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 .
Response to Amendment
This action is in response to amendments and remarks filed on 04/17/2026. Claims 1, 3-11, 13, and 15 are pending. Claims 2, 12, and 14 have been cancelled. Claims 1, 7, and 11 have been amended. The drawings and specification have been amended. The objections to the drawings, specification, and claims, and the 35 U.S.C. 101 and 112 rejections to the claims have been withdrawn in light of the instant amendments. This action is made final, as necessitated by amendment.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/17/2026 regarding the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues Craig does not disclose any specific redistribution of braking force between the axles of a tractor and the axles of a trailer in response to a detected understeer tendency, therefore the combination of Alders and Craig does not render the amended claims obvious. Applicant further argues that no rationale has been provided for modifying Alders' two-axle braking redistribution logic to additionally control braking on an axle of a trailer in the specific manner claimed.
As Applicant has stated, Craig teaches the general concept that a trailer may be coupled to a vehicle and that stability control may be provided for both. Alders teaches understeer or oversteer of a vehicle can be mitigated by changing the distribution of braking force between the axles of a vehicle. It would have been obvious that this method could be transferrable to a tractor trailer combination vehicle. Examiner believes that it also would be obvious that the distribution of braking force could be changed on all axles of the vehicle, which would include the trailer axles.
Combining references is considered to be obvious if "a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and whether there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so" DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v. C.H. Patrick Co., 464 F.3d 1356, 1360, 80 USPQ2d 1641, 1645 (Fed. Cir. 2006), and "an implicit motivation to combine exists not only when a suggestion may be gleaned from the prior art as a whole, but when the ‘improvement’ is technology-independent and the combination of references results in a product or process that is more desirable, for example because it is stronger, cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter, smaller, more durable, or more efficient. Because the desire to enhance commercial opportunities by improving a product or process is universal—and even common-sensical—we have held that there exists in these situations a motivation to combine prior art references even absent any hint of suggestion in the references themselves" Id. at 1368, 80 USPQ2d at 1651. It would have been an obvious improvement of Alders to be able to use Alders’ method on a variety of different vehicles, including a tractor trailer combination vehicle.
Changing the distribution of braking force on a tractor trailer combination vehicle to increase stability is also already well-known in the field, and would have been an obvious conclusion given the combination of Alders and Craig. Gee (US 4804237 A) teaches that this has been a known method for increasing stability (column 1 line 11, “This invention relates to controls for brake systems for multiple vehicle systems (i.e. tractor-trailer vehicles). In particular, this invention relates to controls for tractor-trailer brake systems which, depending upon the level of operator demand for braking, will distribute the braking effort between the individually controllable vehicle brake sites, such as between sub-vehicle brake systems, to achieve inter-vehicle balanced braking or proportional braking or a compromise thereof”). It is well known that a tractor trailer combination can increase stability by changing the distribution of a braking force of the axles of the trailer, and therefore it would have been obvious that in applying Alders’ method to a trailer tractor combination, it would include changing the braking force of the trailer axles. An alternative rejection using the combination of Alders in view of Craig and Gee is provided below under Claim Rejections.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-11, 13, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alders (DE 102019200820 A1) in view of Craig (US 8244442 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Alders teaches a computer system comprising processing circuitry (Fig. 1, control unit 28) configured to:
receive a braking request (par. 3, "a method for distributing a braking torque requested by a driver") for braking a vehicle (Fig. 1, motor vehicle 10) including an electrically powered (par. 3, vehicle is an electric vehicle) with an electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor (Fig. 1, rear electric machine 26),
provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least a front axle of the tractor (front axle VL), on the rear drive axle of the tractor (rear axle HL), (par. 2, “As is known, the distribution of the friction braking torque to the axles can be scalar, i.e., the distribution of the friction braking torque to the front and rear axles is hydraulically fixed, as in... B. 60%/40%, or axle specific, i.e. the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation");
receive a first set of vehicle parameters (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determine, based on the first set of vehicle parameters, that an understeer tendency of the vehicle during braking is higher than a predefined first understeer tendency threshold (par. 7, "it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present");
and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to increase a braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor using regeneration, decrease a braking force on the front axle of the tractor, (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels”).
