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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 7/30/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claims 1, 2, 14, 18, 20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Odland (US 8421811 B2) in view of Zhao (CN 116301451 A), in view of Higgins-Luthman (US 7720580 B2), in view of Loar (US 20200043246 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 14,
Odland teaches:
A smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle, to allow an appearance of a vehicle body of the transportation vehicle to be customized and displayed in real time, (Odland Abstract “This invention relates to a system and method for customizing the appearance of a vehicle. Users can display customized play designs, colors or promotional information on the vehicle for free or on a fee basis.”) the smart display device comprising: a display element, disposed in a plurality of regions of the vehicle body along a contour of the vehicle body; (Odland Col. 5 Line 56 “The display or displays of the present invention are such that they are flexible and can substantially fit the exact contour of a vehicle body no matter what the shape of the body. Typical displays are usually square or rectangular in shape, have a thickness greater than one inch and are rigid. The current invention on the other hand utilizes a display that is extremely thin and flexible so it can contour to a large portion of or the entire body of the vehicle.”) a user interface, comprising a state display region for previewing display contents and a function display region for setting the display contents, (Odland Col. 6 Line 38 “Designs that are to be displayed by the vehicle can be created by the users of the vehicle themselves using any existing software program … Additionally, the user may use proprietary software program that is provided or associated with the present invention … In one embodiment the color depth is between about 8-bits and 48-bits. This range will allow the user to select or detect a large gamut of colors … In another embodiment the color depth may be 36 bits or 48 bits or more which will allow the user to display high-end graphics.” Col. 9 Line 38 “The interface is any interface including by example Voice activated commands, Graphical User Interface (GUI), menus and the like. Commencement of the design file transfer can take place using the electronic computing device. The display of the designs can also be altered in a plurality of ways.” Note: Odland teaches a proprietary software program provided with the invention that it states can be used to create, and therefore also view, display contents. One listed example of a “function display region”, or settings view, which enables users to set display contents provided is the ability for the user to select colors on the display. Odland in the second provided citation also teaches that its provided software is an interface, and can be specifically a graphical user interface allowing the user to transfer customized design files to the vehicle for display.) wherein a user defines electronic display contents in the function display region according to preferences, and previews the electronic display contents in real time in the state display region,(Col. 8 Line 25 “In addition, from FIG.3b, the user can transfer the design files made using the color detection device 302 and the control unit to a different electronic computing device for further editing of the design by the user. After redesigning the design files the user can transfer them back to the vehicle and/or share them with other users for free or for a fee.” Col. 9 Line 23 “The user can select to immediately display the communicated one or more design files or save it in the vehicle to display later or transfer the saved one or more design files to an electronic computing device at a later time.” Note: Odland teaches that display designs made by users in its software can be sent to each other for viewing and editing teaching the ability to define contents in the display region according to user preferences. The designs being previewed can be immediately updated to the vehicle, allowing for the changes to be viewed in real time or they can be saved for later use. The claims “state display region” is also taught as Odland details that the display can be viewed and edited in software.) and the electronic display contents comprise a background and a text and/or a pattern displayed in the background; (Odland Col. 3 Line 26 “Content—Any text data, image data, color data, video data, Sound data or any combination thereof. Design—Particular set of content being presented on the display of the vehicle. Design files—Software files that store data and/or instructions used to define and display the design. Display—Device or devices for showing pixels representing the design and is located over any area of the vehicle. The display may be a single element or may comprise a plurality of elements making up different sections to cover different parts of the vehicle.” Note: Odland teaches the ability for text, colors, images, and any combination thereof to be displayed onto the vehicle.) and a smart display unit (control unit column 3, lines 55-60), electrically connected to the display element and the user interface, the smart display unit operable to determine the electronic display contents according to an operation of the user interface so as to display the electronic display contents in real time on the display element as the appearance of the vehicle body. (Col. 9 Line 18 “Sharing designs amongst users can be beneficial in that if one user likes the design of another user, then each of the users can communicate one or more design files directly between their vehicle without the need of any intervening network or electronic computing device. This can be done using the I/O units of each vehicle. The user can select to immediately display the communicated one or more design files or save it in the vehicle to display later or transfer the saved one or more design files to an electronic computing device at a later time.” Note: This citation provides the example of direct sharing of designs via a unit of the car which can send, receive, and change displays, analogous to the claims smart display unit which changes displays. As stated in the previously cited Col. 8 Line 25 the displays can be sent with a device running the user interface software as well. Odland teaches that the display unit can display received design content immediately, allowing for contents to be sent and changed in real time, or saved for later use.)
