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 .
Status of Claims
Preliminary Amendment filed 01/03/2025 resulted in Claims 1-10 being cancelled and therefore Claims 11-30 have been examined in this action.
Claims 11-30 stand rejected.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)
Claims 11, 13-15, 17-18, 20-22, 24, 26-28, and 30.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103
Claims 12, 16, 19, 23, 25, and 29.
Applicant has indicated Foreign Priority Benefit with a priority date of 07/04/2022 and the claims have been examined in accordance with said priority date.
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.
Claims 11, 13-15, 17-18, 20-22, 24, 26-28, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kojo (US 2017/0361841).
As per Claim 11:
Kojo discloses all of the following limitations:
“A method for controlling lateral control of a motor vehicle comprising: establishing a presence of a first predetermined driving situation in which the motor vehicle is in an idle position and a distance between the motor vehicle and a front vehicle increases”
Kojo Paragraph [0034] discloses a situation in which an instant vehicle is idle and is behind a preceding vehicle and the distance between them increases as the preceding vehicle sets off.
“detecting a trajectory of the front vehicle when the presence of the first predetermined driving situation is established”
Kojo Paragraph [0036] discloses a following control protocol that causes a subject vehicle to follow the path of a preceding vehicle P1 according to the behavior of said vehicle P1 thereby necessitating an identification of the trajectory of the P1.
“detecting a presence of a second predetermined driving situation, which chronologically follows the first predetermined driving situation and in which the motor vehicle drives off from the idle position”
Kojo Paragraph [0034] discloses an instant vehicle M following after a preceding vehicle P1.
“and controlling the lateral control of the motor vehicle based on the detected trajectory when the presence of the second predetermined driving situation is established.”
Kojo Paragraphs [0034]-[0036] disclose controlling the lateral motion of an instant vehicle to follow a preceding vehicle when the conditions of a preceding vehicle setting off are met.
With regards to Claim 13, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 11 and further discloses the following limitations:
“wherein controlling the lateral control of the motor vehicle based on the detected trajectory takes place so that the motor vehicle follows the detected trajectory.”
Kojo Paragraphs [0034]-[0036] disclose controlling the lateral motion of an instant vehicle to follow a preceding vehicle when the conditions of a preceding vehicle setting off are met.
With regards to Claim 14, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 11 and further discloses the following limitations:
“wherein controlling the lateral control of the motor vehicle based on the detected trajectory only takes place as long as no lane marking and/or no front vehicle are present in an area of predetermined size in front of the motor vehicle.”
Kojo Paragraph [0034] discloses a vehicle following a preceding vehicle only when the distance between the vehicles exceeds a threshold and therefore only when a preceding vehicle is not present in an area in front of the instant vehicle corresponding to the threshold distance.
With regards to Claim 15, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 14 and further discloses the following limitations:
“comprising: controlling the lateral control of the motor vehicle based on the lane marking and/or the current trajectory of the front vehicle takes place as soon as the lane marking and/or the front vehicle are present in the area of predetermined size in front of the motor vehicle.”
Kojo Paragraph [0034] discloses an instant vehicle M following a preceding vehicle only when said preceding vehicle reaches an area in front of the vehicle that corresponds to a distance above a threshold, i.e. the lateral control only takes place when the preceding vehicle is present in an area in front of a vehicle that is not correlated with the area immediately within the threshold distance, however, the area that the preceding vehicle must be in is still in front of the instant vehicle M.
With regards to Claim 17, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 11 and further discloses the following limitations:
“wherein the detected trajectory comprises position information with time information of the front vehicle.”
Kojo Paragraphs [0034]-[0036] discloses identifying the trajectory of the preceding vehicle in real-time necessitating knowledge of position and time information.
As per Claim 18: this claim is substantially similar to Claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 20, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 13 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 21, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 14 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 22, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 15 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
As per Claim 24: this claim is substantially similar to Claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 26, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 13 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 27, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 14 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 28, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 15 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 30, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 24 and further discloses:
“a motor vehicle comprising the data processing device according to Claim 24”
Kojo Figure 5 discloses a vehicle comprising the data processing device according to Claim 24.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 12, 19, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kojo, which is directed towards a travel control device that allows a vehicle to follow another vehicle (See Paragraph [0002]) in view of Labuhn (US 5,454,442) which represents analogous art as it is directed towards adaptive cruise control which is a system of travel control in which one vehicle follows another (See Section 1).
With regards to Claim 12, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 12 but does not disclose the following limitations that Labuhn teaches:
“wherein detecting the trajectory of the front vehicle takes place until the distance between the motor vehicle and the front vehicle exceeds a threshold value.”
Labuhn [Abstract] discloses detecting the trajectory of a vehicle (necessitated by following said vehicle) only when said vehicle exists within a threshold range within sensor range.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the system disclosed by Kojo with the range disclosed by Labuhn. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification, with a reasonable expectation of success, in order to make the system more effective by limiting the range of following to only one in which sensor data can exist.
With regards to Claim 19, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 12 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 25, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 12 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
Claims 16, 23, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kojo, which is directed towards a travel control device that allows a vehicle to follow another vehicle (See Paragraph [0002]) in view of Meinecke (US 2017/0168505) which is an analogous art as it is also directed towards a system for autonomously controlling a vehicle to follow another vehicle (See Paragraph [0003]).
With regards to Claim 16, Kojo discloses all of the limitations of Claim 11 but does not disclose the following limitations that Meinecke teaches:
“determining a planned route of the motor vehicle; and comparing the planned route of the motor vehicle to the detected trajectory, wherein controlling the lateral control of the motor vehicle based on the detected trajectory only takes place when the comparison has a result that the planned route of the motor vehicle and the detected trajectory correspond.”
Meinecke Paragraphs [0098]-[0099] discloses comparing a planned trajectory of a following vehicle to an actual trajectory of a scout vehicle ahead of to determine whether they match to a threshold degree and if they do the following vehicle will autonomously follow the route of the scout vehicle.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the system disclosed by Kojo with the route comparison disclosed by Meinecke. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification, with a reasonable expectation of success, in order to make the system more effective by determining harmony between multiple path-setting methods.
With regards to Claim 23, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 16 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
With regards to Claim 29, this claim is substantially similar to Claim 16 and is therefore rejected using the same references and rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Godfrey Maciorowski, whose telephone number is (571) 272-4652. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 7:30am to 5:00pm EST.
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/GODFREY ALEKSANDER MACIOROWSKI/Examiner, Art Unit 3658
/JASON HOLLOWAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658