Alders fails to explicitly teach the vehicle includes an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling; provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least one axle of the trailer; and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to decrease a braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer. Alders does not specify the type of vehicle. However, understeering and oversteering is a known problem for semi-trailer trucks, among other vehicles. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method for reducing understeering and oversteering would be applicable to a wide variety of vehicles, including a tractor with a trailer.
Craig explicitly teaches an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling (Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800); provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least one axle of the trailer; and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to decrease a braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer (column 1 line 40, "providing stability control of the wheeled vehicle and the trailer using the automatically chosen dominant stability control system").
Alders fails to teach to control braking on the trailer since Alders does not explicitly teach a trailer. However, controlling brakes on trailers in order to combat understeering or oversteering is well-known in the art, as seen in Craig. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Alders in view of Craig to further incorporate the teachings of Craig in order to better control the stability of the vehicle. It would have been an obvious improvement with reasonable expectation of success to modify Alders’ method to be usable on a variety of different vehicles, including a tractor trailer combination vehicle. Craig teaches the general concept that a trailer may be coupled to a vehicle and that stability control may be provided for both. Alders teaches understeer or oversteer of a vehicle can be mitigated by changing the distribution of braking force between the axles of a vehicle. It would have been obvious that this method could be transferrable to a tractor trailer combination vehicle. It also would be obvious that the distribution of braking force could be changed on all axles of the vehicle, which would include the trailer axles. (An alternative rejection using the combination of Alders in view of Craig and Gee (US 4804237 A) is provided below).
Alders also fails to explicitly teach an understeer tendency threshold. However, Alders does teach “a brake force distribution counteracting the understeer or oversteer situation is applied, wherein the braking torque requested by the driver is achieved by means of the applied, i.e., the understeer or oversteer” (par. 7). It would have been obvious that there would be some kind of threshold to determine if there is understeer or oversteer present so that the system could act accordingly.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the computer system of claim 1. Alders further teaches the processing circuitry is further configured to:
receive a second set of vehicle parameters after having provided the second braking command (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determine, based on the second set of vehicle parameters, that the understeer tendency of the vehicle during braking is lower than a predefined second understeer tendency threshold, lower than the first understeer tendency threshold (par. 7, "it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present");
and provide a third braking command encoding instructions to decrease the braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor, and increase the braking force on the front axle of the tractor, so that the combined braking force fulfills the braking request (par. 7, "it if an understeer or oversteer situation is present, a brake force distribution counteracting the understeer or oversteer situation is applied").
While it is not explicitly taught to receive a second set of vehicle parameters and to determine an understeer tendency of the vehicle a second time, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method would be used to continuously minimize understeer. Alders states that is it known that “the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation" (par. 2). Alders would continuously adjust the braking distribution.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the computer system of claim 1. Alders further teaches the processing circuitry is further configured to:
receive a third set of vehicle parameters after having provided the second braking command (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determine, based on the third set of vehicle parameters that that an oversteer tendency of the vehicle during braking is higher than a predefined oversteer tendency threshold (par. 7, “it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present”);
and provide a fourth braking command encoding instructions to reduce the braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor (par. 7, "To counteract oversteer, the brake force distribution is such that it is divided into a front braking torque to be applied to the front axle and a rear braking torque to be applied to the rear axle, such that the front braking torque necessarily includes a front recuperation torque component to be provided via the front electric machine and the rear braking torque necessarily includes a rear recuperation torque component to be provided via the rear electric machine").
