DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on 09/02/2026. Claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 16-19 is/are pending and are examined. Claim(s) 5-6, 9-15, and 20 are cancelled.
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 with respect to amended claim(s) 1 and 16 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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) 1-2, 7-8, and 16-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Feit (US 10,491,733 B2), hereinafter Feit in view of Lee (US 2021/0155122 A1), hereinafter Lee in further view of Batie (US 2024/0427927 A1), hereinafter Batie in even further view of KRISHNAMURTHI (US 2017/0255786 A1), hereinafter Krish.
Regarding Claim(s) 1 and 16 Feit teaches:
A method for displaying information on display areas inside a vehicle with privacy considerations, the method comprising: (Feit Col. 1 Ln. 30-35 teaches, the driver of the vehicle may not want his or her information to be public or displayed in a public manner or in view of a passenger or other occupant of the vehicle, such as when sensitive information may be exposed. Feit Fig. 6 and Col. 15-16 Ln. 55-67 and 1-25 teaches, a system 600 including a computing device 612 configured to implement one or more embodiments provided herein. In one configuration, computing device 612 includes at least one processing unit 616 and memory 618. Depending on the exact configuration and type of computing device, memory 618 may be volatile, such as RAM, non-volatile, such as ROM, flash memory, etc., or a combination of the two.)
determining, by the computing device, a range of information disclosure inside the vehicle based on […] thereby providing only information corresponding to the range of information disclosure determined based on the […]. (Feit Col. 8 Ln. 25-32 teaches, A semi-public or semi-private shortcut or icon may appear in a public view, a private view, both the public view and the private view, and may enable at least partial operation of an associated application. For example, an application designated as a semi-private application may have different functionality than an application designated as public or private. (i.e., range of information) Here, in this example, the semi-private application may have a lower level of access or limited functionality.),
Feit does not appear to explicitly teach but in related art:
in response to detecting that a passenger is onboard the vehicle in addition to a […], calculating, by a computing device, an intimacy score based on a predefined condition between the vehicle owner and the passenger; and (Lee ¶ 172-173 teaches, When determining the relationship between the passengers, the processor may determine the relationship between the passengers by applying a passenger relationship estimation algorithm to the information on at least one of video of the inside of the vehicle or sound of the inside of the vehicle. (i.e., intimacy score) the processor may determine any one of a plurality of relationships according to intimacy. Here, the plurality of relationships may be, for example, any one of a lower relationship having the lowest level of intimacy (for example, a stranger relationship), an upper relationship having the highest level of intimacy (for example, a couple or family relationship), or an intermediate relationship other than the lower relationship and the upper relationship (for example, a friend or work colleague relationship), but is not limited thereto.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill the art, prior to the applicant's earliest effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Feit with Lee, to modify the method for privacy management with the relationships and intimacy of vehicle occupants of Lee. The motivation to do so, Lee ¶ 185, may prevent an item owned by a passenger in a vehicle from being stolen or used by another passenger without the permission of the passenger.
Feit in view of Lee does not appear to explicitly teach but in related art:
vehicle owner (Batie ¶ 46 teaches, Each interested party (i.e., owner, user, company, agency, etc.) may want to limit the exposure of private information, and therefore the blockchain and its immutability can be used to manage permissions for each particular user vehicle profile.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill the art, prior to the applicant's earliest effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Feit in view of Lee with Batie, to modify the method for privacy management with the relationships and intimacy of vehicle occupants of Lee with the vehicle owner of Batie. The motivation to do so, Batie ¶ 46, to manage permissions for each particular user vehicle profile.
Feit-Lee-Batie does not appear to explicitly teach but in related art:
displaying both general content and personal information on the display areas, wherein the personal information is divided into a range of first disclosure level and a range of second disclosure level, the range of first disclosure level having more information than the range of second disclosure level (Krish ¶ 2 teaches, In various use cases, the private, confidential, or otherwise sensitive information could deal with work-related information, email, health information, financial information, or any other information that the user may consider sensitive. (i.e., general and personal information). ¶ 35 teaches, the privacy filter may optionally be adjusted depending on the content sensitivity level. For example, highly sensitive content may be blocked from display while less sensitive content may simply be dimmed. As such, the privacy filter may generally take the sensitivity level into consideration in determining the particular filtering techniques to be applied in the areas outside the current area having interest to the user. (i.e., multiple ranges of disclosure))
wherein when the intimacy score corresponds to the range of first disclosure level, the personal information displayed on a first area corresponding to a gaze of the passenger among the display areas is blinded, and when the intimacy score corresponds to the range of second disclosure level, the general content and the personal information excluding predefined information are displayed on the first area. (Krish ¶ 35 teaches, the privacy filter may optionally be adjusted (i.e., predefined rules for information occlusion) depending on the content sensitivity level. For example, highly sensitive content may be blocked from display (i.e., second range is blinded) while less sensitive content may simply be dimmed. As such, the privacy filter may generally take the sensitivity level into consideration in determining the particular filtering techniques to be applied in the areas outside the current area having interest to the user.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill the art, prior to the applicant's earliest effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Feit-Lee-Batie with Krish, to modify the method for privacy management with the relationships and intimacy of vehicle occupants of Lee with the vehicle owner of Batie with the privacy based off tracking eye movement of Krish. The motivation to do so, Krish ¶ 3, to protect unauthorized users from viewing sensitive information displayed on the screen.
