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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(4) because reference character “S34” has been used to designate both “Travel toward point D in narrow passage mode” in Fig. 19A and “Calculate points G and H” in Fig. 19B. Since Fig. 19B in a flow under process 3 contains steps labeled “S41, S34, S44, S45, S47, S48” it suggested that S34 should be S43.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure.
The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet within the range of 50 to 150 words in length. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details.
The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, “The disclosure concerns,” “The disclosure defined by this invention,” “The disclosure describes,” etc. In addition, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “means” and “said,” should be avoided.
Claim Interpretation
The term “manual mode” is used in many of the claims but is not specifically defined aside from being an alternate mode to the “narrow passage mode” and that during it the electric vehicle (wheelchair) travels in a direction and at a speed based on an operation performed on a joystick by an occupant of the electric vehicle (wheelchair) (page 12 lines 9-11 of the specification). Note that this so-called "manual mode" still involves moving through the use of the joystick (normally with proportional speed control; see US 4679644 (Loveless) for an example) as opposed to a totally manual wheelchair with no motorization at all, and that the “manual mode” may be described as a “semi-autonomous mode” in other literature.
After searching through the prior art, most of the relevant material refers to “wheelchair”, or “intelligent wheelchair”, or even “robot”. Hence the use of such terms in the discussion below, even though the claims continually use the term “electric vehicle”. It is considered that “electric vehicle” is satisfied by any of the above terms.
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, 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 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 1-2, 5, 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ES2296542 (Jimenez et al., hence Jimenez) in light of “Methodology for Autonomous Crossing Narrow Passages Applied on Assistive Mobile Robots”, attached as NPL-Maciel.pdf, henceforth “Maciel”.
As for claim 1, Jimenez teaches a control method to be performed by a computer to control an electric vehicle (Jimenez: Fig. 1) that includes an operation component, the control method comprising:
setting a traveling mode of the electric vehicle to a manual mode in which the electric vehicle travels in a direction and at a speed that are based on an operation performed on the operation component by an occupant of the electric vehicle. (Note that this describes the operation of a joystick, or information fed in using control buttons or a touch screen, or even vocal commands which are interpreted by a voice recognition circuit. Jimenez: joystick(6) shown in Fig.1, description of motion controller on pg.9; travelling mode: “The computer through a specific software processes data from sensors that report obstacles, the position of the chair in the environment, nearby objects, etc. The computer also interprets the "high level" travel commands provided by the disabled person or by an assistant, generating the movement commands that he sends to the microcontroller, which controls the chair's motors. The orders can be of the type " go to the living room ", "go out to the garden ", etc., or also more direct orders such as " for ", " follow the hall ", " turn around ", etc. The user is not totally deprived of his ability to act on the chair, since at any time he can make use of the joystick to guide the chair, taking control of it in two modalities. The first is a manual control mode, in which the user totally controls the chair and leaves the movement instructions generated by the computer without action. There is also another mode of operation, semi-autonomous or supervised guidance, in which the user provides the movement instructions with the joystick , but it is the computer that generates the orders to the motors, taking into account the recommended direction, but avoiding form autonomous obstacles that may exist." Pg. 7; speed control: mention of a joystick in the description of the system navigation setup; see end of pg. 4 and shown in Fig.1; speed control mentioned in the description of the Motor control subsystem (10,11) pg.5).
