Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed 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 Takahashi et al, JP 2019-202586. Takahashi et al teaches (see the attached English translation):
A vehicle control device comprising:
an external-field recognition unit (11, see radar and camera 21, 22 and par. 10 and 11)) adapted to recognize information about a field outside an own vehicle;
a vehicle-information acquisition unit (12) adapted to acquire a
state of the own vehicle; (see sensors 23,24,25,26, par. 10)
a collision determination unit (ECU 10, par. 21) adapted to determine a
collision between a target object and the own vehicle, based on
information about the target object around the own vehicle acquired
by the external-field recognition unit, and based on the state of
the own vehicle acquired by the vehicle-information acquisition
unit;
an operation-suppression determination unit (41, par. 21 and 31) adapted to
determine whether to change a result of the collision determination,
based on a change of a lap rate between the target object and the
own vehicle, and based on a change of a lateral speed generated in
the target object with respect to the own vehicle, (par. 22 and 36) when the
collision determination unit determines a collision; and
a control-intervention determination unit adapted to
determine control intervention in the own vehicle, from results
from the collision determination unit and the operation-
suppression determination unit. (par. 29).
See Takahashi et al, paragraphs 9-36). Note paragraph 27 also refers to a pedestrian.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-15 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.
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/ERICK R SOLIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747