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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/13/2024 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. It is unclear if claims 6 and 7 are independent or dependent. The fee sheet 10/24/2024 treats the claim as dependent and the claim does reference another claim, but the claim alters the preamble of the claim which indicates that it is independent. The conflicting structure and referencing another claim make it unclear. Examiner recommends cutting and pasting the parts of claim 1 into claim 6 and claim 7 and making it clearly independent.
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 6 and Claim 7 the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because they are improper product by process type claims. The process of claim 1 does not produce the products of claim 6 and 7. Examiner recommend making clearly independent.
Alice type rejection – Abstract Idea Mental Process
As to claim 1-7 the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are directed to a mental process of determining a motion trajectory (Process claims 1-5 and apparatus for claim 6-7).
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong 1
Regarding Prong I of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether they recite subject matter that falls within one of the follow groups of abstract ideas: a) mathematical concepts, b) certain methods of organizing human activity, and/or c) mental processes.
Independent claim 1 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea – mental process (emphasized below) and will be used as a representative claim for the remainder of the 101 rejection. Claim 1 recites:
A data writing method comprising:
obtaining a trained model constructed in advance by machine learning to estimate a state of a vehicle that is one of a human-powered vehicle or an electric bicycle; and
writing, in a nonvolatile memory area of a semiconductor memory, the trained model obtained in the obtaining to a third area that is different from both a first area in which a bootloader is stored and a second area in which an application that references the trained model is stored. (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations” while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”)
The examiner submits that the foregoing bolded limitation(s) constitute a “mental process” because under its broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim covers performance of the limitation in the human mind. For example, “writing…” in the context of this claim encompasses a person looking at data collected and save/write it. Accordingly, the claim recites at least one abstract idea – mental process.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong 2
Regarding Prong II of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether the claim, as a whole, integrates the abstract into a practical application. As noted in the 2019 PEG, it must be determined whether any additional elements in the claim beyond the abstract idea integrate the exception into a practical application in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The courts have indicated that additional elements merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use do not integrate a judicial exception into a “practical application.”
In the present case, the additional limitations beyond the above-noted abstract idea are as follows (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations” while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”) See above.
For the following reason(s), the examiner submits that the above identified additional limitations do not integrate the above-noted abstract idea into a practical application. Claim 1 includes a processing apparatus. Regarding the additional limitations of “memory” “Controller” (claim 7) that merely describes how to generally “apply” the otherwise mental judgements in a generic or general-purpose processing environment. The processing is recited at a high level of generality and merely automates the determining process steps.
101 Analysis – Step 2B
Regarding Step 2B of the 2019 PEG, representative independent claim 1 does not include additional elements (considered both individually and as an ordered combination) that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons to those discussed above with respect to determining that the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. As discussed above with respect to integration of the mental process into a practical application, the additional element of using a controller and memory to perform the determining amounts to nothing more than applying the exception using a generic computer component. Generally applying an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
Further, a conclusion that an additional element is insignificant extra-solution activity in Step 2A should be re-evaluated in Step 2B to determine if they are more than what is well understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. The additional limitations of processing with a processing apparatus are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities because the specification does not provide any indication that the processing apparatus is anything other than a conventional computer. MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), and the cases cited therein, including Intellectual Ventures I, LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2016), TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 610 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015), indicate that mere collection or receipt of data over a network is a well‐understood, routine, and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner. Here, obtaining data is pre-solution activity and not significantly more. Writing/storing is extra-solution activity. The vehicle body is merely the environment to apply the abstract idea.
Dependent claim(s) 2-5 do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claims are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and/or well-understood, routine and conventional additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they merely add to the mental processing. Therefore, dependent claims 2-5 are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of independent claims 1, 6, and 7.
Therefore, claim(s) 1-7 is/are ineligible under 35 USC §101. Examiner recommends a controlling step. Executing an application via controller (sends a signal but there need not be a control) is not significantly more, but a vehicle control is.
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song CN 109606333 A in view of Westund US 20200363296 A1.
As to claim 1, Song suggests a data writing method comprising:
obtaining a trained model constructed in advance (Song: Bosch ABS system diagnosis program “the Bossco comprises Bossco ABS ABS system diagnostic program communication protocol program and Bosch ABS fault diagnostic program, the ABS system diagnostic procedure comprises and ABS ABS communication protocol program fault diagnosis program.”); and
writing, in a nonvolatile memory area of a semiconductor memory, the trained model obtained in the obtaining to a third area that is different from both a first area in which a bootloader is stored and a second area in which an application that references the trained model is stored [Song: The bootloader (corresponds to Applicant’s bootloader in a first area) AND Bosch and ABS system diagnostic program system diagnosis program (corresponds to Applicant’s trained model constructed in advance in a second area) AND the jump program of Bosch or ABS. (corresponds to the second area where an application that references the trained model is stored )“the bootloader program comprises sending handshaking instructions to the motorbike ECU Bosch and ABS ABS system diagnostic program system diagnosis program of the program, further comprising after receiving the handshaking instruction returned by the ECU of the jump to the jump program of Bosch or ABS ABS system diagnosis program corresponding system diagnostic program.” “3) receiving the returned by the ECU fault code and transmits it to the upper computer.”].
