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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-10 in the reply filed on 02/18/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 11-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected apparatus, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 02/18/2026.
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.
Claims 1-7, 9-10, 21, 22, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soltys et al. (US Patent No. 8,550,464 B2).
In Reference to Claim 1-2, 7, 9, and 10
Soltys teaches (Claim 1) A method of shuffling cards comprising: generating a virtual deck structure (column 30 line 66 – column 31 line 2), said virtual deck structure defining a virtual card assignment for a plurality of cards (column 32 lines 53-60); feeding cards one at a time from a bottom of a card receiving area of a shuffling device (column 30 lines 46-50, fig’s 5A, 5B, 6A; cards are fed one at a time from bottom of stack 515/615); reading card information from each of said cards fed from said card receiving area (column 30 lines 48-50); generating information regarding an assigned location for each of said cards fed from said card receiving area (column 30 lines 50-65; system keeps track of each location of each card in each pocket); utilizing said information regarding said assigned location for each of said cards to move a card receiver comprising a plurality of vertically arranged dividers defining a plurality of card receiving locations to a position in which the assigned location from said plurality of card receiving locations is arranged to receive said card; delivering said cards into said assigned locations of said card receiver; and associating said card information for each card to each virtual card assignment of said virtual deck structure (column 31 lines 3-10, fig. 13 item 1312, also see fig’s 5A, 5B, and 6A, dividers are at least partially vertically arranged; cards are delivered to output stack in correspondence to generated virtual deck order, pockets are moved accordingly to output desired card into roller system and out to finished deck);
(Claim 2) wherein each card location comprises a card pocket of said card receiving area (items 510a, b, c, and 512a, b, c, fig. 5A).
(Claim 7) comprising delivering more than one of said cards to at least one card location, thereby forming at least one group of cards in at least one of said card location (column 16 lines 1-15; delivers stacked cards to table).
(Claim 9) wherein said step of delivering comprises changing a vertical position of said card receiver (column 15 line 61 – column 16 line 15).
(Claim 10) further comprising ejecting cards associated with each of said card locations at different times (column 31 lines 3-10, fig’s 5A, 5B, and 6A, cards are sent to output stack 506 one at a time via rollers, therefore, this is inherently “at different times”).
Soltys does not necessarily teach the specific order of steps claimed.
However, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have arranged the steps in a different order simply as a matter of engineering design choice, since, it has been held that selection of any order of performing process steps is prima facie obvious in the absence of new or unexpected results. See Ex parte Rubin, 128 USPQ 440 (Bd. App. 1959); In re Burhans, 154 F.2d 690, 69 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1946) In re Gibson, 39 F.2d 975, 5 USPQ 230 (CCPA 1930). Since the system of Soltys teaches all of the steps of feeding cards, reading the cards, keeping track of them in assigned compartments, generating a virtual deck of cards, and then arranging / outputting the cards into a stack in correspondence to the virtually generated random deck order, merely claiming any order of these steps that produces the physical deck corresponding to a virtually generated deck at the end of the process is simply a matter of engineering design choice, and is not a patentable advance. Since the result would be the same at the end of the process regardless of the order of the intermediate steps, this minor distinction is not a patentable advance.
In Reference to Claims 3-6
Soltys teaches all of claim 1 as discussed above.
Soltys further teaches (Claim 3) wherein said virtual deck structure is generated by a first controller and is stored in a first memory (column 32 lines 53-60) and said information regarding an assigned location is generated by a second controller (column 32 lines 35-45; random number generator and first memory 1606 and 1604 / 1621 appear separate from card management processing system 1602);
(Claim 4) wherein said secondary controller generates output signals for causing said card receiver to move in order to deliver said cards into said assigned locations (column 31 lines 3-10, and column 32 lines 35-45);
(Claim 5) further comprising storing information regarding said assigned location for each card [] from said virtual deck structure and said associated card information and virtual card assignment (column 30 lines 63-65 and column 32 lines 35-45);
(Claim 6) wherein said information regarding said assigned location is stored in a [] memory which is associated with a [] controller and said information regarding said virtual deck structure and said associated card information and virtual card assignment is stored in a [] memory associated with a main controller (column 30 lines 63-65 and column 32 lines 35-45 and 53-60).
It is unclear how many controllers / memories there are in Soltys, and whether they are part of one unit or separate units.
Regardless, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have provided multiple different controllers /memories simply as a matter of engineering design choice, since, it has been held that making components of a prior art device one integral component or separate but connected components, see In re Larson, 340 F.2d 965, 968, 144 USPQ 347, 349 (CCPA 1965); and, that mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and unexpected result is produced. See In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669, 124 USPQ 378 (CCPA 1960). Simply providing all of the computing functions on a single processor / controller / memory, or providing multiple separate controllers / memories which would produce the same functions is an obvious matter of engineering design choice, and is not a patentable advance.
