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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Background
The Amendments to the Abstract, Drawings, Specification, and Claims in the Applicant’s Preliminary Amendment, filed on 04/28/23, have been entered.
According to the Amendments, claims 1-31 were pending. Claims 3, 9-12, 15, 17, 18, and 23-25 have been amended. No claims have been added or canceled. Thus, claims 1-31 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1-31 is rejected under § 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “ a control unit controlling the stowing unit such that at least one of the order of priority of the containers for stowing pieces of the luggage … is adjusted on the basis of the information detected.” (Emphasis added.) It is unclear as recited what the phrase “order of priority of the containers” intends to convey. Therefore, claim 1 is indefinite as well as any claims depending therefrom. Correction is required.
For purposes of examination, the phrase is simply interpreted as “the order of containers.”
Claim 2 is rejected under § 112(b) for indefiniteness. The claim recites “wherein the control unit controls the stowing unit such that pieces of the luggage are preferentially stowed in different containers.” The term “preferentially” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “preferentially” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is unclear how the control unit preferentially stows luggage in different containers as opposed to simply stowing the luggage in different containers. Therefore, claim 2 is indefinite as well as any claims depending therefrom. Correction is required.
Claim 3 is rejected under § 112(b) for indefiniteness for the same reason as claim 2 as well as any claims depending therefrom.
Claim 11 is rejected under § 112(b) for indefiniteness. The claim recites “such that pieces of luggage detected to have a soft material are stowed on an upper stage side.” The term “soft” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “soft” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is unclear how the control unit and luggage detection unit are able to determine under what parameters a bag is considered soft or not soft. Therefore, claim 11 is indefinite as well as any claims depending therefrom. Correction is required.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 7, and 10-12 are rejected under § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by WO 2013/076349 A1 to Tuominen et al. (Tuominen). In regards to claim 1, Tuominen discloses a luggage stowing device, comprising:
a luggage detection unit (not shown) detecting information of pieces of luggage (500) transported by a transportation unit (100) (see page10, l.14 to page 11, l.19 for teaching a measuring means for measuring a plurality of physical properties of baggage);
a stowing unit (310) stowing pieces of the luggage transported by the transportation unit with respect to a plurality of containers (see 8:24-27 & 12:14-16 for teaching a loading robot configured to pick and place baggage into containers); and
a control unit (not shown) controlling the stowing unit such that at least one of the order of priority of the containers for stowing pieces of the luggage and the order of stowing pieces of the luggage in the containers with respect to the order of transporting pieces of the luggage is adjusted on the basis of the information detected by the luggage detection unit (see 6:1-4 & 11:13-19 for teaching a data processing means/processor for adjusting a predetermined loading pattern by selecting a bag to be loaded having optimal properties with respect to bags already loaded into a container).
In regards to claim 2, Tuominen further discloses that the information is information related to dimensions of pieces of the luggage (see 10:19-28 for teaching a measuring means configured to measure physical properties of baggage such as their dimensions), and wherein the control unit controls the stowing unit such that pieces of the luggage are preferentially stowed in different containers on the basis of the dimensions of pieces of the luggage detected by the luggage detection unit (see 6:1-4 & 11:9-19 for dynamically determining the next piece of baggage to be loaded in accordance with a predetermined loading pattern by utilizing information on the actual contents of a container and information about the baggage to be loaded).
In regards to claim 7, Tuominen further discloses that the transportation unit has a stock conveyor (200) for temporarily stocking pieces of the luggage transported by the transportation unit (see 7:19-27 for teaching a buffer storage comprising at least two buffer blocks which are adapted to be customized for receiving baggage belonging to different categories based in part on at least one physical property), and wherein the control unit adjusts the order of stowing pieces of the luggage in the containers by temporarily stocking pieces of the luggage in the stock conveyor and then stowing pieces of the luggage stocked in the stock conveyor (see 7:3-18 for temporarily stocking baggage in the buffer storage within reach of the loading robot in a loading cell adjacent thereto).
In regards to claim 10, Tuominen further discloses that the control unit imparts an order of priority to each of locations in the transportation unit and controls the stowing unit such that the luggage is taken out from a location having a higher order of priority. See 9:13-10:13 (describing a processor configured to segregate baggage into different classes, such as “local,” “transfer,” “business,” or “priority” class and then sort such baggage into corresponding buffer blocks within the buffer storage so that, e.g., business or priority bags are readily available to be loaded as the topmost baggage in containers).
In regards to claim 11, Tuominen further discloses that the luggage detection unit detects materials of pieces of the luggage as the information (see 10:17-28 for measuring the stiffness of baggage in addition to their dimensions), and wherein the control unit adjusts the order of stowing pieces of the luggage in the containers such that pieces of the luggage detected to have a soft material are stowed on an upper stage side (see 10:1-11 for inferring storage of stiffer, heavier baggage at the bottom of a container from the fact that, absent any specific sorting and dispatching sequence, baggage is loaded into containers in accordance with logical and physical properties).
In regards to claim 12, Tuominen further discloses that the device further comprises a tag information acquisition unit (not shown) acquiring tag information of pieces of the luggage (see 8:5-14 for teaching a means for reading ID tags attached to baggage); and a tag information updating unit associating stowing data including stowing positions of pieces of the luggage with the tag information acquired by the tag information acquisition unit (see 9:13-29 for associating information contained in the data record of a bag with its corresponding ID tag, such information including its storage position in one of several buffer blocks in the buffer storage).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 8, 9, and 31-31 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejections under § 112(b), set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Relevant Prior Art
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US Pub. No. 2011/0002761 to Aimable-Lima et al. discloses a baggage handling system, comprising: a plurality of pre-loading queues operable to receive baggage; a loading station operable to receive baggage from individual ones of said queues; and a robotic arm operable to lift baggage from said loading station into said baggage transportation container wherein the system is operable to record the loaded location of a baggage item within a removably located baggage transportation container.
US Pub. No. 2020/0376662 to Arase et al. discloses a controller for a robotic system. The controller may derive first data including information about operation objects and information about a pallet before loading and/or unloading of the operation object on/from the pallet. The controller may derive a control sequence for loading and/or unloading the operation object on/from the pallet based on the first data before execution of the corresponding loading/unloading task. Based on the control sequence, the controller may instruct a robot to execute the task of loading and/or unloading the operation object on/from the pallet.
JP 08198452 A to Chiba et al. discloses an industrial robot for loading articles onto a palette. The size of an article and size of the palette are fed through a load laminated data input. The area earmarked for the article is set in the plane number setting unit. The operation step for carrying out the loading operation is defined and set in an arrangement registration unit. A position calculator determines the position of the article during the loading operation on the basis of load laminated data and arrangement registration condition. An order decision unit then decides the sequence of article to be taken up for loading and positioning of the palette.
US Pub. No. 2012/0150342 to Song et al. discloses a system and method for processing delivery items. The system comprises a delivery item transfer device which transfers a delivery item put into the system and measures at least one delivery item information selected from the group consisting of an image, a bar code, an address, a shape, a volume, and a weight of the delivery item; a control device which generates sorting information for each delivery zone and delivery route information; and a robot device which loads the delivery item into a corresponding loading container by controlling a robot based on the generated sorting information for each delivery zone or delivery route information and the at least one delivery item information.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE LOGAN whose telephone number is 571.270.7769. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 9-5 PM.
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/KYLE O LOGAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3655