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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because they are directed toward abstract ideas without significantly more.
On January 7, 2019, the USPTO released new examination guidelines for determining whether a claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter (hereinafter referred to as the 2019 PEG). According to the guidelines, a claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter if: (a) it does not fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention or (b) or meets a three-prong test for determining that: (1) the claim recites a judicial exception, e.g. an abstract idea, (2) without integration into a practical application and (3) does not recite additional elements that provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception.
Claims 1-6 are directed toward an apparatus and, therefore, fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention. However, claims 1-6 clearly do not meet the three-prong test for patentability set forth in the 2019 PEG.
With regard to the first prong, whether a claim recites a judicial exception, the guidelines provide three groupings of subject matter that are considered abstract ideas:
Mathematical concepts – mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations;
Certain methods of organizing human activity – fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions); and
Mental processes – concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion).
Applicant’s independent claim 1 is directed toward performing processing by acquiring data, processing information, and indicating whether or not driver assistance function can be executed. There are no limitations regarding what type of information is provided or how it is used to control the vehicle. Only a determination whether or not a function can be executed or not is claimed. The dependent claims 2-6 merely recite further limitations regarding the aspects of the determination, map and traveling information, etc., but do not add anything that removes the claimed subject matter from “mental processes.”
With regard to the second prong, whether the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application, the guidelines provide the following exemplary considerations that are indicative that an additional element (or combination of elements) may have integrated the judicial exception into a practical application:
an additional element reflects an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field;
an additional element that applies or uses a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition;
an additional element implements a judicial exception with, or uses a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim;
an additional element effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; and
an additional element applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
It is clear that Applicant’s claims 1-6 do not comprise any of the above additional elements that, individually or in combination, have integrated the judicial exception into a practical application. Notably, the claims do not provide any limitations regarding a specific application or use, outside of providing a generic signal whether a driver assistance function should be performed or not. There is no improvement in the functioning of the vehicle or the unit. Nor are the limitations implemented in particular machine or manufacture. Rather, they are implemented using merely a processor and computer readable storage. There is no transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Lastly, there are no additional elements that apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
While the guidelines further state that the exemplary considerations are not an exhaustive list and that there may be other examples of integrating the exception into a practical application, the guidelines also list examples in which a judicial exception has not been integrated into a practical application:
an additional element merely recites the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely includes instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea;
an additional element adds insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception; and
an additional element does no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Since the abstract idea in Applicant’s claims are implemented on a processor, i.e. a computer, and there are no further limitations or structural elements that go beyond the computer, it can clearly be seen that the abstract idea(s) are merely implemented on a computer. In addition, the processor in this case does not link the use of the abstract idea(s) to a particular technological environment or field of use, much less “generally link the use…to a particular technological environment or field of use”. Therefore, with regard to whether the abstract idea has been integrated into a practical application, the answer is clearly no.
With regard to the third prong, whether the claims recite additional elements that provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception, the guidelines specify that the pre-guideline procedure is still in effect. Specifically, that examiners should continue to consider whether an additional element or combination of elements:
adds a specific limitation or combination of limitations that are not well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, which is indicative that an inventive concept may be present; or
simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception, which is indicative that an inventive concept may not be present.
Applicant’s claims do not recite additional elements that provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception. The use of one or more computers to implement the above recited abstract idea(s), with nothing more, is a well-understood, routine and conventional activity.
Thus, since claims 1-6 are: (a) directed toward an abstract idea, (b) not integrated into a practical application and (c) do not comprise significantly more than the recited abstract idea, they are clearly directed toward non-statutory subject matter.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sogen et al. (2018/0059671).
Regarding applicant claim 1, Sogen discloses a driver assistance device comprising ([0035]-[0036] Vehicle communication system):
an acquisition device configured to acquire position information indicating a position of a mobile object ([0038] “server acquires and collects information such as a location, speed, sensor information… traffic congestion information, obstacle information”);
a storage device storing map information including information indicating whether a driver assistance function of the mobile object can be executed or not for each position or area ([0039] “includes autonomous driving prohibition sections where autonomous driving is prohibited”; [0043] “map database”);
a processor configured to determine whether the driver assistance function of the mobile object can be executed or not, based on the information indicating whether the driver assistance function of the mobile object can be executed or not ([0039] “autonomous driving prohibition sections… may be set by the server, the vehicles or by other servers”).
Regarding applicant 2, Sogen discloses wherein the map information includes first information that includes at least one of information regarding a type of the driver assistance function, information regarding a version of a program of the driver assistance function, or information regarding a type of the mobile object, the processor is further configured to determine whether the driver assistance function of the mobile object can be executed or not, based on ([0052] “map information in the map database and the detection results of the internal sensor and the external sensor… autonomous driving ECU executes according to the travel plan”):
a comparison result obtained by comparing, with the first information in the map information, second information that includes at least one of information regarding a type of the driver assistance function that can be executed by the mobile object, information regarding a version of the program of the driver assistance function that the mobile object has, or information regarding a type of the mobile object ([0052] “ECU 22 generates the travel plan with a well-known technique and also executes autonomous driving”); and
information indicating whether the driver assistance function can be executed or not for a position or area corresponding to a position of the mobile object ([0053] “reliability recognition is calculated”).
Regarding applicant claim 3, Sogen discloses wherein the processor compares the second information with the first information by executing at least one of:
a comparison of comparing the information regarding the type of the driver assistance function that can be executed by the mobile object, with the information regarding the type of the driver assistance function in the map information for the position or area corresponding to the position of the mobile object ([0053] “reliability is calculated to be higher as the weather is better… at the location where no building is located in the vicinity of the vehicle; path plan is closer to the track of the vehicle traveling at the center of a lane than to the track of avoiding an obstacle”);
a comparison of comparing the information regarding the version of the program of the driver assistance function that the mobile object has, with the information regarding the version of the program of the driver assistance function in the map information for the position or area corresponding to the position of the mobile object ([0053] “reliability is calculated to be higher as the weather is better… at the location where no building is located in the vicinity of the vehicle; path plan is closer to the track of the vehicle traveling at the center of a lane than to the track of avoiding an obstacle”); or
a comparison of comparing the information regarding the type of the mobile object, with the information regarding the type of the mobile object in the map information for the position or area corresponding to the position of the mobile object ([0053] “reliability is calculated to be higher as the weather is better… at the location where no building is located in the vicinity of the vehicle; path plan is closer to the track of the vehicle traveling at the center of a lane than to the track of avoiding an obstacle”).
Regarding applicant claim 4, Sogen discloses wherein the map information is updated based on traveling information about the mobile object ([0038] “the server acquires information from the plurality of vehicles through the network… traffic congestion information, obstacle information, and service area information”).
Regarding applicant claim 5, Sogen discloses wherein the map information is updated based on traveling information about a plurality of mobile objects ([0038] “the server acquires information from the plurality of vehicles through the network… traffic congestion information, obstacle information, and service area information”).
Regarding applicant claim 6, Sogen discloses wherein the information in the map information indicating whether the driver assistance function can be executed or not is statistical information obtained by performing statistical processing on data obtained from a communication device provided in each of the plurality of mobile objects ([0053] “autonomous driving ECU may calculate the reliability of the system while executing autonomous driving”).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAE LENNY LOUIE whose telephone number is (571)272-5195. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6AM-3PM.
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/W.L.L/Examiner, Art Unit 3661
/PETER D NOLAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3661