DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
• This action is in reply to the Application Number 18/976,336 filed on 12/11/2024.
• Claims 1-13 are currently pending and have been examined.
• This action is made FINAL in response to the “Amendment” and “Remarks” filed on 05/18/2026.
• The applicant’s amendments have overcome 35 USC § 101 rejections.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
The certified copy has been filed in Application No. 18/976,336 filed on 12/11/2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 12/11/2024, 04/09/2025, 07/30/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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, 6-8, 10, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US20200272949A1) in view of Troia (US 20190372622 A1), further in view of Magzimof (US20190187691A1).
Regarding claims 1, 6 and 7:
Chen teaches:
A remote support management device configured to manage remote support of a plurality of mobilities, the remote support management device comprising one or more first processors configured to: (Chen, claim 1, “A computer-implemented method for controlling autonomous vehicles…request for remote autonomous vehicle assistance associated with a first autonomous vehicle”)
in response to a request for the remote support from one or more mobilities out of the plurality of mobilities, (Chen, Fig.4 and para [85], “The request management system 412 can be configured to process requests 442 for remote assistance and generate one or more control commands 444 for an autonomous computing system 440 of an autonomous vehicle in response to the requests”)
perform an assignment process of assigning at least one of a remote supporter and a remote support terminal to the one or more mobilities that have made the request, the remote support terminal being used by the remote supporter; (Chen, claim 1, “determining, by the computing system, a first operator of the plurality of operators to facilitate one or more assisted autonomy tasks in response to the request for remote autonomous vehicle assistance”, and Fig. 4 depicts the operators and the operator terminals 414 a-c.)
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acquire a score serving as a basis of the assignment process from the one or more mobilities; (Chen, para [35], “the operator selection system can generate scores … based on whether there exists a match with a request parameter from the request.”)
the update target mobility being a mobility that is target of an update of the score; (Chen, para [34], “receive a request from an autonomous vehicle for remote autonomous assistance” and para [35], “ the operator selection system can generate scores …based on whether there exists a match with a request parameter from the request.”)
calculate an additional score of the update target mobility based on the acquired surroundings information; (Chen, para [39], “The attribute scores may be generated based on … parameters from the request.”, and para [92], “attribute records include …, one or more locations identified by location data”)
update the score transmitted from the update target mobility by reflecting the additional score in the score. (Chen, para [39],” An operator score can be generated based on a combination of the one or more attribute scores…The attribute scores may be generated based on …one or more resource parameters from the request”, and para[45], “ transmit resource parameters … to an autonomous vehicle assistance system”)
and cause the remote support terminal to perform the remote support to the one or more mobilities according to an assignment order based on the score, (Chen, para [116],” the operator selection system can compare operators scores for the filtered list of operators based on the request for autonomous vehicle assistance. The operator selection system can select at (816) one or more operators to facilitate one or more assisted autonomy tasks in response to the request for remote assistance”, and para [118], “an operator can, via a user interface displayed at the operator computing system, select one or more tasks to be performed in response to the request for remote autonomous vehicle assistance.”)
Chen does not explicitly teach, but Troia teaches:
acquire surroundings information indicating a status of an area by communicating with one or more infrastructure sensors installed in the area where an update target mobility that has transmitted the score moves, (Troia, para [09], “vehicles have used sensors, such as vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) sensors, to obtain route information from infrastructure components along a route, such as overhead radio frequency identification (RFID) readers, cameras”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Troia in order to include acquiring surroundings information indicating a status of an area by communicating with one or more infrastructure sensors installed in the area where an update target mobility that has transmitted the score moves. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to “provide redundancy that can improve vehicle operation, resulting in technological improvements to the vehicle” (Troia, Description).
Chen does not explicitly teach, but Magzimof teaches:
wherein the remote support includes automated driving assistance of the one or more mobilities,( Magzimof, para [04], “A remote AI system may be able to successfully perform the driving task”)
wherein the one or more mobilities are configured to: determine whether there is an abnormality in a remote support function of a corresponding one or more mobilities, ( Magzimof, para [10], “At a predefined time interval, the vehicle checks if the vehicle received a keep alive signal from the remote support system. Responsive to failing to receive the keep alive signal in the predefined time interval, the vehicle decrements the counter of the vehicle.”) Examiner note: Magzimof teaches that vehicle monitors whether it receives keep-alive signals from the remote support system during the emergency situation; failure to receive keep-alive within a time window is treats as a fault/abnormality in the remote support communication/function.
and in response to determining the abnormality in the remote support function, set a predetermined abnormal value as the score, ( Magzimof, para [10], “At a predefined time interval, the vehicle checks if the vehicle received a keep alive signal from the remote support system. Responsive to failing to receive the keep alive signal in the predefined time interval, the vehicle decrements the counter of the vehicle. The vehicle controls a braking system of the vehicle to execute an emergency stop responsive to the counter reaching zero.”) Examiner note: Magzimof teaches that vehicle uses a predefined counter value and decrements it based on keep-alive signal failures, the counter reaching zero is a predefined abnormal state, and the vehicle will control a braking system of the vehicle to execute an emergency stop responsive to the counter reaching zero.
