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 with traverse of claims 1-14 in the reply filed on 3/18/26 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that all relate to aspects of appliances and no additional burden would be placed on the examiner. This is not found persuasive because Independent claim 15 is broadly “a domestic appliance”. Applicants specification teaches at par. 0025 the “domestic appliance” is not limited to cooking appliances and further encompasses “washing machine appliance, dryer appliance, or dishwashing appliance” which are distinctly different in outcome and purpose and more specifically as taught by applicants specification comprise “a treatment chamber (e.g., cooking chamber, wash chamber, or dry chamber) for treating articles therein (e.g., for cooking or heating, for washing, or for drying) which are necessarily different functions of domestic appliances.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 15-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
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 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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhogal et al. (20200400317) in view of Ohrmann et al. (20200059995).
Bhogal teaches with respect to Independent claim 1, an oven appliance (par. 0032) comprising:
a cabinet defining a cooking chamber (par. 0032)
a heating element (par. 0032 ref. 300; par. 0050) in thermal communication with the cooking chamber (par. 0050) to heat a cooking utensil (par. 0083) therein;
a sensing element mounted to the cabinet (par. 0058, 0059) and
a controller (par. 0054) in operable communication with the heating element (par. 0054, 0056) and the sensing element (par. 0054), the controller being configured to direct a cooking operation (par. 0055) comprising
receiving a sensor signal from the sensing element (par. 0129; par. 0058, 0094),
transmitting (par. 0057, par. 0095; “sent to remote system”; par. 0129 lines 8-10 “cooking instruction can be retrieved from… a remote computing system) the sensor signal (par. 0129) from the controller (par. 0095) for determination of an off- board (par. 0099 remote computing system, par. 0129 remote system as opposed to oven storage/memory) predicted state of the oven appliance (par. 0100; par. 0093 food insertion event; par. 0129 foodstuff type within oven, cooking instruction determined; par. 0128 oven operation state; par. 0141 oven receives operation instructions from remote system),
calculating (par. 0140 suitable computing system; par.0144 last 6 lines “calculated; par. 0130 adjusting based on comparison), at the oven appliance (par. 0143 “determined by oven), an on-board predicted state (par. 0143 “cooking too slowly”, “drying out”; par. 0130 cooking status) for a future time point (par. 0143 target food parameter; par. 0146 completion notification; par. 0130 to meet a target cooking status by a predetermined time),
directing the oven appliance based on the on-board predicted state (par. 0144 dynamically adjusting; par. 0130 dynamically adjusted).
Bhogal teaches the on-board processing system further comprising a communication system to transmit and receive heating specific information (par. 0057) and thus one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to the art of real-time or near real-time dynamic adjustment of heating elements performed by on-board and off-board control systems as taught by Bhogal (par. 0084).
Ohrmann teaches a controller for independent and controlled cooking of foods. Ohrmann teaches the cooking controller connected by communication signals with the cloud (par. 0027) and determining an overall time lag between the driving of the at least one heating coil associated with a heating coil with the correlation signal and the reception by the receiver unit of the response signal.
Thus since both teach adjustment of heating elements, since both teach wireless communication, since Bhogal teaches performing time-sensitive processes on the oven itself, while performing time-agnostic or long-term analyses on a remote computing system (par. 0037) and since the communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further incorporate into the future time point determination of Bhogal which determines the final and desired cooking state a time lag between the transmitter unit of this cooktop utensil to the receiver unit by way of the response signal as taught by Ohrmann thus achieving the advantage of decreasing cooking mistakes stemming from connections lag as desired by Bhogal and achieving the additional benefit of leveraging the larger computing power of the remote computing system and perform cooking analyses in near-real time as further taught (par. 0037).
With respect to Independent claim 8, a method of operating an oven appliance (par. 0032) comprising a cabinet defining a cooking chamber (par. 0032), a user interface panel mounted to the cabinet (par. 0074), a heating element (par. 0032 ref. 300; par. 0050) in thermal communication with the cooking chamber (par. 0050), and a sensing element mounted to the cabinet (par. 0058, 0059), the method comprising:
receiving a sensor signal from the sensing element (par. 0129; par. 0058, 0094),
transmitting (par. 0057, par. 0095; “sent to remote system”; par. 0129 lines 8-10 “cooking instruction can be retrieved from… a remote computing system) the sensor signal (par. 0129) from the oven appliance (par. 0095) for determination of an off- board (par. 0099 remote computing system, par. 0129 remote system as opposed to oven storage/memory) predicted state of the oven appliance (par. 0100; par. 0093 food insertion event; par. 0129 foodstuff type within oven, cooking instruction determined; par. 0128 oven operation state; par. 0141 oven receives operation instructions from remote system),
calculating (par. 0140 suitable computing system; par.0144 last 6 lines “calculated; par. 0130 adjusting based on comparison), at the oven appliance (par. 0143 “determined by oven), an on-board predicted state (par. 0143 “cooking too slowly”, “drying out”; par. 0130 cooking status) for a future time point (par. 0143 target food parameter; par. 0146 completion notification; par. 0130 to meet a target cooking status by a predetermined time),
directing the oven appliance based on the on-board predicted state (par. 0144 dynamically adjusting; par. 0130 dynamically adjusted).
