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 1-3, 5, 8-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saiki (US 2019/0100197).
Regarding claims 1 and 9-13, Saiki discloses for executing a steering intervention for a vehicle traveling on a road, the method comprising: in response to an automated steering intervention being triggered:
obtaining a first path (S32) for the vehicle, wherein the first path represents a ramping-up steering capability of the vehicle towards a lateral direction and defines a set of expected positions of at least a portion of the vehicle on the road in the event of an automated steering intervention (See [0082]), at a limit of a steering capability of the vehicle (B1 [0079]), being executed at a current moment in time;
obtaining a second path for the vehicle(S33-S36, [0013] [0082]), wherein the second path represents a ramping-down steering capability of the vehicle and defines a set of expected positions of at least a portion of the vehicle when the vehicle transitions along states of gradually reduced turning to a state of driving straight, at the limit of the steering capability of the vehicle, wherein the state of driving straight defines an end-point of the second path;
applying active steering while the vehicle is executing the complete steering intervention path up until reaching the switch-over point, and deactivating the active steering upon reaching the switch-over point (see [0009] [0010] [0013] [0082]).
The difference between the prior art reference and the instant invention is the
forming a complete steering intervention path by combining the first path and the second path at a switch-over point so that the vehicle, when executing the complete steering intervention path, transitions from the first path into the second path at the switch-over point and ends up at a selected termination point with a heading relative to the road that corresponds to a set angular offset, it would have been considered to be an obvious choice of mechanical design because one skilled in this art is familiar with basic steering control intervention and normally has the laboratory test facilities. To optimize or select the suitable switch over point would be within the ability of ordinary skill in this art.
Regarding claim 2, Saiki discloses the first path (S32) and the second path (S33-36) are generated based on a predefined steering capability model of the vehicle that outputs the corresponding set of expected positions of at least the portion of the vehicle based on a given state of the vehicle ([0082] [0013]).
Regarding claims 3, 5 and 8, Saiki discloses the given state of the vehicle includes a velocity of the vehicle, and a yaw rate of the vehicle or lateral acceleration of the vehicle (See [0029] [0030]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6 and 7 are 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN KWON whose telephone number is (571)272-4846. The examiner can normally be reached M-F; 9A-5P. EST.
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/JOHN KWON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747 August 8, 2026
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