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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/21/2025 has been entered. Note the claims filed 9/23/2025 have been entered and are addressed herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 13 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by over Chila et al (US Pub App 2020/0377300).
Regarding claim 13, Chila discloses a contactless order dispensing system for an order fulfilment facility (100) that comprises a building within which human operators or users work (Para.43-46) and an order management system having a computer (Para.48), said dispensing system comprising:
a customer access portal (110) disposed at one location of an order fulfilment facility for presenting a customer order to a customer in a contactless manner in which the customer is not required to interact directly with any human (Para.44);
an automated buffer (102) at another location of the order fulfilment facility separated from said customer access portal, wherein said automated buffer is configured to store a plurality of prepared customer orders in containers until a particular one of the customer orders is requested by a corresponding customer at said customer access portal and to release that particular order from the automated buffer when it is requested at said customer access portal (Para.42);
a transportation system (104) operable to transport a container containing a customer order between said automated buffer and said customer access portal (Para.42,44), said transportation system comprising at least one chosen from a conveyor system and an autonomous mobile robot (belt conveyor system, 104); and
a customer user interface (106) in communication with the computer of the order management system and comprising a customer input device for receiving a customer input indicating that a customer is ready to retrieve their corresponding customer order (Para.43);
wherein; the automated buffer (102) is separate from the transportation system (104) (Fig.1) and upon receiving the customer input at said customer user interface indicating that the customer is ready to retrieve their corresponding customer order, the order management system controls said automated buffer to release the corresponding customer order from the automated buffer and controls said transportation system to subsequently transport the corresponding customer order from said automated buffer to said customer access portal (Para.42-44).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 14-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chila et al (US Pub App 2020/0377300) in view of Kelly (US Pub App 2020/0184437)
Regarding claim 14, Chila discloses a method for contactless dispensing of an order to a corresponding customer, said method comprising:
preparing a customer order within an order fulfilment facility (Para.42) that comprises a building within which human operators or users work (Para.43-46);
buffering (102) the customer order in a storage buffer of an order dispensing system until the corresponding customer arrives to pick-up the order, the storage buffer configured to store and buffer a plurality of prepared customer orders (Para.42)
receiving an instruction that the corresponding customer has arrived to retrieve the customer order (Para.43);
releasing the customer order from the storage buffer (102) to a transportation system (104) and transporting the customer order from the storage buffer (102) to a customer access portal (110) with the transportation system (104), wherein the storage buffer is separate from the transportation system and is separated from the customer access portal within the order fulfilment facility (Fig.1);
receiving the customer order from the transportation system (104) at the customer access portal (110) (Para.44);
dispensing the customer order to the customer with the customer access portal in a manner such that the customer is not required to have direct contact with another human (Para.44).
Kelly does not further specifically disclose confirming that the customer has retrieved the entire order from the customer access portal with a confirmation sensor proximate the customer access portal.
Kelly teaches methods and apparatus for the automated provision of goods through the use of scanning systems wherein the customer may collect their order at step 1321. In some examples sensors in the dispenser may sense whether the order has been fully collected and warn the user if not. If the item remains uncollected, communication to both the store and the customer may be made at step 1324 using the application and various communication means (Para.204).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to have modified Chila in view of Kelly to include confirming that the customer has retrieved the entire order from the customer access portal with a confirmation sensor proximate the customer access portal in order to increase security of the system.
Regarding claim 15, Chila, as modified above, further teaches said buffering the order in a storage buffer comprises storing portions of items of the customer order in different temperature zones of the storage buffer based on respective temperature storage requirements of different types of items present in the customer order (Kelly, Para.156,162).
Regarding claim 16, Chila, as modified above, further teaches the order dispensing comprises an order management system having a computer in communication with the confirmation sensor, wherein said confirming that the customer has retrieved the entire order comprises the computer receiving data from the confirmation sensor and determining, based on the data received from the confirmation sensor, whether the customer has retrieved the entire order from the customer access portal (Kelly, Para.204).
Regarding claim 17, Chila, as modified above, further teaches said dispensing the customer order to the customer comprises opening an access door of the customer access portal that is positioned between the customer and the transportation system, and presenting the customer order to the customer at an opening defined by the open access door (Kelly, Para.159,161).
Regarding claim 18, Chila, as modified above, further teaches notifying a customer that an order item is present at the customer access portal and ready for retrieval (Kelly, Para.97).
Regarding claim 19, Chila, as modified above, further teaches receiving an instruction from the customer that they are rejecting at least one order item and confirming with the confirmation sensor that the rejected item is present at the customer access portal (Kelly, Para.204).
Regarding claim 20, Chila, as modified above, further teaches said transporting the order from the storage buffer, said receiving the order at the customer access portal, and said dispensing the order to the customer are all performed in about two minutes or less (Kelly, Para.99).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 9/23/2025 with respect to the 102 and 103 rejections of claims 1-12, 21 and 23, together with the amendments, have been considered and are persuasive. Claims 1-12, 21 and 23 allowed.
Applicant's arguments filed 9/23/2025 with respect to the 102 and 103 rejections of claims 13-20 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply based on the new grounds of rejection and new interpretation of the references being used in the current rejection, necessitated by amendment.
Regarding Applicant's argument contending that the previously made rejection does not disclose a building within which human operators work, inasmuch as Applicant had claimed this feature, it is disclosed by Chila. As can be seen in paragrapsh 43-46 of Chila, human users access a dispenser 100 and also may add products to the dispenser, through a restocking process, a user can place a medical product in restock opening 114, in which the user is an operator. And as such, any arguments pertaining to this element are considered nonpersuasive.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-12, 21 and 23 allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The prior art of record fails to disclose or render obvious the claimed invention as set forth in claim 1 and subsequent dependent claims. The prior art of record does not disclose or render obvious a contactless order dispensing system comprising a customer access portal for presenting a customer order to a customer for retrieval by the customer, a transportation system in communication with said customer access portal for transporting a customer order to said customer access portal, a buffer in communication with said transportation system and configured to store a plurality of prepared customer orders until a particular one of the customer orders is requested by a corresponding customer at said customer access portal and to release that particular order when it is requested at said customer access portal, an order management system comprising a computer and configured to control said dispensing system and a confirmation sensor in communication with said order management system and configured to verify that a customer has retrieved all contents of the particular order from said customer access portal, wherein the buffer is separate from the transportation system and said customer access portal, and wherein said contactless order dispensing system comprises a store within which operators work with the customer access portal at one location in the store and the buffer at another location in the store away from the customer access portal with the transportation system disposed within and operating to traverse customer orders through the store between the customer access portal and the buffer.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Wicks and Hoffman further disclose elements of a contactless order dispensing system.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ASHLEY K ROMANO whose telephone number is (571)272-9318. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday.
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/SAUL RODRIGUEZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3652
/ASHLEY K ROMANO/Examiner, Art Unit 3652