Bhogal teaches the on-board processing system further comprising a communication system to transmit and receive heating specific information (par. 0057) and thus one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to the art of real-time or near real-time dynamic adjustment of heating elements performed by on-board and off-board control systems as taught by Bhogal (par. 0084).
Ohrmann teaches a controller for independent and controlled cooking of foods. Ohrmann teaches the cooking controller connected by communication signals with the cloud (par. 0027) and determining an overall time lag between the driving of the at least one heating coil associated with a heating coil with the correlation signal and the reception by the receiver unit of the response signal.
Thus since both teach adjustment of heating elements, since both teach wireless communication, since Bhogal teaches performing time-sensitive processes on the oven itself, while performing time-agnostic or long-term analyses on a remote computing system (par. 0037) and since the communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further incorporate into the future time point determination of Bhogal which determines the final and desired cooking state a time lag between the transmitter unit of this cooktop utensil to the receiver unit by way of the response signal as taught by Ohrmann thus achieving the advantage of decreasing cooking mistakes stemming from connections lag as desired by Bhogal and achieving the additional benefit of leveraging the larger computing power of the remote computing system and perform cooking analyses in near-real time as further taught (par. 0037).
Claims 2 and 9, the sensing element comprises a camera directed at the cooking chamber, and wherein the sensor signal comprises an image signal (par. 0059).
Claims 3 and 10, Ohrmann teaches the communication lag interval comprises a set value (par. 0027; “list or algorithm). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further incorporate into the future time point determination of Bhogal which determines the final and desired cooking state a time lag between the transmitter unit of this cooktop utensil to the receiver unit by way of the response signal as a set value (par. 0027; “list or algorithm) as taught by Ohrmann thus achieving the advantage of decreasing cooking mistakes stemming from connections lag as desired by Bhogal and achieving the additional benefit of leveraging the larger computing power of the remote computing system and perform cooking analyses in near-real time as further taught (par. 0037).
Claims 4 and 11, Ohrmann teaches the cooking operation further comprises determining the communication lag interval prior to transmitting the sensor signal (par. 0027), determining the communication lag interval comprises evaluating a plurality of previous intervals (par. 0027), the plurality of previous intervals each being collected as detected intervals between transmitting a previous sensor signal and receiving a previous off- board predicted state of the appliance (par. 0027).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to determining the communication lag interval prior to transmitting the sensor signal (par. 0027), determining the communication lag interval comprises evaluating a plurality of previous intervals (par. 0027), the plurality of previous intervals each being collected as detected intervals between transmitting a previous sensor signal and receiving a previous off- board predicted state of the appliance (par. 0027) as taught by Ohrmann thus achieving the advantage of decreasing cooking mistakes stemming from connections lag as desired by Bhogal and achieving the additional benefit of leveraging the larger computing power of the remote computing system and perform cooking analyses in near-real time as further taught (par. 0037).
Claims 5 and 12, directing the oven appliance comprises reducing a heat output at the heating element according to the on-board predicted state (par. 0134, par. 0136).
Claims 6 and 13, a user interface panel mounted to the cabinet (par. 0072), and wherein directing the oven appliance comprises updating a variable operation countdown displayed at the user interface panel according to the on-board predicted state for the future time point (par. 0146).
Claims 7 and 14, the cooking operation further comprises
receiving the off-board predicted state of the oven appliance from a remote device (par. 0099 remote computing system, par. 0129 remote system as opposed to oven storage/memory) following directing the oven appliance based on the on-board predicted state of the oven appliance (par. 0100; par. 0093 food insertion event; par. 0129 foodstuff type within oven, cooking instruction determined; par. 0128 oven operation state; par. 0141 oven receives operation instructions from remote system), and
directing the oven appliance based on the received off-board predicted state (par. 0100; par. 0093 food insertion event; par. 0129 foodstuff type within oven, cooking instruction determined; par. 0128 oven operation state; par. 0141 oven receives operation instructions from remote system).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. 20200018551 directed to image-controlled cooking, 20180003687 directed to dynamic recipe control oven.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Steven Leff whose telephone number is (571) 272-6527. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 8:30 - 5:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Erik Kashnikow can be reached at (571) 270-3475. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/STEVEN N LEFF/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1792
Prosecution Insights