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
Claims 1-15 and 16-20 are pending in this application.
Claims 1 and 15 are presented as currently amended.
Claims 2-14 and 17-20 are presented as original claims.
No claims are newly presented.
Claim 16 is newly cancelled.
Examiner's Note
Examiner has cited particular paragraphs / columns and line numbers or figures in the references as applied to the claims below 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. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in entirety 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. Applicant is reminded that the Examiner is entitled to give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the language of the claims. Furthermore, the Examiner is not limited to Applicants’ definition which is not specifically set forth in the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite define, generate, determine, apply and update. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the implementation is a generic application of an abstract idea. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are well known and conventional in the art.
Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis of claim 1 (see MPEP 2106.03):
Step 1: As a system the claim is directed to a statutory category.
Step 2A: Prong 1: Claim 1 is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Representative claim 1 is directed to:
system for controlling movements of a plurality of vehicles in a confined geographical area, wherein the computer system comprises
. . . define at least one vehicle path within the confined geographical area by a subset of static nodes, the subset of static nodes defining a topological representation of the at least one vehicle path, each static node further having a set of vehicle-related threshold conditions; wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least one of a threshold condition defining a maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through a given static node and a threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in a given static node;
. . . determine, for each vehicle of the plurality of vehicles, a vehicle location at a given point of time based on data from the static nodes and the obtained real-time vehicle travelling profiles;
generate a traffic planning data structure for the plurality of the vehicles, the traffic planning data structure containing, for each vehicle, data indicative of the determined vehicle location at the given point in time and the positional order of the static node occupied by the vehicle;
from the generated traffic planning data structure, determine that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds at least one vehicle-related threshold condition of the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions;
apply a cost function on the data contained in the generated traffic planning data structure to identify an alternative movement control of the at least one vehicle through the at least one vehicle path, the alternative movement control being favorable for at least one traffic planning criterion among a group of criteria comprising reducing fuel consumption, fulfilling a transport mission and reducing vehicle wear;
update the traffic planning data structure to an updated traffic planning data structure based on the identified alternative movement control; and . . .
These limitations recites a concept that falls into the “mental process” group of abstract ideas. Defining vehicle paths with associated costs and optimizing them with respect to fuel consumption could be done in the human mind or with the aid of paper (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III). An akin example would be a freight forwarding dispatcher assigning vehicles to particular routings after optimizing the routings using the known distance between loading points.
Step 2A: Prong 2: The Applicant does recite additional elements but a generic computer or phone device could be used for implementation and this does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The Applicant has recited a claim with additional elements: (1) processing circuitry . . . (2) obtain real-time vehicle travelling profiles of the plurality of vehicles; . . . (3) transmit motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute their respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure. . .. These limitations do not integrate the claim into a practical application beyond a general effort to monopolize the mental process exception of generating optimized routings using graph data.
A generic computer or phone device represents (1) processing circuitry . . . and could be used to (2) obtain real-time vehicle travelling profiles of the plurality of vehicles and (3) transmit motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute their respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure The additional elements are claimed generally and do not recite “improvements in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to any other technology (MPEP § 2106.04(d)(1)) and therefore, these elements does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The additional elements are also claimed in such a way as to be generally linking to a particular technological environment without integration into a practical application, location determination and ‘transmitting are described at a high level without any specific claim limitations and only require general purposed hardware receiving or transmitting data generally. Transmitting control steps, in contrast to controlling vehicles, can occur over any number of generalized technologies including WiFi, 5G, or 802.11(p) (V2V communication) and transmission of a command to perform a mental process is not a control step capable of integration into a practical application. Similar to the akin example given above, a freight forwarding dispatcher could use any general electronic technology, such as mobile phone text messaging, to receive locations and transmit instructions to drivers.
Step 2B: The claim does not recite an element or combination of elements that is unconventional or significantly more than its individual elements.
