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 .
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) at a current time point (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),
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).
wherein the on-board predicted state comprises a state of an item within the cooking chamber at the future time point (par. 0143 target food parameter; par. 0146 completion notification; par. 0130 to meet a target cooking status by a predetermined time), and
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. Ohrmann teaches the communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag).
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 (par. 0028) 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of 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 communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) which represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag) as taught by Ohrmann thus providing a solution to the known time difference between on-board and off-board communication, i.e. since the communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines). 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines).
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).
wherein the on-board predicted state comprises a state of an item within the cooking chamber at the future time point (par. 0143 target food parameter; par. 0146 completion notification; par. 0130 to meet a target cooking status by a predetermined time), and
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. Ohrmann teaches the communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag).
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 (par. 0028) 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of 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 communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) which represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag) as taught by Ohrmann thus providing a solution to the known time difference between on-board and off-board communication, i.e. since the communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines). 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines).
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).
Response to Arguments
With respect to applicants urgings, though silent to determining or calculating a communication lag, importantly Bhogal teaches both on-board and off-board operation to transmit and receive heating specific information (par. 0057). Bhogal importantly recognizes a problem of communication with a remote system is it could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines) as opposed to on-board system control.
Thus since the claims transmit a same signal for off-board determination, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to the art of solutions to the communication lag as taught by Bhogal and achieving the additional benefit of leveraging the larger computing power of the remote computing system (par. 0037).
With respect to applicants urging directed to Ohrmann and applicants urging in particular indicates correlation of a plurality of cooking zones with a cooktop utensil. Ohrmann is relied upon to teach a solution to the time a signal is transmitted from the transmitter unit to the receiving unit by way of the response signal (par. 0028).
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. Ohrmann teaches the communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag).
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 (par. 0028) 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of 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 communication lag interval (par. 0027, 0028) which represents an amount of time between receiving the sensor signal and an expected time point at which the off-board predicted state is received (par. 0027 cloud overall time lag; par. 0028 particular cooking zone transmitted and received partial time lag of overall time lag) as taught by Ohrmann thus providing a solution to the known time difference between on-board and off-board communication, i.e. since the communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines). 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) which is qualitatively improved by calculating with an algorithm when a large number of correlations need to be handled in the memory (par. 0028) the motivation being providing a solution to the recognized problem of communication with a remote system as taught by Bhogal could cause connection lag (par. 0037 last 4 lines).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. 20160213189, 20190173755 directed to remote home appliance control.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEVEN N LEFF whose telephone number is (571)272-6527. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 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)270-34753475. 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
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