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 .
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 3 and 4 mention “a fourth operation”, “fifth operation” and “sixth operation” but there is a lack of antecedent basis in the claims because claim 1 from which they depend does not recite “a third operation”. It appears that claims 3 and 4 should depend from claim 2.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
(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(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Johnson et al.(US 2020/0239231).
Johnson et al. discloses a stock warehouse management system including (claim 1) a plurality of event notification units 18; a user terminal 48 recognizing product information under control of a user (paragraph 0035, lines 6-9); a server 14,15 performing at least one operation for controlling the plurality of event notification units 18 based on product information received from the user terminal 48 (paragraph 0074, lines 2-9); (claim 4) at least one operation providing based on the location information of the user terminal, whether that user terminal is a handheld device or the terminal 48, the system providing a route from a user terminal to another location capable of being displayed on multiple terminals (paragraph 0050 and 0058).
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, 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.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Johnson et al. (US 2020/0239231) in view of Galluzo et al. (USP 11,348,066).
With regard to claim 5 Johnson et al. includes all the claimed features but does not disclose a sensing unit for detecting a change in weight of at least one product and transmitting information about the change through the server. Galluzo ddiscloses a sensing unit for detecting a change in weight of at least one product and transmitting information about the change through a server. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the application to include a weight sensing unit for detecting a change in weight of at least one product to provide additional verification of the item being picked as taught by Galluzo.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GENE O CRAWFORD whose telephone number is (571)272-6911. The examiner can normally be reached M-Thurs 6a-5p; Fri 6a-2p.
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/GENE O CRAWFORD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3651