Jimenez does not specifically mention a “narrow passage mode” (Jimenez’s system seems to be set up to avoid obstacles in the environment; see above (pg. 7). No further definition is provided as to what an “obstacle” is.) However, the problem of an intelligent wheelchair navigating narrow passages has been extensively addressed in non-patent literature, such as Maciel. Maciel teaches a robot wheelchair (here called an “intelligent wheelchair (IW)”) which identifies the opening of a narrow passage, decides whether the IW’s width can pass through it or not, and creates a separate coordinate system then used by the robot to navigate through. Maciel thus teaches determining whether a passage having a width that satisfies a predetermined condition is present within a detection range, the detection range being set in a vicinity of the electric vehicle and being based on the operation (Maciel: "A very important process is the estimated passages evaluation. The step purpose is to reject pairs that do not meet the necessary safety conditions. It can be cited those that have been mistakenly estimated by the limitations involved in the previous step or that should be ignored in the context of the mission. The situations that they are evaluated and rejected are:– PassageWidth Small passages are rejected or large ones that an autonomous crossing is not necessary." (Section 3.1); Detection range shown in Fig. 2. That the detection range is based on the operation can be interpreted under BRI as the detection sensors being pointed in the direction the IW is traveling);
and when the passage is determined to be present, switching the traveling mode of the electric vehicle from the manual mode to a passage mode in which the electric vehicle autonomously travels along the passage. (Maciel: After the narrow passage has been recognized, a separate coordinate system used to traverse the passage is generated and then used for control until the vehicle has passed through completely. See 3.2 (Problem formation) and 3.3 (Controller design); control by the wheelchair rather than being manual: "A nonlinear control to guide the intelligent wheelchair projected to cross narrow passages continuously and softly using a security point and control effort manager." (1.1 (Contributions).)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application to add the “narrow passage” traversing capability as outlined by Maciel to the electric wheelchair setup of Jimenez. Note that if the guidance system of Maciel were added to Jimenez to help control the system of Jimenez, that even during the “autonomous mode” the joystick still controls speed. Direction would be constrained according to the fixed narrow passage grid. The motivation would be to add the capability of solving another obstacle problem, as is mentioned in the introduction of Maciel, to the object obstacles mentioned in Jimenez.
As for claim 2, Jimenez, as modified by Maciel, also teaches wherein in the passage mode, the electric vehicle is set to autonomously travel while the occupant continuously operates the operation component. (Jimenez: “There is also another mode of operation, semi-autonomous or supervised guidance, in which the user provides the movement instructions with the joystick , but it is the computer that generates the orders to the motors, taking into account the recommended direction, but avoiding form autonomous obstacles that may exist." Pg. 7)
As for claim 5, Jimenez, as modified by Maciel, teaches in the passage mode, calculating a position of at least one point disposed along the passage (Maciel: point along the central line, see below);
and controlling a direction of travel of the electric vehicle to cause the electric vehicle to pass through the at least one point. (Maciel: "Note that the robot must pass through the central line formed by the x-axis of the narrow passage frame to cross the passage safely. Besides, the robot should move as close as possible "to its origin with a suitable pointing angle." pg. 948.)
As for claim 8, Jimenez teaches a control device that controls an electric vehicle that includes an operation component, the control device comprising: (Jimenez: Fig. 6; "Figure 6. Scheme of components that integrate a robotic wheelchair after the implementation of the system navigation proposed in this document: Camera (1); unity PTU (2); infrared sensors (4, 8, 9); guide lever or joystick (6); ultrasonic sensors (7); microcontrollers (10) and (11); laptop (12), to which the camera (1) is connected via Firewire connection, and microcontrollers (10, 11) via USB connection; Bluetooth headset (13); speakers (14); original drive system of the chair (15); angular encoder incremental (16); and voltmeter or load measurement system of the battery (17)." (pg. 4))
a sensor that detects a position of an object (Jimenez: Figs. 1-2, lists of sensors which carry out detection of obstacles on pg. 8);
and a control processor that controls the electric vehicle based on an operation received by the operation component (Jimenez: joystick (6) shown in Fig. 1; microcontrollers (10) and (11) in Fig. 6) , wherein the control processor:
sets a traveling mode of the electric vehicle to a manual mode in which the electric vehicle travels in a direction and at a speed that are based on an operation performed on the operation component by an occupant of the electric vehicle (Jimenez: drive controller: "Motor control subsystem (10, 11). It is based on a microprocessor that sends speed setpoints to the motors and receives the encoder readings, allowing closed loop control of each motor, depending on the movement commands it receives from the computer and / or the joystick for driving the chair. This microcontroller-based system is also responsible for controlling other actuators such as sonar motors, and reading analog data from infrared sensors, battery level meter, etc."(pg. 5));
