CTNF 19/016,062 CTNF 89584 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. 12-151 AIA 26-51 12-51 Status of Claims The following is a Non-Final Office Action in response to applicant’s filing on January 10, 2025. Claims 1-4 are pending, of which claim 1 is in independent form. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 07-30-02 AIA 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. 07-34-01 Claims 1-4 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. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the gateway device being configured to relay communication between the electronic control devices with a plurality of the networks connected to the gateway device”. Specifically, the phrase “ being configured to rely communication” is functional and the claim does not provide a discernible boundary as to what performs the function e.g. the storage or the execution device. Accordingly, the claim fails to set forth a clear boundary of the invention and renders the scope of the claim indefinite. Dependent claims 2-4 are rejected by virtue of dependency to their independent claim 1. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOMOYA et al. (JP7359061B2), hereinafter TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka et al. (US 2012/0307836A1), hereinafter Ishigooka . Regarding claim 1, TOMOYA discloses a gateway device to be applied to an in-vehicle network system in which a plurality of electronic control devices constitutes a network for each communication bus and performs communication conforming to a protocol of a controller area network (TOMOYA, Para. 24, a communication system 1 according to the present embodiment is a communication system mounted on a vehicle, and includes a gateway device (hereinafter referred to as GW) 3 and a plurality of communication paths (hereinafter referred to as bus) connected to the GW 3. ) 5, and a plurality of electronic control units (hereinafter referred to as ECUs) 7 connected to each bus 5) and (TOMOYA, Para 12, The communication system 1 performs communication with each ECU 7 and GW 3 via each bus 5 according to the CAN protocol (ISO 11898-6)) , the gateway device being configured to relay communication between the electronic control devices with a plurality of the networks connected to the gateway device (TOMOYA, Page 2) , the gateway device comprising a storage device and an execution device, wherein (TOMOYA, Para. 15, the relay device includes a storage section (13) and a processing section (17, S120, S130)) : and the execution device is configured to, when an activation request message including information indicating the electronic control device that is a transmission source is received from the electronic control device and the received activation request message does not include activation target information indicating the electronic control device to be activated (TOMOYA, Para. 16, when the processing unit receives a wake-up frame from any communication device via a bus to which the communication device is connected, the processing unit determines the wake-up frame based on the wake-up pattern of each communication device stored in the storage unit) and (TOMOYA, Para. 0052, since a wake-up frame is used as the communication frame, the source ID includes information indicating that it is a wake-up frame. Therefore, other ECUs 7 that have received the communication frame can identify the type of frame based on the sender ID. In other words, it is possible to identify that the received communication frame is a wake-up frame based on the source ID) and (TOMOYA, Paras. 0053-0054, this wake-up frame stores an 8-bit wake-up pattern (ie, Wake Up pattern). Specifically, the plurality of ECUs 7 are divided into eight types of groups in order from the beginning of the wake-up pattern, and information for setting the operating state of each group is stored) , identify the group to which the electronic control map (TOMOYA, Para. 61, In the management table, each bus 5, the ECU (namely, connected ECU) 7 connected to each bus 5, and the wake-up pattern in the wake-up frame of each ECU 7 are stored in association with each other) , and determine, as a relay destination, the network including the electronic control device belonging to the identified group without determining, as the relay destination (TOMOYA, Para. 0078, In S130, since there is an ECU 7 (i.e., ECU 7 in the same group) whose wake-up pattern matches the bus 5 (i.e., target bus 5) for which the match was determined in S120, the target bus 5 to which the ECU 7 is connected the received wakeup frame is then transmitted) and (TMOYO, Para. 0079, that is, the wakeup frame is stored in the transmission buffer 21 of the GW transceiver 15 connected to the target bus 5, and then the wakeup frame stored in the transmission buffer 21 is transmitted to the target bus 5) , the network that does not include the electronic control device belonging to the identified group (TMOYO, Paras. 0018-0019, the received wake-up frame is transmitted to the bus to which the received wake-up frame should be transmitted, that is, the bus in which the ECU to be woken up is present, but to the bus in which the ECU to be woken up is not present. It is possible to prevent the transmission from occurring). TOMOYA does not explicitly disclose the storage device is configured to store a correspondence map indicating correspondence relationships among a plurality of groups indicating combinations of some of the electronic control devices out of the plurality of electronic control devices, the electronic control devices belonging to the groups, and the networks constituted by the electronic control devices; However, Ishigooka teaches the storage device is configured to store a correspondence map indicating correspondence relationships among a plurality of groups indicating combinations of some of the electronic control devices out of the plurality of electronic control devices (Ishigooka, Para. 0069, the memory 120 includes the program storage area 121 and the routing table storage area 122) , the electronic control devices belonging to the groups (Ishigooka, Para. 0087, the topology information table 400 is a table holding topology information pieces in respective rows. Each of the