“[A]n ‘inventive concept’ is furnished by an element or combination of elements that is recited in the claim in addition to (beyond) the judicial exception, and is sufficient to ensure that the claim as a whole amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself. (MPEP § 2106.05 citing Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 27-18, 110 USPQ2d at 1981 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, at 72-73)). “Evaluating additional elements to determine whether they amount to an inventive concept requires considering them both individually and in combination to ensure that they amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.” . (MPEP § 2106.05). The claim recites the additional elements including:
The Applicant has recited a claim with additional elements: (1) processing circuitry . . . (2) obtain real-time vehicle travelling profiles of the plurality of vehicles; . . . (3) transmit motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute their respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure. . ..
These limitations are recited such that the Applicant is merely adding well understood and conventional in the art on how to apply the judicial exception mental process. (1) Processing circuitry and (2) obtain location information and (3) transmitting control information are well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the art. These limitations do not claim, recite or detail behavior beyond general description of these well know behaviors but rather are claimed at an “apply it” level of detail that does not meet the test for “significantly more” (MPEP § 2106.05(I)(A) (see MPEP § 2106.05(f))). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into significantly more than abstract idea but rather would monopolize the abstract idea.
Similarly using wireless communication between vehicles to exchange data is well-understood, routine, conventional activity. (see MPEEP ¶ 2106.05(I)(B). Finally, transmitting motion commands to the plurality of vehicles for realizing their routes is claimed generally and present no positive control step sufficient to ensure that the claim as a whole amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Regarding the further claims:
Claims 1-13 do not cure the deficiencies of claim 1 because the additional limitations applied to each further claim refine and narrow the claimed mental process abstract idea by refining the algorithm used to determine an optimized route. None of the additional limitations apply a positive control step to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Claim 14 does not cure the deficiencies of claim 1 because despite the additional of a vehicle the claim is still directed to the “mental process” group of abstract idea because the vehicle is claimed generally at an “apply it” level without a positive control step integrating the abstract idea.
Claim 15 is rejected for reasons parallelling claim 1 above.
Claims 16-17 do not cure the deficiencies of claim 15 because the claims merely claim additional elements which are claimed generally at an “apply it” level without a positive control step integrating the abstract idea.
Therefore, the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea and have been rejected under 35 USC 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2, 5-8, 11-15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wahde ("A method for real-time dynamic fleet mission planning for autonomous mining" by Wahde, M. et al.). As regards the individual claims:
Regarding claim 1, Wahde teaches a computer system for controlling movements of a plurality of vehicles in a confined geographical area:
wherein the computer system comprises processing circuitry configured to: define at least one vehicle path within the confined geographical area by a subset of static nodes, (Wahde: § 002; calculation of all the optimal (shortest) paths between all node pairs, stored in a path matrix, is required. This operation need only be done once and for all for a given map, and takes at most a few seconds for a typical mine map) the subset of static nodes defining a topological representation of the at least one vehicle path, (Wahde: Fig. 001) each static node further having a set of vehicle-related threshold conditions; (Wahde: § 003; T is the set of terminal nodes, S is the set of pause (swap) nodes, and Q is the set of transit nodes.) wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least one of a threshold condition defining a maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through a given static node (Wahde: § 6.2; For the inbound segments, a much lower speed (10 km/h) was used in the part of the map leading up to the offloading station, i.e. the steep spiralling corridor referred to in Fig. 1,whereas the speed on all other inbound segments was set to 20 km/h, in both cases accounting for the lower maximum speed attainable by a fully loaded vehicle.) and a threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in a given static node; (Wahde: § 4.2; the additional check consists simply of checking, at node pmin, where vehicle vmove is located at the time of checking, whether any vehicle passed that node, or will pass that node, in a given time range.)obtain real-time (Wahde: Fig. 005; [mission thread handles the realtime movement of each vehicle.]) vehicle travelling profiles of the plurality of vehicles; (Wahde: § 003; two more conditions (rather than mere feasibility and specification of destinations), that must be imposed on the various missions that form a fleet mission.) determine, for each vehicle of the plurality of vehicles, a vehicle location at a given point of time based on data from the static nodes and the obtained real-time vehicle travelling profiles; (Wahde: § 006; an optimization request by a vehicle located at a terminal, must