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 .
This communication is responsive to the Application No. 19/089,587 filled on 03/25/2025.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Claim Objections
Claim 10 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 10, the comma (,) after the phrase “further comprising” should apparently be colon (:). Appropriate correction is required.
Regarding claim 20, the comma (,) after the phrase “A non-transitory” should apparently be deleted. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 1-10 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 cite the phrase “the vehicle”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The phrase "vehicle” is not recited in the previous lines of the claim.
Claims 2-10 are also rejected by the virtue of their dependency on rejected base claim.
Examiner's Note
Examiner has cited particular paragraphs/ columns and line numbers or figures in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching
all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. Applicant is reminded that the Examiner is entitled to give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the language of the claims. Furthermore, the Examiner is not limited to Applicants' definition which is not specifically set forth in the claims.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-8 and 11-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rasmusson, JR. et al. (US 2018/0136656 A1) (hereinafter Rasmusson) in view of Hamilton et al. (US 2020/0124428 A1) (hereinafter Hamilton).
Claim 1. Rasmusson, JR. et al. (US 2018/0136656 A1) teaches a method comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors, an instruction to pick up or drop off a passenger at a location (See Para. [0051], “the computing device provides instructions to navigate to the highest-ranked location, as this location is likely a suitable location to drop-off or pick-up a passenger”);
identifying, by the one or more processors, an available driveway based on sensor data (See Para. [0051], “the computing device may identify available drop-off locations”);
controlling, by the one or more processors, the vehicle to enter the available driveway (See Para. [0035], “autonomous vehicle 140 may navigate to the physical location that corresponds to the graphical representation of the pick-up location”).
Nevertheless, Rasmusson fails to explicitly teach, determining, by the one or more processors, a relationship between the available driveway and the location; and controlling the vehicle based on the determined relationship.
However, Hamilton teaches, determining, by the one or more processors, a relationship between the available driveway and the location (See Para. [0011], discloses “identifying a pick-up location, and finding a suitable parking spot close to the pick up the customer”, and/or see Para. [021], [0026], “pickup location specified by the customer”, Para. [0034], “determine a position of the customer”, and para. [0035]-[0036], determine whether parking space is available”, ana see para. [0037], “determine a distance between the customer location and available parking spot [i.e., driveway]” ); and
controlling the vehicle based on the determined relationship (See Abstract, Para. [0021], [0026], [0033], discloses “the autonomous vehicle of the ride service is navigated to the pickup location to pick up identified customer”, and/or see Para. [0053], “receiving, by one or more computers coupled to at least one memory, a request for a ride from a customer device associated with a user; responding to the request by navigating an autonomous vehicle to a pick-up location”. Additionally, see Para. [0019], “Each of the autonomous vehicles that are a part of the fleet of cars operated by the ride service operator 115 includes a computer system, such as the computer system 136 in the autonomous vehicle 130. The computer system 136 may include several components such as a processor 137 and a memory 138”, and Para. [0025], “the processor 137 performs the recited operations”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the application, to have modified the teaching of Rasmusson with a processor configured to autonomously navigate/route/travel the vehicle to a customer pickup location as taught by Hamilton in order to provide a convenient ride service.
Claim 2. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, wherein identifying the available driveway includes using one or more driveway models trained to recognize available driveways (See Rasmusson, Abstract and/or Para. [0011]. “a system [i.e., model] for evaluating and presenting pick-up and drop-off locations in a situational-awareness view of an autonomous vehicle and/or finding a suitable parking spot close to the customer”, and/or see Para. [0044], discloses “algorithm used to determine picking or dropping location”. Additionally, see Hamilton, Para. [0022], discloses “The parking system 142 [i.e., model trained to recognize available driveway] may be coupled to the driving equipment of the autonomous vehicle 130 and used for identifying a suitable parking spot when picking up the customer 105).
Claim 3. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, wherein identifying the available driveway includes accessing stored map information including driveway information identifying the shapes and dimensions of driveways (See Rasmusson, Abstract, “a method includes identifying, based on map data, an area for pick-up or drop-off of a user by an autonomous vehicle”, and see Para. [0011], [0034], [0045], discloses “a visual representation [constitutes shape and dimension/size of the driveway as claimed] of at least a portion of the area for pick-up or drop-off that indicates at least one of the potential pick-up or drop-off locations, where the location size is at least the size of the footprint of the autonomous vehicle plus two feet of buffer room”. Additionally, see Rasmusson, Claim 10).
