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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on December 16, 2024 is being considered by the examiner.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 and 3-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Matsunaga (US 2021/0300409).
As per claim 1, Matsunaga discloses a vehicle control system (1, figure 1) that controls a vehicle, the comprising:
a control device (100, figure 1), wherein the control device is configured to:
perform vehicle travel control for generating a target trajectory based on a driving environment of the vehicle and controlling the vehicle in such a manner that the vehicle follows the target trajectory (see abstract and paragraph 0051-0052),
calculate a degree of deviation between a predicted trajectory or a predicted vehicle state and the target trajectory, the predicted trajectory or the predicted vehicle state being predicted from a current vehicle state of the vehicle (see abstract and paragraph 0059-0060), and
when the degree of deviation satisfies a notification providing condition, provide a notification indicating a target behavior of the vehicle due to the vehicle travel control to an occupant of the vehicle (see abstract and paragraphs 0007, 0015, 0037, 0059).
As per claim 3, Matsunaga discloses the notification providing condition includes a case the degree of deviation is equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold (see abstract and paragraphs 0007, 0015-0018).
As per claim 4, Matsunaga discloses the control device being configured to determine the notification providing condition and a content of the notification by using a machine learning model. (paragraphs 0015-0016, 0043).
As per claim 5, Matsunaga discloses the notification providing condition is allowed to be set by the occupant (paragraphs 0037 and 0039).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/TAI T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2685 February 11, 2026