run for a pre-specified duration and must, at the start of the optimization process, take into account the positions at which the (moving) vehicles will be located) generate a traffic planning data structure for the plurality of the vehicles, the traffic planning data structure containing, for each vehicle, (Wahde: § 003; for all pairs (pi , pj ), i j of distinct nodes, generates the shortest path (i.e. the direct path without any pause node visits), denoted Π0(pi , pj ), and stores all these paths in a data structure henceforth referred to as the path matrix.) data indicative of the determined vehicle location at the given point in time (Wahde: § 006; an optimization request by a vehicle located at a terminal, must run for a pre-specified duration and must, at the start of the optimization process, take into account the positions at which the (moving) vehicles will be located) and the positional order of the static node occupied by the vehicle; (Wahde: § 003; topological map is populated with a set of L vehicles) from the generated traffic planning data structure, (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,) determine that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds at least one vehicle-related threshold condition of the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions; (Wahde: § 004; check for collisions by simply investigating the situation, at the time just defined, and for the segment pairs such that one of the nodes is the node pmin introduced above. By construction, these are the only segment pairs where a collision might occur, namely if the number of vehicles is non-zero for both members of any such segment pair.) apply a cost function on the data contained in the generated traffic planning data structure (Wahde: § 003; Every segment e j = (ps , pe, t j ) is fully specified by a start node ps, an end node pe, and the traversal time (cost) t j .) (Wahde: § 005; the shortest path is found (from the path matrix) to identify an alternative movement control of the at least one vehicle through the at least one vehicle path, the alternative movement control being favorable for at least one traffic planning criterion among a group of criteria comprising reducing fuel consumption, fulfilling a transport mission and reducing vehicle wear; (Wahde: § 004; attempt to reduce the total time, while also trying to use the shortest possible path, with minimum number of pause node visits, for each vehicle. While the incoming vehicles do not stop (by construction), the outgoing vehicles might make any number of pause node visits. The number of such visits should ideally be minimized, since one or a few long-duration stops would generally be preferable to making many short-duration stops, from a fuel consumption perspective.) update the traffic planning data structure to an updated traffic planning data structure based on the identified alternative movement control; and (Wahde: § 005; during optimization . . .For the part of a vehicle’s mission fulfilling that condition, modifications are applied precisely as in the static case, namely with the possibility of inserting or removing pause node visits for outbound vehicles. For example, the path of an outbound vehicle moving towards a loading site may undergo a change in which a pause node visit is inserted, in order to accommodate, without collision, the motion of the inbound vehicle that requested the optimization)
To the extent that Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach: transmit motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure; Wahde does teach:
A system designed to create a plan to route and control (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,) a plurality of autonomous mining vehicles (Wahde: § 001; set of fully autonomous dumpers operates); therefore, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been taught or suggested:
transmit motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure because it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that communicating the route information to the autonomous vehicles was required to implement the plan developed because any other method would not control the vehicles.
Regarding claim 2, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the identified alternative movement control in the updated traffic planning data structure comprises an adjustment of one or more vehicle travelling profiles. (Wahde: § 005; vehicles reaching their primary destination can request re-planning (once their stationary activity, either loading or offloading, has been completed). Vehicles that reach a secondary destination, for example the pause node closest to the offloading station in the case of a loaded vehicle, cannot themselves request re-planning but they can (and will, assuming continuous operation of the mine) be given a new mission as a result)
Regarding claim 5, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least a threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in a given static node. (Wahde: Fig. 001; [pause nodes (shown in yellow) where a vehicle can stop temporarily in order to let another vehicle pass [Examiner note: 2 vehicles maximum]])
Regarding claim 6, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 5. Wahde further teaches:
"wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions in the given static node (Wahde: § 004; it is sufficient to check for collisions and other violations only at nodes. The evaluation process proceeds as follows: At any step in the evaluation, the time Δtk required for vehicle k to reach the next node (i.e. the end point of the segment in the current mission item) is determined for each vehicle. Thus, a list {Δt1,Δt2 . . .} is generated. Next, the smallest element Δtmin in the list is found, and time is advanced (in a single, discrete step) by this amount. At this point the vehicle (denoted vmove) corresponding to the smallest Δt will thus be at a node, namely the end node of its current segment, here denoted pmin, whereas all other vehicles will be between nodes.) by determining that the number of vehicles in the given static node exceeds the maximum number of allowed vehicles in the given static node. (Wahde: § 004; a segment pair which is defined, for any two connected nodes pi and pj , as the two segments connecting these two nodes, i.e. the segment from pi to pj and the reverse segment. One can then check for collisions by simply investigating the situation, at the time just defined, and for the segment pairs such that one of the nodes is the node pmin introduced above. By construction, these are the only segment pairs where a collision might occur,)
Regarding claim 7, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the at least one vehicle path further contains at least one route segment with an entrance and an exit for the vehicle. (Wahde: Fig. 001; [transit nodes (shown in blue), i.e. nodes at which a vehicle has a choice between two or more different future paths])
Regarding claim 8, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the vehicle travelling profiles comprises vehicle travelling data and vehicle operational status data. (Wahde: § 005; vehicles request re-planning whenever a stationary activity (loading or offloading) has been completed)
Regarding claim 11, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the vehicle path within the confined geographical area is defined by a subset of static nodes (Wahde: Fig. 001; [topological mine map used for dynamic planning. The red node in the upper left corner is the (prioritized) offloading site, and the remaining red nodes are the loading sites. All these nodes are collectively referred to as terminal nodes. All other nodes are either transit nodes (shown in blue), i.e. nodes at which a vehicle has a choice between two or more different future paths,]) using a route optimizing algorithm. (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,)
Regarding claim 12, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein cost function is configured to compare a number of different alternative movement controls for the plurality of vehicles based on predicted fuel consumption, (Wahde: § 008; fuel consumption minimization.) predicted time for fulfilling a transport mission, (Wahde: § 006; time elapsed from the start until the last vehicle reaches its end node) predicted vehicle wear. (Wahde: § 3.3.1; The first condition concerns the incoming missions aiming to reach the offloading site. When a vehicle is fully loaded, it should ideally be able to drive . . . at maximum possible speed, without stopping [because] mechanical failures.)
Regarding claim 13, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
wherein the updated traffic planning data structure based on the identified alternative movement control meets the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions defined by the set of static nodes. (Wahde: § 002; paths are then modified as required to meet the demands of conflict-free dynamic scheduling,) (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,)
Regarding claim 14, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. Wahde further teaches:
vehicle comprising the computer system of claim 1. (Wahde: § 001; fleet of vehicles)
Regarding claim 15, Wahde teaches a computer-implemented method for:
controlling movements of a plurality of vehicles in a confined geographical area, the computer-implemented method comprising: defining, by a processing circuitry of a computer system, at least one vehicle path within the confined geographical area by a subset of static nodes, (Wahde: § 002; calculation of all the optimal (shortest) paths between all node pairs, stored in a path matrix, is required. This operation need only be done once and for all for a given map, and takes at most a few seconds for a typical mine map) the subset of static nodes defining a topological representation of the at least one vehicle path, (Wahde: Fig. 001) each static node further having a set of vehicle-related threshold conditions; (Wahde: § 003; T is the set of terminal nodes, S is the set of pause (swap) nodes, and Q is the set of transit nodes.) conditions, wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least one of a threshold condition defining a maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through a given static node (Wahde: § 6.2; For the inbound segments, a much lower speed (10 km/h) was used in the part of the map leading up to the offloading station, i.e. the steep spiralling corridor referred to in Fig. 1,whereas the speed on all other inbound segments was set to 20 km/h, in both cases accounting for the lower maximum speed attainable by a fully loaded vehicle.) and a threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in a given static node; (Wahde: § 4.2; the additional check consists simply of checking, at node pmin, where vehicle vmove is located at the time of checking, whether any vehicle passed that node, or will pass that node, in a given time range.)obtaining, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, real-time (Wahde: Fig. 005; [mission thread handles the realtime movement of each vehicle.]) vehicle travelling profiles of the plurality of vehicles; (Wahde: § 003; two more conditions (rather than mere feasibility and specification of destinations), that must be imposed on the various missions that form a fleet mission.) determining, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, for each vehicle of the plurality of vehicles, a vehicle location at a given point of time based on data from the static nodes and the obtained real-time vehicle travelling profiles; (Wahde: § 006; an optimization request by a vehicle