Regarding Claim(s) 2 and 17 Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches:
The method of claim 1, (Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches the parent claim above.) wherein calculating the intimacy score includes calculating the intimacy score in response to detecting that the passenger is onboard the vehicle (Lee ¶ 172-174 teaches, determining the relationship between the passengers, the processor may check the reservation time and seat number of the passengers for the vehicle in the subscriber list in the memory, and based on the check result, determine the relationship between the passengers in the vehicle. For example, when the reservation time of the passengers from the subscriber list is within a predetermined time (30 seconds) and the positions reserved by the passengers are first and second seats (seat numbers 1 and 2) adjacent to each other, the processor may determine the relationship between the passengers seated in the first and second seats as the upper relationship having the highest level of intimacy.) using touch sensors and/or door open detection sensors provided on external handles of the vehicle. (Lee ¶ 88-89 teaches, the input module may input to the controller a signal for designating and deactivating at least one of the plurality of sensor modules of the object detector according to the user's input. The input module may be disposed inside the vehicle. For example, the input module may be disposed in one area of a steering wheel, one area of an instrument panel, (i.e., touch sensor) one area of a seat, one area of each pillar, one area of a door, one area of a center console, one area of a head lining, one area of a sun visor, one area of a windshield, or one area of a window.)
Regarding Claim(s) 7 Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches:
The method of claim 1, (Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches the parent claim above.) wherein the predefined information includes financial information of the vehicle owner and personal messages of the vehicle owner (Feit Col. 8 Ln. 45-54 teaches, a banking application marked as private may be disabled from running when a privacy component places the system in privacy mode. The privacy component may enable one or more features of the banking application when the system is in semi-private or semi-public mode, such as by enabling transactions to occur, but disabling balance information from being shown or rendered, for example. In public mode, the banking application may function in typical fashion.)
Regarding Claim(s) 8 Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches:
The method of claim 1, (Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches the parent claim above.) wherein the computing device is a display device provided in the vehicle or a server communicating with the vehicle. (Feit Col. 7 Ln. 48-57 teaches, the management component may enable a user to manage privacy of one or more content items, one or more applications, or media consumed while one or more occupants are in a vehicle. For example, the management component may provide one or more options, management options, or privacy options for one or more content items or applications. As discussed, examples of options may include adding, removing, or rearranging shortcuts to or from a display, display component, heads up display (HUD), center console display, etc.)
Claim(s) 3 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view Oshima (WO 2024/090065 A1), hereinafter Oshima.
Regarding Claim(s) 3 and 18 Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the intimacy score includes: (Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches the parent claim above.)
recognizing a face area of the passenger from an image captured by photographing the passenger; and … stored on a terminal of the vehicle owner, that include a face recognized as identical to the face area of the passenger.
(Lee ¶ 172 teaches, the processor may determine the relationship between the passengers by applying a passenger relationship estimation algorithm to the information on at least one of video of the inside of the vehicle or sound of the inside of the vehicle, or may determine the relationship between the passengers according to a predetermined relationship criterion (for example, words (appellations) in speech from which a relationship can be inferred, tone (or intonation), gestures related to behavior (for example, physical contact), gaze (for example, eye contact frequency), expression, whether an object is shared, and sitting posture) based on the information.)
Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish does not appear to explicitly teach but in related art:
calculating the intimacy score based on a number of photographs, (Oshima ¶ 166-167 teaches, each character is managed by a character ID, and its number of appearances, number of photographs, number of prints, type, number of appearance changes, intimacy level, etc. are individually recorded. Intimacy level is the intimacy level of the character. Intimacy level changes depending on, for example, the number of appearances, the frequency of appearance (number of times it appears within a specified period), the period since the character last appeared, etc.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill the art, prior to the applicant's earliest effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish with Oshima, to modify the method for privacy management with the relationships and intimacy of vehicle occupants of Lee with the vehicle owner of Batie with the number of appearances of Oshima. The motivation to do so, Oshima ¶ 168, to have a history of changes of a character’s attributes.
Claim(s) 4 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Guo (US 2024/0282108 A1), hereinafter Guo.
Regarding Claim(s) 4 and 19 Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches:
The method of claim 1, (Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish teaches the parent claim above.)
Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish does not appear to explicitly teach but in related art:
wherein calculating the intimacy score includes calculating the intimacy score using contact information and social network service (SNS) information stored on terminals of the vehicle owner and the passenger. (Guo ¶ 81-86 teaches, name tag(s) of contacts are identified, further criterion based on contact details and/or personal information can be used, such as: intimacy link level with the target person. the target person can have directly provided in their contact details said intimacy link level (for instance within a list comprising family, close friends, friends, professional colleagues, etc.); The intimacy link level with the target person can be automatically determined based on a behavior or a relationship, for instance as indicated on a social media; latest social interactions, for instance on the basis of messages, phone calls, e-mails and/or various social networks.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill the art, prior to the applicant's earliest effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Feit-Lee-Batie-Krish with Guo, to modify the method for privacy management with the relationships and intimacy of vehicle occupants of Lee with the vehicle owner of Batie with the intimacy based on contacts and social network information. The motivation to do so, Guo ¶ 104, in order to allow more complex adapting.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 9,123,186 B2 - Methods and systems for a vehicle control system to control user access to vehicle tasks, functions and/or operations based on rights and privileges set forth in user accounts.
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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/J.B.K./Examiner, Art Unit 2408
/LINGLAN EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2408
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