topology information pieces describes a communication route information piece to be set in the corresponding routing table of the in-vehicle-data relaying device 100. The topology information table 400 includes a data ID column 401, a frame ID column 402, a data length column 403, a transmission GW ID column 404, a transmission network ID column 405, a relay method column 407, a transmission network frame ID column 406, a reception GW ID column 408, a reception network ID column 409, and a reception network frame ID column 410) , and the networks constituted by the electronic control devices (Ishigooka, Para. 0056, a vehicle control system 1000 has a configuration in which one or more ECUs (electronic control units) configured to control an operation of a vehicle are connected through networks) ; TOMOYA and Ishigooka are both considered to be analogous to the claim invention because they are in the same field of activating a specific electronic control device, in order to activate ap partial network, in order to reduce the network system power consumption. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified TOMOYA to incorporate the teachings of Ishigooka to include the storage device is configured to store a correspondence map indicating correspondence relationships among a plurality of groups indicating combinations of some of the electronic control devices out of the plurality of electronic control devices (Ishigooka, Para. 0069) , the electronic control devices belonging to the groups (Ishigooka, Para. 0087) , and the networks constituted by the electronic control devices (Ishigooka, Para. 0056). Doing so would aid to update the routing table thereof by using the topology information piece. This can enhance work efficiency for setting the routing table. In addition, relaying the topology information piece through the networks makes it possible to update the routing table through the in-vehicle network even in the in-vehicle network having the multiple types of networks by distributing the topology information piece to the in-vehicle-data relaying devices (Ishigooka , Para. 0128) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOMOYA et al. (JP7359061B2), hereinafter TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka et al. (US 2012/0307836A1), hereinafter Ishigooka and further in view of HARATA et al. (WO 2020/032118 A1), hereinafter HARATA . Regarding claim 2, the combination of TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka does not explicitly teach the gateway device according to claim 1, wherein the execution device is further configured to add information indicating the electronic control device belonging to the identified group as the activation target information to the activation request message to be transmitted to the relay destination However, HARATA teaches wherein the execution device is further configured to add information indicating the electronic control device belonging to the identified group as the activation target information to the activation request message to be transmitted to the relay destination (HARATA, Page. 0053, The vehicle program rewriting system 1 performs an activation request instruction process in the CGW 13. The CGW 13 issues an activation request to the plurality of rewriting target ECUs 19 that have completed the rewriting of the application program in order to validate the rewritten program. In the present embodiment, the CGW 13 analyzes the rewrite specification data for the CGW to determine the group of the ECU 19 to be rewritten) and (HARATA, Page 11, the ECU information includes the address information and the like to be referred to when transmitting the update program (write data) of each rewrite target ECU 19 to the CGW 13 by the number of rewrite target ECUs. Specifically, the ECU information includes an ID for identifying the ECU (ECU (ID)), a reference address for acquiring the update program (update program acquisition address), an update program size, and a rollback program. At this time, at least a reference address (rollback program acquisition address) and a rollback program size are included. The rollback program is a program (write data) for returning the application program to the original version when the rewriting of the application program is canceled in the middle). TOMOYA, Ishigooka and HARATA are all considered to be analogous to the claim invention because they are in the same field of activating a specific electronic control device, in order to activate a partial network, in order to reduce the network system power consumption. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified TOMOYA and Ishigooka to incorporate the teachings of HARATA to include wherein the execution device is further configured to add information indicating the electronic control device belonging to the identified group as the activation target information to the activation request message to be transmitted to the relay destination (HARATA, Page. 0053) and (HARATA, Page 11). Doing so would aid to provide a vehicle that can appropriately control switching from an old program to a new program when a plurality of electronic control devices are to be rewritten. The present invention provides a master device for a vehicle, an electronic control system for a vehicle, an activation request instruction method, and an activation request instruction program(HARATA, Page 1) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOMOYA et al. (JP7359061B2), hereinafter TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka et al. (US 2012/0307836A1), hereinafter Ishigooka and further in view of VANGELOV et al. (US 2018/0063246 A1), hereinafter VANGELOV . Regarding claim 3, the combination of TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka teaches the gateway device according to claim 1, the network including the electronic control device indicated by the activation target information in the received activation request message without determining, as the relay destination (TOMOYA, Para. 16, when the processing unit receives a wake-up frame from any communication device via a bus to which the communication device is connected, the processing unit determines the wake-up frame based on the wake-up pattern of each communication device stored in the storage unit) and (TOMOYA, Para. 0052, since a wake-up frame is used as the communication frame, the source ID includes information indicating that it is a wake-up frame. Therefore, other ECUs 7 that have received the communication frame can identify the type of frame based on the sender ID. In other words, it is possible to identify that the received communication frame is a wake-up frame based on the source ID) and (TOMOYA, Paras. 