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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/15/2025 have been fully considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 4, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 4, 11, and 18 recite “identifying a route from the set of routes having at least one of a medium length of distance or a mean length of distance to traverse among lengths of distance to traverse for the set of routes.” It is unclear to the examiner what comprises a “medium length of distance” (a relative term of degree) since the bounds of the claim cannot be determined, and the specifications do not provide a clear standard for measuring a medium length of distance. Therefore, the claims fails to clearly recite the metes and bounds of the claims, which renders the claims indefinite. The examiner will interpret the claim as identifying a route from the set of routes having at least one length of distance or a mean length of distance to traverse among lengths of distance to traverse for the set of route. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagy et al. US20200056895A1 (henceforth Nagy) in view of Tripathy et al. US20220156680A1 (henceforth Tripathy)
Regarding claim 1,
Nagy discloses:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed by computing hardware, cause the computing hardware to perform operations comprising: (See at least Para. 0131-0133.)
identifying a first point that is a current location of an autonomous vehicle; (See at least Para. 0092, “At operation 410, the vehicle autonomy system controls the vehicle along the best route determined at operation 408 from the vehicle start point towards the vehicle end point” and Para. 0093, “candidate vehicle start point (e.g., the vehicle's present location)”. The first point is a current location of an autonomous vehicle.)
Generating a first set of route portions associated with a second point to generate a flow graph comprising directional vectors representing predicted routes taken from a plurality of intermediate points to the second point, (See at least Fig. 5, wherein a first set of route portions associated with a second point (i.e. end point 504) are generated that represents predicted routes taken from a plurality of intermediate points (i.e. intermediate points 506A-C) to the second point. See at least Para. 0021, “Route components can have directionality and connectivity. The directionality of a route component describes a direction in which the autonomous vehicle can traverse the route component”, wherein the flow graph in Fig. 5 comprises directional vectors.)
and each of the plurality of intermediate points represents a beginning of at least one of the routes; (See at least Fig. 5 and Para. 0086, wherein each of the plurality of intermediate points represents a beginning of at least one of the routes.)
identifying a second set of route portions from the first point to one or more of the plurality of intermediate points; generating a set of routes from combinations of the first set of route portions and the second set of route portions, wherein each of the set of routes connects the first point to the second point using at least one of the plurality of intermediate points; (See at least Fig. 5 and Para. 0086, wherein a second set of route portions from the first point to one or more plurality of intermediate points are identified such that a set of routes are generated from combinations of the first set of route portions and the second set of route portions, wherein each of the set of routes connects the first point to the second point using at least one of the plurality of intermediate point.)
selecting, based at least in part on selection criteria, a primary route from the set of routes; (See at least Fig. 5 and Para. 0091, wherein the best route (i.e. bolded route 504 in Fig. 5) is selected from the set of routes.
generating navigation instructions for the primary route; and communicating the navigation instructions to the autonomous vehicle to cause the autonomous vehicle to execute the navigation instructions and travel from the first point to the second point.
(See at least Para. 0092, “the vehicle autonomy system controls the vehicle along the best route determined at operation 408 from the vehicle start point towards the vehicle end point.” Further see at least Para. 0052-0053, “ The vehicle autonomy system 302 sends commands to control the one or more vehicle controls 307 to operate the vehicle 300 according to the route.”, wherein the autonomous vehicle has a navigator system to determine a motion plan for controlling the vehicle, which includes communicating the navigation instructions to the autonomous vehicle to execute the navigation instructions.)
Nagy does not specifically state generating a first set of route portions by processing historical data associated with a second point using an inference model to generate a flow graph comprising directional vectors wherein the historical data comprises time series data previously captured during performance of routes utilized to reach the second point. However, Tripathy teaches:
generating a first set of route portions by processing historical data associated with a second point using an inference model to generate a flow graph comprising directional vectors wherein the historical data comprises time series data previously captured during performance of routes utilized to reach the second point.