Odland does not however teach that images taken to check for obstructions and adjustments to the display area are sent to a terminal device where they can be viewed, nor does it teach specific methods for altering the display area around an obstruction. This is taught in Zhao which teaches a terminal device, provided with an image capturing unit, the image capturing unit is electrically connected to the smart identification module, (Zhao ¶128 “Receive a display image of an off-vehicle terminal captured by a camera. S402. According to the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle, analyze the blocking situation of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle. S403. Generate a display area adjustment instruction according to the blocking condition of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle.” Note: Zhao teaches a separate off-vehicle terminal has some application/software which enables it to receive information from the image capturing unit. With this the state of the vehicle outside can be viewed by the user. As the “off vehicle terminal” is a display on the exterior of the vehicle that communicates) an image of any one of the regions is captured by the image capturing unit, the image is received and identified by the smart identification module whether the display element is present in the image, if any part of the display element is blocked by an object after the electronic display contents to be displayed in the region are determined from the image,(Zhao ¶34 “Another object of the present invention is to provide a display area adjustment device to automatically adjust the display area when the terminal outside the vehicle is partially blocked. In order to achieve the above object, technical solution of the present invention is achieved in that way: A display area adjustment device, applied to a control terminal in a vehicle, said device comprising: The receiving module is used to receive the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle collected by the camera; An analysis module, configured to analyze the occlusion of the display screen of the of vehicle terminal according to the display screen of the off-vehicle terminal; A generation module, configured to generate a display area adjustment instruction according to the occlusion of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle;” ¶92 “In the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to determine whether to adjust the display area according to the occlusion of the display screen. When the occlusion area exceeds the preset area, and/or the occlusion area is a preset area, it is determined that the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle needs to be adjusted. Adjust the display area … assuming that the central area of the display screen is blocked, even if the blocking does not exceed the preset area, it will have a great impact on the display content of the display screen, and the display area needs to be adjusted ” ¶90 “In the embodiment of the present invention, the control terminal in the vehicle can determine the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle from the video pictures collected by the camera, and then analyze the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle to determine the occlusion of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle. For a specific analysis method, reference may be made to any feasible image analysis method in the related art. ”¶94 “Determine an optimum display ratio from various preset display ratios of the off-vehicle terminal according to the blocking condition of the display screen of the off-vehicle terminal. In the embodiment of the present invention, the display area adjustment parameter may be a display ratio, for example: 3*4, 4*3, 16*9 and so on. In the embodiment of the present invention, according to the current occlusion situation of the display screen, the occlusion category to which it belongs can be determined, and then the display scale corresponding to the category can be selected.” ¶99 “In the embodiment of the present invention, when the display area is adjusted, the display area may also be split. In this case, the display area adjustment parameter may further include: a split position. In practical applications, when the position where the display area is blocked is in the middle of the display screen, the display area of the display screen can also be split to obtain two display areas, so that different content can be displayed on the two display areas or same content. ” Note: Zhao teaches that not only will the cameras monitoring the displays on the vehicle exterior check if the display is being occluded, but that the specific part of the display that is occluded is known. If the occluded area is recognized to be a preset area of particular importance, in one example a central area of the screen is given as an example, the display element (screen/monitor/display) will be adjusted to move the content around the occlusion. Zhao shifts content to a visible, non-blocked region by either splitting the display around the occlusion if it in the middle, or adjusting the display ratio so as to shift the display area to the left or right.) the smart identification module identifies a non-display range in which the display element is blocked by overlapping with the object (Zhao ¶90, cited above, teaches that determining if an object is occluding, or overlapping, the display element