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.
Claim(s) 13, 14, 17-19 and 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Funke et al. (Patent No. 12,374,125) in view of SEIMIYA et al. (US 2020/0406890).
Claims 13, 21, 22 and 23 Funke teaches a method and control unit for vehicle guidance (abstract, col. 31, ln 56-60: autonomous vehicle with computer and stored instructions), comprising the following steps:
receiving and/or retrieving sensor data (Fig. 1, step 106: capture sensor data), and a destination (“the autonomous vehicle may be controlled to proceed around the pedestrian, to enter a parking spot”);
recognizing and/or tracking a traffic object based on the sensor data (col. 30, ln 25-30: At operation 1004, the prediction component may determine one or more potential destinations for the dynamic object, based on the sensor data);
recognizing a driving maneuver of the traffic object based on the tracking of the traffic object-recognizing a traffic jam situation in an environment of the vehicle using the recognized driving maneuver (col. 30, ln 25-40: potential destinations for a dynamic object may include locations and/or other objects of various object types (e.g., vehicles, pedestrians, buildings, crosswalks, and/or other landmarks). The potential destinations may be depicted with the sensor data captured by the autonomous vehicle, or may be otherwise known the autonomous vehicle (e.g., known landmarks based on maps and/or localization data). In some examples, the prediction component may use the current trajectory (e.g., velocity vector) of the dynamic object and/or other object attributes to determine the initial set of potential destinations); and
autonomous longitudinal guidance and lateral guidance of the vehicle toward the destination (col. 31, ln 45-50: the planning component may control the autonomous vehicle to follow a modified trajectory that continues along a route to an intended destination).
Funke does not explicitly teach a termination criterion and wherein the longitudinal guidance and the lateral guidance of the vehicle toward the destination are taken over as long as the termination criterion of the driver assistance system is fulfilled.
In the field of endeavor, SEIMIYA teaches a parking assistance system. He goes on to teach the system an obstacle collision determination is made whether or not the vehicle approaches an obstacle on the parking path and the vehicle stops when a distance between the vehicle and the obstacle is within a predetermined threshold (claimed criterion). Thus, when the distance between the vehicle and the obstacle is not within the predetermined threshold, then the predetermined threshold is fulfilled and the parking assistance continue with operating the vehicle into destination (par. 49).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include the features as taught by SEIMIYA within Funke’s vehicle assistance system in order to prevent collision between vehicle and detected obstacle.
Claim 14, the combination teaches wherein the driver assistance system is a parking assistance system and the destination is a target parking position (Funke col. 8, ln 39-42: Based on the probable destinations and/or trajectories, the autonomous vehicle may be controlled to proceed around the pedestrian, to enter a parking spot), wherein the termination criterion of the driver assistance system includes a predefined minimum distance of the vehicle from the traffic object in the vehicle environment (SEIMIYA par. 49: the vehicle 300 stops when a distance between the vehicle 300 and the obstacle is within a predetermined threshold).
Claim 17, the combination teaches wherein the recognizing of the driving maneuver of the traffic object is carried out based on the tracking of the traffic object, using classifiers and/or artificial intelligence (Funke col. 6, ln 1-10: the machine-learned models used to determine semantic features may output an indication that a dynamic object is in a particular state, and/or may analyze the features of the environment surrounding the object. For instance, a model may be a classifier that outputs an indication corresponding to a pedestrian state (e.g., carrying shopping bags, walking a pet, pushing a shopping cart or stroller).
Claim 18, the combination teaches wherein the following driving maneuvers of the traffic objects are recognized: a reduction of a distance between the vehicle and a preceding traffic object and/or a following traffic object, and/or a merging of a traffic object of the traffic objects into a driving trajectory of the vehicle and/or a cutting-out of a traffic object from the driving trajectory of the vehicle, and/or a moving of a traffic object out of a parking area into the driving trajectory of the vehicle (Funke col. 8, ln 7-15: Based on the outputs from the destination and/or trajectory prediction components for the dynamic objects in the environment, the autonomous vehicle may determine various driving maneuvers to perform. For instance, a planning component of the autonomous vehicle may determine a driving maneuver to avoid a potential collision or other interaction with the dynamic objects and/or other objects in the environment and may select a route to traverse the environment safely and efficiently).
Claim 19, the combination teaches wherein the recognizing of the traffic jam situation is based at least on a distance between the vehicle and a preceding traffic object and/or a following traffic object, and/or a merging of a traffic object into the driving trajectory of the vehicle, and/or a cutting-out of a traffic object from the driving trajectory of the vehicle (Funke col. 8, ln 7-15: Based on the outputs from the destination and/or trajectory prediction components for the dynamic objects in the environment, the autonomous vehicle may determine various driving maneuvers to perform. For instance, a planning component of the autonomous vehicle may determine a driving maneuver to avoid a potential collision or other interaction with the dynamic objects and/or other objects in the environment and may select a route to traverse the environment safely and efficiently).
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Funke et al. (Patent No. 12,374,125) in view of SEIMIYA et al. (US 2020/0406890), and further in view of HARA et al. (US 2020/0398822).
Claim 20, Funke does not teach wherein the recognition of the traffic jam situation is output to a driver and the autonomous longitudinal guidance and lateral guidance is only taken over when driver authorization is present.
In the field of endeavor, HARA teaches a parking assist system. He goes on to teach a vehicle system detect presence of an obstacle within the travel distance based on onboard sensors and continue on the travel plan would causes collision. Based on determination, the vehicle system displays a pop-up window seeking user to can cancel or resume automatic parking (par. 83, 85-86).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Funke’s autonomous driving system to include feature enabling user to select cancellation or resuming of the autonomous driving as taught by HARA for the purpose of enhanced safety during situation that might need manually control of the vehicle.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15-16 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.
Conclusion
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/AN T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2686
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