While it is not explicitly taught to receive a second set of vehicle parameters and to determine an understeer tendency of the vehicle a second time, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method would be used to continuously minimize understeer. Alders states that is it known that “the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation" (par. 2). Alders would continuously adjust the braking distribution.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the computer system of claim 4. Alders further teaches the fourth braking command further encodes instructions to increase the braking force on the front axle of the tractor, so that the combined braking force fulfills the braking request (par. 7, "To counteract oversteer, the brake force distribution is such that it is divided into a front braking torque to be applied to the front axle and a rear braking torque to be applied to the rear axle, such that the front braking torque necessarily includes a front recuperation torque component to be provided via the front electric machine and the rear braking torque necessarily includes a rear recuperation torque component to be provided via the rear electric machine").
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the computer system of claim 5. Alders fails to teach the fourth braking command further encodes instructions to increase the braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer.
However, Craig teaches the fourth braking command further encodes instructions to increase the braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer (column 1 line 40, "providing stability control of the wheeled vehicle and the trailer using the automatically chosen dominant stability control system").
Alders fails to teach to control braking on the trailer since Alders does not explicitly teach a trailer. However, controlling brakes on trailers in order to combat understeering or oversteering is well-known in the art, as seen in Craig. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Alders in view of Craig to further incorporate the teachings of Craig in order to better control the stability of the vehicle.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the computer system of claim 1. Alders fails to explicitly teach the processing circuitry is further configured to: receive a propulsion request for propelling the vehicle including an electrically powered tractor with a first electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor, a second electric machine coupled to a front drive axle of the tractor, and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling; provide a first propulsion command encoding instructions to control the first electric machine and the second electric machine to provide a combined propulsion force fulfilling the propulsion request; receive a fourth set of vehicle parameters after having provided the first propulsion command; determine, based on the fourth set of vehicle parameters, that an understeer tendency of the vehicle during propulsion is higher than a predefined third understeer tendency threshold; and provide a second propulsion command encoding instructions to control the first electric machine and the second electric machine to increase a propulsion force on the rear drive axle of the tractor, and decrease a propulsion force on the front axle of the tractor, so that the combined propulsion force fulfills the propulsion request.
However, Craig teaches controlling a distribution of propulsion force to minimize understeer or oversteer (column 3 line 18, “Generally, a torque-based stability control system may automatically adjust (increase or decrease) the torque that is supplied to one or more wheels to correct an unstable driving condition”).
As disclosed in the instant application, it would have been obvious that the method of controlling the braking configuration to minimize understeering or oversteering could be used instead with a propulsion configuration (par. 62, “the skilled person will be able to suitably control the propulsion based on the examples provided herein for braking, and his/her own knowledge”). Therefore, It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Alders in view of Craig to further incorporate the teachings of Craig to minimize understeer or oversteer using a propulsion configuration as detailed in claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches a vehicle comprising the computer system of claim 1 (Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the vehicle of claim 8. Alders further teaches the vehicle includes an electrically powered (par. 3, vehicle is an electric vehicle) with an electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor (Fig. 1, rear electric machine 26).
Alders fails to explicitly teach the vehicle includes an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling. Alders does not specify the type of vehicle. However, understeering and oversteering is a known problem for semi-trailer trucks, among other vehicles. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method for reducing understeering and oversteering would be applicable to a wide variety of vehicles, including a tractor with a trailer.
Craig explicitly teaches an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling (Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Alders to incorporate the teachings of Craig to make the vehicle a tractor and a trailer.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the vehicle of claim 8. Alders further teaches the vehicle includes an electrically powered (par. 3, vehicle is an electric vehicle) with a first electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor (Fig. 1, rear electric machine 26), a second electric machine coupled to a front drive axle of the tractor (front electric machine 22).
Alders fails to explicitly teach the vehicle includes a tractor. Alders does not specify the type of vehicle. However, understeering and oversteering is a known problem for semi-trailer trucks, among other vehicles. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method for reducing understeering and oversteering would be applicable to a wide variety of vehicles, including a tractor.
Craig explicitly teaches a tractor (Fig. 5, vehicle 700).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Alders to incorporate the teachings of Craig to make the vehicle a tractor.
Regarding claim 11, Alders teaches a computer-implemented method of reducing understeer of a vehicle (Fig. 1, motor vehicle 10) including an electrically powered (par. 3, vehicle is an electric vehicle) with an electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor (Fig. 1, rear electric machine 26),
receiving, by a computer system, a braking request for braking the vehicle (par. 3, "a method for distributing a braking torque requested by a driver");
providing, by the computer system, a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least a front axle of the tractor (front axle VL), on the rear drive axle of the tractor (rear axle HL), (par. 2, “As is known, the distribution of the friction braking torque to the axles can be scalar, i.e., the distribution of the friction braking torque to the front and rear axles is hydraulically fixed, as in... B. 60%/40%, or axle specific, i.e. the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation");
receiving, by the computer system, a first set of vehicle parameters (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determining, by the computer system, based on the first set of vehicle parameters, that an understeer tendency of the vehicle during braking is higher than a predefined first understeer tendency threshold (par. 7, "it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present");
and providing, by the computer system, a second braking command encoding instructions to increase a braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor using regeneration, decrease a braking force on the front axle of the tractor, (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels”).
Alders fails to explicitly teach the vehicle includes an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling; provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least one axle of the trailer; and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to decrease a braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer. Alders does not specify the type of vehicle. However, understeering and oversteering is a known problem for semi-trailer trucks, among other vehicles. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method for reducing understeering and oversteering would be applicable to a wide variety of vehicles, including a tractor with a trailer.
Craig explicitly teaches an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling (Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800); provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least one axle of the trailer; and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to decrease a braking force on the at least one axle of the trailer (column 1 line 40, "providing stability control of the wheeled vehicle and the trailer using the automatically chosen dominant stability control system").
Alders fails to teach to control braking on the trailer since Alders does not explicitly teach a trailer. However, controlling brakes on trailers in order to combat understeering or oversteering is well-known in the art, as seen in Craig. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Alders in view of Craig to further incorporate the teachings of Craig in order to better control the stability of the vehicle. It would have been an obvious improvement with reasonable expectation of success to modify Alders’ method to be usable on a variety of different vehicles, including a tractor trailer combination vehicle. Craig teaches the general concept that a trailer may be coupled to a vehicle and that stability control may be provided for both. Alders teaches understeer or oversteer of a vehicle can be mitigated by changing the distribution of braking force between the axles of a vehicle. It would have been obvious that this method could be transferrable to a tractor trailer combination vehicle. It also would be obvious that the distribution of braking force could be changed on all axles of the vehicle, which would include the trailer axles.
Alders also fails to explicitly teach an understeer tendency threshold. However, Alders does teach “a brake force distribution counteracting the understeer or oversteer situation is applied, wherein the braking torque requested by the driver is achieved by means of the applied, i.e., the understeer or oversteer” (par. 7). It would have been obvious that there would be some kind of threshold to determine if there is understeer or oversteer present so that the system could act accordingly.
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches the method of claim 11. Alders further teaches the method further comprises:
receiving, by the computer system, a second set of vehicle parameters after having provided the second braking command (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determining, by the computer system, based on the second set of vehicle parameters, that the understeer tendency of the vehicle during braking is lower than a predefined second understeer tendency threshold, lower than the first understeer tendency threshold (par. 7, "it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present");
and providing, by the computer system, a third braking command encoding instructions to decrease the braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor, and increase the braking force on the front axle of the tractor, so that the combined braking force fulfills the braking request (par. 7, "it if an understeer or oversteer situation is present, a brake force distribution counteracting the understeer or oversteer situation is applied").
While it is not explicitly taught to receive a second set of vehicle parameters and to determine an understeer tendency of the vehicle a second time, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method would be used to continuously minimize understeer. Alders states that is it known that “the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation" (par. 2). Alders would continuously adjust the braking distribution.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Alders in view of Craig teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by the processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform the method of claim 11 (although not explicitly taught, one of ordinary skill in the art would assume Alders’ control unit 28 uses code stored on a computer-readable storage medium).
Claim(s) 1 is/are alternatively rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alders in view of Craig, and further in view of Gee (US 4804237 A).