Jimenez does not specifically mention a “narrow passage mode”. However, Maciel teaches determining whether a passage having a width that satisfies a predetermined condition is present within a detection range, the detection range being set in a vicinity of the electric vehicle and being based on the operation (Maciel: "A very important process is the estimated passages evaluation. The step purpose is to reject pairs that do not meet the necessary safety conditions. It can be cited those that have been mistakenly estimated by the limitations involved in the previous step or that should be ignored in the context of the mission. The situations that they are evaluated and rejected are:– PassageWidth Small passages are rejected or large ones that an autonomous crossing is not necessary." (Section 3.1); Detection range shown in Fig. 2. That the detection range is based on the operation can be interpreted under BRI as the detection sensors being pointed in the direction the IW is traveling);
and when the passage is determined to be present, switching the traveling mode of the electric vehicle from the manual mode to a passage mode in which the electric vehicle autonomously travels along the passage. (Maciel: After the narrow passage has been recognized, a separate coordinate system used to traverse the passage is generated and then used for control until the vehicle has passed through completely. See 3.2 (Problem formation) and 3.3 (Controller design); control by the wheelchair rather than being manual: "A nonlinear control to guide the intelligent wheelchair projected to cross narrow passages continuously and softly using a security point and control effort manager." (1.1 (Contributions).)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application to add the “narrow passage” traversing capability as outlined by Maciel to the electric wheelchair setup of Jimenez. Note that if the guidance system of Maciel were added to Jimenez to help control the system of Jimenez, that even during the “autonomous mode” the joystick still controls speed. Direction would be constrained according to the fixed narrow passage grid. The motivation would be to add the capability of solving another obstacle problem, as is mentioned in the introduction of Maciel, to the object obstacles mentioned in Jimenez.
As for claim 9, Jimenez, as modified by Maciel, teaches an electric vehicle (Jimenez: Fig. 1) comprising:
the control device according to claim 8 (Jimenez: shown in Fig. 6 and as outlined in claim 8 above);
the operation component (Jimenez: joystick (6) (shown in Fig. 1));
a motor that generates power for propelling the electric vehicle (Jimenez: motors of the wheelchair are mentioned (pg. 4)); and a drive controller that drives the motor under control of the control device. (Jimenez: drive controller: "Motor control subsystem (10, 11). It is based on a microprocessor that sends speed setpoints to the motors and receives the encoder readings, allowing closed loop control of each motor, depending on the movement commands it receives from the computer and / or the joystick for driving the chair. This microcontroller-based system is also responsible for controlling other actuators such as sonar motors, and reading analog data from infrared sensors, battery level meter, etc."(pg. 5).)
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jimenez in light of Maciel as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 7,426,970 (Olsen).
As for claim 6, Jimenez, as modified by Maciel, does not specifically teach determining whether the passage is outside the detection range; and when the passage is determined to be outside the detection range, switching the traveling mode of the electric vehicle from the passage mode to the manual mode. However, shifting between different drive modes depending on the environment is known in the art. See Olsen, (Olsen: Col. 18 line 15-41). It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that if the electric wheelchair was to be in a “manual mode” before registering and passing through the narrow passage, then after passing through the passage (at which point the electric wheelchair’s sensors are pointing away from the passage and would not be registering it; see Maciel Figs. 2-3) that the system would revert to said “manual mode”. The motivation would be to have the electric wheelchair react automatically to its environment, thus saving unnecessary controls from the user.
As for claim 7, Jimenez, in light of Maciel, teaches in the passage mode, autonomous driving of the electric vehicle is stopped when the operation performed on the operation component by the occupant is paused. (Jimenez: As mentioned above, if the guidance system of Maciel were added to Jimenez to help control the system of Jimenez, that even during the “autonomous mode” the joystick still controls speed. Direction would be constrained according to the fixed narrow passage grid. Hence, if the joystick is set to neutral, the chair would stop.
Jimenez, as modified by Maciel, does not specifically teach the autonomous driving of the electric vehicle is resumed when the operation is resumed. However, shifting between different drive modes of an electric wheelchair depending on the environment is known in the art. See Olsen, (Olsen: Col. 18 line 15-41) In this case, if the surrounding environment is still considered a narrow threshold environment, then the narrow passage grid would still be generated or refreshed and used for maneuvering.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application to implement the automatic mode shifting (or maintaining) based on environment as outlined in Olsen to the system of Jimenez, as modified by Maciel. The motivation would be to avoid unnecessary extra commands on the part of the electric wheelchair user.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jimenez, in light of Maciel, and in light of US 2026/0232504 (Togashi et al., hence Togashi).
