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 Objections
Claims 1 and 14 are objected to because of the following informalities: Each claim begins with a capital letter and ends with a period. Periods may not be used elsewhere in the claims except for abbreviations. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 14 and 18 are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 14 recites steps E-G and omits B-D and claim 18 recites steps iv-vi and omits i-iii. This appears to be a formatting issue. 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 1-20 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.
With respect to claims 1 and 14, the applicant claims “with the provision that one or more of the gaze zones change their function in time”. It is not clear to the examiner what the applicant is trying to convey with said limitation. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite. According to the examiner’s best knowledge, the claim limitation will be treated as each of the gaze zones comprising a gaze time compared to a defined time interval.
Claims 1 and 14 recites the limitation "the scoring" in lines 18 and 19 respectively. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
With respect to claims 1 and 14, the applicant claims “extracting the driver's mental focus”. It is not clear to the examiner how to perform said step and what the applicant is trying to convey with said limitation. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite.
With respect to claims 1 and 14, the applicant claims “signals with TRUE” and “an analytical expression resulting in the TRUE/FALSE output”. It is not clear to the examiner how to perform said step and what the applicant is trying to convey with said limitation. The metes and bounds of the claimed limitation are vague and ill-defined rendering the claim indefinite.
Claims 1 and 14 recites the limitation "the alarm" in lines 47 and 48 respectively. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
With respect to claim 1 and 14, the applicant claims “expert algorithm”. The term “expert algorithm” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “expert” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 2-13, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being dependent on rejected independent claims 1 and 14 and for failing to cure the deficiencies listed above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Misu et al US 12,545,262 B2 discloses a system and method for predicting a driver's situational awareness that includes receiving driving scene data associated with a driving scene of an ego vehicle and eye gaze data to track a driver's eye gaze behavior with respect to the driving scene.
Qin et al US 2021/0004618 A1 discloses performing head pose detection and eye state detection on a driver image to obtain head pose information and eye state information; and determining detection results of fatigue state and distraction state of the driver according to the head pose information and the eye state information.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMI KHATIB whose telephone number is (571)270-1165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00am-5:30pm.
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/RAMI KHATIB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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