Claim 4. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the driveway information identifies whether the available driveway belongs to the location (See Rasmusson, Para. [0007], “method for determining a pick-up or drop-off location for a user and presenting potential pick-up or drop-off locations in a real-time situational-awareness view”, and/or see Para. [0011], “determining, based on autonomous-vehicle sensor data, one or more potential pick-up or drop-off locations within the area”).
Claim 5. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising, selecting the available driveway includes selecting the available driveway from a plurality of available driveways (See Rasmusson, Para. [0035], “autonomous vehicle 140 may autonomously determine a pick-up location from available pick-up locations”).
Claim 6. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the relationship includes that the available driveway is a closest driveway to an entrance of the location (See Rasmusson, Para. [0010], “The autonomous vehicle should select a drop-off location for this rider that is reasonably close to where the passenger wants to be dropped off.” Additionally, see Hamilton, Para. [0011], [0037], “a suitable parking spot close to the customer”).
Claim 7. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the relationship includes that the available driveway is within a same set of lot boundaries as the location (See Rasmusson, Abstract and/or Para. [0011], discloses “pick-up or drop-off locations are within the area [i.e., same set of lot boundary]”, and/or see Fig. 4, 410C).
Claim 8. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the relationship includes that the available driveway is on a same side of a road as the location (See Rasmusson, Fig. 4, the drop-off location 410C is same side of road as the location”).
Claims 11-18 are system claims corresponding to method claims 1-8 and having the same technical features as claims 1-8, differing only in the category of invention. Therefore, the claims 11-18 are rejected for the same rationales set forth as above for claims 1-8.
Claim 20 is computer-readable medium claim corresponding to method claim 1 and having the same technical features as claim 1, differing only in the category of invention. Therefore, the claim 20 is rejected for the same rationales set forth as above for claims 1.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rasmusson, JR. et al. (US 2018/0136656 A1) (hereinafter Rasmusson) in view of Hamilton et al. (US 2020/0124428 A1) (hereinafter Hamilton) and further in view of Yamanaka et al. (US 2020/0189570 A1) (hereinafter Yamanaka).
Claim 9. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to teach wherein the controlling of the vehicle to enter the available driveway includes controlling the vehicle to maintain at least a predetermined clearance distance from an object on the available driveway.
However, Yamanaka et al. (US 2020/0189570 A1) teaches, wherein the controlling of the vehicle to enter the available driveway includes controlling the vehicle to maintain at least a predetermined clearance distance from an object on the available driveway (See Para. [0082], [0111], discloses “the parking route for moving the vehicle V is set on positions at which a predetermined margin distance is maintained in order to avoid the vehicle from coming close to and/or coming into contact with surrounding obstacles”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the application, to have modified the teaching of Rasmusson in view of the teaching of Hamilton with a parking control system as taught by Yamanaka to incorporate the above claimed invention in order to avoid the vehicle from coming close to and/or coming into contact with surrounding obstacles.
Claim 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rasmusson, JR. et al. (US 2018/0136656 A1) (hereinafter Rasmusson) in view of Hamilton et al. (US 2020/0124428 A1) (hereinafter Hamilton) and further in view of Rong et al. (US 2019/0137291 A1) (hereinafter Rong).
Claim 10. The teaching of Rasmusson as modified by Hamilton teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to teach the method further comprising, determining that the vehicle is approaching the location from an opposite side of a road as the location, wherein the identifying is in response to determining that the vehicle is approaching the location from the opposite side of a road as the location.
However, Rong et al. (US 2019/0137291 A1) teaches the method comprising: determining that the vehicle is approaching the location from an opposite side of a road as the location, wherein the identifying is in response to determining that the vehicle is approaching the location from the opposite side of a road as the location (See Para. [0043], Fig. 4, “the vehicle make U-turn to pick up the passenger from the position 402 [opposite side of the road as the pickup location”, same as claimed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the application, to have modified the teaching of Rasmusson in view of the teaching of Hamilton with a method to pick up passenger from opposite side of the road as taught by Rong to incorporate the claimed invention in order to navigating the vehicle to opposite side of the road for passenger’s safety.
Claim 19 is system claim corresponding to method claim 10 and having the same technical features as claim 10, differing only in the category of invention. Therefore, the claim 19 is rejected for the same rationales set forth as above for claims 10.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to B M M HANNAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0237. The examiner can normally be reached MONDAY-FRIDAY at 8:30AM-5:30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Adam Mott can be reached at 5712705376. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/B M M HANNAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3657
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