and transmit the score to the remote support management device via a communication device. ( Magzimof, para [50], “A communications network 122 is communicatively coupled to computing device 124, and may be any type of network or combination of networks known in the art, for transmitting data to vehicle 120 from the remote support system 102, and for receiving data from it.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Magzimof in order to include wherein the remote support includes automated driving assistance of the one or more mobilities, wherein the one or more mobilities are configured to: determine whether there is an abnormality in a remote support function of a corresponding one or more mobilities, and in response to determining the abnormality in the remote support function, set a predetermined abnormal value as the score, and transmit the score to the remote support management device via a communication device. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to “increase the safety of passengers within the vehicle, and/or parties and property outside of the vehicle.” (Magzimof, Description).
Regarding claim 3:
Chen inv view of Troia, Magzimof, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Chen teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 1, wherein: a number of types of the plurality of the mobilities is plural; (Chen, para [95], “the vehicle type 518 represents the specific type of vehicle from a variety of vehicle types.”)
and the one or more first processors are configured to, in response to receiving the score from the one or more mobilities: update the score of the update target mobility by reflecting, in the score received from the update target mobility, a weighting value according to a type of the update target mobility that has transmitted the score; (Chen, para [39],” An operator score can be generated based on a combination of the one or more attribute scores”, and para[35], “the remote assistance system can apply a weight to an attribute score based on an elapsed time since the operator attribute was generated (e.g., when the corresponding assisted autonomy task was performed). The remote assistance system can combine the attribute scores (e.g., weighted attribute scores) for an operator to determine an operator score for each operator.”)
and perform the assignment process based on the updated score. (Chen, para[39], “ an operator having a highest score or other indication of a high degree of correlation between operator attributes and resource parameters can be selected.”)
Regarding claims 8, 10 and 12:
Chen in view of Troia, Magzimof, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Chen does not explicitly teach, but Magzimof teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of mobilities includes a plurality of second processors, (Magzimof, para [84], “the computers referred to in the specification may include a single processor or may be architectures employing multiple processor designs for increased computing capability.”)
the plurality of second processors including one processor configured to perform the remote support function, and having a self- diagnosis function to acquire a self-diagnosis result of the remote support function, ( Magzimof, para [10], “At a predefined time interval, the vehicle checks if the vehicle received a keep alive signal from the remote support system. Responsive to failing to receive the keep alive signal in the predefined time interval, the vehicle decrements the counter of the vehicle.”) Examiner note: Magzimof teaches that vehicle monitors whether it receives keep-alive signals from the remote support system during the emergency situation; failure to receive keep-alive within a time window is treats as a fault/abnormality in the remote support communication/function.
and another processor configured to communicate with the one processor to acquire the self-diagnosis result, ( Magzimof, para [50], “A communications network 122 is communicatively coupled to computing device 124, and may be any type of network or combination of networks known in the art, for transmitting data to vehicle 120 from the remote support system 102, and for receiving data from it.”)
and determine whether there is the abnormality in the remote support function based on the self-diagnosis result. ( Magzimof, para [10], “At a predefined time interval, the vehicle checks if the vehicle received a keep alive signal from the remote support system. Responsive to failing to receive the keep alive signal in the predefined time interval, the vehicle decrements the counter of the vehicle. The vehicle controls a braking system of the vehicle to execute an emergency stop responsive to the counter reaching zero.”) Examiner note: Magzimof teaches that vehicle uses a predefined counter value and decrements it based on keep-alive signal failures, the counter reaching zero is a predefined abnormal state, and the vehicle will control a braking system of the vehicle to execute an emergency stop responsive to the counter reaching zero.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Magzimof in order to include wherein each of the plurality of mobilities includes a plurality of second processors, the plurality of second processors including one processor configured to perform the remote support function, and having a self- diagnosis function to acquire a self-diagnosis result of the remote support function, and another processor configured to communicate with the one processor to acquire the self-diagnosis result, and determine whether there is the abnormality in the remote support function based on the self-diagnosis result. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to “increase the safety of passengers within the vehicle, and/or parties and property outside of the vehicle.” (Magzimof, Description).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US20200272949A1) in view of Troia (US 20190372622 A1), further in view of Magzimof (US20190187691A1) and Brantner (US 20220014476 A1).
Regarding claim 2:
Chen in view of Troia, Magzimof, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Chen teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 1, …and the assignment process includes assigning at least one of the remote supporter and the remote support terminal to each of the plurality of mobilities according to the assignment order based on the score received from one or more second processors of each of the plurality of the mobilities. (Chen, claim 1, “determining, by the computing system, a first operator of the plurality of operators to facilitate one or more assisted autonomy tasks in response to the request for remote autonomous vehicle assistance”, and para[39], “ an operator having a highest score or other indication of a high degree of correlation between operator attributes and resource parameters can be selected.”)
