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 .
Examiner’s Note
A translated copy of all foreign references cited has been provided which the examiner relies upon.
Claim Interpretation
“Selected” is being interpreted as a “manually selected” as only a manual selection appears to be reasonable in light of the specification (see at least ¶ 0025) and in light of dependent claims 3-5.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 6-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Waeller et al. DE 102010047778 A1 (hereinafter Waeller) in view of Yoo et al. KR 20170054849 A (hereinafter Yoo).
Regarding claims 1, 6, and 7;
Waeller teaches
A driver assist method comprising:
collectively providing instructions of settings within a group (¶ 0001 discloses a plurality of driver assistance systems assigned to sets that can be jointly activated or deactivated upon selection of the set), the settings being set to driver assist functions included in the group (¶ 0001 discloses activating or deactivating driver assistance systems), and the group being configured so that a driver assist function of a vehicle is allowed to be added to or deleted from the group (¶ 0014 discloses that sets can be reconfigured by a user); and
when a specific group representing a driving mode in which notification is disabled is selected from among a plurality of groups, collectively disable notification-related functions in the driver assist functions included in the specific group (¶ 0001 discloses jointly deactivating driver assistance systems associated with a selected set; ¶ 0010 discloses that the type of operation is irrelevant since all driver assistance systems, including warning systems for example, can be activated or deactivated together).
Waeller does not explicitly teach
A non-transitory storage medium storing instructions that are executable by one or more processors and that cause the one or more processors to perform the method further comprising:
when acquired current location information of the vehicle indicates a specific place, collectively disable notification-related functions in the driver assist functions included in the specific group.
While the non-transitory storage medium and processor may be implicitly derived from Waeller wherein a storage device and control unit, a known component of a processor, are utilized to perform the method (see at least ¶ 0009) suggesting some program instructions must be utilized within the storage device to execute the method with a control unit, Yoo will be utilized to teach these limitations. Further, while Waeller may suggest disabling notification related functions in a specific place since ¶ 0017 discloses that, to assist users with selecting sets of driver assistance functions to turn on/off, functions can be sorted by road category identifiers (e.g. city traffic and country road journey), since Waeller does not explicitly teach turning on/off these sets when detecting the vehicle is within such a situation, Yoo is relied upon for completeness of record.
Yoo teaches
A non-transitory storage medium storing instructions that are executable by one or more processors and that cause the one or more processors to perform the method (¶ 0098 discloses a memory storing a program executable by a processor to perform operation of a vehicle driving assistance device) further comprising:
when acquired current location information of the vehicle indicates a specific place, collectively disable notification-related functions in the driver assist functions included in the specific group (¶ 0160 discloses automatically turning off a lane departure warning function when a driver is detected driving on a side road and a user has selected to turn off the function; see Figure 9c for an illustrative example of a side road 40; see also ¶ 0152 where a side road is detected based on current location information).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Waeller to incorporate the teachings of Yoo such that the driving assistance systems, such as a lane departure warning function, can be disabled further when a specific place such as a side road is detected as the environment of the vehicle as taught by Yoo. The combined method of Waeller and Yoo can also be performed using a program stored in a memory executable by a processor as taught by Yoo. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to allow for reliable and repeatable performance of the method utilizing a computer and further to prevent providing incorrect, inaccurate, or unnecessary notifications on specific roads that would otherwise reduce driver awareness and/or increase driver irritation.
Regarding claims 8-10, the modified Waeller reference teaches all of claims 1, 6, and 7 as detailed above.
Waeller further teaches that
at least one driver assist function of the driver assist functions includes a pre-crash safety (¶ 0010 discloses that the type of driver assistance system to turn off/on is irrelevant and any system can be turned off; ¶ 0005 discloses an example driver assistance system of a distance warning has been known in the prior art) or a secondary collision brake.