can be accomplished by “any feasible image analysis method in the related art”.) and identifies a displayable range in which the display element is not overlapped and thus unblocked by the object according to the image interference contour of the image, and automatically displays the electronic display contents in the displayable range, (Zhao ¶32 and, ¶94, and ¶99, cited above, teaches this. Zhao specifically teaches that the specific area being occluded, or overlapped by an object, is identified. Zhao is able to identify which specific region of the screen is being blocked (center, top right, etc…) and then move the display area (by redefining aspect ratio or splitting the display area) into the region that is not being occluded so as to display the content in the displayable range.) wherein the terminal device loading an application so as to be connected to the smart display unit: (Zhao ¶128 “Receive a display image of an off-vehicle terminal captured by a camera. S402. According to the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle, analyze the blocking situation of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle. S403. Generate a display area adjustment instruction according to the blocking condition of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle.” Note: Zhao teaches a separate off-vehicle terminal has some application/software which enables it to receive information from the image capturing unit. With this the state of the vehicle outside can be viewed by the user.) when a predetermined position of the display content overlaps the non-display range, (Zhao ¶94 and ¶99, cited above, teaches that the specific area of the display that is being blocked, like the center or top right, is identified to move the content out of the non-display range.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Zhao where a vehicle with exterior displays can use a camera to check if its displays are obstructed and automatically adjust the content of the displays to shift around the obstruction to maintain an unobscured display area.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, if the vehicle’s display contains an advertisement the visibility and therefore effectiveness of the ad can be maximized by showing the complete content without obstructions if the display area can be updated around the obstruction.
While Zhao does teach using a camera to capture a vehicle’s exterior display to determine if an object is blocking the display, and what region of the display is being blocked (non-display range), the means through which this computer vision task is performed is not detailed. Zhao simply teaches that any feasible image analysis method in the related art could suffice as a method. Teaching that an image inference contour of the image is the means through which an object can be identified is taught by Higgins-Luthman which teaches identifies objects according to an image interference contour (Higgins-Luthman Col. 1 Line 31 “Such systems typically utilize statistical methodologies to statistically analyze the images captured by a camera or sensor at the vehicle to estimate whether a vehicle or other object is adjacent to the equipped vehicle.” n Col. 3 Line 17 “The control algorithmically processes the image data set to a reduced image data set of the image data set … the control may process the reduced image data set with an edge detection algorithm to extract information from the reduced image data set.” Col. 6 Line 31 “The algorithm may then process the captured images via an edge detection in the area of interest to extract the expected edge of the vehicle … The algorithm may further perform a fine structure fitting (such as via a correlation algorithm or contour fitting algorithm or the like) ...the actual or detected vehicle edges may be misaligned or separated from the expected vehicle edges, such that the image processing may be adjusted to shift the captured image data accordingly to accommodate … After the image data or image processing is adjusted to account for any misalignment of the camera at the vehicle, the camera may capture images of the scene … and the control may process the images to detect objects or lane markers or the like at the side of the vehicle” Col. 2 Line 30 “The present invention is intended to provide an object detection system, such as a blind spot detection system, a lane change assist or aid system or device, a lane departure warning system, a side object detection system, a reverse park aid system, a forward park aid system, a forward, sideward or rearward collision avoidance system, an adaptive cruise control system, a passive steering system or the like, which is operable to detect and/or identify a vehicle or other object of interest at the side, front or rear of the vehicle equipped with the object detection system.” “The object detection system of the present invention may capture images at a side of the vehicle and may process various windows of the images to detect a vehicle in the adjacent lane or other object, such as a bicycle, in the adjacent lane. The system may adjust the image processing to account for misalignment of the camera at the side of the vehicle.” Col. 2 Line 64 “The object detection system of the present invention may capture images at a side of the vehicle and may process various windows of the images to detect a vehicle in the adjacent lane or other object, such as a bicycle, in the adjacent lane.”
