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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Salter et al. (hereinafter referred to as “Salter”) (US 2024/0246440 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, Salter teaches an apparatus, a system, and a method, comprising: a system controller (48) which includes multiple controllers in the forms of multiple hardware devices, and multiple hardware devices, the system controller (48) is configured to receive driving guidance information and location of the battery electric vehicle (BEV) (12) via the navigation system (60) (see paragraph 0031), wherein the navigation system (60) includes a user interface (62) that allows a user to enter the drive route (see paragraph 0032), and a global positioning system (GPS) for monitoring the location of the BEV (12); wherein the driving guidance information includes a route to a charging station based on the destination (see at least paragraphs 0061-0069), and a weight of a charging factor (e.g., faster charger available within a range).
Regarding claims 2, 9, and 16, Salter teaches that a vehicle trip that leads from the origin (78) to the destination (80) is determined based on the remained charge of the traction battery (24) on the one-way trip to the destination (80) and the weight of the charging rate (e.g, slowing charging rate at the charging station 72a, and fast charging rate at the charging station 73b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 6, 13, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Salter (US 2024/0246440 A1) and in view of Rothschild (US 2025/0116525 A1).
Regarding claims 6, 13, and 20, Salter is not teaching or even suggesting the features of “the driving type is derived by entering the driving information of an electric vehicle into a personalized driving-type-artificial intelligent model that is generated by training using past driving information of the driver.”
Rothschild discloses a system and method for travel route optimization, comprising: a user interface (see paragraph 0101) that receive an origin and destination; one or more candidate travel routes are identified based on multiple parameters, including vehicle type, vehicle condition, driver preferences, essential stops, historical route/accident/crime data, and current traffic/weather (see Fig. 3; paragraph 0097); the system specifically incorporates a "personalized driving-type-artificial intelligent model" (see at least abstract; paragraph 0075), wherein this model is generated by training on the "past driving information of a driver of the electric vehicle".
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the Salter’s system and method with the teachings as taught by Rothschild to arrive at the claimed invention. A person of ordinary skill, ordinary creativity would have been motivated to do so, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of optimizing energy consumption and route preferences.
Claims 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Salter (US 2024/0246440 A1) and in view of Tseng et al. (hereinafter referred to as “Tseng”) (US 2024/0416794 A1).
Regarding claims 7, and 14, Salter is not teaching or even suggesting the features of “the weight for each charging factor is derived by entering the driving information of an electric vehicle into a personalized charging-factor-artificial intelligent model that is generated by training using past driving information of the driver of the electrical vehicle as training data.”
Tseng discloses a system that deriving a weigh of a charging factor (see paragraph 0032) by obtaining the driving information (e.g., vehicle information, driver information, etc.) via a machine learning model (see at least paragraphs 0012, and 0048) that is generated by performing training using past driving information (e.g., historical driving pattern) of a driver of the electric vehicle (see paragraph 0050).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the Salter’s system and method with the teachings as taught by Tseng to arrive at the claimed invention. A person of ordinary skill, ordinary creativity would have been motivated to do so, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of selecting charging stations that are preferred by the driver that charging occurs at known, fast charging, and cheaper locations.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant disclosure. The following patent documents are cited in the PTO-892 to further show the state of the art in general: US 2024/0240952 A1 by Kato which discloses a vehicle system that is configured to display the amount of electricity from the charging station and wireless road in a distinguishable manner; US 2020/0386561 A1 by Namiki which discloses a system and method of identifying a best charging/rental station based on real-time battery charge, predicting travel route, and mapping station locations; WO-2011001595-A1 BY Oizumi et al. which describes a dynamic estimation of a charging station's congestion at the future time point when the user's vehicle is expected to arrive, rather than relying on current, static, or historical data; WO-2009/039454-A1 by Agassi which discloses a real-time, context-aware navigation and range-management system for electric vehicles. It combines the battery status with the GPS location data to dynamically identify and display only reachable battery service stations.
Conclusions
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tuan C To whose telephone number is (571) 272-6985. The examiner can normally be reached on from 6:00AM to 2:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Ramya P. Burgess, can be reached on (571) 272-6011.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/TUAN C TO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3661