located at a terminal, must run for a pre-specified duration and must, at the start of the optimization process, take into account the positions at which the (moving) vehicles will be located) generating, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, a traffic planning data structure for the plurality of the vehicles, the traffic planning data structure containing, for each vehicle, (Wahde: § 003; for all pairs (pi , pj ), i j of distinct nodes, generates the shortest path (i.e. the direct path without any pause node visits), denoted Π0(pi , pj ), and stores all these paths in a data structure henceforth referred to as the path matrix.) data indicative of the determined vehicle location at the given point in time (Wahde: § 006; an optimization request by a vehicle located at a terminal, must run for a pre-specified duration and must, at the start of the optimization process, take into account the positions at which the (moving) vehicles will be located) and the positional order of the static node occupied by the vehicle; (Wahde: § 003; topological map is populated with a set of L vehicles) from the generated traffic planning data structure, (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,) determining, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds at least one vehicle-related threshold condition of the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions; (Wahde: § 004; check for collisions by simply investigating the situation, at the time just defined, and for the segment pairs such that one of the nodes is the node pmin introduced above. By construction, these are the only segment pairs where a collision might occur, namely if the number of vehicles is non-zero for both members of any such segment pair.) applying, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, a cost function on the data contained in the generated traffic planning data structure (Wahde: § 003; Every segment e j = (ps , pe, t j ) is fully specified by a start node ps, an end node pe, and the traversal time (cost) t j .) (Wahde: § 005; the shortest path is found (from the path matrix;) to identify an alternative movement control of the at least one vehicle through the at least one vehicle path, the alternative movement control being favorable for at least one traffic planning criterion among a group of criteria comprising reducing fuel consumption, fulfilling a transport mission and reducing vehicle wear; (Wahde: § 004; attempt to reduce the total time, while also trying to use the shortest possible path, with minimum number of pause node visits, for each vehicle. While the incoming vehicles do not stop (by construction), the outgoing vehicles might make any number of pause node visits. The number of such visits should ideally be minimized, since one or a few long-duration stops would generally be preferable to making many short-duration stops, from a fuel consumption perspective.) updating, by the processing circuitry of the computer system, the traffic planning data structure to an updated traffic planning data structure based on the identified alternative movement control; and (Wahde: § 005; during optimization . . .For the part of a vehicle’s mission fulfilling that condition, modifications are applied precisely as in the static case, namely with the possibility of inserting or removing pause node visits for outbound vehicles. For example, the path of an outbound vehicle moving towards a loading site may undergo a change in which a pause node visit is inserted, in order to accommodate, without collision, the motion of the inbound vehicle that requested the optimization)
To the extent that Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach: transmitting by the processing circuitry of the computer system, motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute their respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure; Wahde does teach:
A system designed to create a plan to route and control (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,) a plurality of autonomous mining vehicles (Wahde: § 001; set of fully autonomous dumpers operates) and therefore before the effective filling date of the claimed invention a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been taught or suggested:
transmitting by the processing circuitry of the computer system, motion commands to the plurality of vehicles to cause the plurality of vehicles to execute their respective routes based on the updated traffic planning data structure because it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that communicating the route information to the autonomous vehicles was required to implement the plan developed because any other method would not control the vehicles.
Regarding claim 17, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 15. To the extent Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach:
non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform the method of claim 15; Wahde does teach:
A series of algorithms (Wahde: Algs. 1-3) designed to implement a plan to route and control (Wahde: § 004; generate a solution such that all vehicles can reach their current destination, without any (near-)collisions,) a plurality of autonomous mining vehicles ◄ (Wahde: § 001; set of fully autonomous dumpers operates) and therefore before the effective filling date of the claimed invention a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been taught or suggested:
non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform the method of claim 15 because it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that algorithms are implemented with non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions.
Claims 3 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wahde as applied to claims 1 above, and further in view of Stolcis (DE 102017010969 B3).
