DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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 § 102
2. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3, and 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by Kapuria (US 2020/0210737).
Regarding claims 1 and 8-10, Kapuria discloses a system (Kapuria at Fig. 1) for a driving assistance method, apparatus, and nontransitory computer readable medium (driver warning method, associated apparatus and computerized implementation; Kapuria at abstract, 0061), comprising:
A biological information acquisition unit configured to acquire biological information about a user (physiological sensors; Kapuria at 0045).
A driving behavior acquisition unit configured to acquire driving behavior information indicating driving behavior of the user (reaction time of driver and characterized driving behavior; Kapuria at 0045, 0046).
A danger level evaluation unit configured to evaluate a driving danger level indicating a danger degree while the user is driving a vehicle, based on the biological information and the driving behavior information (processor evaluates driver’s physiological conditions and drive monitoring to determine danger level and if a warning should be issued; Kapuria at 0049).
A map information storage unit configured to store map information (navigation control module includes map data; Kapuria at 0032).
An area setting unit configured to set a danger area in the map information when the driving danger level is equal to or higher than a predetermined value (upcoming area includes curves historically difficult given the prior driving behavior and physiological parameters; Kapuria at 0052-0054).
A position acquisition unit configured to acquire a travel position of the vehicle on a map, based on position information of the vehicle (GPS; Kapuria at 0048).
A notification unit configured to output, when the travel position approaches the danger area, a first notification indicating that the travel position has approached the danger area (warning module activated in response to danger on upcoming road segment; Kapuria at 0055).
Regarding claim 3, Kapuria discloses wherein the biological information includes first biological information being biological information about the user who is driving the vehicle and second biological information being biological information about the user who is in a first period before starting driving the vehicle, the driving behavior information includes first driving behavior information indicating driving behavior of the user who is driving the vehicle and second driving behavior information indicating driving behavior of the user who is in a second period before starting driving the vehicle, the danger level evaluation unit evaluates the
driving danger level based on the first biological information, the second biological information, the first driving behavior information, and the second driving behavior information, and the area setting unit sets a danger area in the map information in accordance with the driving danger level (current driving session parameters compared against baseline driving and physiological parameters, and upon a predetermined threshold being surpassed, a warning is activated regarding a danger to the driver in an upcoming road segment; Kapuria at 0051-0055).
Regarding claim 6, Kapuria discloses a health state evaluation unit configured to evaluate a health state of the user based on the first biological information and the second biological information, wherein the health state evaluation unit evaluates whether the health state of the user is an appropriate state, based on each of a plurality of ability categories constituting a driving ability, and the notification unit outputs, as the first notification, advice information relating to an ability category evaluated to be the lowest by the health state evaluation unit (baseline or multiple parameters sensed compared to thresholds to determine driving level ability and severity of warning and advice; Kapuria at abstract, 0058, 0059).
Regarding claim 7, Kapuria discloses wherein the notification unit displays, when the
travel position approaches the danger area, warning information relating to the danger area (upcoming dangerous curve, road segment, etc., and how the driver should react; Kapuria at 0053).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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 2 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kapuria, as cited above, and further in view of Sanchez-Prieto Aler (US 8,498,777, hereinafter “Aler”).
Regarding claim 2, Kapuria discloses a vehicle speed acquisition unit configured to acquire vehicle speed information indicating a travel speed of the vehicle (vehicle speed sensors; Kapuria at 0048).
While Kapuria does discloses varying kinds of alerts based on driving conditions (Kapuria at 0048), Kapuria is silent as to wherein the notification unit outputs a second notification being a more urgent notification than the first notification, when the travel speed is higher than a reference speed of a road on which the vehicle is traveling.
Aler, in a simal invention in the same field of endeavor, teaches displaying to the driver an overspeed condition for the current road segment, i.e. too fast into a turn (displaying a degree of danger in a zone to a driver based on the road conditions; Aler at col 2 lines 45-67, col 3 lines 1-39, col 4 lines 54-67).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the claimed invention to augment the invention of Kapuria with the display alert of Aler. Doing so would provide for greater context and advanced warning when entering a dangerous situation such as a high curvature road and an overspeed condition.
Regarding claim 5, the combination teaches wherein the notification unit displays the danger area on the map in a form that corresponds to a danger level of the danger area (displayed danger zone and degree of danger (Aler at col 2 lines 45-67, col 3 lines 1-39, col 4 lines 54-67).
Claim Objections
4. Claim 4 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN M DAGER whose telephone number is (571)270-1332. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 0830-1730.
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/JONATHAN M DAGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3663 01 June 2026
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