Ex Parte Martin et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 22, 201714053859 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 22, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 14/053,859 10/15/2013 Douglas R. Martin 83396647(65080-1103) 1084 7590 06/26/2017 Bejin Bieneman PLC Ford Global Technologies, LLC 300 River Place Suite 1650 Detroit, MI 48207 EXAMINER RAMESH, KRISHNAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3668 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/26/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): docket @ b2iplaw .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DOUGLAS R. MARTIN and KENNETH J. MILLER1 Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 Technology Center 3600 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, LARRY J. HUME, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 This paper is captioned by inventor name according to our pre-AIA convention. The AIA Applicant/Appellant is Ford Global Technologies, LLC. Appellant identifies Ford Motor Company as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 3.) Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1, 3—14, and 16—20, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The instant application is directed to “vehicle location and tracking.” (Spec. 12.) Claim 1, reproduced below, exemplifies the subject matter on appeal: 1. A system, comprising a computer server that includes a processor and a memory, the memory storing instructions executable by the processor such that the server is configured to: receive an aerial image; identify a portion of the aerial image that represents an area of interest that includes a vehicle; analyze the portion of the aerial image to generate an identification of one or more objects in the area of interest related to a route of the vehicle; receive a request for navigational assistance from the vehicle, wherein the request identifies the vehicle; and transmit to the vehicle, in response to the request and based at least in part on the identification of the one or more objects, one or more instructions to navigate. THE REFERENCE AND THE REJECTION Claims 1, 3—14, and 16—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Zych (US 2014/0257621 Al; published Sept. 11, 2014). (See Final Act. 3—11.) 2 Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 ANALYSIS Claims 1, 3, 4, 6—12,14,16,17,19, and 20 Appellant argues Zych does not anticipate claim 1 because it does not disclose “[receiving] a request for navigational assistance from the vehicle, wherein the request identifies the vehicle” or “[transmitting] to the vehicle, in response to the request and based at least in part on the identification of the one or more objects, one or more instructions to navigate.” (App. Br. 7.) Appellant also argues claim 14 is not anticipated because it “includes similar recitations.” (Id.) The Examiner finds Zych to teach these limitations because it describes a vison system 104 that includes a processing circuit and describes in paragraph 49 how “[i]n some embodiments, processing circuit 902 may represent a collection of processing devices (e.g., servers, data centers, etc.).” (Final Act. 4—5.) The Examiner finds this to disclose that “some or all of the processing may be performed outside of the vehicle.” (Ans. 3, emphasis added.) Appellants do not contest the Examiner’s finding that Zych discloses “all” of the processing being outside the vehicle. We agree that where all of the processing is performed outside the vehicle, the server (because it is located outside of the vehicle) would “receive a request for navigational assistance from the vehicle” and “transmit to the vehicle, in response to the request and based at least in part on the identification of the one or more objects, one or more instructions to navigate.” Appellant’s arguments regarding these limitations are unpersuasive because they are premised on the idea that some of the processing occurs in the vehicle. That is not the case where, as the Examiner found, “all of the processing may be performed outside of the 3 Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 vehicle.” (Ans. 3.) Appellant’s resort to the Specification is unavailing because, as explained above, Zych does in fact describe “a computing device that is a distinct element in addition to the vehicle.” (App. Br. 8.) Appellants also argue Zych fails to describe that “the request identifies the vehicle.” (App. Br. 8—9.) The Examiner finds this in paragraph 92 of the reference, which explains that the “route determination process 1100 may be initiated when a request for a vehicle route is received by the vision system” and “[t]he request for the route may include the starting location (which may be the current vehicle location or a different location) and a target location (e.g., a destination).” (Ans. 4.) The Examiner finds “[t]he current, starting, and target locations are all aspects which identify the vehicle in some regard.” (Ans. 5.) We agree that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim language,2 the Zych request does “identify the vehicle” as, for example, a vehicle currently at the starting location. We also observe that, as one of skill in the art would appreciate, a request sent to a remote system would need to include some identifying information in order for the results of the remote processing to be returned to the requester. Because we find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive, we sustain the Section 102 rejection of (a) independent claims 1 and 14, which are argued together, (b) independent claim 9, which is argued to be patentable “for the same reasons,” and (c) dependent claims 3, 4, 6—8, 10-12, 16, 17, 19, and 20, for which no additional arguments are offered. 2 See In re American Academy of Science Tech Center, 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). 4 Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 Dependent Claims 5,13, and 18 Claim 5 adds to claim 1 that “the vehicle includes a computer that is configured to generate an autonomous driving instruction based at least in part on at least one of the identification of one or more objects by the server and a second identification of one or more objects by the computer.” The Examiner finds the claimed “computer” in Zych’s “vehicle control system 944 [which] is an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle control system.” (Final Act. 6; Ans. 8 (“Examiner notes that. . . the ‘vehicle control system’ is its own, separate computer.”).) We agree with the Examiner. The claim requires only that the computer generate an autonomous driving instruction based in part on “at least one of (i) identification of objects by the server and (ii) identification of objects by the computer. In Zych, when all of the processing is being performed outside the vehicle, vehicle control system 944 generates the autonomous driving instructions based at least in part on the identification of one or more objects by the server. (See Zych | 67 (“Vision system 104 may be coupled to vehicle control system 944, which may control general vehicle operation.”).) Appellant’s argument that “Zych does not disclose both of the vision system 104 and vehicle control system 944 recognizing objects” (Reply Br. 4) is not commensurate with the scope of the claims, which only require identification of objects by one of the server and computer. Because we find Appellant’s argument unpersuasive, we sustain the Section 102 rejection of claims 5, 13, and 18, which are argued together. 5 Appeal 2017-001724 Application 14/053,859 DECISION The rejections of claims 1, 3—14, and 16—20 are affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation