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 .
Response to Amendment and Arguments
The amendment filed 8/6/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-6 remain pending in the application.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of US9766629B1 (“Konchan”).
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) 1-3, 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US20250187598A1 (“Clarke”) in view of Konchan.
As per claims 1, 5, and 6 Clarke teaches:
A vehicle controller comprising: a processor configured to: determine whether visibility around a host vehicle or rear visibility of a vehicle ahead of the host vehicle is at a level satisfying a predetermined reduction condition, execute pulse and glide driving control of the host vehicle so as to repeat accelerating and coasting within a predetermined vehicle speed range or a range of a distance between the host vehicle and the vehicle ahead, and set at least one of the vehicle speed range, target acceleration at the accelerating, the range of the distance, and a minimum distance between the host vehicle and the vehicle ahead at a switch from the accelerating to the coasting, so as to modify the at least one, depending on whether the reduction condition is satisfied. (Clarke at least the abstract, FIG. 54, [0299]: “Conditions that may warrant constraint augmentation may include …adverse environmental conditions (rain, snow, fog, or other conditions associated with reduced visibility…”, [0160], [0644-0683], [0614], [0630], [0655])
Clarke does not explicitly disclose executing a pulse and glide driving control of the host vehicle and: set at least one of the following parameters associated with pulse and glide driving control of the host vehicle: the vehicle speed range, target acceleration at the accelerating, the range of the distance, and a minimum distance between the host vehicle and the vehicle ahead at a switch from the accelerating to the coasting, so as to modify the at least one, depending on whether the reduction condition is satisfied.
Konchan teaches the aforementioned limitations (Konchan at least the abstract and FIG. 3).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Clarke with the aforementioned limitations taught by Konchan with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine these references in order to improve fuel economy.
As per claim 2, Clarke in combination with the other reference teaches the limitations of the invention as described above. Clarke additionally teaches:
when the reduction condition is not satisfied, the processor makes at least one of the vehicle speed range, the target acceleration, and the range of the distance smaller than when the reduction condition is satisfied. (Clarke at least FIG. 54)
As per claim 3, Clarke in combination with the other reference teaches the limitations of the invention as described above. Clarke additionally teaches:
when the reduction condition is not satisfied, the processor makes the minimum distance greater than when the reduction condition is satisfied. (Clarke at least FIG. 54)
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clarke and Konchan in view of US20230110027A1 (“Bajpayee”).
As per claim 4, Clarke in combination with the other reference teaches the limitations of the invention as described above. While Clarke provides for image sensors on the exterior of the vehicle, and the means for detecting weather and visibility (Clarke [0299]), Clarke does not disclose:
wherein the processor determines whether the reduction condition is satisfied, by inputting an exterior sensor signal generated by a vehicle exterior sensor mounted on the host vehicle into a classifier that has been trained to determine whether rear visibility of the vehicle ahead is at a level satisfying the reduction condition, the exterior sensor signal representing a region ahead of the host vehicle.
Bajyapee teaches the aforementioned limitation (Bajpayee at least the abstract, [0064]: “first bin (e.g., very low visibility distance), … low speed active safety … may be available so long as the ego-machine is traveling at less than a threshold speed …if the vehicle is traveling beyond the threshold speed, these functionalities may be disabled - at least with respect to the instance(s) of sensor data 402 with a very low disability distance…”, [0157]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Clarke with the aforementioned limitations taught by Bajpayee with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine these references in order to enhance control and driving safety (Bajpayee [0118]).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OLIVER TAN whose telephone number is (703)756-4728. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-7.
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/O.T./Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/NAVID Z. MEHDIZADEH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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