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 .
Status of Claims
This communication is in response to application No. 18/947,672 filed on 9 June 2026. Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 have been amended. Claims 2, 4, and 12 are cancelled. Claims 1, 3, 5-11 are currently pending and presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9 June 2026 is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim priority for foreign applications CN202411562719.4, filed on 11/04/2024.
Response to Applicant’s Remarks
Applicant's amendment and/or arguments with respect to the Abstract, and rejection of claims under 35 USC 112(b) and 35 USC 103 as set forth in the office action of 17 March 2026 have been considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the Specification objections and rejection of claims under 35 USC 112(b) and 35 USC 103 as set forth in the office action of 17 March 2026 have been withdrawn.
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, 3, 5-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim 1 is directed to a method; therefore, claim 1 is within at least one of the four statutory categories.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong I
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 claims 1 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea (emphasized below) and claim 1 will be used as a representative claim for the remainder of the 101 rejection.
Claim 1 recites:
A method for diagnosing vehicle faults based on an environment- adaptive Bayesian network, the method comprising:
(S1) receiving, by one or more processors, an input of a faulty symptom of a vehicle into a vehicle fault detection system;
(S2) extracting and analyzing, by one or more processors, a feature of the faulty symptom, and selecting, by one or more processors and through a similarity calculation, a first weighted association fault tree model having a highest similarity with the feature of the faulty symptom from a library comprising a plurality of weighted association fault tree models, based on the faulty symptom;
(S3) mapping, by one or more processors, the first weighted association fault tree model to an environment-adaptive Bayesian network;
(S4) calculating, by one or more processors, a credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network; and
(S5) generating, by one or more processors, a fault ranking and a fault status information based on the credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network and initiating a multimedia fault alert
wherein step (S4) comprises:
(S401) defining the leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network, the leaf node representing a fault mode or a fault source;
(S402) receiving an input of an environmental factor, the environmental factor comprising a real-time environmental parameter; and
(S403) calculating the credibility P. (T)of the leaf node ei within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network using Formula I:
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where F (e; /T) is a first fault probability of the leaf node ei, F, (e; /T) is a second fault probability of the leaf node ei, and F(T) is a system fault probability calculated based on respective fault probabilities of a plurality of leaf nodes within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network.
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 or able to be done by a human with a pencil and paper. For example, “mapping...” in the context of this claim encompasses a person looking at data collected and forming a judgement by matching. Accordingly, the claim recites at least one abstract idea.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong II
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”):
Claim 1 recites:
A method for diagnosing vehicle faults based on an environment- adaptive Bayesian network, the method comprising:
(S1) receiving, by one or more processors, an input of a faulty symptom of a vehicle into a vehicle fault detection system;
(S2) extracting and analyzing, by one or more processors, a feature of the faulty symptom, and selecting, by one or more processors and through a similarity calculation, a first weighted association fault tree model having a highest similarity with the feature of the faulty symptom from a library comprising a plurality of weighted association fault tree models, based on the faulty symptom;
(S3) mapping, by one or more processors, the first weighted association fault tree model to an environment-adaptive Bayesian network;
(S4) calculating, by one or more processors, a credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network; and
(S5) generating, by one or more processors, a fault ranking and a fault status information based on the credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network and initiating a multimedia fault alert
wherein step (S4) comprises:
(S401) defining the leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network, the leaf node representing a fault mode or a fault source;
(S402) receiving an input of an environmental factor, the environmental factor comprising a real-time environmental parameter; and
(S403) calculating the credibility P. (T)of the leaf node ei within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network using Formula I:
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where F (e; /T) is a first fault probability of the leaf node ei, F, (e; /T) is a second fault probability of the leaf node ei, and F(T) is a system fault probability calculated based on respective fault probabilities of a plurality of leaf nodes within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network.
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.
Regarding the additional limitations of “receiving...,” the examiner submits that these limitations are insignificant extra-solution activities that merely use a computer to perform the process. In particular, the receiving steps amounts to data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity.
Thus, taken alone, the additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Further, looking at the additional limitation(s) as an ordered combination or as a whole, the limitation(s) add nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. For instance, there is no indication that the additional elements, when considered as a whole, reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to another technology or technical field, apply or use the above-noted judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, implement/use the above-noted judicial exception with a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP § 2106.05). Accordingly, the additional limitation(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
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, the additional limitations of “receiving an input...,” these limitations are insignificant extra-solution activities.
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 “receiving an input...,” are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities. 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
Hence, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claim(s) 3, 5-11 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 as mathematical concepts and/or well-understood, routine and conventional additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Therefore, dependent claims 3, 5-11 are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of claim 1.
Therefore, claim(s) 1, 3, 5-11 are ineligible under 35 USC §101.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3, 5-11 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the claim objection(s) and claim rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101 as set forth in this Office Action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The closest prior art of Li (CN113592012A) teaches a fault diagnosis method using a Bayesian network that incorporates similarity calculations to the fault symptom as well as a reliability measurement. However, Li does not explicitly teach extracting and analyzing, by one or more processors, a feature of the faulty symptom, and selecting, by one or more processors and through a similarity calculation, a first weighted association fault tree model having a highest similarity with the feature of the faulty symptom from a library comprising a plurality of weighted association fault tree models, based on the faulty symptom; (S3) mapping, by one or more processors, the first weighted association fault tree model to an environment-adaptive Bayesian network; (S4) calculating, by one or more processors, a credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network; and (S5) generating, by one or more processors, a fault ranking and a fault status information based on the credibility of each leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network and initiating a multimedia fault alert wherein step (S4) comprises: (S401) defining the leaf node within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network, the leaf node representing a fault mode or a fault source; (S402) receiving an input of an environmental factor, the environmental factor comprising a real-time environmental parameter; and (S403) calculating the credibility P. (T)of the leaf node ei within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network using Formula I:
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248
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where F (e; /T) is a first fault probability of the leaf node ei, F, (e; /T) is a second fault probability of the leaf node ei, and F(T) is a system fault probability calculated based on respective fault probabilities of a plurality of leaf nodes within the environment-adaptive Bayesian network.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HANA VICTORIA HALL whose telephone number is (571)272-5289. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rachid Bendidi can be reached at 5712724896. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HANA VICTORIA HALL/ Examiner, Art Unit 3664
/RACHID BENDIDI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3664
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