Regarding claim 3, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 1. To the extent Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach:
wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least a threshold condition defining a maximum allowed speed; Stolcis does teach:
wherein the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions comprises at least a threshold condition defining a maximum allowed speed (Stolcis: Clm. 001; a recommended driving speed is determined by increasing or decreasing the current vehicle speed (FG) . . . If it is not possible to reach the optimal travel time, the expected travel time (EBD) is used for weighting as the expected optimal travel time (EOBD), which corresponds to the travel time assumed at the expected travel time (EBZ), g) which provides an optimized route that includes the properties travel time and version number as well as a list of road elements that represent the route to be travelled. . . . this determines the optimal travel time (OP), based on the time- and road element-accurate storage of the expected traffic density (VD), by shifting the travel time to a time which is better suited for driving on a road element due to a lower expected traffic density (VD).) (Stolcis: Clm. 002; route planning system Claim 1 in which the digital road map unit (A8) stores a road map in the form of a graph with nodes and edges, which includes static information of the road network)
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Stolcis with the teachings of Wahde because doing so would result in the predicable benefit of "optimiz[ing] the individual routes for each vehicle according to time and energy consumption" (Stolcis: ¶ 001).
Regarding claim 9, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 8. To the extent Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach:
wherein the vehicle travelling data comprises any one of current vehicle speed of one or more vehicles, estimated time of arrival to a destination for one or more vehicles, and travel plan indicative of a required set of nodes to traverse for one or more vehicles. Stolcis does teach:
wherein the vehicle travelling data comprises any one of current vehicle speed of one or more vehicles, estimated time of arrival to a destination for one or more vehicles, and travel plan indicative of a required set of nodes to traverse for one or more vehicles. (Stolcis: Clm. 001; a recommended driving speed is determined by increasing or decreasing the current vehicle speed (FG) . . . If it is not possible to reach the optimal travel time, the expected travel time (EBD) is used for weighting as the expected optimal travel time (EOBD), which corresponds to the travel time assumed at the expected travel time (EBZ), g) which provides an optimized route that includes the properties travel time and version number as well as a list of road elements that represent the route to be travelled. . . . this determines the optimal travel time (OP), based on the time- and road element-accurate storage of the expected traffic density (VD), by shifting the travel time to a time which is better suited for driving on a road element due to a lower expected traffic density (VD).) (Stolcis: Clm. 002; route planning system Claim 1 in which the digital road map unit (A8) stores a road map in the form of a graph with nodes and edges, which includes static information of the road network).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Stolcis with the teachings of Wahde because doing so would result in the predicable benefit of "optimiz[ing] the individual routes for each vehicle according to time and energy consumption" (Stolcis: ¶ 001).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wahde in view of Stolcis as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of Lee et al. (US 20210122394 A1).
Regarding claim 4, as detailed above, Wahde in view of Stolcis teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 3. To the extent Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach:
wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions by determining that a vehicle in a given static node exceeds the maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through the given static node; Lee does teach:
wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine that at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles exceeds the set of vehicle-related threshold conditions by determining that a vehicle in a given static node exceeds the maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through the given static node. (Lee: ¶ 039; The speed profile recalculation unit 230 compares the vehicle speed according to the target speed profile calculated as described above and the current speed of the vehicle provided from the vehicle driving information provision unit 140 and, in the case of significant difference from each other, recalculates the target speed profile.).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Lee with the teachings of Wahde because doing so would result in the predicable benefit of "optimizing fuel economy when a self-driving vehicle runs a preset drive route" (Lee: ¶ 008).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wahde as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of Kentley et al. (US 20170123421 A1).
Regarding claim 10, as detailed above, Wahde teaches the invention as detailed with respect to claim 8. To the extent Wahde is silent about or does not explicitly teach:
wherein the vehicle operational status data comprises data indicative of a vehicle capability parameter; Kentley does teach:
wherein the vehicle operational status data comprises data indicative of a vehicle capability parameter. (Kentley: ¶ 078; Autonomous vehicle fleet manager 703 is configured to coordinate the dispatching of autonomous vehicles 730 to optimize multiple variables, including an efficient use of battery power, times of travel, whether or not an air-conditioning unit in an autonomous vehicle 730 may be used during low charge states of a battery, etc., any or all of which may be monitored in view of optimizing cost functions associated with operating an autonomous vehicle service.).
Before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Kentley with the teachings of Wahde because doing so would result in the predicable benefit of improving fleet utilization of shared vehicles (Kentley: ¶ 005).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks filed June 29, 2026 have been fully considered.
