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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO-1149 filed 02/12/2026. This IDS has been considered.
Election/Restrictions
Newly submitted claims 18-34 are directed to inventions that are independent or distinct from the invention originally claimed for the following reasons:
Claims 18-23 and 34 are drawn to a wireless portable device for use in a system comprising a dispensing enclosure. The details of the dispensing disclosure are not disclosed as requiring the enclosure of claim 15 but also requires several additional features of the wireless portable device.
Claims 24-28 and 34 are drawn to a central control computer for use with a dispensing enclosure . The details of the dispensing disclosure are not disclosed as requiring the enclosure of claim 15 but also requires several additional features of the central control computer.
Claims 29-34 are drawn a weight sensor unit which is not required to be the same weight sensor as in claim 15 but also requires several additional features of the weight sensor.
These claims present a significant additional search burden on the Examiner because they require additional text and classification searches for the many new features claimed.
Since applicant has received an action on the merits for the originally presented invention, this invention has been constructively elected by original presentation for prosecution on the merits. Accordingly, claims 18-34 are withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention. See 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03.
To preserve a right to petition, the reply to this action must distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement. Otherwise, the election shall be treated as a final election without traverse. Traversal must be timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are subsequently added, applicant must indicate which of the subsequently added claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on pages 12-15 that one having ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated to combine the teachings of Henry and Atobe because Atobe is from the printer arts and Henry’s disclosure is drawn to a cabinet/dispending disclosure. In response to applicant's argument that Atobe is nonanalogous art, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case, as noted in the rejection, the problem at hand is how to transmit signals between electronic devices without the use of several cables that can be difficult to navigate around and requires a lot of work to connect. Examiner also notes in the rejection that how one connects devices for signal transmission is within the level of skill of one having ordinary skill in the art and optical signal transmission is just one of a finite number of possibilities available. Applicant has not adequately explained why one skilled in the art, using no more than ordinary creativity, would not have been capable of choosing optical signal transmission between electronic components based on the level of ordinary skill required alone. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007) (“A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.”); see In re Sovish, 769 F.2d 738, 743 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (skill is presumed on the part of one of ordinary skill in the art); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390 (CCPA 1969).
Applicant also argues on page 15 that Atobe discloses optical communication techniques as opposed to the instant weighing sensor that transmits the signals using non-optical wireless communication. Thus Atobe fails to disclose multiple communication types in the same sensor. Examiner respectfully notes that these are features not claimed in the instant claim 15 (argued as claim 1 by Applicant). Claim 15 merely recites “in response to receipt thereby of the first optical signal, wirelessly transmit a first weigh sensor reading to the cabinet controller”. The claim does not specifically require “wireless non-optical communication” contrary to Applicant’s arguments and Examiner notes that Atobe’s wireless optical signal transmission reads on the claimed limitations. It is the claims that define the claimed invention, and it is claims, not specification that are anticipated or unpatentable. See MPEP § 2145 (VI).
Applicant argues on pages 16 and 17 Nakamura operates very differently from the claims. Nakamura discloses deterring types and numbers of articles removed from a store but fails to disclose using doors and access control to extract user IDs so one having ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated to combine Nakamura with Henry. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Nakamura is from the same field of endeavor, namely article tracking/inventory using weighing scales, and is merely used to generally teach the use of including weigh scale IDs in information transmitted among devices. Other considerations such as what the items tracked are, the level of security used, etc. are irrelevant to the claimed subject matter and the motivation to use a scale ID to help track items.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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, 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 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Henry (USPN 8,442,878) in view of Atobe et al. (USPN 5,051,601; “Atobe”) and Nakamura (US 2022/0101296).
Regarding claim 15, Henry discloses in figures 1-9 a system for monitoring the presence and/or quantity of stock items in a dispensing enclosure (100) (col. 1, lines 45-52), the system comprising the dispensing enclosure (100) (col. 7, lines 4-11) having a cabinet controller (318) (col. 8, lines 44-59) and having one or more dispensing units (108) or one or more weight sensor units (110) disposed therein (col. 7, lines 12-23), the or each WSU (110) being configured to transmit using a transmission device one or more weight sensor readings indicative of the weight being supported by the WSU (110) (col. 7, line 59 through col. 8, line 22), the dispensing unit (108) comprising a container configured to receive or support the stock items and a WSU (110) configured to support, in use, the container (col. 7, lines 12-23), a central control computer (329) coupled to the cabinet controller (318) via one or more networks (col. 8, lines 53-59), wherein the cabinet controller (318) is configured to, in response to a door (104) of the dispensing enclosure (100) being closed for a first time, transmit a first signal using a transmitter, wherein a first WSU (110) of the one or more WSU’s or in one of the one or more dispensing units is configured to, in response to receipt thereby of the first signal, transmit a first weight sensor reading to the cabinet controller (318) (col. 9, lines 26-57), wherein the cabinet controller (318) is configured to, in response to a door of the dispensing enclosure (100) being closed for a second time, transmit a second signal using an transmitter wherein the first WSU is configured to, in response to receipt thereby of the second signal, transmit a second weight sensor reading to the cabinet controller (318) (col. 9, lines 26-57, col. 14, lines 1-17, col. 14, lines 50-58; the cabinet controller exchanges information with the load cell each time the door is closed, therefore the steps are performed at least a second time) wherein the cabinet controller (318) is configured to, after receipt of the second weight sensor reading, transmit an activity record message to the central control computer (329), the activity record message being based on at least the second weight sensor reading and comprising a current quantity of stock items calculated from the second weight sensor reading (col. 8, 45-59; “processes load cell readings and converts them to quantities of parts/stock items”) and optionally a previous quantity of stock items calculated from the first weight sensor reading, and (iii) optionally one, a subset or all of a temperature of the WSU, a battery charge status of the WSU and the second weight sensor reading (Examiner notes the limitations following the term “optionally” are not required and therefore need not be met under broadest reasonable interpretation).
