Ex Parte Isogai et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 28, 2016

11986702 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111986,702 11/26/2007
27572 7590 03/30/2016
HARNESS, DICKEY & PIERCE, PLC
P.O. BOX 828
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48303
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Akira Isogai
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
4041P-000096 3848
EXAMINER
MUSTAFA, IMRAN K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3663
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/30/2016 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):
troydocketing@hdp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AK.IRA ISOGAI and MASAO OOOKA
Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702 1
Technology Center 3600
Before CHARLES N. GREENHUT, THOMAS F. SMEGAL, and
LISA M. GUIJT, Administrative Patent Judges.
SMEGAL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEivIENT OF THE CASE
Akira Isogai and Masao Oooka (Appellants) seek our review under 35
U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's Final Rejection2 of claims 3 and 5-18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tellis (US 2003/0135318 Al,
pub. July 17, 2003), Shirai (US 5,710,565, iss. Jan. 20, 1998) and Grimm
(US 2007/0150196 Al, pub. June 28, 2007). 3 We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b ).
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Denso Corporation.
Appeal Br. 1.
2 The Final Action also rejected claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement.
Final Act. 2. This rejection, however, was withdrawn. See Ans. 4.
3 Claims 1, 2, and 4 were canceled. Appeal Br. 17, Claims App.
Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702
We REVERSE.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 16, the sole independent claim, is reproduced below and
illustrates the claimed subject matter.
16. A cruise control system installed in a system vehicle, the
cruise control system comprising:
a monitoring unit monitoring a predetermined region in
front of the system vehicle when the system vehicle is located
on a lane of a road to detect a position and a speed of at least
one object;
an instruction input unit allowing a driver of the system
vehicle to input an instruction indicating that a stopped vehicle
or a cutting vehicle is present in front of the system vehicle; and
a target determining unit executing a determination of a
target for adjusting an interval of the system vehicle with
respect to the target,
wherein the target determining unit has a first condition
and a second condition, the first condition representing that the
at least one object has a same-lane probability higher than a
preset value, the second condition representing that the at
least one object is determined to approach toward the system
vehicle based on a shift amount of lateral position of the at least
one object,
the target detecting unit being configured to:
determine, based on the position and speed of the at least
one object, whether the at least one object meets the first
condition to determine whether the at least one object is a
forward vehicle as the target; and
when the instruction is input to the instruction input unit
by the driver, add the second condition to the first condition to
thereby determine, based on the position and speed of the at
least one object, whether the at least one object meets
one of the first condition and the second condition to determine
whether the at least one object is, as the target, one of the
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Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702
forward vehicle and a cutting vehicle cutting into the same lane
as the system vehicle. 4
ANALYSIS
Obviousness of Claims 3 and 5-18 over Tellis, Shirai, and Grimm
We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner fails to
establish a prima facie showing of obviousness in rejecting claims 3 and 5-
18 over Tellis, Shirai, and Grimm. See Appeal Br. 10-14; see also Reply
Br. 2-5.
While relying on Tellis for various limitations of a cruise control
system installed in a system vehicle, the Examiner looks to Shirai for
teaching "an instruction input unit allowing a driver of the system vehicle to
input an instruction indicating that a stopped vehicle or a cutting [in] vehicle
is present in front of the system vehicle," as recited by claim 16. Final Act.
4 (citing Shirai, col. 20, 1. 62---col. 21, 1. 16). The Examiner reasons that
"[ c ]learly \vhen a vehicle is detected \vhether it is a cut in vehicle or a
4 If there is further prosecution of this application, the Examiner may wish to
consider whether claim 16 should be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as being indefinite for failure to particularly point out and
distinctly claim the subject matter which Appellants regard as the invention,
in reciting the italicized portion of claim 16. Specifically, it is unclear how
the "at least one object" can be determined to meet either the first or second
condition alone (i.e., either being determined to have a same-lane probability
higher than a preset value or being determined to be an approaching vehicle)
by adding the second condition to the first condition, based on the position
and speed of the object. It is further unclear how the first and second
conditions, which appear to be assigned yes or no values (i.e., yes, the object
has a same-lane probability higher than the preset value, or no, the object is
determined not to be an approaching vehicle), are added together.
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Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702
stopped vehicle the driver will recognize it and will operate either a brake or
a coast switch which will allow the vehicle to be slowed down." Id.