As for claim 10, Jimenez teaches:
a computer to execute: (Jimenez: "Computer (12). The previously described sensory system provides information to the on-board computer (12), a laptop that can be connected wirelessly with other remote stations, to the Internet and to home automation devices in the environment. The vehicle can be guided autonomously by the computerized system (after receiving a verbal order, or through a graphic interface) or manually by the user using the joystick or control lever of the chair (6). In both cases, the control system (10, 11) detects and acts in situations of risk, such as the proximity of obstacles, stopping the vehicle and informing the user." (pg. 9).)
setting a traveling mode of the electric vehicle to a manual mode in which the electric vehicle travels in a direction and at a speed that are based on an operation performed on the operation component by an occupant of the electric vehicle (Jimenez: joystick (6) shown in Fig. 1, drive controller: "Motor control subsystem (10, 11). It is based on a microprocessor that sends speed setpoints to the motors and receives the encoder readings, allowing closed loop control of each motor, depending on the movement commands it receives from the computer and / or the joystick for driving the chair. "(pg. 5)).
Jimenez does not specifically mention a “narrow passage mode” (Jimenez’s system seems to be set up to avoid obstacles in the environment; see above (pg. 7). No further definition is provided as to what an “obstacle” is.) However, the problem of an intelligent wheelchair navigating narrow passages has been extensively addressed in non-patent literature, such as Maciel. Maciel teaches a robot wheelchair (here called an “intelligent wheelchair (IW)”) which identifies the opening of a narrow passage, decides whether the IW’s width can pass through it or not, and creates a separate coordinate system then used by the robot to navigate through. Maciel thus teaches determining whether a passage having a width that satisfies a predetermined condition is present within a detection range, the detection range being set in a vicinity of the electric vehicle and being based on the operation (Maciel: "A very important process is the estimated passages evaluation. The step purpose is to reject pairs that do not meet the necessary safety conditions. It can be cited those that have been mistakenly estimated by the limitations involved in the previous step or that should be ignored in the context of the mission. The situations that they are evaluated and rejected are:– PassageWidth Small passages are rejected or large ones that an autonomous crossing is not necessary." (Section 3.1); Detection range shown in Fig. 2. That the detection range is based on the operation can be interpreted under BRI as the detection sensors being pointed in the direction the IW is traveling);
and when the passage is determined to be present, switching the traveling mode of the electric vehicle from the manual mode to a passage mode in which the electric vehicle autonomously travels along the passage. (Maciel: After the narrow passage has been recognized, a separate coordinate system used to traverse the passage is generated and then used for control until the vehicle has passed through completely. See 3.2 (Problem formation) and 3.3 (Controller design); control by the wheelchair rather than being manual: "A nonlinear control to guide the intelligent wheelchair projected to cross narrow passages continuously and softly using a security point and control effort manager." (1.1 (Contributions).)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application to add the “narrow passage” traversing capability as outlined by Maciel to the electric wheelchair setup of Jimenez. Note that if the guidance system of Maciel were added to Jimenez to help control the system of Jimenez, that even during the “autonomous mode” the joystick still controls speed. Direction would be constrained according to the fixed narrow passage grid. The motivation would be to add the capability of solving another obstacle problem, as is mentioned in the introduction of Maciel, to the object obstacles mentioned in Jimenez.
Neither Jimenez nor Maciel specifically teach a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a computer program for controlling an electric vehicle that includes an operation component, the computer program causing a computer to execute [instructions], but this is known in the art; see Togashi: (Togashi: "The control device 18 is a computer etc. including a processing unit 38 that is a processor etc. and a storage unit 40 that is a memory, a hard disk, etc. The storage unit 40 stores a computer program to be executed by the processing unit 38 and necessary information. The processing unit 38 implements various processing functions of the control device 18 by executing a computer program stored in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium such as the storage unit 40."[0056])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, as outlined in Togashi, to store instructions to be carried out on the computer of Jimenez, including the narrow passage crossing technique of Maciel. The motivation would be to specifically include the software and memory components used in implementing the invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TANYA CHRISTINE SIENKO whose telephone number is (571)272-5816. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 8:00-5:00.
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/TANYA C SIENKO/Examiner, Art Unit 3664
/TYLER D PAIGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3664
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