0053-0054, this wake-up frame stores an 8-bit wake-up pattern (ie, Wake Up pattern). Specifically, the plurality of ECUs 7 are divided into eight types of groups in order from the beginning of the wake-up pattern, and information for setting the operating state of each group is stored) , the network that does not include the electronic control device indicated by the activation target information in the received activation request message (TMOYO, Paras. 0018-0019, the received wake-up frame is transmitted to the bus to which the received wake-up frame should be transmitted, that is, the bus in which the ECU to be woken up is present, but to the bus in which the ECU to be woken up is not present. It is possible to prevent the transmission from occurring). TMOYO in view of Ishigooka do not explicitly teach wherein the execution device is further configured to, when the activation request message is received from the electronic control device and the received activation request message includes the activation target information, 2 determine, as the relay destination, However, VANGELOV teaches wherein the execution device is further configured to, when the activation request message is received from the electronic control device and the received activation request message includes the activation target information, determine, as the relay destination (VANGELOV, Fig. 4, and Para. 0039, a Priority Parameter defines the priority of the messages relative to the diagnostic and control messages on the vehicle. An individual server may not care what the contents of these three bits are. These may be used for the client to be able to dynamically assign networking priority) , TOMOYA, Ishigooka and VANGELOV are all considered to be analogous to the claim invention because they are in the same field of activating a specific electronic control device, in order to activate a partial network, in order to reduce the network system power consumption. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified TOMOYA and Ishigooka to incorporate the teachings of VANGELOV to include wherein the execution device is further configured to, when the activation request message is received from the electronic control device and the received activation request message includes the activation target information, determine, as the relay destination (VANGELOV, Fig. 4, and Para. 0039). Doing so would aid to accommodate for ECUs located on different networks in different product lines (i.e., a single formatted request can be passed to multiple product lines without having to know the addresses of the intended recipient-ECUs)(VANGELOV, Para. 0065). Regarding claim 4, the combination of TOMOYA in view of Ishigooka teaches the gateway device according to claim 1, wherein the execution device is further configured to, when the activation request message is received from the electronic control device (TOMOYA, Para. 16, when the processing unit receives a wake-up frame from any communication device via a bus to which the communication device is connected, the processing unit determines the wake-up frame based on the wake-up pattern of each communication device stored in the storage unit) and (TOMOYA, Para. 0052, since a wake-up frame is used as the communication frame, the source ID includes information indicating that it is a wake-up frame. Therefore, other ECUs 7 that have received the communication frame can identify the type of frame based on the sender ID. In other words, it is possible to identify that the received communication frame is a wake-up frame based on the source ID) and (TOMOYA, Paras. 0053-0054, this wake-up frame stores an 8-bit wake-up pattern (ie, Wake Up pattern). Specifically, the plurality of ECUs 7 are divided into eight types of groups in order from the beginning of the wake-up pattern, and information for setting the operating state of each group is stored) , TMOYO in view of Ishigooka does not explicitly teach determine whether the received activation request message includes the activation target information. However, VANGELOV teaches determine whether the received activation request message includes the activation target information (VANGELOV, Para. 0005, the processor is also configured to identify a vehicle electronic control unit (ECU) as a target recipient based on a target identifier included with the request). TOMOYA, Ishigooka and VANGELOV are all considered to be analogous to the claim invention because they are in the same field of activating a specific electronic control device, in order to activate a partial network, in order to reduce the network system power consumption. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified TOMOYA and Ishigooka to incorporate the teachings of VANGELOV to include determine whether the received activation request message includes the activation target information (VANGELOV, Para. 0005). Doing so would aid to accommodate for ECUs located on different networks in different product lines (i.e., a single formatted request can be passed to multiple product lines without having to know the addresses of the intended recipient-ECUs)(VANGELOV, Para. 0065) . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GITA FARAMARZI whose telephone number is (571)272-0248. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 9:00 am- 6:00 pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jorge L. Ortiz-Criado can be reached at (571)272-7624. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /GITA FARAMARZI/Examiner, Art Unit 2496 /JORGE L ORTIZ CRIADO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2496 Application/Control Number: 19/016,062 Page 2 Art Unit: 2496 Application/Control Number: 19/016,062 Page 3 Art Unit: 2496 Application/Control Number: 19/016,062 Page 4 Art Unit: 2496