While Waeller does not explicitly indicate that the driver assistance system includes a distance warning system, since Waeller clearly indicates that such a system is known in the art and that any system can be turned off/on irrelevant to its function with the teachings of Waeller, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that such a combination is at least suggested, contemplated, and/or obvious in the teachings of Waeller. Thus, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Waeller such that at least one of the driver assistance systems of Waeller can include the distance warning as known in the prior art detailed in Waeller. It is within the capabilities of one of ordinary skill in the art to attach and install a distance warning system to Waeller's driver assistance system activation/deactivation method with the predictable result of easily and quickly turning off or on driver assistance functions according to user need to improve user experience as needed in Waeller.
Claim(s) 3 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Waeller as modified by Yoo as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hara et al. US 20080088425 A1 (hereinafter Hara).
Regarding claim 3, the modified Waeller reference teaches all of claim 1 as detailed above.
Waeller does not teach that
the one or more processors are further configured to make a suggestion to select the specific group, when a predetermined condition related to an occupant or a predetermined condition related to a driving purpose is satisfied.
Hara teaches that
the one or more processors are further configured to make a suggestion to select the specific group when a predetermined condition related to an occupant is satisfied (¶ 0012 discloses prompting a user to disable a vehicle’s notification when a user operation has been detected; examiner understands a “condition related to an occupant” to be reasonable broad such as to include a user operation, and examiner further urges review of claim 4’s rejection under 103 if a narrower interpretation is desired).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Waeller to incorporate the teachings of Hara such that a user can be prompted to disable a notification according to Hara by selecting a set comprising the warning driver assistance system where the notification originates in Waeller. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to reduce nuisance to users as disclosed in Hara (¶ 0009).
Regarding claim 5, the modified Waeller reference teaches all of claim 3 as detailed above.
Waeller further teaches that
when the one or more processors are further configured to make the suggestion to select the specific group, the instructions of the settings include a change of a setting of another function other than the notification-related functions (¶ 0010 discloses regulating systems, i.e. non-notification related systems, can also be included within a set and can be deactivated along with the other systems in the set based on set selection; examiner understands this means that any time a group is selected such as from the suggestion detailed in claim 3 above, non-notification related functions may also be deactivated).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Waeller as modified by Yoo and Hara as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of Priya et al. US 20240217522 A1 (hereinafter Priya).
Regarding claim 4, the modified Waeller reference teaches all of claim 3 as detailed above.
Waeller does not teach that
the predetermined condition related to the occupant is at least one of a case where a driver registered in advance getting in the vehicle is detected and a case where a passenger getting in a rear seat is detected.
Priya teaches that
the predetermined condition related to the occupant is at least one of a case where a driver registered in advance getting in the vehicle is detected (¶ 0011 discloses driver preferences can be saved, including warning preferences; ¶ 0013 discloses vehicle settings can be automatically adjusted to the saved settings when a recognized user is detected).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Waeller to incorporate the teachings of Priya such that, upon the vehicle recognizing a user according to Priya, the vehicle can prompt the user to disable notification according to Hara of a system that has been saved as a system that the user prefers to have disabled according to Priya. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to allow the vehicle to be quickly configured to an operator’s preferences and reduce time required to set-up the vehicle prior to driving.
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.
Claim 11 is allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims 2 and 11 contain the allowable subject matter indicated in the Office Action dated 5/12/2026.
Response to Amendment
Claim amendments filed 7/9/2026 have been received and fully considered and overcome the claim objections and 112(b) rejections of record detailed in the Office Action dated 5/12/2026. These/this objections and rejection have/has been withdrawn.
Specification amendments filed 7/9/2026 have been received and fully considered and overcome the specification objections, title objections, and drawing objections of record detailed in the Office Action dated 5/12/2026. These/this objections have/has been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 10-12, filed 7/9/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 and 6-7 under 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive in light of claim amendments filed 7/9/2026. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Waeller as modified by Yoo.
Documents Considered but not Relied Upon
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Pomish et al. US 20200307622 A1 discloses deactivating a collision warning when on a road of a specific category.
Hellmann et al. WO 2023030713 A1 discloses turning off cruise control when a winding road is detected.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
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/A.T.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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