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Note: Higgins-Luthman provides examples of objects that can be identified via object detection such as vehicles and bicycles in an adjacent lane, where the object detection can be performed by determining the image’s contours in a contour fitting algorithm. As an “image interference contour” is simply a contour where one object detected interferes, or overlaps, with another, Higgins-Luthman teaches that such contours can be detected implicitly as a basic operation of teaching object detection by determining contours. For an interference contour to be present in Higgins-Luthman two detected objects, like a vehicle or bicycle, would simply need to be overlapping in the cameras view, like a car passing a vehicle, or a bicycle passing a road block, common scenarios that any vehicle with Higgins-Luthman’s described camera system could capture.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Higgins-Luthman where: leveraging a camera to capture a vehicle’s exterior display to determine if the display is being overlapped by an object to determine a non-display region that is being occluded so as to move the display element into a displayable range not blocked by the object handles the identifying of the occluding object over a specific display region is done according to an image interference contour.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, determining contours in image data to perform object detection is one of the most common methods to perform object detection, and has the benefit of being light weight and more computationally efficient than many other object detection methods. Zhao already teaches the entire method of identifying if an object is overlapping a display and determining which part of the display is overlapped so as to move around the content to keep it visible, and notes that any established method could be used to handle this object detection. If one wished for the benefits of contour fitting approach to object detection to be gained then determining an occluding object could be done according to an image interference contour.
Odland does not however detail specific operations like rotating or scaling can be performed on display contents like text or patterns. This is found in Loar which teaches a predetermined position of the text and/or the pattern, the smart display unit adjusts the text and/or the pattern from the predetermined position to the displayable range by means of offsetting, rotating and/or scaling, (Loar ¶7 “generating , using the computing device , a vehicle wrap design for covering a vehicle based on the obtained customer information ; (c) generating , using the computing device , a three-dimensional rendering of the vehicle , wherein the vehicle wrap design is applied to the three dimensional rendering of the vehicle … The preprocessing may include color changing , cropping , rotating , scaling , smoothing , masking , merging , filtering , flattening , or the like.” ¶94 ”A user may enter commands and information through a user interface 810” Loar ¶46 “Thus, the system may access any textual , visual , or aural content that is encountered as part of a user experience” Note: Laor teaches that its design content, which can include text, visual content like patterns, etc… allows the design content for a vehicle to be rotated, along with a number of other modifications like scaling.) and provides a preview of the adjusted electronic display contents in the state display region. (Loar ¶72 “The studio is a full visualizer that allows users to select a blank vehicle rendering for a specific vehicle type and identify or create a variety of design assets, including images, shapes , text , and numerics and layer them throughout the selected vehicle . The design elements dynamically adjust as a user moves them around the layout such that they maintain the expected shape and coverage over geometrically sophisticated components of the vehicle” Note: Loar teaches a user interface studio which allows users to customize shapes, images, text, etc… to create a design how content displayed on a vehicle will look, aka a preview.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Loar where: in response to determining which part of a display on a vehicle’s exterior is being overlapped by an object so as to move the displaying of the content out of the non-display range and into a viewable region is done by performing an offsetting, rotating, and/or scaling on the content that is a text and/or pattern, as opposed to Zhao’s method of splitting the display or altering the display ratio.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, an object blocking a screen is unlikely to block an entire square/rectangular region of the display. Thus, correcting by Zhao’s method of splitting the display area or changing its display ratio to shift it over may get rid of otherwise valuable, unblocked screen space. This inefficiency could be avoided if the content being displayed itself (like text or patterns) was altered by shifting, rotating, scaling, etc... to make it visible.