Applicant’s argument and amendments with respect to the previous applied drawing objection is effective and the rejection is hereby withdrawn.
Applicant’s argument and amendments with respect to the previous applied specification objection is effective and the rejection is hereby withdrawn.
Applicant’s argument and amendments with respect to the previous applied 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) rejection is persuasive and the rejection is hereby overcome.
The rejection of claim 17 for per se 35 U.S.C. § 101 subject matter eligibility has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s argument and amendments with respect to the previous applied 35 U.S.C. § 101 subject matter eligibility rejection of claims 1-15 and 17-20 is not persuasive.
Applicant argues that:
the claim as a whole is directed to a specific technical implementation for controlling physical vehicle movement in a confined geographical area, not to a mental process or a generic route-optimization concept. . . . [The claims define] a positive control architecture for controlling vehicle movement. (Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pg. 12-13).
Representative amended claim 1 does not contain limitations directed to controlling physical vehicle movement or a positive control architecture. As discussed supra, the claims are directed to a method of optimizing vehicle paths which could be completed in the human mind: (1) define at least one vehicle path; (2) address threshold conditions; (3) obtain real-time vehicle travelling profiles; (4) determine locations; (5) generate a traffic planning data structure; (6) apply a cost function on the data; (7) update the traffic planning data structure; (8) transmit commands to cause vehicles to execute. Each of items 1-7 are either mental data processing steps or direct observation steps, which qualify under MPEP § 2106.04(a)(3) as “concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation. . .).” Item 8 is broadly defined as to qualify as “mere instructions to apply an exception” as defined in MPEP § 2106.05(f). No particular technology or even general wireless communication is required, transmitting commands could be a dispatcher using a radio. No physical controlling structure or even positive signals are claimed.
Applicant argues that a:
human dispatcher using pen and paper, or a generic mobile phone, would not perform the claimed combination as recited. Claim 1 requires the use of static nodes having associated vehicle-related threshold conditions, real-time vehicle travelling profiles, a generated traffic planning data structure containing both vehicle-location data and static-node positional-order data, an automated determination that a vehicle exceeds a static-node threshold condition, an automatically identified alternative movement control, and transmission of motion commands that cause physical vehicles to execute their routes according to the updated traffic planning data structure. (Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pg. 13).
Considering the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims as a whole, a human could perform these limitations. A human dispatcher would identify road intersections as static nodes having threshold conditions such as speed limits. The number of hours a driver could operate would be a real time travelling profile. Weather reduced speeds would be a updated traffic planning data structure.
Applicant suggests that Diamond v. Diehr (450 U.S. 175 (1981)) is comparable. Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pgs. 14-15. Diamond is distinguishable from the instant claims because Diamond’s representative independent claim both (1) determined internal die temperature, which is not a human observation and; (2) automatically opened the press, which is a positive physical step. The instant claims do not contain similar limitations. Consequently, the arguments and amendments are not persuasive.
Applicant’s argument and amendments with respect to the previous applied 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection to claims 1-15 and 16-20 is not persuasive.
Applicant argues that:
The Office Action appears to infer a "maximum of 2 vehicles" from the fact that a Wahde pause node can be used by one vehicle to let another vehicle pass. Applicant respectfully submits that this inference is not a teaching of the claimed threshold condition. A description that one vehicle may stop to let another pass is an example of how a pause node is used in Wahde's collision-avoidance strategy. It is not a disclosure that the node includes, as part of the system's data model, a vehicle-related threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in the node. Nor does Wahde disclose that the system evaluates node occupancy against such a threshold and determines that the threshold is exceeded. (Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pgs. 18).
