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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukai et al. (US 2018/0281803) in view of Watanabe et al. (US 2021/0129905).
Regarding claims 1-2, 11-12, Mukai discloses a driving assistance system for assisting driving of a host vehicle (page 1, [0003]), the system comprising: a processor (fig. 1) configured to: plan a behavior change that is a change in a driving behavior controlled in the host vehicle (page 4, [0058-0061]; page 5, [0062-0066]).
Mukai discloses all the limitations set forth above but fails to explicitly disclose project a notification image that provides notification of a transition state of the behavior change onto a traveling road to cause a different road user to recognize the notification image, the different road user being expected to interact with the host vehicle.
However, Watanabe discloses project a notification image that provides notification of a transition state of the behavior change onto a traveling road to cause a different road user to recognize the notification image, the different road user being expected to interact with the host vehicle (page 11, [0087]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was first filed to incorporate the features of Watanabe within the system of Mukai in order to enable smooth traveling of the primary vehicle in the vicinity of an intersection thereby improving the reliability of the system.
Regarding claims 3-4, Mukai discloses wherein the projection of the notification image includes projection of the notification image that provides the notification of the transition state in which the lane change is temporarily held in response to a prediction of interference by the rear user with the lane change (page 6, [0080-0086]; page 7, [0101-0105]).
Regarding claims 5-6, Mukai and Watanabe disclose all the limitations set forth in claim 1 and Watanabe further discloses wherein a plan of the behavior change includes a plan of a turning that is the behavior change controlled in the host vehicle and is a right turning or a left turning at an
intersection, and projection of the notification image is projection of the notification image that
provides the notification of the transition state of the turning to cause the intersection
user close to a turning destination at the intersection to recognize the notification image,
the intersection user being the different road user predicted to interact with the host
vehicle (page 7, [0101-0106]).
Regarding claim 7, Mukai and Watanabe disclose all the limitations set forth in claim 1 and Watanabe further discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set a control instruction to the host vehicle to return a steering angle of the host vehicle toward an origin angle in response to temporal stop of the turning (page 11, [0086-0087]).
Regarding claims 8-9, Mukai and Watanabe disclose all the limitations set forth in claim 1 and Watanabe further discloses wherein a plan of the behavior change includes a plan of an exit from a parking space, the exit is the behavior change controlled in the host vehicle, and projection of the notification image includes projection of the notification image that provides the notification of the transition state of the exit to cause a peripheral user in a periphery of the parking space to recognize the notification image, the peripheral user being the different road user predicted to interact with the host vehicle (page 11, [0087]).
Regarding claim 10, Mukai and Watanabe disclose all the limitations set forth in claim 1 and Watanabe further discloses wherein the processor is further configured to set a control instruction to the host vehicle to return a steering angle of the host vehicle toward an origin angle in response to
temporal hold of the exit (page 11, [0086-0087]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ueda (US 2020/0317193) discloses travel……device.
Mimura et al. (US 2020/0172122) discloses vehicle control….program.
Tsuji et al. (US 2018/0074497) discloses driving assistance…..program.
Kubota et al. (US 2019/0283770) discloses display………medium.
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DP
July 15, 2026
/DANIEL PREVIL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2685
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