(emphasis removed).
The Examiner also points out that "the coasting operation [in Shirai]
is a manual input by the driver [where the driver recognizes] a cutting in
vehicle or a stopped vehicle in front of the vehicle and manually operates the
switch to slow the vehicle down in order to prevent a collision from
occurring," and that "when the driver performs a resume operation using
resuming switch 12c in Figure 1 of Shirai[,] a new target vehicle (whether
[or not] it was a cutting in vehicle) is selected and the adaptive cruise control
is resumed accordingly with the newly selected target vehicle." Id. at 6.
Appellants first contend that what is disclosed by Shirai is a "typical
prior art 'coast' command," which "is clearly not the same as having the
target detecting unit determine whether the at least one object is, as the
target, one of the forward vehicle and the cutting vehicle" but "is simply a
manual adjustment made by the driver and is not an instruction indicating
that a stopped vehicle or a cutting vehicle is present." Appeal Br. 10.
Appellants also point out that
Shirai merely discloses that the driver's coast operation is to
decrease the speed Vn of the system vehicle to be matched with
the target vehicle speed V m, and fails to disclose or suggest that
the coast operation in Shirai is used to input an instruction
indicating that a stopped vehicle or a cutting vehicle is present in
front of the system vehicle.
Id. (emphasis omitted).
Appellants continue by asserting that because "a skilled person in the
art knows well that, if a driver of the system vehicle wants to slow the
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Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702
system vehicle down in the cruise control, the driver instructs a coast
operation"' Id. at 11 (emphasis omitted). Appellants also contend that
because Shirai merely teaches a coast operation as an instruction
to slow the vehicle down, the Examiner's interpretation of the
coast operation, which means that the driver recognizes [] a
cutting in a vehicle or a stopped vehicle in front of the vehicle,
would be based on impermissible hindsight reasoning.
Id.
Appellants also argue that, as recited by claim 16, "even if a vehicle
tries to cut in front of the system vehicle from a position close to the system
vehicle, the driver of the system vehicle can detect the cut-in of the vehicle
at an early stage of cut-in, and inputs through the instruction input unit an
instruction indicating that the cut in vehicle is present in front of the
vehicle." Id. at 12 (emphasis omitted).
The Examiner responds that Tellis
"discloses a fully automatic process in that the system will not
require a driver to decelerate the vehicle manually through an
instruction input but rather as stated in Paragraph 44 the system
automatically reduces the vehicle velocity of the host vehicle to
let the cut-in vehicle in front of the host vehicle and then further
maintain[ s] a distance between the vehicles[,]
and that
Shirai teaches [] a manual input by the driver (coast operation) in
which the driver . . . has the ability to determine that a vehicle is
cutting in and thus slow down the speed of the vehicle via the
coast operation in order to let the cut-in vehicle in front of them.
Ans. 10.
Appellants respond that "it may be true that Shirai discloses a coast
operation for decreasing the speed of a vehicle," but "Shirai fails to disclose
or suggest such a coast operation is performed for sending information about
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Appeal2013---010893
Application 11/986, 702
the driver recognizing a cutting vehicle in front of the system vehicle."
Reply Br. 2-3. Appellants also explain that "[a]s described on page 21, line
6 to page 23, line 20, control switch 21 is more than a coast operation
switch," because"[ w ]hen wanting to send the stopped-vehicle selection
instruction or the cut-in vehicle selection instruction to the cruise control,
control switch 21 is lowered and is kept lowered for a predetermined period
oftime." Id. at4.
We are persuaded by Appellants that the Examiner has failed to
support the finding that Shirai teaches an instruction input unit allowing a
driver of the system vehicle to input a specific instruction indicating that a
stopped vehicle or a cutting vehicle is present in front of the system vehicle,
as required by claim 16. In other words, we agree with Appellants that
Shirai' s instruction input, which allows manual operation by a driver of a
coast switch for any reason, does not disclose an instruction input unit that
allows the driver to particularly inform the system as to whether a stopped
vehicle or a cutting vehicle is present in front of the system, such that the
system executes a determination based on the information. Id. at 5.
For the foregoing reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claims 3 and 5-18 over Tellis, Shirai, and Grimm.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 3 and 5-18 is
REVERSED.
REVERSED
6