Regarding claim 1, Alders teaches a computer system comprising processing circuitry (Fig. 1, control unit 28) configured to:
receive a braking request (par. 3, "a method for distributing a braking torque requested by a driver") for braking a vehicle (Fig. 1, motor vehicle 10) including an electrically powered (par. 3, vehicle is an electric vehicle) with an electric machine coupled to a rear drive axle of the tractor (Fig. 1, rear electric machine 26),
provide a first braking command encoding instructions to control braking on at least a front axle of the tractor (front axle VL), and on the rear drive axle of the tractor (rear axle HL) to provide a combined braking force fulfilling the braking request (par. 2, “As is known, the distribution of the friction braking torque to the axles can be scalar, i.e., the distribution of the friction braking torque to the front and rear axles is hydraulically fixed, as in... B. 60%/40%, or axle specific, i.e. the distribution between the front and rear axles can be variably changed during operation");
receive a first set of vehicle parameters (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels);
determine, based on the first set of vehicle parameters, that an understeer tendency of the vehicle during braking is higher than a predefined first understeer tendency threshold (par. 7, "it is checked whether a driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer is present");
and provide a second braking command encoding instructions to increase a braking force on the rear drive axle of the tractor using regeneration, and decrease a braking force on the front axle of the tractor, so that the combined braking force fulfills the braking request (par. 19, "the check to determine whether driving instability in the form of understeer or oversteer exists when cornering is carried out using sensors that are standard in today's motor vehicles and a corresponding evaluation of the data provided by these sensors, such as a detected lateral acceleration and/or a detected slip of a wheel of the motor vehicle and /or based on a yaw rate and/or yaw rate difference and/or a vehicle speed and/or a difference in wheel speeds of the wheels between the front and rear axles or the right and left side of the motor vehicle and/or a traction utilization at the wheels”).
Alders fails to explicitly teach the vehicle includes an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling. Alders does not specify the type of vehicle. However, understeering and oversteering is a known problem for semi-trailer trucks, among other vehicles. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that Alders’ method for reducing understeering and oversteering would be applicable to a wide variety of vehicles, including a tractor with a trailer.
Craig explicitly teaches an electrically powered tractor and a trailer coupled to the tractor by an articulated coupling (Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Alders to incorporate the teachings of Craig to make the vehicle a tractor and a trailer.
Alders also fails to explicitly teach an understeer tendency threshold. However, Alders does teach “a brake force distribution counteracting the understeer or oversteer situation is applied, wherein the braking torque requested by the driver is achieved by means of the applied, i.e., the understeer or oversteer” (par. 7). It would have been obvious that there would be some kind of threshold to determine if there is understeer or oversteer present so that the system could act accordingly.
Both Alders and Craig fail to explicitly teach the braking commands could include controlling braking on at least one axle of the trailer. Alders instead teaches that distributing a braking force to the front and rear axles of a vehicle can help counteract understeer (Alders par. 7). Craig teaches that such stability control systems can be used in a tractor trailer combination vehicle (see Craig Fig. 5, vehicle 700 and trailer 800).
Gee more explicitly teaches controlling braking on at least one axle of the trailer (column 1 line 11, “[t]his invention relates to controls for brake systems for multiple vehicle systems (i.e. tractor-trailer vehicles). In particular, this invention relates to controls for tractor-trailer brake systems which, depending upon the level of operator demand for braking, will distribute the braking effort between the individually controllable vehicle brake sites, such as between sub-vehicle brake systems, to achieve inter-vehicle balanced braking or proportional braking or a compromise thereof”) in order to increase stability (column 2 line 62, “the system will distribute the braking effort in proportion to load to maximize vehicle braking capability and stability”).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Alders and Craig to incorporate the teachings of Gee to add controlling braking on at least one axle of the trailer to maximize vehicle braking capability and stability (column 2 line 62).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Christian Chace can be reached at (571) 272-4190. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/M.L.H./Examiner, Art Unit 3665 /CHRISTIAN CHACE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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