In Reference to Claims 21, 22, and 28
Soltys teaches (Claim 21) A method of shuffling cards comprising: generating, via a first controller, a virtual deck structure (column 30 line 66 – column 31 line 2), said virtual deck structure defining a virtual card assignment for a plurality of ordinally identified virtual cards (column 32 lines 53-60); storing information regarding said virtual deck structure in a first memory associated with said first controller (column 32 lines 53-60); feeding physical cards one at a time from a bottom of a card receiving area of a shuffling device (column 30 lines 46-50, fig’s 5A, 5B, 6A; cards are fed one at a time from bottom of stack 515/615); reading card information from each of said physical cards fed from said card receiving area (column 30 lines 48-50); generating, by a [] controller using information regarding said virtual deck structure, information regarding an assigned location for each of said physical cards fed from said card receiving area; storing, in a [] memory associated with said [] controller, information regarding said assigned location corresponding to an ordinal identifier of each of said physical cards (column 30 liens 48-65, system reads the cards, and maps them to pockets, and then records the locations of each card in each pocket) utilizing said information regarding said assigned location for each of said physical cards to move a card receiver comprising a plurality of vertically arranged dividers defining a plurality of card receiving locations to a position in which the assigned location from said plurality of card receiving locations is arranged to receive said physical card; delivering said physical cards into said assigned locations of said card receiver; and correlating said card information for one or more ordinally identified physical cards to corresponding ordinally identified virtual cards of said virtual deck structure (column 31 lines 3-10, fig. 13 item 1312, also see fig’s 5A, 5B, and 6A, dividers are at least partially vertically arranged; cards are delivered to output stack in correspondence to generated virtual deck order, pockets are moved accordingly to output desired card into roller system and out to finished deck);
(Claim 22) wherein said virtual deck structure defines virtual card assignments for a plurality of identified virtual cards (column 32 lines 53-60) relative to a first hand and a second hand (column 26 lines 36-49);
(Claim 28) wherein said card receiver moves vertically (column 15 line 61 – column 16 line 15).
It is unclear how many controllers / memories there are in Soltys, and whether they are part of one unit or separate units.
Regardless, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have provided multiple different controllers /memories simply as a matter of engineering design choice, since, it has been held that making components of a prior art device one integral component or separate but connected components, see In re Larson, 340 F.2d 965, 968, 144 USPQ 347, 349 (CCPA 1965); and, that mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and unexpected result is produced. See In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669, 124 USPQ 378 (CCPA 1960). Simply providing all of the computing functions on a single processor / controller / memory, or providing multiple separate controllers / memories which would produce the same functions is an obvious matter of engineering design choice, and is not a patentable advance.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soltys et al. in view of Grauzer et al. (US Patent No. 6,588,751 B1).
In Reference to Claim 8
Soltys teaches all of claim 1 as discussed above.
Soltys further teaches (Claim 8) wherein said step of delivering comprises moving a card towards said card receiver, causing an edge of said card to [be ejected] to direct said card into said assigned location (column 31 lines 3-10, fig’s 5A, 5B, and 6, via rollers, column 23 lines 10-18).
Soltys fails to teach impacting a ramp of a divider of claim 8.
Grauzer teaches (Claim 8) a card delivery system where cards impact a ramp of one of [] dividers (column 12 lines 33-52, fig’s 5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have provided the card handling system of Soltys with the feature of cards impacting a ramp of a divider as taught by the card handling system of Grauzer for the purpose of better directing cards into the compartment as taught by Grauzer (column 12 lines 33-52), making the system more reliable, and more attractive to the users.
Claims 23-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soltys et al. in view of Mali (US PGPub. No. 2010/0320684 A1).
In Reference to Claims 23-27
Soltys teaches all of claims 21 and 22 as discussed above.
Soltys further teaches (Claim 23) wherein said assigned locations cause multiple physical cards to be delivered to a [] card receiving location to form said first hand and multiple physical cards to be delivered to a [] card receiving location to form said second hand (column 26 lines 36-49, multiple different compartments in output receivers for hands of cards);
(Claim 24) further comprising ejecting said physical cards forming said first hand from said [] card receiving location at a first time and ejecting said physical cards forming said second hand from said [] card receiving location at a second time (column 26 lines 36-49, since cards are delivered through the same output receiver, they are inherently delivered sequentially, or at different times);
(Claim 25) wherein said step of correlating is performed as to physical cards corresponding to said first hand and said second hand to generate first hand information and second hand information (column 26 lines 36-49);
(Claim 26) wherein said first hand information comprises the card information corresponding to each of said physical cards corresponding to said first hand and the card information corresponding to each of said physical cards corresponding to said second hand (column 26 lines 36-49);
(Claim 27) wherein said card information for each card comprises a rank and a suit (column 13 lines 12-19; column 30 lines 1-5).
Soltys fails to disclose first and second card receiving locations / ejecting cards at first and second locations.
Mali teaches ejecting hands of cards at first and second card receiving locations (fig. 1, paragraph 0037, claim 9).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have provided the card handling system of Soltys with the feature of multiple card receiving locations as taught by the card handling system of Mali for the purpose of allowing the device to automatically deliver cards to each player location without the assistance of a dealer, further automating the system, making the system easier to use and more convenient for users.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The additionally cited references disclose inventions similar to applicant’s claimed invention.
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/JOSEPH B BALDORI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3711
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