(See at least Fig. 5A and Para. 0041, 0051, and 0053, wherein historical data associated with a second point is processed using an inference model (i.e. a machine learning model) to generate a flow graph comprising directional vectors wherein the historical data comprises time series data previously captured during performance of routes utilized to reach the second point.)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Tripathy to include “generating a first set of route portions by processing historical data associated with a second point using an inference model to generate a flow graph comprising directional vectors wherein the historical data comprises time series data previously captured during performance of routes utilized to reach the second point” in order to “improve and/or ensure on-time deliveries, reduce the number of undelivered orders, and/or increase customer loyalty and/or approval. In addition, the embodiments may reduce miles driven by delivery vehicles and thus provide cost savings with regard to delivery vehicle fuel and energy required to store items in the delivery vehicle, such as in chilled or frozen compartments of the delivery vehicle. As a result, a retailer employing one or more of these embodiments may benefit by expending less cost, effort, and time in scheduling activities (e.g., such as in rescheduling undelivered orders). The retailer may also enjoy an improvement to customer service and/or a reduction in delivery costs based on a reduction in delivery times and undelivered items.” (See Para. 0005, Tripathy). This would create a more robust delivery pathing system for vehicles. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Tripathy. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 3,
Nagy discloses:
wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route from the set of routes having a shortest time duration to traverse from the first point to the second point. (See at least Para. 0021, wherein the estimated driving time is included in the cost (wherein a longer driving time is a higher cost). Further see Para. 0091, “the vehicle autonomy system applies a path planning algorithm to find the lowest cost and/or highest reward combination of route components between the algorithm start point and the algorithm end point. In the example of FIG. 5, the best route 509 is from the algorithm start algorithm 502 to the candidate vehicle start point 506C, to the candidate vehicle end point 508A, and finally to the algorithm end point 504.” The lowest cost includes a shortest driving time.)
Regarding claim 8,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 10,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 3 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 15,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Nagy further discloses:
generating a second set of route portions based at least in part on segmenting map data to generate segmented map data and comparing the segmented map data to the flow graph to identify an area shared by the segmented map data and the flow graph that corresponds to the plurality of intermediate points, wherein each of the second set of route portions is from a beginning point to one or more of the plurality of intermediate points. (See at least Fig. 5 and Para. 0021-0022, “A route component is a section or segment of roadway on which the autonomous vehicle can travel. Route components can have directionality and connectivity. The directionality of a route component describes a direction in which the autonomous vehicle can traverse the route component.” Further see at least Para. 0034-0036.)
Regarding claim 17,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 3 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Claims 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagy and Tripathy further in view of Okuyama US20180218602A1.
Regarding claim 2,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above.
Nagy does not specifically state wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route in the set of routes having a shortest distance for navigating from the first point to the second point. However, Okuyama teaches:
wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route in the set of routes having a shortest distance for navigating from the first point to the second point
(See at least Para. 0005, “The route searching device extracts a route with a shortest distance”. Further see Fig. 3, wherein the shortest route is from a position P of the vehicle V (i.e. a first point) to destination Q (i.e. a second point).)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Okuyama to include “wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route in the set of routes having a shortest distance for navigating from the first point to the second point” in order to “ to provide a route searching device and a route searching method which can improve efficiency and accuracy of lane-basis route searching” (Para. 0004, Okuyama). This would create an improved and more robust pathing system for vehicles. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Okuyama. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 4,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above. Nagy does not specifically state wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route from the set of routes having at least one of a medium length of distance or a mean length of distance to traverse among lengths of distance to traverse for the set of routes.
However, Okuyama teaches:
wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route from the set of routes having at least one of a medium length of distance or a mean length of distance to traverse among lengths of distance to traverse for the set of routes.
(See at least Para. 0022, “the candidate route extractor 54 calculates road-basis link costs of routes reaching the destination from the current position, and extracts the candidate routes based on the link costs. The time required to travel over the route, fuel consumption, toll, distance, and the like may be used as the road-basis link costs.”)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Okuyama to include “wherein the selection criteria comprise identifying a route from the set of routes having at least one of a medium length of distance or a mean length of distance to traverse among lengths of distance to traverse for the set of routes” in order to “ to provide a route searching device and a route searching method which can improve efficiency and accuracy of lane-basis route searching” (Para. 0004, Okuyama). This would create an improved and more robust pathing system for vehicles. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Okuyama. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 9,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Okuyama discloses the limitations as recited in claim 2 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 11,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Okuyama discloses the limitations as recited in claim 4 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 16,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Okuyama discloses the limitations as recited in claim 2 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 18,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Okuyama discloses the limitations as recited in claim 4 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Claims 5, 12, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagy and Tripathy further in view of Paglieroni et al. US20200117211A1 (henceforth Paglieroni).
Regarding claim 5,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above, including an inference model (See Para. 0075 of Nagy). Nagy does not specifically state wherein the model mathematically applies an attractive force to the second point to affect flow of the directional vectors.