Regarding claim 2,
Odland teaches:
The smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the transportation vehicle is a vehicle with two or more wheels, the vehicle body is a vehicle body of the vehicle, the plurality of regions comprise a vehicle front portion, a first side portion, a second side portion and a vehicle rear portion of the vehicle body, the display element is one or more and disposed conformably along contours of the first side portion, the second side portion and the vehicle rear portion, (Odland Col. 3 Line 20 “Vehicle—Any mechanical means for the conveyance or transport of people or other animals including but not limited to cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, aircraft, watercraft, hovercraft, … and the like … Display—Device or devices for showing pixels representing the design and is located over any area of the vehicle. The display may be a single element or may comprise a plurality of elements making up different sections to cover different parts of the vehicle. Vehicle Surface—All outwardly exposed surface area of the vehicle that can be seen including by way of example top, bottom, front, back, sides, and the like.” Col. 5 Line 56 “The display or displays of the present invention are such that they are flexible and can substantially fit the exact contour of a vehicle body no matter what the shape of the body.”) and the electronic display contents can be displayed separately or displayed integrally at the first side portion, the second side portion and/or the vehicle rear portion. (
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Odland Col. 6 Line 18 “FIGS. 2a and 2b show two exemplary configurations of the present invention. FIG. 2a shows vehicle 200 having a plurality of sections 201-203. In this configuration the display of the present invention would cover the surface area denoted by the diagonal lines of section 201 (rear and front side panels). Sections 202 (door) and 203 (roof) do not include the display. The high-resolution design file would generate content that covers the entire section 201. FIG.2b shows another configuration wherein the display also covers the areas denoted by 201, 202 and 203. The user can customize the design displayed in any or all of these sections. The design areas cover a large portion of the Surface of the vehicle. In the configuration of FIG.2b, areas 201-203 may be the same display image or may display different display images. In addition, in the configuration of FIG. 25, areas 201-203 may be of a single display or multiple displays.” Note: Odland teaches a first and second side portions of a vehicle, as seen in Fig 2b’s 201 and 202, and directly states that these designs can be the same or different.)-
Regarding claim 18,
Odland teaches:
The setting method of a smart display device according to claim 14, further comprising:
Odland does not however teach image capture of the vehicle, considering of black and white images to employ edge detection and object detection to locate a identifying a binary black and white image with the image interference contour by means of edge detection and conversion; (
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Higgins-Luthman Col. 3 Line 17 “The control algorithmically processes the image data set to a reduced image data set of the image data set … the control may process the reduced image data set with an edge detection algorithm to extract information from the reduced image data set.” Col. 6 Line 31 “The algorithm may then process the captured images via an edge detection in the area of interest to extract the expected edge of the vehicle … The algorithm may further perform a fine structure fitting (such as via a correlation algorithm or contour fitting algorithm or the like) ...the actual or detected vehicle edges may be misaligned or separated from the expected vehicle edges, such that the image processing may be adjusted to shift the captured image data accordingly to accommodate … After the image data or image processing is adjusted to account for any misalignment of the camera at the vehicle, the camera may capture images of the scene … and the control may process the images to detect objects or lane markers or the like at the side of the vehicle” Note: Higgins-Luthman first teaches that images are processed with an edge detection algorithm to extract information, this extracted information is the claims binary black and white image. This is known as when edge detection is applied the resulting “extracted information” is the image with only edges and non-edges shown in black and white, as seen in Fig. 6 above.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Higgins-Luthman where images of the vehicle taken with a camera are made into binary black and white images by edge detection and conversion.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, as the present invention is concerned with determining if an object overlaps with the display, an efficient straightforward means to check if an object’s boundaries, or edges, have been broken by an overlapping object is edge detection.
