DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite a device for detecting a driver abnormality which is considered a judicial exception because it falls under Mental Processes such as concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application as discussed below and the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception as discussed below.
This rejection follows the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed Reg 4, January 7, 2019, pp. 50-57 (“2019 PEG”).
Analysis
Step 1 (Statutory Categories) – 2019 PEG pg. 53
Claims 1-13 are directed to the statutory category of a process.
Step 2A, Prong 1 (Do the claims recite an abstract idea?) – 2019 PEG pg. 54
For independent claims 1, 10, and 13, the claim recites an abstract idea of: detecting a driver abnormality. The steps of independent claim 1 recite the abstract idea (in bold below) of: “A driver abnormality sign detection device detecting an abnormality sign of a driver driving a vehicle, the driver abnormality sign detection device comprising: a control circuit configured to detect the abnormality sign of the driver based on visual line information acquired from a visual line detector and from a visual line parameter detector, wherein the control circuit is configured to acquire a predetermined reference feature amount representing motion of the visual line, calculate the visual line parameter based on the information acquired from the visual line parameter detector, and determine a correction value for correcting the reference feature amount based on the visual line parameter, calculate a predicted feature amount representing the motion of the visual line by correcting the reference feature amount with the correction value, calculate a visual line abnormality degree which represents an extent that an actual feature amount based on the visual line information and representing the motion of the visual line differs from the predicted feature amount, and detect, based on the visual line abnormality degree, absence or presence of the abnormality sign of the driver”. Independent claims 10, and 13 recite similar steps that recite the abstract idea. Independent claims 1, 10, and 13, as drafted, are a process that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, covers Mental Processes, since they recite concepts performed in the human mind. If the claim limitations, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, covers Mental Processes but for the recitation of additional elements including generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Other than reciting the abstract idea, the independent claims recite additional elements including generic computer components such as “a device comprising a control circuit, and a non-transitory computer readable storage device having computer readable instructions executed by a circuitry”, and nothing in the claims precludes the steps from being performed as a Mental Process. Accordingly, the independent claims recite an abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2-9, 11, and 12 recite similar limitations as independent claims 1, 10, and 13; and when analyzed as a whole are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101 because the additional recited limitations only refine the abstract idea further. Other than reciting the abstract idea, the dependent claims recite similar additional elements including generic computer components as the independent claims, such as “the device, the control circuit, a vehicle state influence model, a travelling environment influence model, and a head behavior influence model”. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mental processes, but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas.
Step 2A, Prong 2 (Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?) – 2019 PEG pg. 54
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, independent claims 1, 10, and 13 only recite the additional elements of “a device comprising a control circuit, and a non-transitory computer readable storage device having computer readable instructions executed by a circuitry”. A plain reading of the Figures and associated descriptions in the specification reveals that generic processors may be used to execute the claimed steps. The additional elements are recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing generic computer functions) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components (See MPEP 2106.05(f)) and limits the judicial exception to a particular environment (See MPEP 2106.05(h)). Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component and limiting the judicial exception to a particular environment doesn’t integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Hence, independent claims 1, 10, and 13 are directed to an abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2-9, 11, and 12, recite similar additional elements as the independent claims including generic computer components, such as “the device, the control circuit, a vehicle state influence model, a travelling environment influence model, and a head behavior influence model”. The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements in the dependent claims are also recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts to more no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Therefore, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they also do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Also, the claims do not affect an improvement to another technology or technical field; the claims do not amount to an improvement of the functioning of a computer system itself; the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; and the claims do not move beyond a general link of the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment.
Step 2B (Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?) – 2019 PEG pg. 56
Independent claims 1, 10, and 13 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the recited additional elements amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component (See MPEP 2106.05(f)) and limits the judicial exception to the particular environment of computers (See MPEP 2106.05(h)). The additional elements of the instant underlying process, when taken in combination, together do not offer substantially more than the sum of the function of the elements when each is taken alone. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept in Step 2B.
In addition, the dependent claims 2-9, 11, and 12, do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of the dependent claims to perform the claimed limitations, amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). Similar to the independent claims, mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Also, for the same reasoning as the independent claims, the additional elements of the limitations of the dependent claims, when considered individually and as an ordered combination, together do not offer significantly more than the sum of the functions of the elements when each is taken alone and the dependent claims as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. For these reasons, the dependent claims also are not patent eligible.
Claims 10, 13 are rejected based on at least the same reasons of Claim 1. The dependent claims are rejected because the claims ultimately depend from rejected independent claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-13 are allowed over prior art.
Conclusion
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/YI-KAI WANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747