parameter values have not been met nor exceeded (paragraphs 0043 and 0044) where the parameters can be, for example, related to vehicle operation behavior relating to braking and acceleration (paragraph 0043)]
set the target value, based on information on a result of improvement in a driving skill of the driver owing to past execution of assistance process for the driver in the predetermined driving scene [the setting of a threshold value for travel data obtained by sensors that provide driving diagnostic information relating to a driver’s actions to the vehicle system (paragraphs 0021, 0032, and 0033) and a warning to a driver being issued when he driving operation deviates from the threshold value meaning the driver’s actions were evaluated and determined to be unsafe as defined by the threshold values by the vehicle system as a warning is issued (paragraph 0034)]
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Patent Publication 2017/0202501 discloses a driver assistance system.
U.S. Patent Publication 2017/0282792 to Illy discloses a detection system for a motor vehicle where the vigilance of a driver is monitored.
U.S. Patent Publication 2018/0032072 to Hoye discloses the determination of driver engagement in an autonomous vehicle.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PAMESHANAND MAHASE whose telephone number is (571) 270-7223. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday- Friday 8:00AM - 5:00PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Davetta Goins can be reached on 571-272-2957. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PAMESHANAND MAHASE/Examiner, Art Unit 2689
/DAVETTA W GOINS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2689
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