Higgins-Luthman does teach a binary black and white image it does not detail that a display and non-display range can be ontained from the image. This idea is found in Zhao which teaches and the smart display unit identifying the non-display range and the displayable range from the image(Zhao ¶34 “Another object of the present invention is to provide a display area adjustment device to automatically adjust the display area when the terminal outside the vehicle is partially blocked. In order to achieve the above object, technical solution of the present invention is achieved in that way: A display area adjustment device, applied to a control terminal in a vehicle, said device comprising: The receiving module is used to receive the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle collected by the camera; An analysis module, configured to analyze the occlusion of the display screen of the of vehicle terminal according to the display screen of the off-vehicle terminal; A generation module, configured to generate a display area adjustment instruction according to the occlusion of the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle;” Note: Zhao teaches an image capturing unit, a camera, is used by an identification module to determine if and how a display on the outside of the vehicle is being obstructed. Once the region which is obscured is found a new display area is generated adjusted around the occluded area allowing the screen’s content to be displayed fully. Zhao teaches this process of adjusting the display area happens automatically once the vehicles exterior becomes blocked.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Zhao where a binary image created to perform edge detection and find countour interference to identify objects blocking the view of a vehicle uses this information to update a display located on the body of the vehicle to adjust content around the object.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, one is to take advantage of the benefits edge detection provides such as high object detection accuracy to aid in the process of automatically shifting content around obstructions. Another benefit would be content that would be unusable if partially obscured such as text detailing important info could easily be shown without worry of being obscured.
Regarding claim 20,
Odland teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium, storing a plurality of executable codes for a smart display device to perform the method of claim 14 after the executable codes are read by the smart display device.
(
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Col. 8 Line 58 “FIGS. 5a-5d show different configurations for communicating design files and any other data to and from the vehicle for display. FIG. 5a shows a configuration wherein the vehicle 501 is coupled to an electronic computing device 503 and the user transfers the design files already stored on the electronic computing device 503 to the vehicle using inter connect 502.” Note: Odland teaches that display content can be stored for use on the vehicle for use. As seen in Fig. 7, these content files are executable codes executed to show their content to the vehicles displays.)
Claims 3, 4, 8, 15, 16, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Odland (US 8421811 B2) in view of in view of Zhao (CN 116301451 A), in view of Higgins-Luthman (US 7720580 B2), in view of Loar (US 20200043246 A1) in view of Visionect (Real-time truck displays provide location triggered ads, traffic information and more).
Regarding claims 3, 15,
Odland teaches:
The smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle according to claim 2, wherein the smart display unit receives a display signal and the electronic display contents are displayed (Odland Col. 8 Line 64 “Interconnect 502 is connected to the I/O unit of the vehicle 501 and may communicate using any wired or wireless protocol including but is not limited to IEEE 1394, Firewire, Universal Serial Bus (USB) 1.0 or higher, RS-232, Ethernet, Ultrawide Band (UWB), Zigbee, 60 GHz, Wi-fi, … . FIG. 5c shows a configuration wherein the design files are directly transferred from the LAN/WAN 504 to the vehicle 501” Col. 9 Line 23 “The user can select to immediately display the communicated one or more design files or save it in the vehicle to display later or transfer the saved one or more design files to an electronic computing device at a later time.” Note: Odland teaches that a signal containing design files can be received by the vehicle and used in a system which stores and displays design files.)
While Odland teaches that its vehicle’s computer system which displays and stores designs can receive display contents via a display signal it does not teach that its received display signal contents can be based on the vehicle’s real time location, direction, etc… This is taught in Visionect which teaches wherein the smart display unit receives a display signal according to a direction of travel, a real-time position and/or a state of travel of the transportation vehicle at a current timing from the transportation vehicle and/or an exterior, and the electronic display contents are contents corresponding to the direction of travel, the real-time position and/or the state of travel displayed by the display element in at least one of the regions according to the display signal. (
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Visionect “A truck equipped with an electronic paper truck display can be located to within a 16ft accuracy, allowing for location-based screen updates via Wi-Fi or 4G. … Each electronic paper truck display is also equipped with GPS, 4G and Wi-Fi modules. With the help of the RoadAds centralized online platform, a truck’s location can be determined to within a 16ft accuracy and the screen content adapted to create location-targeted messages delivered in the language of choice … ‘Warning! Traffic jam in 4km. Estimated time of delay: 40 minutes’ Electronic paper truck displays can deliver much more than just simple advertising. Look for location-based information about on-site traffic conditions, road safety and more, as well as nearby businesses such as gas stops and restaurants.” Note: Visionect teaches a vehicle and displays which receive display signals based on the vehicle’s current location. Alongside simply location Visionect direction of travel, and state of travel in determining its display. As seen in the image above, a truck’s display alerts for a traffic backup in 4km with 40 minutes of estimated delay, showing that the display considers direction of travel, location, and state of travel conditions.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Visionect where the display signals received by a vehicle with the ability to display electronic display contents on its exterior are displays determined by the vehicle’s location, state of travel, and direction of travel.
