Google files patent for self-driving car
Technology company Google has filed a patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a self-driving car that can detect emergency vehicles on the road and respond to them.
The USPTO made the patent publicly available on September 1.
Google applied for the patent, US number 20160252905, on August 28, 2014.
The patent says that “a system and method is provided for detecting and responding to emergency vehicles” and that “one or more computing devices may identify a set of light sources from an image based at least in part on one or more templates”.
Additionally, “one or more computing devices may manoeuvre a vehicle based on the determination to yield in response to at least one of the one or more flashing light sources and the particular type of the emergency vehicle”.
According to US state laws, vehicle users must abide by the ‘ move over law’, which requires them to move away from an emergency vehicle by one lane or to slow down to a reasonable speed once they have noticed the vehicle. The law differs slightly in each state.
An image included with the application shows a vehicle driving along a road and stopping when it detects an emergency vehicle.
Joseph Re, partner at law firm Knobbe Martens, told WIPR: "I am glad to see that the large tech companies still appreciate the importance of filing for patents on significant inventions. The demise of the US patent system is often greatly exaggerated."