Wahde’s broad teachings indicate that the number of vehicles on a given particular segment or node can never exceed one. In particular at page 571, Wahde explains that “. . . these are the only segment pairs where a collision might occur, namely if the number of vehicles is non-zero for both members of any such segment pair. If that is the case, a collision will occur, an event that here is referred to as a segment violation” when describing how segment pairs work. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that non-segment pairs are designed to maximally contain one vehicle. Similar when teaching about nodes, Wahde teaches that in order to “avoid grazing collisions” even when there is one vehicle per segment and node a “segment violations [can] occur . . . where, for example, a vehicle passes a node just an instant before another vehicle passes the same node” (Wahde, pgs. 571-572). Again, indicating that even when mathematically a single vehicle is at a node, the prospect of a momentary existence of two vehicles at a node could result in a collision, which is threshold conditions associated with static nodes. Wahde even teaches a test to confirm the no two vehicles exist at a node at a single instance at § 4.2. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize this test would limit passing nodes to two vehicles while regular segments and nodes are limited to a single vehicle because if even momentary existence of two vehicles at a single node causes a collision, there cannot be room for a third vehicle.
Applicant argues that:
Wahde's terminal nodes, transit nodes, and pause nodes are not vehicle-related threshold conditions associated with static nodes. A node's function as a terminal, transit, or pause node is not a maximum allowed speed for a vehicle passing through that node. Nor is it a threshold condition defining a maximum number of vehicles allowed in that node. The distinction is particularly clear with respect to Wahde's pause nodes. A pause node is merely a place where a vehicle may temporarily stop to allow another vehicle to pass. Such a node does not impose a claimed vehicle-related threshold condition. It does not define a maximum allowed speed through the node. It does not define a maximum number of vehicles allowed in the node as a threshold condition stored or associated with the node. And Wahde does not determine, from a traffic planning data structure, that a vehicle exceeds such a node-specific threshold condition. The Office Action appears to infer a "maximum of 2 vehicles" from the fact that a Wahde pause node can be used by one vehicle to let another vehicle pass. Applicant respectfully submits that this inference is not a teaching of the claimed threshold condition. A description that one vehicle may stop to let another pass is an example of how a pause node is used in Wahde's collision-avoidance strategy. It is not a disclosure that the node includes, as part of the system's data model, a vehicle-related threshold condition defining a maximum number of allowed vehicles in the node. Nor does Wahde disclose that the system evaluates node occupancy against such a threshold and determines that the threshold is exceeded. (Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pgs. 17-18).
As addressed supra, Wahde does teach a limit of vehicles at a node, even teaching a secondary test to prevent a graph solution that allows two vehicles at a node for even a moment. Similarly, Wahde does teach imposing speed constraints of graph solutions, in particular at § 6.2 Wahde teaches constraining speeds at loading nodes inbound at 20km/hr and outbound at 10km/hr. Wahde also teaches that while at a loading node, speed must be zero.
Applicant further argues that “[n]or does Wahde disclose that the system evaluates node occupancy against such a threshold and determines that the threshold is exceeded” Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pg. 18. However, Wahde § 4.2 teaches the “additional check consists simply of checking, at node pmin, where vehicle vmove is located at the time of checking, whether any vehicle passed that node, or will pass that node, in a given time range” to confirm a node never exceeds one vehicle.
Applicant argues that:
In Wahde, the primary corrective mechanism is to insert or remove pause-node visits or otherwise modify paths so that vehicles avoid collisions. In claim 1, by contrast, the system detects that a vehicle-related threshold condition associated with a static node is exceeded, applies a cost function to the generated traffic planning data structure, identifies an alternative movement control, updates the traffic planning data structure, and transmits motion commands to cause vehicles to execute routes based on the updated data structure. Wahde does not teach or suggest this threshold-triggered, static-node-based control architecture. (Applicant’s Arguments filed June 29, 2026, pgs. 17-18).
It is unclearly how Wahde commanding vehicles to stop at a stop node is differentiated from the where the instant application “identifies an alternative movement control, updates the traffic planning data structure, and transmits motion commands to cause vehicles to execute routes based on the updated data structure.” Id. Wahde is updating a data structure, by adding a pause node, resolving the cost function, (Wahde: § 005; the shortest path) and commanding the impacted vehicle to act at the pause node by constraining it to a speed limitation of zero while at the specific node.
Consequently, Applicant's arguments with respect to obviousness of 1-15 and 16-20 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure Shigezumi et al. (US 20160091326 A1) which discloses analysis of a path of a moving body using trajectory data, path information that is to be associated with the movement path, indicated by the trajectory data, of the moving body.
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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/C.P./Examiner, Art Unit 3663
/ANGELA Y ORTIZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3663
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