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 .
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 16-19 regarding 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection , filed 7/20/2026, with respect to 1-9, and 11-21 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claim 1-9, and 11-21 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 19-21 regarding 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection, filed 7/20/2026, with respect to 1, 8-9, and 17 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claim 1, 8-9, and 17 has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding the limitation "acquiring a real state data set of the target production job-shop at a current moment, wherein the real state data set comprises a real process processing graph and a real machine competition graph," the specification only talks about "state information" made up of a process diagram and a machine competition graph (paragraphs [0099], [0102], [0134], and [0135]), and about data sets built from the parameters of randomly generated job-shop environments (paragraphs [0085] and [0133]). The word "real" does not appear anywhere in the specification. The only references to "actual" production are in the background section, and those describe production scenarios and reinforcement learning methods in general terms (paragraphs [0003] through [0005]). The initial state is generated from the data of an environment taken from the randomly generated training set (paragraphs [0133] and [0134]), which means no state data is ever acquired from the target production job-shop. In fact, the production job-shop comes up only as the place for which the environments are generated (paragraph [0085]) and the place where the production target is ultimately completed (paragraph [0128]). When the specification refers to a "current state" or a state "at a current time," it is talking about the agent exploring a training environment (paragraphs [0096] and [0135]), not about a physical job-shop at an actual point in time. The specification does define a process diagram and a machine competition graph (paragraph [0129]), but it builds them from the number of processes, the workpieces, the production times, the number of machines, and the initial competition relationship of the generated environment (paragraph [0134]). The phrase "real process processing graph" is not used, and the specification never explains how data would be gathered from a physical job-shop or turned into a "real" process graph or a "real" machine competition graph. Paragraph [0134] does mention collecting the data of an environment, but read in context, that environment belongs to the randomly generated training set described in paragraph [0133]. So this passage is about reading the parameters of a generated environment, not about acquiring data from the target production job-shop.
As for the limitation "generating an action data set in real time by sequentially transmitting the real state data set through the trained feature extraction network and the trained actor network; sending the action data set in real time to the target production job-shop to update a state of the target production job-shop," the specification only describes a single action, sampled from the scheduling strategy at each iteration (paragraphs [0107] and [0135]). It never describes an "action data set." The term "real-time" shows up only in the background, where it is used to explain the shortcomings of conventional scheduling methods and the general benefits of reinforcement learning (paragraphs [0003] through [0005]). The disclosed invention itself is never described as generating anything in real time. It is true that the specification describes passing state information through the feature extraction network and then through the actor network (paragraphs [0103], [0106], and [0135)], but this happens only during training, while the network parameters are still being adjusted through gradient descent (paragraphs [0114] and [0136]). The trained parameters of the feature extraction network, the actor network, and the critic network are obtained only at the end of training (paragraph [0138]), and the only use of the networks after that point is validation against randomly generated validation environments (paragraphs [0120] and [0137]). The specification also makes clear that the sampled action interacts with the "current training flexible job-shop environment" (paragraph [0108]) or with the "validating flexible job-shop environments" (paragraph [0120]). It does not describe sending any action to the target production job-shop, and it does not disclose any interface, communication link, or other way for a physical job-shop to receive or carry out those actions. The state transition described in paragraph [0131] recalculates the process features and machine features, regenerates the connections in the machine competition graph, and adds new connections to the process diagram of the environment being explored. That is an update to the model's own data, not an update to the state of the target production job-shop.
Finally, regarding the limitation "acquiring an updated real state data set of the target production job-shop, and proceeding to the step of generating the action data set in real time for repeating until the preset production target is competed," the specification describes obtaining the next state only as a result of the agent interacting with a training environment (paragraphs [0108] and [0135]). It never describes acquiring updated state data from the target production job-shop. And since the specification does not support acquiring a real state data set in the first place, it cannot support acquiring an updated one either. The specification does describe two repeating loops, but both of them take place during training. The inner loop keeps going until a termination mark, equal to the total number of processes in the current training environment, is added to the cache pool (paragraphs [0111] through [0113] and [0135]). The outer loop keeps going until the number of training rounds reaches a set threshold (paragraphs [0114], [0127], and [0138]). Neither loop repeatedly generates action data sets and sends them to the target production job-shop, and neither one ends when the preset production target is completed.
Claims 2-7, 9, and 11-21 are also rejected because they depend on claim 1 so that they inherit the deficiency of claim 1.
Conclusion
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 ABDULLAH K ABOUD whose telephone number is (571)272-0025. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8am-5pm.
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/ABDULLAH KHALED ABOUD/ Examiner, Art Unit 2121
/Li B. Zhen/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2121