There are several benefits that would motivate one to do so, one of which is leveraging the vehicle’s displays for location-based advertising. There are numerous benefits of location-based advertising, such as showing viewers more places and products that are easily accessible nearby making for a more effective use of the vehicle’s displays.
Regarding claims 4, 16,
Odland teaches:
The smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle according to claim 3, wherein the smart display unit comprises an image processing module and a smart identification module, the image processing module is operable to receive the display signal and decode/encode the same to provide the electronic display contents to the display element, (Odland Col. 8 Line 64 “Interconnect 502 is connected to the I/O unit of the vehicle 501 and may communicate using any wired or wireless protocol including but is not limited to IEEE 1394, Firewire, Universal Serial Bus (USB) 1.0 or higher, RS-232, Ethernet, Ultrawide Band (UWB), Zigbee, 60 GHz, Wi-fi, 8 02.11x (where X equals a, b, g, n, etc.). PSTN, Bluetooth, Radio Frequency (RF), ... FIG. 5c shows a configuration wherein the design files are directly transferred from the LAN/WAN 504 to the vehicle 501” Col. 9 Line 23 “The user can select to immediately display the communicated one or more design files or save it in the vehicle to display later or transfer the saved one or more design files to an electronic computing device at a later time.” Note: Odland teaches the ability for its vehicle’s computer system to display contents from display signals which are transferred using wireless protocols. Many of these commonly known protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi require that their signals be encoded then decoded when received, teaching the claims language that the display signal can be encoded/decoded to provide electronic display content.)
While Odland teaches the ability to encode/decode display signals and use received display signals content in the vehicles various display regions it does not teach a further level of being aware of a “display range” within individual regions. The application’s specifications detail that display range refers to the parts of a region that are viewable and not obstructed by objects. The ability to identify and differentiate which parts of a viewable display are in the display region is taught by Zhao which teaches and the smart identification module is operable to identify and differentiate a display range of the display element in each of the regions. (Zhao Abstract “The invention provides a display area adjusting method, device and system and a vehicle, and aims to automatically adjust a display area when a terminal outside the vehicle is partially shielded. By the adoption of the display area adjusting method, the camera is used for observing the real-time condition of the display picture of the terminal outside the vehicle, and when it is found that the display screen of the terminal outside the vehicle is partially shielded, the display area adjusting instruction can be sent to the terminal outside the vehicle through the control terminal inside the vehicle so as to automatically adjust the display area of the terminal outside the vehicle; therefore, the terminal outside the vehicle can completely display the display content, and the display content is convenient to watch” Note: Zhao teaches a display area as defined by the application is identified via a camera and the display area is shifted around the obstruction allowing the full display area to be seen.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Zhao where a vehicle which can encode/decode display signals that are sent and received for display can also identify and differentiate a display range for displayed contents in the different display regions.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, if the display contents contain important info that should not be obscured such as a number, email address to contact, or other text information that is unusable if obstructed partially, being aware of which areas of the display can be seen could allow the content to be updated to maximize the display area.