However, Paglieroni teaches:
wherein the model mathematically applies an attractive force to the second point to affect flow of the directional vectors.
(See at least Fig. 1 and Para. 0018, “FIG. 1 illustrates one configuration of field lines. The electric field lines for a configuration of four positive charges 102 and one large negative charge 101 is illustrated. The field lines radiate away from the positive charges and converge to the negative charge.” An attractive force (i.e. to the second point 101) is applied to affect flow of the directional vectors. The attractive force is applied mathematically, by using equation 3 (i.e. a mathematical equation) as shown in Para. 0018.)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Paglieroni to include “wherein the model mathematically applies an attractive force to the second point to affect flow of the directional vectors” in order to “travel direction for a vehicle to travel to a target or destination location so that the objects are avoided based on an attract-repel model” (Para. 0014, Paglieroni). This would create an improved and more robust pathing system for vehicles. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Paglieroni. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 12,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Paglieroni discloses the limitations as recited in claim 5 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 19,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Paglieroni discloses the limitations as recited in claim 5 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Claims 6, 13, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagy and Tripathy further in view of Haynes et al. US20190025841A1 (henceforth Haynes).
Regarding claim 6,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above, including an inference model (See Para. 0075 of Nagy). Nagy does not specifically state wherein the model applies an uncertainly constraint to the time series data to remove data used in generating one or more of the set of routes having a certainty that does not satisfy a threshold. However, Haynes teaches:
wherein the model applies an uncertainly constraint to the time series data to remove data used in generating one or more of the set of routes having a certainty that does not satisfy a threshold. (See at least Para. 0066-0067, wherein a predicted trajectory that receives a lower score is modified so that only a shorter time period portion is used. It removes data from routes whose certainty score does not satisfy a threshold.)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Haynes to include “wherein the model applies an uncertainly constraint to the time series data to remove data used in generating one or more of the set of routes having a certainty that does not satisfy a threshold” in order to “improve the speed, quality, and/or accuracy of the generated predictions” (See Abstract, Haynes). This would create a more robust system for determining and predicting navigation paths. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Haynes. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 13,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Haynes discloses the limitations as recited in claim 6 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Regarding claim 20,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Haynes discloses the limitations as recited in claim 6 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Claims 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagy and Tripathy further in view of Schubert et al. US20190042859A1 (henceforth Schubert)
Regarding claim 7,
Nagy and Tripathy discloses the limitations as recited in claim 1 above, including an inference model (See Para. 0075 of Nagy). Nagy does not specifically state wherein the inference model is a two-dimensional Gaussian model.
However, Schubert teaches:
wherein the inference model is a two-dimensional Gaussian model.
(See at least Para. 0120, “Gauss-Jacobi backpropagation, Gauss-Seidel backpropagation” which represent two-dimensional gaussian models for weighing values between interconnected nodes based on prior navigation paths.)
It would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Nagy to incorporate the teachings of Schubert to include “wherein the inference model is a two-dimensional Gaussian model” since “ANN 800 may be trained to determine navigation paths that are likely similar to navigation paths that a human would select. Thus, the delivery system may autonomously select navigation paths that are likely to be successful without direct involvement of a human user.” (See Para. 0123, Schubert). This would create a more robust system for determining navigation paths for generating a flow graph. Additionally, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable expectation of success in combining the teachings of Nagy and Schubert. The claimed invention is merely a combination of known elements and in combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 14,
Nagy, Tripathy, and Schubert discloses the limitations as recited in claim 7 above, and is therefore rejected under the same rejection and obviousness rational.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Krumm et al. US20100305850A1 discloses techniques and systems that provide for creating an accurate representation of a roadway network, such as for planning vehicle travel routes. Positioning data is obtained, such as GPS data points from a plurality of vehicles, which mark traces of vehicular travel. A location of a trace is clarified using adjustment forces that are related to the traces, for example, to form coherent groups of traces. From these groups of clarified traces, a graph line is created by merging the traces. (See abstract)
Cox et al. US20190186939A1 discloses the navigation system can automatically cluster historical trips by similarity (e.g., trips with similar contexts and/or environmental conditions), while identifying, mitigating, and/or eliminating the potential for statistical outliers (trips taken by a driver that are infrequent and thus less useful for predicting future trips). (See abstract)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GABRIEL J LAMBERT whose telephone number is (571)272-4334. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00 am- 6:00 pm MDT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Erin Piateski can be reached at (571) 270-7429. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/G.J.L./
Examiner
Art Unit 3669
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