Song discloses preconstructed diagnostic models applied to motor bikes, but does not disclose the use of machine learning to create the models or the application to electric bicycles. Westund discloses that training models may be created in machine learning [Westund: 0052-0054] and that electric bicycles [Westund: 0019] may be the environment of use. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the way the diagnostic model is constructed and the environment of use of Song to be made using machine learning and to be used in an electric bicycle environment as suggested in Westund as it merely uses a known device, (electric bicycle of Wesund with computer configuration of Song) in a known way (Song’s interaction in diagnostics stored in memory) with predictable results for the benefit of reducing false positives on repairs [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 2, Song in view of Westund suggests wherein the trained model is a model that estimates an air pressure of a tire of the vehicle [Westund: 0031]. See claim 1 for motivation [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 3, Song in view of Westund suggests wherein in the obtaining, when an instruction to select a type of vehicle from among a plurality of types of vehicles is received during manufacture of the semiconductor memory, the trained model corresponding to the type of vehicle is obtained [Westund: 0019]. See claim 1 for motivation [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 4, Song in view of Westund suggests wherein in the obtaining, when an instruction to select a type of trained model from among a plurality of types of trained models is received after manufacture of the semiconductor memory, the type of trained model is obtained [Westund: 0052-0054]. See claim 1 for motivation [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 5, Song in view of Westund suggests wherein the semiconductor memory comprises a plurality of semiconductor memories, and the plurality of semiconductor memories include a first semiconductor memory including the first area and the second area, and a second semiconductor memory including the third area [Song: Fig. 1, “the bootloader program, Bossco and ABS ABS system diagnostic program system diagnostic program are respectively recorded in different address ranges of the Flash and Bossco storage address of the ABS system diagnosis program and the ABS system diagnostic program is bootloader program after the storage address. Specifically, in FLASH, generally starting from lowest address area storing bootloader, immediately followed by the other two parts of the program. As shown in FIG. 1, the processor of the motorcycle apparatus (can be processor whose model number is STM32) after reset, firstly from the 0X08000004 address resetting interrupt address vector, and jumping to the reset interruption service program; After the interrupt service program after executing the reset, it will jump to the bootloader main function, shown in Figure label; after executing the bootloader, jumping to the reset vector table of Bosch or ABS system diagnostic program.”]. See claim 1 for motivation [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 6, Song in view of Westund suggests a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium [See Song’s storage] having recorded thereon a program for causing one or more processors to execute the data writing method according to claim 1 [See claim 1 for rejection rational related to claim 1 limitations]. See claim 1 for motivation [Westund: 0002].
As to claim 7, Song in view of Westund suggests a vehicle that is one of a human-powered vehicle or an electric bicycle [See claim 1], the vehicle comprising:
a body [not further limiting a vehicle or bicycle have a body.];
a semiconductor memory to which data has been written using the data writing method according to claim 1 [See claim 1 for rejection rational related to claim 1 limitations]; and
a controller that references the trained model stored in the third area of the semiconductor memory to execute the application stored in the second area [Song: see ECU]. See claim 1 for motivation to combine.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20230229425 A1 The subject disclosure relates to techniques for updating a bootloader on a embedded device. In some aspects, a process of the disclosed technology can include steps for calculating a digest for an existing bootloader stored on the bootloader memory, determining if the digest for the existing bootloader matches a digest for a target bootloader, and copying the target bootloader to the bootloader memory, if the digest for the existing bootloader does not match the digest for the target bootloader. Systems and computer-readable media are also provided.
US 11124266 B2 A human-powered vehicle control device includes an electronic controller that controls a human-powered vehicle component including at least one of a motor assisting in propulsion of a human-powered vehicle and a transmission changing a first ratio of a rotational speed of a drive wheel to a rotational speed of a crank of the human-powered vehicle. The electronic controller controls the human-powered vehicle component in a first control state and a second control state differing from the first control state. The electronic controller changes the first control state to the second control state upon determining a value related to a first change rate of an inclination angle of the human-powered vehicle is greater than or equal to a first predetermined value in the first control state. The inclination angle of the human-powered vehicle includes at least one of a yaw angle and a roll angle of the human-powered vehicle.
US 12384487 B2 An electric bicycle includes a front wheel, a rear wheel, an electric traction motor which drives the front and/or rear wheel, a traction battery which supplies the electric traction motor with electrical power, a controller for actuating the electric traction motor, a pushing-aid controller for controlling an adaptive pushing-aid function which is assisted by the electric traction motor depending on an interaction force between a person pushing and the electric bicycle, an inclination sensor for determining an inclination angle of the electric bicycle relative to the ground, a traction-motor torque determining device for determining a current traction-motor torque, an electric-bicycle speed sensor for determining a current electric-bicycle speed, and an electric-bicycle weight memory which stores a current electric-bicycle weight value. The interaction force is determined by the pushing-aid controller from the inclination angle, the current traction-motor torque, the current electric-bicycle speed, and the current electric-bicycle weight value.
The examiner has pointed out particular references contained in the prior art of record in the body of this action for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. Applicant should consider the entire prior art as applicable as to the limitations of the claims. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the response, to consider fully the entire references as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FREDERICK M BRUSHABER whose telephone number is (313)446-4839. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hunter Lonsberry can be reached at (571) 272-7298. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FREDERICK M BRUSHABER/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3665
/FREDERICK M BRUSHABER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665