Regarding claim 8,
Odland teaches:
The smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle according to claim 1,
Odland does not specifically detail its displays can be electronic paper displays, this is found in Visionect which teaches wherein the display element is electronic paper. (Visionect “A truck equipped with an electronic paper truck display”)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Visionect where the display element is electronic paper.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, most displays are back-lit, which while allowing them to be seen in the absence of light makes it difficult to view them in the presence of strong lighting. The present application’s display is on a vehicle’s exterior, and likely in constant exposure to sunlight. Leveraging an electronic paper display would be especially efficient as the light required to see the display is already present from the natural environment.
Claims 7, 17, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Odland (US 8421811 B2) in view of Zhao (CN 116301451 A), in view of Higgins-Luthman (US 7720580 B2), in view of Loar (US 20200043246 A1) in view of Visionect (Real-time truck displays provide location triggered ads, traffic information and more) and further in view of Weber (US 10152886 B2).
Regarding claims 7, 17,
Odland teaches:
The smart display device displaying an appearance of a transportation vehicle according to claim 4,
Odland does not however teach the ability to update the display based on location and environmental data, this is taught in Visionect which teaches wherein the smart display unit further comprises an environment detection module operable to detect environmental information of a location of the transportation vehicle in real time, and the smart display unit automatically adjusts all or a part of the electronic display contents on the display element according to the environmental information so as to provide a driving warning (
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Visionect “A truck equipped with an electronic paper truck display can be located to within a 16ft accuracy, allowing for location-based screen updates via Wi-Fi or 4G. … Each electronic paper truck display is also equipped with GPS, 4G and Wi-Fi modules. With the help of the RoadAds centralized online platform, a truck’s location can be determined to within a 16ft accuracy and the screen content adapted to create location-targeted messages delivered in the language of choice … ‘Warning! Traffic jam in 4km. Estimated time of delay: 40 minutes’ Electronic paper truck displays can deliver much more than just simple advertising. Look for location-based information about on-site traffic conditions, road safety and more, as well as nearby businesses such as gas stops and restaurants.” Note: Visonect teaches that driving warnings based on the real time environmental and location data of the vehicle can be displayed on the vehicle.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Visionect where the display element can display environmental information to provide a driving warning.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, a practical application of the present invention would be to rent display space to advertisers. If the display could show driving warnings and other helpful environmental information the display space could be rented to an entity interested in promoting public safety like the government or other similar institutions.
Visonect does not explicitly mention the changing of color on the display to reflect a hazard, doing so is taught in Weber which teaches automatically adjusting all or a part of a background color of the electronic display contents on the display element according to the environmental information so as to provide a driving warning (Col. 2 Line 26 “The control includes an image processor that processes captured images to detect and identify objects forward of the vehicle and in the field of view of the camera. Responsive to such image processing, the control may determine and identify traffic signals and may determine the signal status, such as which of the typically three lights (red, yellow, green) … when the system determines that a traffic signal has both the red and yellow lights activated (see FIG. 5), the display has the upper two light icons shown as activated, with the background colored yellow (or optionally red). Also, when the system determines that a traffic signal has the green light activated (see FIG. 6), the display has the lower light icon shown as activated, with the background colored green, … Optionally, the iconistic traffic light representation may be displayed via a reconfigurable display screen (such as a backlit thin film transistor (TFT) display screen or the like) that is operable to display the iconistic traffic light representation.” Note: Webber teaches a display screen on a vehicle that uses environmental information to change the background color of its display to provide a driving warning. The environmental information originates from captured images around the car, and the driving warning displayed is nearby traffic light status which will cause the display to change its background color accordingly.)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Odland with Weber where real time location and environment info is used in determining display content to communicate a hazard changes the background color of the display to indicate a warning.
There are several reasons that would motivate one to do so, one of which is a warning being more immediately and clearly communicated to drivers through colors associated with warnings like red and yellow.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALAN GREGORY HAKALA whose telephone number is (571)272-7863. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am-5:00pm.
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/ALAN GREGORY HAKALA/ Examiner, Art Unit 2617
/KING Y POON/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2617