Chen does not explicitly teach, but Brantner teaches:
wherein: the score indicates an urgency level of the request; (Brantner, para [148], “determining (1204), for the request, an urgency rating”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Brantner in order to include wherein: the score indicates an urgency level of the request. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to facilitate human intervention when “the autonomous device are incapable of successfully a) executing a given task” (Brantner, Description).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US20200272949A1) in view of Troia (US 20190372622 A1), further in view of Magzimof (US20190187691A1) and PERL (US 20180075380 A1).
Regarding claim 4:
Chen inv view of Troia, Magzimof, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Chen teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 1, wherein: a number of types of services of the remote support to be provided to the plurality of mobilities is plural; (Chen, para [95], “the vehicle type 518 represents the specific type of vehicle from a variety of vehicle types.”)
and perform the assignment process based on the updated score. (Chen, para[39], “ an operator having a highest score or other indication of a high degree of correlation between operator attributes and resource parameters can be selected.”)
Chen does not explicitly teach, but PERL teaches:
the score includes a mobility score and a service score, the mobility score being a score based on mobility state information indicating a state of a mobility, and the service score being a score based on service state information indicating a state of the service of the remote support for a user of the mobility; (PERL, para [47], “a mobility score …. services risk score”)
and the one or more first processors are configured to, in response to receiving the score from the one or more mobilities: update the score of the update target mobility based on the mobility score of the update target mobility that reflects a mobility weighting value according to a type of the update target mobility that has transmitted the score and the service score of the update target mobility that reflects a service weighting value according to a type of the service to be provided to the update target mobility; (PERL, para [49], “The result list 108 can be dynamically adapted in real-time”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from PERL in order to include the score includes a mobility score and a service score, the mobility score being a score based on mobility state information indicating a state of the mobility, and the service score being a score based on service state information indicating a state of the service of the remote support for a user of the mobility; and the one or more first processors are configured to, when the score is received from the one or more mobilities: update the score of the update target mobility based on the mobility score of the update target mobility that reflects a mobility weighting value according to a type of the update target mobility that has transmitted the score and the service score of the update target mobility that reflects a service weighting value according to a type of the service to be provided to the update target mobility. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to “help to increase safety and improve driving behavior” (PERL, Description).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US20200272949A1) in view of Troia (US 20190372622 A1), further in view of Magzimof (US20190187691A1), Brantner (US 20220014476 A1) and Brooks (US5825869A).
Regarding claim 5:
Chen in view of Troia, Magzimof and Brantner, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 2. Chen teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 2, wherein the one or more first processors are configured to, when a plurality of mobilities…(Chen, claim 1, “A computer-implemented method for controlling autonomous vehicles”)
Chen does not explicitly teach, but Brooks teaches:
when a plurality of …having the same score is present, update the assignment order such that … has requested the remote support at an earlier time ranks in a higher place.( Brooks, Col.2, lines 11-13, “If several calls of equal priority are waiting in a queue, the call which has been waiting the longest is routed to the available agent”) Examiner note: The primary reference of Chen’s vehicle/remote support system that teaches priority/score based assignment of vehicles to remote supporters, and Brooks’ queue management reference showing that it is conventional to break ties among equal priority items by ordering them according to earlier request / longer wait time.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Brooks in order to include wherein the one or more first processors are configured to, when a plurality of mobilities having the same score is present, update the assignment order such that a mobility that has requested the remote support at an earlier time ranks in a higher place. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to efficiently handle the remote requests.
Claim 9, 11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US20200272949A1) in view of Troia (US 20190372622 A1), further in view of Magzimof (US20190187691A1) and Nakashima ( US20220326035A1).
Regarding claim 9:
Chen in view of Troia, Magzimof, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 8. Chen teaches:
The remote support management device according to claim 8, wherein the plurality of mobilities includes a passenger car, a truck, a bus, and an automated driving vehicle.( Chen, para [26], “The autonomous vehicle can be a ground-based autonomous vehicle such as an autonomous car, autonomous truck, autonomous bus, etc. The autonomous vehicle can be a light electric vehicle (e.g., bike, scooter, etc.). The autonomous vehicle can be an air-based autonomous vehicle (e.g., airplane, helicopter, or other aircraft) or other types of vehicles (e.g., watercraft, etc.).”
Chen does not explicitly teach, but Nakashima teaches:
a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) vehicle (Nakashima, abstract, “ mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) vehicles”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention, to modify a Remote Autonomous Vehicle Assistance device from Chen to include these above teachings from Nakashima in order to include a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) vehicle. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to efficiently handle the remote requests.
RESPONSE TO ARGUMENTS
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101. The amendments have overcome the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections because the amended claim limitation of “and cause the remote support terminal to perform the remote support to the one or more mobilities according to an assignment order based on the score, wherein the remote support includes automated driving assistance of the one or more mobilities” is not an abstract idea of mental process.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-7 (See applicant’s response, page 9, “Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103”) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kai Wang whose telephone number is (571) 270-5633. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:30-5:30 Eastern.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rachid Bendidi can be reached on (571) 272-4896. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KAI NMN WANG/Examiner, Art Unit 3664
/REDHWAN K MAWARI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3664
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