Henry generally teaches the load cell sends signals to and from the cabinet controller but does not specifically disclose this is done wireless through optical signals. However, wireless optical transmission of signals is just one of a finite number of straightforward, well-known solutions readily available to having ordinary skill and creativity in the art of electronic communication and signal transmission. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421 (2007), MPEP §2143, “obvious to try” rationale.
For example, Atobe generally teaches in figure 1 that it is known to transmit signals between electronic devices in communication with one another by means of wireless, optical signals (col. 2, line 50 through col. 3, line 47).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the invention to utilize wireless optical transmission to exchange signals between Henry’s load cell and cabinet controller as suggested by Atobe for the purpose of eliminating signal transmission by cables thus avoiding complicated wiring operations which result in a large number of work steps, (such as wire binding, stamping, screwing, soldering etc.) and erroneous connections which can cause malfunctions (col. 1, lines 5-31).
While Henry discloses the cabinet controller is configured to send quantities of stock items to a central control based on load cell data, Henry does not explicitly disclose sending a weight scale unit ID number.
However, sending a weight scale unit ID number would be an obvious additional piece of information to include to send to the server since each scale unit is associated with bin which holds parts/units. Therefore, one would need to know which scale (and thus bin) an item was taken from in order to deduce which stock item has been reduced.
For example, Nakamura teaches a stock monitoring system in which a weight sensor (30) transmits weight sensor identification information to the controller (10) so that the controller knows which area (shelf, bin etc.) the stock was taken from and therefore which items to deduct (¶¶ [0050], [0058]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the invention to include weight scale unit ID number in the information sent to Henry’s central control computer as taught by Nakamura so that the central control computer can associate the change in weight with a particular bin and thus a particular item of inventory.
Regarding claim 16, Henry discloses the current quantity of stock items calculated from the second weight sensor reading and a previous quantity of stock items calculated from the first weight sensor reading (col. 2, lines 8-17).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Henry, Atobe, and Nakamura as applied to claim 15 and further in view of Motoyama (US 2016/0025549).
Regarding claim 17, Henry as modified by Atobe and Nakamura disclose all the limitations of claim 15 on which this claim depends.
Henry generally discloses an activity record including data related to inventory status (col. 8, lines 53-59) but doesn’t explicitly disclose a subset or all of a temperature of the first WSU, a battery charge status of the first WSU, and the second weight sensor reading.
In the same field of endeavor, Motoyama teaches a smart locker enclosure with weighing sensors for monitoring changes in locker contents. Motoyama further teaches generating and sending an activity record message which comprises a subset or all of a temperature of the first WSU, a battery charge status of the first WSU, and the second weight sensor reading (see figure 13, see also ¶¶ [0249]-[0251], [0267], [0328]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the invention to include weight readings in Henry’s report message as suggested by Motoyama for the purpose of allowing users to access the weight readings rather than just the inventory status in situations where readings are close to a reference or tolerance so users can determine if the inventory status matches expectations.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2019/0301923 discloses a cabinet where a door closing signal triggers a weight change measurement for inventory monitoring.
US 2021/0383637 discloses a cabinet where a door closing signal triggers a weight change measurement for inventory monitoring.
US 2025/0218237 discloses a cabinet where a door closing signal triggers a weight change measurement for inventory monitoring.
US 2023/0377083 discloses a cabinet where a door closing signal triggers a weight change measurement for inventory monitoring.
USPN 11,526,843 discloses a cabinet where a door closing signal triggers a weight change measurement for inventory monitoring.
US 2024/0003735 discloses transmitting a scale ID so that an amount of inventory deduction can be associated with a specific bin.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATALIE HULS whose telephone number is (571)270-5914. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John Breene can be reached at (571) 272-4107. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NATALIE HULS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855
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